Leonard Kniffel

The Competition Intensifies


August 30, 2010

Have you noticed that we seem to have entered an era of heightened competitiveness? Lots of wagon-circling and turf-protecting. Libraryland as one big happy family aside, shrinking funds are bringing out the tiger in us. For example, the decades-long competition between OCLC and rival library vendors came to a head July 28, when for-profit SkyRiver … Continue reading The Competition Intensifies


Happy Birthday, Dutch


August 26, 2010

Elmore Leonard’s friends call him Dutch. Many of his fans do, too, and while using a nickname presumes a degree of familiarity to which those of us who only know Leonard through his books aren’t entitled, we can’t help ourselves. We feel like we know him. Leonard’s fans tend to stay the course; his 44th … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Dutch


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Regional Reading Places


August 23, 2010

I spend a week in Door County, Wisconsin, every summer and so was interested to open Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold War America and find out it is based on events in Door County in the 1950s. A regional library consisting of seven existing libraries and two new bookmobiles was … Continue reading Regional Reading Places


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


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


Your Reality, Augmented


August 19, 2010

Last time, I discussed QR codes and how they can link you to content that provides further information about an object. But what if you didn’t have to put barcodes all over everything you wanted people to scan? What if all it took to get that content was to walk up to an item or … Continue reading Your Reality, Augmented


The Customer’s Always Right


August 16, 2010

We strive to provide great customer service, yet few of us actually use the “C” word. We have many names—patron, borrower, user, reader—but “customer” remains controversial and typically we avoid it. Not so at Howard County Library, located in the Baltimore suburbs. At HCL, they embrace the term, feeling that it accurately conveys the relationships … Continue reading The Customer’s Always Right


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In Their Own Words


August 12, 2010

“Our Authors, Our Advocates” was launched at my Inaugural Banquet during Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., in June. I was deeply honored to have as my special guests four wonderful authors who spoke so eloquently. They were, by turns, funny, passionate, compelling, and thoughtful, and they illustrated how authors can partner with us to advocate … Continue reading In Their Own Words


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The First First Library


August 9, 2010

The next time you find yourself in Canton, Ohio, make a stop at the National First Ladies’ Library, home of the Abigail Fillmore Library Room. This room replicates the first permanent White House library, established by Millard and Abigail Fillmore in 1850. Although the library remained mostly intact for more than 50 years, just a … Continue reading The First First Library



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It’s Not Monkey Business


August 9, 2010

If by vocation or avocation you’ve come to cherish children’s literature, you’ve no doubt encountered some skepticism about this particular passion. For too many people, children’s books simply don’t merit serious consideration. As Seth Lerer aptly observes in his award-winning Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, “For a long time, what … Continue reading It’s Not Monkey Business


Joseph Janes

Who’s in Charge Here?


August 2, 2010

Lady Gaga is totally playing us. I mean, “Alejandro,” a song that even ABBA couldn’t get past the semifinals of the Eurovision Song Contest, a video that includes her wearing a machine-gun bra that Madonna would be embarrassed by . . . and it’s a worldwide hit. (For my money, “Bad Romance” is much more … Continue reading Who’s in Charge Here?


Unnecessary Choices


July 28, 2010

Members of the American Library Association have been talking a lot about books these days, the future of the book as a delivery mechanism, as opposed to a quaint artifact. Readers of American Libraries have responded by writing some provocative articles for the August 2010 issue about the future of the book in a digital … Continue reading Unnecessary Choices