After shutting its doors in 2008 following years of declining enrollment, Antioch College is on the verge of reopening, and the Olive Kettering Library on the Yellow Springs, Ohio, campus stands to play an integral role in the school’s recovery. In 2009, an alumni-led group purchased the campus and other college assets and began efforts … Continue reading As Antioch College Reopens, Its Library Stands Ready
One day in the mid-1990s Doug Zweizig and I were having lunch on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, where we both taught. I was contemplating a history of the small-town American public library, I told him, but wanted a fresh perspective. Eighty percent of public library systems existed in towns of fewer than 25,000, I … Continue reading Main Street Public Library
I’ve been a big advocate of open source software since I learned about the model of software licensing and development 10 years ago. I am a big believer that many minds produce great things, so the idea that a community of users would develop and improve software to the benefit of the community really appealed … Continue reading Open Source, Open Mind
With over 11 million articles and loans moving through the cooperative resource sharing processes of libraries each year, this updating of the Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook is welcome. In preparing this third edition, editors Cherié L. Weible and Karen L. Janke have built on the pioneering work of Virginia Boucher, author of the first two … Continue reading New from ALA Editions
Returning to New Orleans for the 2011 American Library Association Annual Conference this year was both rewarding and emotional for many of us. Five years earlier, we traveled to Louisiana less than a year after the devastating hurricanes and massive flooding from failure of the levies. At that time, we were welcomed with much more … Continue reading The Big Easy Revisited
This month we’re examining the library literature for tips on how to manage our libraries better. Improvements may come from analyzing each step of a task and its impact on the bottom line, or from incorporating new standards and practices consistent with the diversity of materials now part of our collections. Pay Attention to Standards … Continue reading Manage Best with Best Practices
