Conventional wisdom would tell you building an all-glass library on the shore of Chicago’s Lake Michigan is probably not a good idea if your plans call for a high-performance building that is supposed to reduce energy usage. But that is exactly what Loyola University Chicago did with its four-story Richard J. Klarchek Information Commons, an … Continue reading Information Commons Reduces Energy Consumption
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
Librarians and their supporters spoke loudly and clearly about the value of libraries during the American Library Association’s 2010 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., June 24–29. On Library Advocacy Day, June 29, some 2,000 librarians and library supporters registered for a rally at Upper Senate Park, according to Emily Sheketoff, executive director of ALA’s Washington … Continue reading Librarians Head for the Hill to Rally for Reading
The following story is a cautionary tale for all of those people who say that the internet has replaced the reference collection and that Google has replaced reference librarians. On a cheery morning in late April 1992, I had a flight of whimsy. I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping outside and thought, … Continue reading Surveying My Sex Appeal
Whenever I’ve created an instructional handout for students, I’ve struggled with what to include. For everything that ends up on the sheet, there’s usually five times as much that would be useful to students in the class. I include the URL to a web page with more content, but URLs are often long and I … Continue reading Guided by Barcodes
I recently finished reading James Kaplan’s Frank: The Voice, a wonderful new biography of Frank Sinatra from his birth in 1915 through 1954, when he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in From Here to Eternity. What impressed me most about the book—besides the account of Sinatra’s volcanic love affair with Ava Gardner … Continue reading Frankie Catches a Break
Early in July 1982, Larry Walters tied more than 40 weather balloons to his lawn chair and rose 16,000 feet above the smog over Los Angeles. Spotted by various aircraft, he descended by shooting the balloons with a BB gun, eventually drifting some 20 miles. He ended up hanging from some power lines. FAA officials … Continue reading Up, Up, and Away: A Bird’s-Eye View of Mission Marketing
Many libraries have adopted the 23 Things Program to help staff learn about emerging technologies. Ellyssa Kroski has used the program as a starting point for the valuable 10-title Tech Set, of which she is the editor. Individual titles cover microblogging, wikis, gaming, and more, and present a five-step approach to “the entire life cycle … Continue reading Ten on Tech
Toni Morrison “For me, there are certain kinds of books that I like to read on an iPad, because you just turn the pages and enjoy yourself. Then there are other books where I really need the book, because I am part of that book. It’s not just reading, it’s making notes in it, and underscoring, … Continue reading Speaker Sound Bites: D.C. 2010
Without consulting a crystal ball, Thomas Frey, executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute, writes and speaks about a promising future for those libraries strongly connected to their communities and quickly adaptable to the changing world around them. Tom Sloan, executive director of the DuPage Library System in Geneva, Illinois, asked Frey to discuss … Continue reading The Future of Libraries: Interview with Thomas Frey
ProQuest unveiled plans at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., to roll out a completely redesigned platform this summer. The ground-up redesign promises to unify all ProQuest content into a single framework, while also connecting users to non-ProQuest databases through ProQuest Extended Search, and adding infrastructure to aid users in gathering, sharing, and creating … Continue reading New ProQuest Platform Improves Interface, Expands Access
Christopher, a bubbly 7-year-old, has come to the La Mesa branch of San Diego County (Calif.) Library to read to Sunny. With book in hand, Christopher sits down and begins. As he reads, he and Sunny cuddle together. Sunny, an 80-pound collie, is a certified therapy dog and with his handler, Gloria Laube, he visits … Continue reading Good Dog. Sit. Listen.
