“On the tenth of March 1938, the night train from Budapest pulled into the Gare du Nord a little after four in the morning.” To readers of historical espionage fiction, that sentence can only mean one thing: Alan Furst. Furst writes about the years from 1938 to 1941 as if they were recurring characters, and … Continue reading Alan Furst
If you feel as though technology is taking over your library (and your life), a solid technology plan can give you back some control. The Complete Library Technology Planner by John M. Cohn and Ann L. Kelsey is a guide to creating, evaluating, updating, and implementing a plan. The chapter “A Model Two-Day Process for … Continue reading Taking Control of Technology
In the midst of an economic slump that has libraries everywhere cutting to the bare bones, it’s a special pleasure to be able to present a showcase of new and renovated facilities that can hold its own against any other we’ve published since the annual American Libraries feature began in 1977 with a modest story … Continue reading Testing the Times
Although TV talking heads discuss trillion-dollar bailouts for broken industries as if you might trip over one on your way to the unemployment office, libraries—which aren’t broken—struggle to make our case. I sometimes worry that librarians’ language only addresses the left side of the political aisle, leaving the right’s opinions to be shaped by people … Continue reading Our Conservative Ideals
Things I never thought I’d see: 1. The Saints winning the Super Bowl. 2. The Mariners making off-season moves that might actually help for this year. 3. A Google commercial. I couldn’t quite believe it at first; there it was in the third quarter of the Super Bowl, as it really began to look like … Continue reading Mirabile Visu
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
"There is no frigate like a book,” Emily Dickinson wrote long ago, “to take us lands away.” Only the foolhardy would quibble with her eloquent, 19th-century paean to the written word, and librarians aplenty support reading as a vehicle for escape and learning alike. Yet in the current century, more and more librarians themselves opt … Continue reading The Pixelated Campus
Elisabeth Doucett is an entrepreneur. She has to be. As director of the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, Maine, one of her chief responsibilities is to raise funds for the collection. If she doesn’t, nothing new will be added to the shelves. "Our town essentially pays for the building; but everything that goes inside of … Continue reading Risk, Failure, and Yield
In 1974 the eminent Augusta Baker authored, along with Ellin Greene, Storytelling: Art and Technique. Now this classic has been brought into the twenty-first century by Greene and Janice M. Del Negro. As they state in their preface, the fourth edition “reflects the radical cultural and societal changes that have taken place since the first … Continue reading Art of Storytelling
Having a professional online portfolio is a great way to show off your technology skills and provide additional information to potential employers that doesn’t fit into your résumé and cover letter. However, this alone won’t give them a strong sense of who you are, nor will it help you develop a professional network. Adding a … Continue reading Finding Your Voice
The guy driving the airport shuttle van couldn’t get over it. I had arrived at the Philadelphia airport and was to be driven to a speaking engagement at a library conference in New Jersey. I had called the driver from home before I left to give him the details of my flight arrival. Nonchalantly, he … Continue reading My Favorite Medium
Even non-techies can offer cutting-edge services right away, says Ellyssa Kroski in her cover story for the March issue of American Libraries. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter make it easier for all of us to communicate and collaborate, she says, and her main point is that you no longer have to be an … Continue reading Is Technology Catching Up?
