Dispatches from the Field Archives | Page 6 of 6

Rethinking Library Linking: Making OpenURL Better with Data, Data, and More Data

By Cindi Trainor and Jason Price | October 4, 2010

OpenURL link resolvers have become a vital part of many libraries’ offerings, especially those of academic libraries. As resolvers have become more important, they have undergone the same iterative usability testing and interface improvements that are common for library websites and catalogs. Only recently has effort been devoted to improving the functionality of resolvers by … Continue reading Rethinking Library Linking: Making OpenURL Better with Data, Data, and More Data →

Measuring E-Resource Use: Standards and Practice for Counting Remote Users

By Rachel A. Fleming-May and Jill E. Grogg | August 23, 2010

Over the years, librarians and researchers have studied the usage of books, journals, meeting rooms, photocopiers, programs, and just about any other resource or service libraries have chosen to provide. The reasons for doing so are simple: Librarians wish to provide their communities with resources and services of the highest utility, effectively foreseeing which materials … Continue reading Measuring E-Resource Use: Standards and Practice for Counting Remote Users →

Hope, Hype, and VoIP: Riding the Library Technology Cycle

By Char Booth | July 15, 2010

After the initial hype is past, the real value of an emerging technology unfolds as librarians adopt, test, and learn from it on the ground. By understanding a tool’s practical library affordances and how they are adopted, adapted, and rejected, we can better evaluate its local promise critically, creatively, and with an eye toward sustainability. … Continue reading Hope, Hype, and VoIP: Riding the Library Technology Cycle →

Aggregating Web Resources

By Michael Witt | May 27, 2010

The Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange specification defines a set of new standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of web resources. This presents an exciting opportunity to revisit how digital libraries are provisioned. ORE and its concept of aggregation—that a set of digital objects of different types and from different locations … Continue reading Aggregating Web Resources →

Gadgets and Gizmos

By Jason Griffey | April 15, 2010

If we think back, we can imagine a time before the book and, once books became inexpensive and widespread, how revolutionary and democratizing the book was as a tool for sharing information. It must have been incredible to think that you could have so much text in such a compact form, and so many of … Continue reading Gadgets and Gizmos →

Planning for a Mobile Site

By Cindi Trainor | March 11, 2010

This article was adapted from a blog post on ALA TechSource Blog. View the original article. Mobile, mobile, mobile. It’s all we hear these days. Mobile…it’s the new black. Mobile…you just GOTTA. At my library, mobile web browsers have only accounted for .3% of the total site traffic so far this semester. Taking all the public PCs … Continue reading Planning for a Mobile Site →

Cataloging Horizons

By Karen Coyle | February 12, 2010

Library catalogs have evolved over time as technology has changed. The last 150 years have seen a progression from book catalogs to cards, and eventually, to online catalogs. Each of these changes has provided new capabilities that can be adopted for improved user services. The next step in this evolution is on the horizon, and … Continue reading Cataloging Horizons →

Digital Renewal

By Tom Peters | December 17, 2009

Before the current wave of mass digitization ventures were even a gleam in the eye of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, many libraries were already engaged in their own endeavors. These early projects often involved digitization of historical images, maps, and documents centered on a place or historical period. The projects were innovative at the time and … Continue reading Digital Renewal →

Opening Up Library Systems

By Marshall Breeding | December 1, 2009

In the current phase of library automation, we're inundated with the language of openness. Open source ILSs have promised to give libraries more control over their software than has been possible with proprietary products. Companies that produce and provide service for proprietary products have redoubled their efforts to offer more flexibility, openness, and interoperability through … Continue reading Opening Up Library Systems →

Building a Digital Branch

By David Lee King | September 23, 2009

Library websites have been around for about 15 years. The list of what has changed in the past 15 years could fill a library. Programming languages have changed. Web browsers have changed. Internet connections have gotten faster, and websites have come to serve a wider variety of functions. Interaction has also changed. Many library websites, … Continue reading Building a Digital Branch →

Latest Library Links

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Julia Skinner writes: “In 1918, World War I was coming to a close, and widespread changes were afoot. It was in some ways a moment similar to today: rapid technological development brought sweeping changes to workplaces and homes. Fights for labor and voting rights were under way. Then, in the spring, a pandemic began to sweep the globe, killing millions. Libraries across the US helped people stay informed, entertained, and cared for as they disseminated information and resources, shifted their services, and reimagined how they brought collections to the communities they served.”

JStor Daily, Apr. 14
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Amy Carlton writes: “On April 14, the second day of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2021 Virtual Conference, Kaetrena Davis Kendrick invited attendees to think beyond the idea of openness in library and archival spaces—a concept that generally involves open access to resources—to imagine the idea of welcome for both library users and library workers. Kendrick, dean of the Ida Jane Dacus Library and Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, said that her theory of welcome has been proven through her own experience and research, as well as through national and international perspectives on the practice.”

AL: The Scoop, Apr. 15
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Simon & Schuster said April 15 that it had scrapped plans to distribute a book by one of the Louisville police officers who shot Breonna Taylor during the botched drug raid last year that resulted in her death. The book by the officer, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, is being published by Post Hill Press, a Tennessee-based house whose specialties include Christian and conservative political books.

New York Times, Apr. 15
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Vartan Gregorian—historian and humanities scholar, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—died April 15 at 87. Gregorian served as president of Brown University (1989–1997) and is renowned for revitalizing New York Public Library during his tenure as president (1981–1989). Related: “Remembering Andrew Carnegie’s Legacy”

Carnegie Corp., Apr. 16
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New York Times–bestselling author Jason Reynolds will serve as the inaugural Honorary Chair of Banned Books Week, September 26–October 2. Reynolds is a multiple National Book Award finalist and has received a Newberry Honor, several Coretta Scott King Awards, and an NAACP Image Award. He is currently serving as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for the Library of Congress. Two of his works (Stamped, with Ibram X. Kendi, and All American Boys) are on ALA’s list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Book of 2020.

Entertainment Weekly, Apr. 13
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Amy Carlton writes: “Award-winning author, educator, podcaster, and cultural critic Tressie McMillan Cottom opened the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2021 Virtual Conference on April 13 by noting how the conference theme—“Ascending into an Open Future”—parallels conversations she’s been having with colleagues around the idea of what openness means in an information-based society.”

AL: The Scoop, Apr. 14
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America’s public library workers have adjusted and expanded their services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to initiating curbside pickup options, they’re doing many things to support their local communities, such as extending free Wi-Fi outside library walls, becoming vaccination sites, hosting drive-through food pantries in library parking lots and establishing virtual programs for all ages, including everything from story times to Zoom sessions on grieving and funerals. In 2018, there were 143,518 library workers in the US, according to data collected by IMLS. While newer data isn’t available, the number is probably lower now, and recent history suggests more library jobs may be on the chopping block in the near future.

The Conversation, Apr. 13

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