At this writing, the world outside my window resembles a snow globe. Despite lingering wintery conditions, I’m thinking of spring. Not just because I’ve tromped through the snow to see what’s happening to my garden. I’ve also been talking with Keiko Kasza, and although she’s working hard in the cold here and now, it will … Continue reading Hope Springs Eternal
I am not a behavioral psychologist but it seems to me the most basic element of establishing a connection with someone is making eye contact. Take my granddaughter, Sophia. She’s 3 years old and is always the most popular person wherever she goes because she loves to go right up to people, look them in … Continue reading Approachable You
At dinner the other night with friends, we learned that their eldest daughter, a college sophomore, had had her boyfriend visit for a few days over the holidays. The visit went fine, or so it seemed, and then the relationship ended, abruptly and unexpectedly. A sad, if not uncommon story; the punch line was how … Continue reading Lost and Found
One of the key problems of our time is lack of government transparency, and therefore restricted public access to U.S. government information. The ongoing WikiLeaks disclosures highlight the need to protest these policies and get them changed. Several of the American Library Association’s core values are directly relevant to this discussion; “access,” “democracy,” “the public … Continue reading Midwinter’s WikiLeaks Letdown
ALA Executive Board meetings in San Diego focused on how to engage younger members, the ALA Membership Meeting, and the Midwinter Meeting itself. At the top of the list was a report from the Young Professionals Task Force, chaired by Laurel Bliss. The task force has been reaching out to younger members and is working on … Continue reading Engaging Members, Charting the Future of Midwinter
The war was over, soldiers were returning to civilian life, and governments were beginning to rebuild. Beneath the euphoria, though, the Cold War was gathering steam, and a peculiar mood–a mix of relief, ennui, and alienation–was taking hold in the minds of survivors. Out of this cauldron of emotions came film noir, which critic Nicholas … Continue reading 1946
Just a few years out of Harvard, Avi Steinberg left his job writing obituaries for the Boston Globe and applied for a position as a prison librarian, even though he was not a librarian and had never been inside a prison. As he tells it in Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison … Continue reading The Accidental Prison Librarian
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
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
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
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
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
