Keeping Up, 2.0 Style


January 13, 2011

When I first received my library degree, I religiously kept up with blogs and journals in my areas of professional interest. I’d read blogs through an RSS reader—in my case, Google Reader—and I’d try to remember to read the journals I was most interested in when they came out. Now, as the mother of a … Continue reading Keeping Up, 2.0 Style


Outsourcing: Turning a Negative into a Positive


January 10, 2011

Over the past few months, I have been contacted by a variety of media. Quite a few of my interviews with them were about the privatization of libraries. Interest in this subject was initiated by LSSI, a private-sector firm with contracts in place to manage the operations of nearly 70 public library branches, whose president … Continue reading Outsourcing: Turning a Negative into a Positive


Your Morning Metaphor


January 7, 2011

I have just entered the seventh decade of my journey through life and I have yet to encounter a true “morning person.” Maybe they exist. Maybe they are those people you see jogging at 5:30 a.m. on those atypical days when you have to rise extra early to catch an early morning flight. My guess … Continue reading Your Morning Metaphor


RDA Guide

New from ALA


January 6, 2011

Just in time for the switch from AACR2 to the new RDA (Resource Description and Access) standard designed specifically for the digital environment comes Chris Oliver’s Introducing RDA: A Guide to the Basics. Readers looking for a how-to will need to look elsewhere, but this book provides a useful overview on RDA, its alignment with … Continue reading New from ALA


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An Exit Interview


December 30, 2010

What better way to make sure you’re asked the right questions in your exit interview than to conduct it yourself? So after 22 years on the American Libraries staff, 15 of them at the helm, here comes mine: Why are you leaving AL? I’m listening to a little voice inside that says it’s time to … Continue reading An Exit Interview



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Advisory Beyond Books


December 23, 2010

Readers’ advisory (RA) continues to grow in complexity and scope. It’s no longer just a question of connecting a patron to a mystery or romance author similar to one they’ve enjoyed in the past. Today, RA encompasses more of a library’s book collection and also, as laid out in Integrated Advisory Service: Breaking through the … Continue reading Advisory Beyond Books


Web-Scale Discovery


December 22, 2010

Connecting users with the information they seek is one of the central pillars of our profession. Web-scale discovery services for libraries are those services capable of searching quickly and seamlessly across a vast range of local and remote preharvested and indexed content, providing relevancy-ranked results in an intuitive interface expected by today’s information seekers. First … Continue reading Web-Scale Discovery


Forward Compared to What?


December 20, 2010

As a forward-looking library faces the future, one of the most vital steps it can take is to determine where it stands right now. You might have a destination in mind, but without knowing your current location the journey ahead will be difficult. We all have opinions on how well we are performing and the … Continue reading Forward Compared to What?


Joseph Janes

No Relax


December 9, 2010

I had a splendid time at the Internet Librarian conference last fall (and not just because I made it into a birthday-celebration weekend in Monterey, though that and the yummy meals didn’t hurt matters any). It’s a crisply conducted conference and draws a varied and eager crowd. This year, I was particularly attracted to an … Continue reading No Relax


Screening Your Reads


December 6, 2010

In the office to my left, a colleague works with two oversized monitors and a driving simulator attached to his computer. From my right comes a steady bass thump as another colleague keyboards while listening to rap. In the midst of such 21st-century, tech-centric activity, an old-fashioned book-lover could feel decidedly dinosaur-like. Enter the book … Continue reading Screening Your Reads