"This comprehensive reference work provides immediate, fingertip access to state-of-the-art technology in nearly 700 self-contained articles written by over 900 international authorities. Each article in the Encyclopedia features current developments and trends in computers, software, vendors, and applications...extensive bibliographies of leading figures in the field, such as Samuel Alexander, John von Neumann, and Norbert Wiener...and in-depth analysis of future directions."

As new technology and opportunities emerge through the revolutionary impacts of the digital age, the function of libraries and librarians and how they provide services to constituents is rapidly changing. The impact of new technology touches everything from libraries' organizational structures, business models, and workflow processes, to position descriptions and the creation of new positions. As libraries are required to make operational adjustments to meet the growing technological demands of libraries' customer bases and provide these services, librarians must be flexible in adapting to this fast-moving environment. This volume shares the unique perspectives and experiences of librarians on the front lines of this technological transformation. The essays within provide details of both the practical applications of surviving, adapting, and growing when confronted with changing roles and responsibilities, as well as a big picture perspective of the changing roles impacting libraries and librarians. This book strives to be a valuable tool for librarians involved in public and technical services, digital humanities, virtual and augmented reality, government documents, information technology, and scholarly communication.

"This comprehensive reference work provides immediate, fingertip access to state-of-the-art technology in nearly 700 self-contained articles written by over 900 international authorities. Each article in the Encyclopedia features current developments and trends in computers, software, vendors, and applications...extensive bibliographies of leading figures in the field, such as Samuel Alexander, John von Neumann, and Norbert Wiener...and in-depth analysis of future directions."

Completely updated, with a new section on using the computer in the cataloging function, this new edition of a classic will be a welcome tool for the volunteer or paraprofessional in a small library. Covering the essentials in clear nontechnical language, Hoffman explains the how and why of arranging publications, the principles of cataloging (including description, main and added entries, analytics, the shelf list, cross references, and filing), and online records. Nearly 100 examples illustrate the cataloging practice. Why do you need a shelf list? What is an authority file? Easy to understand and practical, this gem illuminates the world of monographs, series, irregular serials, uniform titles, simple and complex subject headings, tracings, and location codes. Even the world of the small library is startlingly complex-Hoffman's guide will simplify it. Reviews of previous editions: "Hoffman's guide to simplified cataloging practice will be a great help...this handbook lays out the options of collection organization clearly and in everyday language." -Booklist "Because of its emphasis on fundamentals, rigorous reasoning, and its readable style, the book is also helpful for library school students as well as for practicing librarians." -Reference & Research Book News "...will provide its intended reader, the nonprofessional or volunteer in charge of a small library, with solid, well-organized information necessary to catalog a collection systematically." LRTS

"This comprehensive reference work provides immediate, fingertip access to state-of-the-art technology in nearly 700 self-contained articles written by over 900 international authorities. Each article in the Encyclopedia features current developments and trends in computers, software, vendors, and applications...extensive bibliographies of leading figures in the field, such as Samuel Alexander, John von Neumann, and Norbert Wiener...and in-depth analysis of future directions."

Research Methods: Information, Systems, and Contexts, Second Edition, presents up-to-date guidance on how to teach research methods to graduate students and professionals working in information management, information science, librarianship, archives, and records and information systems. It provides a coherent and precise account of current research themes and structures, giving students guidance, appreciation of the scope of research paradigms, and the consequences of specific courses of action. Each of these valuable sections will help users determine the relevance of particular approaches to their own questions. The book presents academics who teach research and information professionals who carry out research with new resources and guidance on lesser-known research paradigms.

This latest volume of the Advances in Librarianship series presents original research exploring the modern state of democracies and social institutions, the contributions of libraries to the health and progress of democracies, and the political problems currently facing libraries as institutions. It details the best practices of library programs that provide political literacy education and promote civic engagement within communities. These practices include ways in which libraries can help diffuse political polarization, address significant policy issues of our day, promote political information literacy, support civic engagement, and facilitate participation in democratic processes. Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy: Confronting Polarization, Misinformation, and Suppression is structured in three sections - questions of personal and state democracy, investigations of how the information infrastructure shapes these democracies, and explorations of the ways that libraries can and do contribute to democracy. Situating libraries within political conversations, highlighting their centrality to these discussions, Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy focuses on how libraries coordinate their work in political and information literacy and how these efforts can be improved, he recommendations and examples within which will serve as inspiration and motivation to its readers.

This guide shows youth librarians how to use the appeal of Minecraft—a game that many young learners are intensely passionate about—to create engaging library programs that encourage creativity and build STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) learning through library programs. Minecraft is more than "just a video game"; it's a powerful tool that librarians and other educators can use to engage students and spark legitimate learning experiences. This book shows you how to use Minecraft as a vehicle to promote learning and creativity, supplying specific, easy-to-replicate programs, ideas, and instructions for hands-on activities. By connecting the game to the maker movement and building off the game's popularity, you'll be able to use Minecraft to promote STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) learning. The book ties Minecraft to maker activities, learning in the library, three-dimensional printing, literary activities, crafting, and more. The activities in this book will also enable you to help children ages 8–14 to expand their key 21st-century skills, such as collaboration, trial and error, and discovery.

An academic library's instruction program reflects and communicates its vision for teaching and learning within the context of its institution, and the instruction coordinator plays an essential role in shaping and advancing this vision. Instruction coordinators and directors in academic libraries may have a variety of titles and wear an entire wardrobe's worth of hats, but they face many of the same challenges in developing, promoting, and evaluating their instruction programs. This book approaches using the instruction program as the catalyst to further the library's agenda for teaching and learning and gives instruction program directors a set of resources that will help them map out, enact, and assess the impact of this agenda. This book is ideal for librarians and administrators who direct, coordinate, or lead an academic library's teaching and learning program and is particularly useful for new instruction program coordinators--either those new to their position or new to their institution.

This book investigates the emerging practices of science and technology librarians specific to maintaining collections, providing access to resources, and ensuring that informed decisions are made regarding limited financial resources. Issues discussed include librarians becoming embedded in curriculum design and delivery, the continuum of librarian involvement, science literacy and the intersection with lifelong learning, integration of information literacy into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curriculum, development of course-related instruction programs. In addition, chapters include the differentiation between locating and accessing content and the economics of access, data driven collection and retention decisions, social networking and the scientific community, the trend to merge IT with libraries, institutional repositories, and managing productivity. Each chapter considers the change that is occurring in and around the profession and together these chapters present a notable set of reflections on the changes that are necessary for science and technology librarians to thrive in the shifting information landscape. This book is recommended for scholars and professional librarians. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Library Administration.

Libraries are dealing with unprecedented changes on several fronts: technological developments, funding difficulties, and an increasing need to prove themselves to a demanding population. These factors understandably impact physical library space. Looking toward the future, what changes can we expect to see in how libraries use space. This volume of Advances in Library Administration and Organization (ALAO) will focus on the future of library spaces. ALAO offers long-form research, comprehensive discussions of theoretical developments, and in-depth accounts of evidence-based practice library administration and organization. The series aims to answer the questions "How have libraries been managed and how should they be managed?" It goes beyond a platform for the sharing of research to provide a venue for dialogue across issues, in a way that traditional peer reviewed journals cannot. Through this series practitioners can glean new approaches in challenging times and collaborate on the exploration of scholarly solutions to professional quandaries.

In the last decade, data science has generated new fields of study and transformed existing disciplines. As data science reshapes academia, how can libraries and librarians engage with this rapidly evolving, dynamic form of research? Can libraries leverage their existing strengths in information management, instruction, and research support to advance data science? Data Science in the Library: Tools and Strategies for Supporting Data-Driven Research and Instruction brings together an international group of librarians and faculty to consider the opportunities afforded by data science for research libraries. Using practical examples, each chapter focuses on data science instruction, reproducible research, establishing data science services and key data science partnerships. This book will be invaluable to library and information professionals interested in building or expanding data science services. It is a practical, useful tool for researchers, students, and instructors interested in implementing models for data science service that build community and advance the discipline.

For over a decade, some academic libraries have been purchasing, rather than borrowing, recently published books requested by their patrons through interlibrary loan. These books had one circulation guaranteed and so appealed to librarians who were concerned about the large percentage of books selected and purchased by librarians but never checked out by their patrons. Early assessments of the projects indicated that patrons selected quality books that in many cases were cross disciplinary and covered emerging areas of scholarly interest. However, now we have a significant database of the ILL purchase records to compare these titles with books selected through normal methods. The projects described in this book present a powerful argument for involving patrons in the book selection process. This book looks at patron-driven acquisitions for printed books at Purdue University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Illinois, as well as exploring new programs that allow patrons to select e-books or participate in other innovative ways in building the library collections. This book was published as a special issue of Collection Management.

For the past decade, e-mail has been the preferred method of internal communication in libraries. However, relying on email for organizational knowledge management seems a bit like storing birth certificates, car titles, and deeds in a pile of junk mail: the important documents are lost amongst other items of only minimal or fleeting importance. A successful intranet can provide a secure place for information exchange and storage; however, in order to be successful, a library intranet must be easy to use, have the functionality desired by its users, and be integrated into the daily workflows of all library staff. Accomplishing this can be challenging for web librarians. The book covers, among other topics, third-party hosting; the use of freely available blog and wiki software for internal staff communication; and developing library intranets in ColdFusion, Microsoft SharePoint, and the open source Drupal content management system (CMS). More importantly, the authors examine in detail the human factors, which, when not thoroughly addressed, are more often the cause for a failed intranet than the technology platform. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Web Librarianship.

Before the Public Library explores the emergence of community-based lending libraries in the Atlantic World before the advent of the Public Library movement in the mid-nineteenth century. Essays by eighteen scholars from a range of disciplines seek to place, for the first time, community libraries within an Atlantic context over a two-century period. Taking a comparative approach, this volume shows that community libraries played an important - and largely unrecognized - role in shaping Atlantic social networks, political and religious movements, scientific and geographic knowledge, and economic enterprise. Libraries had a distinct role to play in shaping modern identities through the acquisition and circulation of specific kinds of texts, the fostering of sociability, and the building of community-based institutions.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the information profession. The series IFLA Publications deals with many of the means through which libraries, information centres, and information professionals worldwide can formulate their goals, exert their influence as a group, protect their interests, and find solutions to global problems.

A-Z Common Reference Questions for Academic Librarians is a survival guide for frontline library staff to help them find appropriate information quickly, whether they are answering questions at a physical help desk or remotely by telephone, email or instant messaging service. The book will help academic librarians tackle the questions most commonly asked by students, academics and researchers. A broad cross-disciplinary A-Z of themes including topics such as literature searching, plagiarism and using online resources are covered helping you to address an query confidently and quickly. Each topic is split into three sections to guide your response: typical questions: listing the common enquiries encountered points to consider: exploring the issues and challenges that might arise where to look: listing annotated UK and international resources in print and online including key organisations, scholarly bodies, digital libraries, statistical data and journal article indexes. A-Z Common Reference Questions for Academic Librarians updates and expands the author’s previous book, Know it All, Find it Fast for Academic Libraries, and includes new sections on blogging and social media text and data mining and data visualization assistive technology resources early career researchers impact measurement including bibliometrics; citation analysis and journal rankings academic internet searching LGBT studies Middle East studies project management open access publishing research data management study skills systematic reviews. This will be an indispensable day-to-day guide for anyone working with students, academics and researchers in an academic library.

Research libraries face many challenges in today's declining economy. The essays in this book explore these challenges and were originally delivered at a conference entitled "Climbing Out of the Box: Repackaging Libraries for Survival," sponsored by the University of Oklahoma Libraries and held March 4-5, 2010, in Oklahoma City. The authors, recognized leaders in academic librarianship, broach sensitive, but necessary, discussions in how academic libraries provide services and resources today while planning for the future. As academic libraries continue to transform, each of the cases included provide specific examples of strategies used to place libraries in a position of competitive values for future research, teaching, and learning in higher education. Each situation is unique to the culture and economic conditions of particular institutions. However, the research cases provide all academic librarians with examples of how our libraries can repackage roles and content in order to survive in the twenty-first century. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Library Administration.

While there are common misconceptions regarding the definition of a public law library, it can be defined as a government mandated library which provides the public with access to legal resources. Largely, public law libraries are instituted by state or federal law.Public Law Librarianship: Objectives, Challenges, and Solutions aims to introduce firsthand knowledge on the funding, organizational structures, and governance related to the public law library. This book includes comprehensive research for current and future public law librarians to provide administrative guidance and professional sources essential for running a public law library.

Medical libraries are confronted with the international aspects of copyright and licence agreements, and cope with a fast-growing demand for high quality medical information in order to bring evidence-based medicine into practice. Medical librarians also serve the public, especially in those countries where consumer health information is in the forefront of health care policy. The importance of pharmaceutical information is well understood; the need for information transfer from (basic) research into (clinical) practice is not restricted to medicine, but is also important in veterinary sciences. In all fields in which members of EAHIL are working the commercial interest and political value of information is recognized. With the exponential growth of medical, health and health-care related information available or accessible on the Internet, librarians play a crucial role in information dissemination. Information services, especially in medicine, are no longer local activities, but are knitted into the global web. The Minister of Health, Welfare and Sports of The Netherlands, Mrs Els Borst-Eilers, gives many arguments why doctors need to be better informed. The papers of Lois Ann Colaianni (USA), Derek Law (UK), Charles Oppenheim (UK), Bas Savenije (NL) and many others show that the library provides a paradigm for the management of networked resources.

This book investigates the emerging practices of science and technology librarians specific to maintaining collections, providing access to resources, and ensuring that informed decisions are made regarding limited financial resources. Issues discussed include librarians becoming embedded in curriculum design and delivery, the continuum of librarian involvement, science literacy and the intersection with lifelong learning, integration of information literacy into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curriculum, development of course-related instruction programs. In addition, chapters include the differentiation between locating and accessing content and the economics of access, data driven collection and retention decisions, social networking and the scientific community, the trend to merge IT with libraries, institutional repositories, and managing productivity. Each chapter considers the change that is occurring in and around the profession and together these chapters present a notable set of reflections on the changes that are necessary for science and technology librarians to thrive in the shifting information landscape. This book is recommended for scholars and professional librarians. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Library Administration.

In a world that often questions the value of libraries and librarianship, this collection of reflective essays and future-focused research emphasizes the ways in which being an information professional continues to be a rewarding and vital profession. Including sixteen chapters written by library practitioners, researchers, and educators, this book covers topics, among others, such as the impact of K-12 school librarians on media literacy, the community power of public libraries, the transformative power of community-focused library collaborations, and strategies for implementing effective outreach for underserved populations. It is by sharing their thoughtful, vibrant, and at times painfully honest perspectives on the varied and essential roles that librarians and libraries play in our world that the authors display their passion for librarianship and demonstrate why continued support for libraries is essential.

Drawing on the authors’ experience gained from library projects around the world, this book charts a readable path through everything from the planning of a new library, to major refurbishment, or the remodelling of a current library. It clearly explains the library design language and processes needed by professionals overseeing any project, and covers essential aspects including ensuring cost-effectiveness, eco-efficiencies, improved service and community impact meet the organisation’s objectives. Fully revised and updated, this new edition includes coverage of: the need for flexible and adaptable library spaces the environmental impact of building design, construction and use the trend towards multi-use, multi-purpose buildings to serve community, cultural and educational needs a customer-centred approach to service delivery heightened focus on health and wellbeing for all stakeholders the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and customer access needs on the design and layout of a library the rapid growth of digital services. International and cross-sectoral in scope, this book is an essential guide for library professionals or architects involved in library building, remodelling or development. It will also be a valuable reference for students of both library and architectural design.

The rampant health injustices that occur daily throughout the world are exacerbated by health information injustice - something which libraries and librarians play an instrumental role in addressing. This volume brings together librarians, LIS students, educators, and researchers, to discuss the many ways that information professionals and libraries serve as agents of securing health information justice. Kicking off with an introductory chapter which covers the central concepts of health information injustice, the following chapters focus on the roles of libraries and librarians in improving consumer health literacy and reducing health disparities in their communities. In the final chapter, the editors draw on the authors' work to highlight the ways in which libraries and librarians are moving us closer to health justice, and they also discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is both illuminating and intensifying health disparities, reinforcing the need for libraries and librarians to continue their important roles as agents of health information justice to ensure the physical and intellectual accessibility of information for all.

'Paling's deftly drawn vignettes are frequently funny, sometimes sad and occasionally troubling . . . Borrow a copy from your local library, if you still have one. Better yet, buy it' Neil Armstrong, Mail on Sunday 'Not only was I captivated by Paling's lovingly wrought series of pen portraits, I was amused, moved and - perhaps most surprising of all - uplifted' John Preston, Daily Mail 'There are many detractors who question whether libraries are still relevant in the digital age. Paling's keenly and kindly observed account of his encounters offers a gentle insight as to why they still are' Helen Davies, Sunday Times Chris works as a librarian in a small-town library in the south of England. This is the story of the library, its staff, and the fascinating group of people who use the library on a regular basis. We'll meet characters like the street-sleepers Brewer, Wolf and Spencer, who are always the first through the doors. The Mad Hatter, an elderly man who scurries around manically, searching for books. Sons of Anarchy Alan, a young Down's Syndrome man addicted to the American TV drama series. Startled Stewart, a gay man with a spray-on tan who pops in most days for a nice chat, sharking for good-looking foreign language students. And Trish, who is relentlessly cheerful and always dressed in pink - she has never married, but the marital status of everybody she meets is of huge interest to her. Some of the characters' stories are tragic, some are amusing, some are genuinely surreal, but together they will paint a bigger picture of the world we live in today, and of a library's hugely important place within it. Yes, of course, people come in to borrow books, but the library is also the equivalent of the village pump. It's one of the few places left where anyone, regardless of age or income or background, can wander in and find somebody to listen to their concerns, to share the time of day. Reading Allowed will provide us with a fascinating portrait of a place that we all value and cherish, but which few of us truly know very much about ...