“I am writing this letter to tell you that I am personally very, very satisfied with your services at the Adult Corrections Facility. I am also grateful that I could get books ordered for me to help me take my medical board certification even while I am serving my time. I cannot stop thanking every … Continue reading When There Is No Frigate But a Book
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced December 7 that it has awarded a $1.8-million grant to Tutor.com for the creation of a new professional development model for middle- and high-school math teachers that offers ongoing online and on-demand professional development opportunities. Tutor.com is looking for school districts that want to be considered candidates for … Continue reading Teacher-Librarian Alert: Tutor.com Seeks Schools for Gates-Funded Professional Development Project
Americans love their libraries, and advances in technology have multiplied the ways in which libraries enrich the quality of life in their communities. Whether they are in an elementary school or a university, a museum or a corporation, public or private, our nation's libraries offer a lifetime of learning. To library supporters everywhere—Friends, trustees, board … Continue reading 12 Ways Libraries Are Good for the Country
It seems only fitting that a blueprint for putting strong school library programs back on the to-do lists of education leaders should emerge from California, which hasn’t significantly increased its fiscal support for school libraries in at least two decades. In fact, former ALA President Patricia Glass-Schuman characterized the state as the “worst of the … Continue reading Californians Model How to Be Standards-Bearers for Strong School Libraries
In the office to my left, a colleague works with two oversized monitors and a driving simulator attached to his computer. From my right comes a steady bass thump as another colleague keyboards while listening to rap. In the midst of such 21st-century, tech-centric activity, an old-fashioned book-lover could feel decidedly dinosaur-like. Enter the book … Continue reading Screening Your Reads
Competition appears to be growing between universities hoping to become the site of Barack Obama’s presidential library. A working group at the University of Hawaii’s main campus in Honolulu is considering whether or not the university should make a formal bid. Meanwhile, the University of Chicago, located in the city where the president’s political career … Continue reading Chicago May Vie with Hawaii for Obama Presidential Library
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
The library workplace is no more immune to violent incidents than any other venue, sad to say, and just as vulnerable to physical attacks by troubled colleagues as from visitors. Consider these headline-grabbing situations, all taking place in libraries within a three-week period this fall: A 19-year-old freshman toting an AK-47 (surveillance video, 1:37) enters … Continue reading How to Be Prepared in Case Violence Strikes
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
August 29, 2010, marked the 40th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles, and it brought back many memories. I was part of a library contingent marching in 1970 in protest of the disproportionate number of Mexican Americans dying in the Vietnam War; some 30,000 other Chicanos were marching too. After the police … Continue reading Chicano Librarianship
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?
As libraries face the departure of staff with well-honed reference skills, years of experience in the community, and deep knowledge of the collection and traditional resources, how can we identify and retain their departing expertise—the gold in the library’s intellectual vault? How can we ensure that newly minted employees with e-knowledge skills have access to … Continue reading Wait! You Can’t Retire Without Sharing That with Us
