This handbook offers a comprehensive discussion of the consultant/library relationship. It includes chapters written by full-time professional library consultants, information specialists, and library administrators who have had extensive experience in using consultants to solve a range or problems in information service. Parts I and II address the need to provide a solid foundation, based on an understanding of what the consultant will do, before arriving on the scene. Practical advice is offered by the contributors which should allow for the library or information center staff to more fully accept the activity of the consultant. A common thread woven throughout the chapters is the need for strong communication. Part III offers views on the roles that consultants may play in the negotiation process, the development of proposals, and in the evaluation of large-scale information systems. Specialty areas of consultancy are discussed in Part IV, while Part V explores the more vexing dilemmas associated with the consulting process. Parts VI and VII provide insights into the future use of consultants and explores alternatives to the use of the traditional external consultant. A bibliographic essay and comprehensive index complete the volume.

New library administrators will find this book of value as they seek to understand the value of using consultants and in establishing effective working relationships with them. Middle management library administrators will find the book of interest as they seek to appreciate the range of specialities that consultants now offer. In addition, library and information science students, as well as consultants themselves, will find the book of practical value.

From 1876 to 1924--a period of free immigration--the mission of the American public library in its work with immigrants was to Americanize the immigrants by teaching them English and preparing them for citizenship. From 1924 to 1948--a period of restricted immigration--the mission of the American public library in its work with immigrants was to educate the adult immigrant and to internationalize the American community. Together, the public library and the immigrant community have shaped and perpetuated the national understanding of the value of ethnicity and internationalism to American society. The American public librarians took on the roles of advocates for immigrant rights, social workers, propagandists for the American way, and educators.

At the end of the twentieth century, as at the beginning, Americans are still debating the place of immigrants in American society. Public librarians are now as they were then, going about their duties and responsibilities of providing advice and materials to help immigrants, legal and illegal, cope with everyday life in America. The American public library has remained a sovereign alchemist, turning the base metal of immigrant potentialities into the gold of American realities.

The forming and nurturing of new partnerships and collaborations is a critical component of librarianship. Academic libraries have a long history of collaboration within the library, across their institutions, and in their local communities. However, forming new partnerships can be time-consuming, and at times frustrating, leaving important opportunities, connections, and projects unrealized. Cases on Establishing Effective Collaborations in Academic Libraries presents case studies on effective collaborations in a variety of settings with different objectives, staffing levels, and budgets that have proven to be successful in creating and maintaining strong and productive partnerships. It identifies and shares the role of the academic library in developing effective partnerships and collaborations within academia and the broader community. Covering topics such as controlled digital lending, research computing, and college readiness enhancement, this premier reference source is a vital resource for librarians and libraries, consortiums, university administrators, students and educators of higher education, community leaders, researchers, and academicians.

Providing focused help as you build and maintain your philosophy and religion collections and field patron's requests, this new addition to the "ARBA In-depth" series contains over 300 critical reviews of quality reference titles by subject experts. These reviews - all of which have appeared in the last six editions of "American Reference Books Annual," the long-trusted source of reliable reviews of recent reference publications - cover both general and specialized reference titles in the fields of philosophy and religion. Author, title, and subject indexes, as well as a contributor list, are provided.

The introduction of new technologies exerts a profound influence on our ways of thinking about current businesses and issues. They quickly make obsolete the products and services that these businesses provide. Nowhere has this been more evident in the early 1990s and the decades before than in the information industries, the focus of this book.

Today's rapidly evolving information-based society demands that public libraries implement planned, proactive, and innovative change to meet patron needs. Rapid, widespread, and substantive change and innovation in public librarianship depends on the ability of public librarians to share in the exchange of new ideas, regardless of the size of their communities. This book explores how managerial innovations are generated and disseminated among public librarians.

To examine how new ideas are created and spread among public librarians, the volume focuses on the case of the dissemination of a particular innovation, a set of techniques developed and promoted by a national professional association, which allows public librarians to engage in user-oriented planning, community-specific role setting, and self-evaluation of library performance. This case study is placed within a larger context of classical models of the diffusion process and the literature on organizational change and innovation. Drawing on her findings, the author offers suggestions to facilitate public library change.

Alive with movement and excitement, cities transmit a rapid flow of exchange facilitated by a meshwork of infrastructure connections. In this environment, the Internet has advanced to become the prime communication medium, creating a vibrant and increasingly researched field of study in urban informatics.""The Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City"" brings together an international selection of 66 esteemed scholars presenting their research and development on urban technology, digital cities, locative media, and mobile and wireless applications. A truly global resource, this one-of-a-kind reference collection contains significant and timely research covering a diverse range of current issues in the urban informatics field, making it an essential addition to technology and social science collections in academic libraries that will benefit scholars and practitioners in an array of fields ranging from computer science to urban studies.

This book consists of Buhler's lectures on the theory, objectives, and methods of bibliography. It is an important contribution to a formulation of acceptable bibliographic standards.

Journalism is under ever-increasing pressure, due in large part to the phenomenon of media convergence. Not only does media convergence redefine the tasks of journalists and newsrooms, it also re-shapes the business environments of media companies. In this book, international media practitioners and researchers describe and analyze the relationships between media convergence and advertising, public relations, social media and other areas of communication posing a challenge to journalism.

Intended to enhance collection development in school, public, and college libraries, this volume lists and annotates approximately 1,500 significant bibliographies published from 1985 through 1993, with some earlier but still useful publications. Annotations indicate scope of the work, size (often the number of entries), kinds of material included, purpose, arrangement, nature of entries, indexes, special features, and a recommendation. Author, title, and subject indexes provide easy access to the entries. With its deep and comprehensive coverage, this work will help not only in the process of selecting and acquiring materials for the library but also in the process of identification of items for reference, readers' advisory, interlibrary loan, and collection evaluation.

With contributions from library and information professionals (practitioners, researchers, faculty members, consultants, and others), Marketing Library and Information Services: A Global Outlook highlights a variety of exemplary LIS marketing practices and efforts from around the globe. The following broad topics are explored: changing marketing concepts; marketing library and information services in different countries; marketing library and information services in different kind of libraries; web-based LIS marketing, etc.

Scientific communication depends primarily on publishing in journals. The most important indicator to determine the influence of a journal is the Impact Factor. Since this factor only measures the average number of citations per article in a certain time window, it can be argued that it does not reflect the actual value of a periodical. This book defines five dimensions, which build a framework for a multidimensional method of journal evaluation. The author is winner of the Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Scholarship 2011.

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Meeting the Needs of Student Users in Academic Libraries surveys and evaluates the current practice of learning commons and research services within the academic library community in order to determine if these learning spaces are functioning as intended. To evaluate their findings, the authors examine the measurement tools that libraries have used to evaluate usage and satisfaction, including contemporary anthropological studies that provide a more detailed view of the student s approach to research. The book takes a candid look at these redesigns and asks if improvements have lived up to expectations of increased service and user satisfaction. Are librarians using these findings to inform the evolution and implementation of new service models, or have they simply put a new shade of lipstick on the pig?
Takes an honest look at learning commons in academic libraries and discusses what is working and what is notExplores behind the statistics as to why users come to the library; does the librarians concept of the library as place match user perception?Looks at the anthropology of the user to gauge satisfaction with the services and space provided by the library via recent survey findings"

Strategic to the study of popular evangelical movements, this volume provides a thorough description of the holdings of one of the major evangelical resource centers in the United States. The Billy Graham Center, with its focus on efforts by Evangelicals around the world to spread the Christian Gospel, with a special emphasis on North America, has developed a superb array of sources to document this vigorous yet largely uncharted aspect of modern Christianity. The special strengths of the Graham Center's Library, Museum, and Archives are documented here. Books, magazines, photographs, paintings, artifacts, diaries, letters, and files of Christian organizations are among the types of sources described. Two appendices, comprising 20 percent of this volume, give detailed summaries of holdings in 161 other archives and libraries throughout the United States. Also included are 61 photographs of artifacts and documents from the Graham Center. This guide includes three main chapters on the Library, Museum, and Archives of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. Chapters on the collections of the Library and Museum discuss their thematic strengths, featured holdings, and services. A lengthy chapter on the Archives provides an overview, an annotated catalog of its more than 525 collections, and a list of subjects treated in each collection. Two appendices provide extensive descriptions of other archival and library collections around the country. A comprehensive index of subjects and names quickly helps researchers determine what the Graham Center and other North American research centers offer. The user can enjoy a general overview or receive direct information on a specific topic. This volume is designed for the varied interests of pastor, missionary, scholar, journalist, or interested layperson.

This books provides a detailed overview of conflicting issues and practices related to Federal government information policies and the distribution of federal information through print and non-print information handling technologies. Drawing from published literature and interviews with key Federal officials, it provides a framework for viewing Federal information policies and practices.

As classrooms and universities strive to adapt their instructional methods to an ever progressing technological age, it is imperative that academic libraries also revisit the ways in which reference and instruction services are organized and implemented. Library Reference Services and Information Literacy: Models for Academic Institution not only advocates for a more intentional integration of reference and instructional services, but it also provides organizational background, staff objectives, and various successes and challenges that have already been experienced by real institutions. This publication is an important reference source for librarians, practitioners, and university leaders who wish to maximize the current utilize of their resources.

In the many books and articles written on the subject of librarianship in Japan, some perennial themes appear, such as, What is librarianship? and What should libraries be today? These questions reveal the incessant quest of Japanese librarians to define their profession. This reference book provides a comprehensive overview of libraries and librarianship in Japan. The volume traces the developments of traditional and modern libraries and describes what they have become in modern times.

In the many books and articles written on the subject of librarianship in Japan, some perennial themes appear, such as, What is librarianship? and What should libraries be today? More than ever before, Japan is aware of its potential for shaping the global library and information scene. The Japanese are responding to the current flood of information with new media technologies and improved database services with a synergistic approach that involves library professionals, information specialists, governmental leaders, corporate and industry planners, and information consumers.

This reference work traces the development of traditional and modern libraries and librarianship in Japan and describes what they have become in modern times. The book begins with a retrospective glance at the cultural and literary circumstances surrounding the development of language, writing, paper, books, and other activities which fostered early library activity. The chapters that follow provide detailed information on the evolution of particular types of libraries. Attention is also given to special topics, such as computers in libraries, the education of librarians, and professional organizations. An extensive bibliography of English and Japanese sources concludes the work.

The social sciences have made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the economic, political and social life of nations in the past century. Social science libraries now have an important role to play in the context of the information society as significant sources of academic and social knowledge. This work provides information on the development and use of digital resources in the social sciences emphasizing best practices; an articulation of some of the problems presented to providing these resources; and a view to the use of these resources to support sustainable development.