After a successful two-year pilot project to make driver’s license renewals easier for state residents via public kiosks, the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) began implementing similar kiosks in 11 libraries in late May. One of those kiosks is inside Ames (Iowa) Public Library. Mary Logsdon, the library’s adult services manager, says providing the … Continue reading Driver’s License Kiosks Expand to Iowa Libraries
The University of Houston (UH) has more than 40,000 students from 137 nations. Among our undergraduates, 26.9% are Hispanic, 19.8% are Asian, 10.2% are African American, and 9.8% are international. Many of them are first-generation or nontraditional students. UH is changing from a commuter school to a flagship destination research university, and student success is … Continue reading Improving Retention
Institutions first offered services to those who developed programming files to be printed but couldn’t afford a 3D printer, costing thousands of dollars. Those most likely to use such a space were people in the math and engineering fields. In recent years the spaces have begun to appeal to larger audiences; at colleges, this means … Continue reading Making It in the Academic World
What Graves didn’t know was that by the time he brought them to the dealer, the owner had already seen the items at the library a few weeks earlier. “I had been talking about them to the owner while he was visiting our special collections area,” says special collections librarian Bill Cook of Bangor (Maine) … Continue reading Thwarting Book Thieves
The level of hubris I had—and probably exhibited—back then embarrasses me today. I’m sure everyone probably feels that way looking back on their shiny new-to-librarianship selves. Luckily, I had patient and understanding colleagues who were, by and large, pretty game to try new things. These days, I cringe when I read things that accuse experienced … Continue reading It’s Not Us Versus Them
For practical purposes, the best-known definition of altmetrics, “the creation and study of new metrics based on the Social Web for analyzing and informing scholarship,” comes from altmetrics.org, a website set up by Priem and three of his colleagues. Since then, others have questioned the definition and the methods of calculating altmetrics in various scholarly … Continue reading Altmetrics, Bibliometrics
Safety and security are everyone’s jobs. This includes the library director, every department head, every supervisor, all full- and part-time employees, library board members, Friends of the library members, elected officials, and even patrons—who can and should tell us about safety or security concerns when using our branches. Safety and security themes Facility safety and … Continue reading Better Communication, Safer Facilities
For years, libraries have helped bridge the digital divide by offering internet access at brick-and-mortar branches. Many are expanding this mission by offering patrons mobile Wi-Fi hotspots for checkout. New York City launched a program this year that provides 10,000 mobile hotspots to patrons across three library systems, and in 2014, Chicago Public Library rolled … Continue reading Bridging the Tech Gap
Ah yes, running for president. That was, to say the least, quite the ride. I got to meet and talk with lots of great people and share my vision for the profession with many of you, so I have to say I enjoyed most of it. Right up until the end. Losing … was hard, … Continue reading What I Learned
There is a wide range of possibilities, no matter what your budget may be. An amazing play space can make your library a destination for young patrons, as it has at the Barrington Area (Ill.) Library (BAL), where open-ended activities engage a variety of age groups and encourage adult-child interaction. BAL’s activities and spaces in … Continue reading A Place for Play
Calculating the growth of spaces and collections can be a source of anxiety for library managers, who must evaluate the various factors that affect growth from their own perspective. Many times the calculations fail, resulting in a building that is too large or too small. The costs associated with predictive errors can bleed budgets and … Continue reading It’s All in the Numbers
You once mentioned the importance of seeing West Side Story as a child. Could you talk about what it was like seeing representations of yourself in entertainment and what that meant to you? SONIA MANZANO: When I was a kid, there were no people of color on television or in books. And so I grew … Continue reading Newsmaker: Sonia Manzano
