What’s not to like about bibliotherapy? Bringing readers to books, whether fiction or nonfiction, that respond to personal problems and promote well-being seems like powerful testimony to the notion that reading changes lives. Bibliotherapy has been described as an extension of readers’ advisory, a specialized kind of information provision, or even a means of healing. … Continue reading A Feeling for Books
There are two kinds of horse-racing stories. The most common are the sentimental ones (think National Velvet) in which an underdog horse triumphs over seemingly insurmountable odds. Sometimes the same formula is used in more realistic treatments of the racing world (Seabiscuit) that embroider the march to victory with plenty of social and historical landscape. … Continue reading I’ve Got a Horse Right Here
My car, a Subaru Outback, doubles as a library. There are always a lot of books in there. I never go anywhere without a copy of the Bible, the Qur’an, Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow, assorted editions of Mother Goose, a complete collection of the Peter Rabbit series, and a vast and diverse array of brain-candy books. … Continue reading My Own Private Bookmobile
Information overload is nothing new. First there were all those clay tablets, then the manuscripts, then what philosopher/librarian Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) referred to as “that horrible mass of books which keeps on growing.” In Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, Ann M. Blair explores how the flood of information was … Continue reading Premodern Information Overload
Libraries in many parts of the country were heartened to see voters approve their operating levies and capital bonds after several years of struggling to make ends meet and keep their doors open. In particular, a 52.8% yes vote for Hood River County (Oreg.) Library will enable it to reopen next year after lack of … Continue reading Voters Resurrect County Library in Oregon, Deep-Six Service for Michigan Town
With the November/December 2010 issue, American Libraries print moves permanently to bimonthly publication. Monthly print as a viable delivery vehicle for anything that can be called “news” is clearly limited, and publishing to the web allows for faster and more flexible dissemination and is a general industry trend. Although manufacturing and postage costs are certainly … Continue reading Less Ink, More Words
The good people of Sunrise, on the east coast of Florida, want you to know that they do exist, still, and have not been wiped off the map by a hurricane, or supervillain, or Godzilla. This is despite the fact that on three—three—separate occasions, Google has failed to return any results for a search for … Continue reading Sunrise, Sunset
The library world, in general, has done a poor job of keeping up with new technologies over the past decade, and that has hurt us in many ways. Many libraries and librarians are working hard to catch up, but the broader library culture is still sluggish. The world of information exchange is in constant flux, … Continue reading Why Must a Card Be a Card?
In the November/December issue of Library Technology Reports, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom Collaborated with Jason Griffey, Sarah Houghton-Jan and Eli Neiburger to produce “Privacy and Freedom of Information in 21st Century Libraries”, a practical guide to issues facing today’s library professionals. This excerpt comes from the issue’s introduction. The intersections of technology, security, and … Continue reading Bridging Intellectual Freedom and Technology
“Anything that gets kids into reading is fantastic,” says Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who recently posed for an ALA Celebrity READ poster along with his Potter costars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. ALA Graphics released the three posters just in time for the premiere of the first part of the last film in the … Continue reading Harry Potter READs: Actor Daniel Radcliffe on Reading
Sixty librarians from around Illinois met at Chicago’s Field Museum October 22 to discuss how they could better help their communities go green. The workshop kicked off the Illinois Library Association’s year-long Go Green @ your Illinois Library program, which aims to develop a group of librarians committed to environmental awareness. “It’s about libraries holding … Continue reading Illinois Libraries Talk Sustainability
Although it seems that the question of whether librarianship is a profession might have been settled when Melvil Dewey declared it to be one back in 1876 (the same year the American Library Association was formed), the debate goes on. In The MLS Project: An Assessment after Sixty Years, Boyd Keith Swigger enters the conversation, … Continue reading The MLS Project
