What makes younger library users, past or present, so interesting to researchers? At the Library History Seminar XII, September 10–12, many scholarly papers focused on youth services. The ideas in circulation at the Madison conference suggested that two factors ignite academic interest—censorship and new technology. Forces of change make young people visible in the library, … Continue reading Hearts and Minds in Play
METRO (Metropolitan New York Library Council) has gathered 30 case studies for Digitization in the Real World: Lessons Learned from Small and Medium-Sized Digitization Projects. Examples range from the Chelsea (Mich.) Library District’s collection of 15,000 obituaries, created using volunteers and open source software, to Hudson River Valley Heritage, a collaborative project coordinated by the … Continue reading Digitization for the Rest of Us
OpenURL link resolvers have become a vital part of many libraries’ offerings, especially those of academic libraries. As resolvers have become more important, they have undergone the same iterative usability testing and interface improvements that are common for library websites and catalogs. Only recently has effort been devoted to improving the functionality of resolvers by … Continue reading Rethinking Library Linking: Making OpenURL Better with Data, Data, and More Data
In Stevens County, Washington, public libraries are a fairly new concept. Residents voted to form a library district in 1996, transforming a hodgepodge of donation-based collections run by volunteers into a modern system. Over the past decade library staff have worked hard—not only at providing service but also on shaping perceptions of what exactly a … Continue reading Transforming a Hodgepodge
I’ve spoken to library staff from libraries all over North America and have heard countless stories about innovative new services that failed. I always ask people why they think the initiative didn’t work at their library and the answer has always been about the culture—whether it was because of controlling IT staff, managers who wouldn’t … Continue reading Nurturing Innovation
When she was researching her first book, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (2006), Marilyn Johnson decided that “the most engaging obit subjects were librarians,” especially since so many of their obituaries contained some form of the sentence: “Under her watch, the library changed from a collection of … Continue reading Outside In
Intellectual freedom is one of our bedrock values, and as the intellectual freedom issues and challenges libraries face are always evolving, so must the profession’s response. The eighth edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual offers, among other updated material, three “new Interpretations” of the Library Bill of Rights; 10 revised Interpretations; resolutions on the retention … Continue reading New from ALA: September 2010
Have you noticed that we seem to have entered an era of heightened competitiveness? Lots of wagon-circling and turf-protecting. Libraryland as one big happy family aside, shrinking funds are bringing out the tiger in us. For example, the decades-long competition between OCLC and rival library vendors came to a head July 28, when for-profit SkyRiver … Continue reading The Competition Intensifies
Welcome to a showcase of the dynamic doers—a snapshot of those who have dedicated themselves to the profession, who have gone above and beyond, and whose contributions have been so significant and so varied. These individuals and institutions have been recognized by their colleagues and friends for jobs well done. From Joseph W. Lippincott recipient Thomas C. … Continue reading Dynamic Doers
Grant seeking is a marketing process. Simply stated, you define your library’s need and sell it to one who can fund your project. Librarians are their own best grant-proposal writers. No outsider can write a proposal as effectively as a “library insider” who fully understands the institution’s mission and priorities as well as the needs … Continue reading Winning Grants: A Game Planse
Over the years, librarians and researchers have studied the usage of books, journals, meeting rooms, photocopiers, programs, and just about any other resource or service libraries have chosen to provide. The reasons for doing so are simple: Librarians wish to provide their communities with resources and services of the highest utility, effectively foreseeing which materials … Continue reading Measuring E-Resource Use: Standards and Practice for Counting Remote Users
Last time, I discussed QR codes and how they can link you to content that provides further information about an object. But what if you didn’t have to put barcodes all over everything you wanted people to scan? What if all it took to get that content was to walk up to an item or … Continue reading Your Reality, Augmented
