January/February 2011

Features & Trends

Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez on Libraries

In what looks very much like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández recently visited American Library Association Headquarters in Chicago, accompanied by First Lady Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, to talk with ALA staff about libraries. Fernández spoke passionately, but pragmatically, about his plans for developing a superior public library system … Continue reading Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez on Libraries →

Get Ahead of Outsourcing

By John Huber

How will politicians and library leaders respond to the challenges of shrinking budgets, increased community expectations, and ever aggressive competition? One approach is to replace current library management teams with private profit-driven companies whose first strategy is to attack labor cost. In a September 26 New York Times article titled “Anger as a Private Company … Continue reading Get Ahead of Outsourcing →

Is the Association Ripe for Rebellion?

By Jim Rettig

During my 34 years as a member of ALA I have heard others—some members, some former members, some never a member—complain about the Association and its value. Complaints I have heard again and again include: It costs too much. It should be possible to join one of the Association’s 11 divisions without joining ALA. It … Continue reading Is the Association Ripe for Rebellion? →

The Year in Review 2010
By American Libraries Editorial Staff
Info Pro: Adopting Tools from the World of Business Consulting
By Sarah Anne Murphy
When There Is No Frigate But a Book
By Sara Zettervall
Where to Eat at Midwinter
By Linda Salem
Ted Danson, Neil Gaiman Headline Midwinter
When Small Is All
By Jane Pearlmutter and Paul Nelson
Booking to the Future
By Jamie E. Helgren
U.S. Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin Talks with Librarians
By Marcella Veneziale

Columnists

1946
By Bill Ott
The Accidental Prison Librarian
By Mary Ellen Quinn
Keeping Up, 2.0 Style
Meredith Farkas
Your Morning Metaphor
Will Manley
New from ALA
By Mary Ellen Quinn
An Exit Interview
By Leonard Kniffel
A Remarkable Ending to a Tough Year
Keith Michael Fiels
Advisory Beyond Books
By Mary Ellen Quinn
Web-Scale Discovery
By Jason Vaughan
Forward Compared to What?
Brian Mathews
No Relax
By Joseph Janes
Screening Your Reads
By Jennifer Burek-Pierce
Why Must a Card Be a Card?
By Jesse Ephraim

Latest Library Links

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Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
8h

Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
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Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
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Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

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