Despite dire predictions in the late twentieth century that public libraries would not survive the turn of the millennium, their numbers have only increased. Two of three Americans frequent a public library at least once a year, and nearly that many are registered borrowers. Although library authorities have argued that the public library functions primarily as a civic institution necessary for maintaining democracy, generations of library patrons tell a different story. In Part of Our Lives, Wayne A. Wiegand delves into the heart of why Americans love their libraries. The book traces the history of the public library, featuring records and testimonies from as early as 1850. Rather than analyzing the words of library founders and managers, Wiegand listens to the voices of everyday patrons who cherished libraries. Drawing on newspaper articles, memoirs, and biographies, Part of Our Lives paints a clear and engaging picture of Americans who value libraries not only as civic institutions, but also as social spaces for promoting and maintaining community. Whether as a public space, a place for accessing information, or a home for reading material that helps patrons make sense of the world around them, the public library has a rich history of meaning for millions of Americans. From colonial times through the recent technological revolution, libraries have continuously adapted to better serve the needs of their communities. Wiegand goes on to demonstrate that, although cultural authorities (including some librarians) have often disparaged reading books considered not "serious" the commonplace reading materials users obtained from public libraries have had a transformative effect for many, including people like Ronald Reagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Oprah Winfrey. A bold challenge to conventional thinking about the American public library, Part of Our Lives is an insightful look into one of America's most beloved cultural institutions.

In an economic climate where cuts are becoming the norm, a boutique library service may seem a contradiction. In some academic libraries the trend is still towards centralisation programmes or offering generic services. However, the student as the customer now has an even greater vested interest in the learning process as their financial commitment increases and they are demanding better services. Personalised library services are tailored with a specific clientele in mind and will provide the enhanced service demanded by today's students. These services need not cost more money; but they do require inventive and customer-facing staff. They celebrate and promote collaborative ventures along with excellent communication and marketing. This book unpacks the boutique model and is full of practical advice, supported by a unique set of case studies reflecting international practice including Australian, American and Russian and UK library services.

This volume is a survey of libraries in Britain and Ireland up to the Civil War. It traces the transition from collections of books without a fixed local habitation to the library, chiefly of printed books, much as we know it today. It examines changing patterns in the formation of book collections in the earlier medieval period, traces the combined impact of the activities of the mendicant orders and the scholarship of the universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the adoption of the library room and the growth of private book collections in the fourteenth and fifteenth. The volume then focuses upon the dispersal of the monastic libraries in the mid-sixteenth centuries, the creation of new types of library, and finally, the steps whereby the collections amassed by antiquaries came to form the bases of the national and institutional libraries of Britain and Ireland.

Librarians must know how to provide essential programs and services that make a difference for the people they serve if libraries are going to survive. It is no longer realistic for librarians to rely on the idea that "people love libraries, so they will fund them" in this economic climate. Librarians must be able to prove that their programs and services are making a difference if they want to compete for funding in their municipalities, schools, corporations, colleges, institutions and organizations. Meeting Community Needs: A Practical Guide for Librarians presents a process that librarians of all kinds can use to provide effective programs and services. This requires being in close touch with your community, whether it is a city, town, or village; college or university; public or private school; or corporation, hospital, or business. Understanding what information people need, how they access it, how they use it, how it benefits them, and how they share it is paramount. The process in this book covers community assessment, designing programs and services to meet needs, implementing and evaluating programs and services, and funding options. Providing library programs and services for your entire population - not just library users - is more important than ever. Librarians working in libraries of all types must provide programs and services that meet community needs if libraries are to stay relevant and survive in the long run. Librarians must be able to measure their success and demonstrate the library's worth with verifiable proof if they are going to be competitive for available funds in the future. Meeting Community Needs will make you take a serious look at how well your library programs and services are meeting your community's needs, and it will show you the way to success.

Libraries in the United States and Canada are facing similar challenges to their futures. Editors Susan Cleyle and Louise McGillis have pulled together an impressive list of contributors to look at the future of the profession and answer the question: is it time to turn off the lights and call it a day? Essays challenge the reader on five different topics: the Web, library as place, pushing to the desktop, certification, and the future of associations. Contributors were asked to think outside the box and take readers to places they may not have been before thus providing both LIS students and practicing librarians with innovative ways to position themselves to serve a future society that is information hungry.

Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think about Information explores how librarians and faculty work together to teach students about the nature of expertise, authority, and credibility. It provides practical approaches for motivating students to explore their beliefs, biases, and ways of interpreting the world. This book also includes chapters that bridge the gap between the epistemological stances and threshold concepts held by librarians and faculty, and those held by students, focusing on pedagogies that challenge students to evaluate authority, connect to prior knowledge and construct new knowledge in a world of information abundance. Authors draw from a deep pool of perspectives including social psychology, critical theory, and various philosophical traditions. Contributors to the nineteen chapters in this volume offer a balance of theoretical and applied approaches to teaching information literacy, supplying readers with accessible and innovative ideas ready to be put into practice. Not Just Where to Click is appropriate for all types of academic libraries, and is also suitable for library and information science curricula and collections.

The late twentieth-century brought significant changes in the way music is marketed, consumed, taught, and studied. These changes have had a natural effect on the ways that libraries serve their music-loving populations. This resource examines the profession as it responds to these changes, without losing sight of the human element within it in a collection of essays that provide a practical introduction to the profession of music librarianship, and a survey of current professional philosophies and practices. Topics include: preparing for the field, mid-career options, professional organizations that support the work of music librarians, the music librarian of the future, and thoughts on the value of the work that music librarians do. Music librarians informally describe their day-to-day activities, from maintaining the musical scores for large performing organizations to creating public programs. Speaking with enthusiasm for their chosen profession, these librarians represent a group of professionals that enjoy a special relationship with the materials they work with and the people they serve. A necessary resource for aspiring music librarians, as well as established music librarians looking for a dose of inspiration and current information on the state of their profession.

This fully updated version of the CILIP-endorsed guidelines for secondary school libraries addresses the changing schools' landscape and impact of technological changes of recent years. Focusing on the librarian at the heart of the school, each chapter interweaves best practice, technological development and context-specific options to provide clear guidance and support for all involved in the provision of school library services. Amongst other key topics the Guidelines cover: * Providing quality resources * Information literacy * Reader development * Pro-active marketing * Evaluation * Partnerships and the wider community. Developed with an international audience in mind, these guidelines provide a comprehensive and flexible model for a modern school library service. Readership: This will be essential reading for all those who work in school library services, whatever their level of qualification. The guidelines will also be of interest to teachers, especially those in management positions, school governors, business people who service school libraries, and students of librarianship.

In the 1990s, a generation of women born during the rise of the second wave feminist movement plotted a revolution. These young activists funneled their outrage and energy into creating music, and zines using salvaged audio equipment and stolen time on copy machines. By 2000, the cultural artifacts of this movement had started to migrate from basements and storage units to community and university archives, establishing new sites of storytelling and political activism. "The Archival Turn in Feminism "chronicles these important cultural artifacts and their collection, cataloging, preservation, and distribution. Cultural studies scholar Kate Eichhorn examines institutions such as the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, The Riot Grrrl Collection at New York University, and the Barnard Zine Library. She also profiles the archivists who have assembled these significant feminist collections. Eichhorn shows why young feminist activists, cultural producers, and scholars embraced the archive, and how they used it to stage political alliances across eras and generations.
A volume in the American Literatures Initiative

Creating colorful, inexpensive, theme-related bulletin boards will be a snap with Bulletin Bored? or Bulletin Boards! Designed with the non-artist in mind, each bulletin board idea features easily reproducible black and white designs with detailed descriptions of materials, slogans, colors, and curriculum use. The book is organized chronologically to follow the school year. Bulletin board themes revolve around holidays, seasons, social issues, sports, the environment, reading, and more. Pages of patterns, helpful hints, and additional ideas will make implementing and personalizing catchy displays simple. From back to school to graduation, teachers and librarians will find a wealth of ideas to revitalize their bulletin boards. Includes a selected bibliography.

Most researchers, even with computers, find only a fraction of the sources available to them. As Library of Congress reference librarian Thomas Mann explains, researchers tend to work within one or another mental framework that limits their basic perception of the universe of knowledge available to them. Some, for example, use a subject-disciplinary method which leads them to a specific list of sources on a particular subject. But, Mann points out, while this method allows students and researchers to find more specialized sources, it is also limiting--they may not realize that works of interest to their own subject appear within the literature of many other disciplines. A researcher looking through anthropology journals, for example, might not discover that the MLA International Bibliography provides the best coverage of folklore journals.

In Library Research Models, Mann examines the several alternative mental models people use to approach the task of research, and demonstrates new, more effective ways of finding information. Drawing on actual examples gleaned from 15 years' experience in helping thousands of researchers, he not only shows the full range of search options possible, but also illuminates the inevitable tradeoffs and losses of access that occur when researchers limit themselves to a specific method. In two chapters devoted to computers he examines the use of electronic resources and reveals their value in providing access to a wide range of sources as well as their disadvantages: what people are not getting when they rely solely on computer searches; why many sources will probably never be in databases; and what the options are for searching beyond computers.

Thomas Mann's A Guide to Library Research Methods was widely praised as a definitive manual of library research. Ronald Gross, author of The Independent Scholar's Handbook called it "the savviest such guide I have ever seen--bracingly irreverent and brimming with wisdom." The perfect companion volume, Library Research Models goes even further to provide a fascinating look at the ways in which we can most efficiently gain access to our vast storehouses of knowledge.

The world of the school librarian has changed significantly over the past ten years with the proliferation of technology into all phases of education; this book attempts to address these issues. What does a school librarian need to know about technology? Technology for the School Librarian: Theory and Practice is an introduction to all aspects of technology in the school library and provides a starting point for further study of this wide-ranging-and critically important-field. The only book that addresses both the theoretical and the practical aspects of the subject, Technology for the School Librarian is organized into 13 chapters describing the most vital topics in technology for school librarians. Within these chapters, school librarians (whether practicing or prospective) will be introduced to the practical aspects of technology in the school library and presented with a theoretical framework that will allow them to continue their research and learning. Case studies facilitate understanding, as do the study questions included with each chapter. Lists features that should be included in a school library web page Provides a chronology tracing the development of technology in school libraries Offers an illustration of network topologies Includes questions for research/further study in each chapter

With the recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), school libraries are poised for a potential turnaround. But there's only one way forward: school librarians must become leaders, fully interwoven into the fabric of the educational community. And to become a truly effective leader you've got to have a plan. In her new book, Weisburg builds on her decades of experience and mentorship in school libraries to offer a carefully crafted roadmap that guides readers step by step through the process of transforming into a leader, from becoming aware of what's at stake to learning and mastering the necessary skills for leadership. Using a pragmatic approach that acknowledges the challenges to come while also offering unabashed inspiration, this book incorporates first-hand understanding of the dynamics of the educational environment, from the building to the district level; begins by addressing common fears about taking on a leadership role, and shows how to move past them and gain confidence; demonstrates how to build credibility among stakeholders and peers through strategic risk-taking; discusses ways to rely on one's strengths to grow skills and expertise; explains how to know when to lead and when to manage, plus the fine art of delegation; gives pointers on communicating effectively, becoming visible, behaving ethically, maintaining a healthy life-work balance, and other important career issues; and shows readers what it takes to move onto a larger stage and become a local educational leader who also has a presence on the state and national level. By starting with the basics and offering concrete ideas for moving forward, the book shows readers how they can slowly build their confidence and skills to become the leaders their students and the profession needs them to be.

Legal deposit libraries, the national and academic institutions who systematically preserve our written cultural record, have recently been mandated with expanding their collection practices to include digitised and born-digital materials. The regulations that govern electronic legal deposit often also prescribe how these materials can be accessed. Although a growing international activity, there has been little consideration of the impact of e-legal deposit on the 21st Century library, or on its present or future users. This edited collection is a timely opportunity to bring together international authorities who are placed to explore the social, institutional and user impacts of e-legal deposit. It uniquely provides a thorough overview of this worldwide issue at an important juncture in the history of library collections in our changing information landscape, drawing on evidence gathered from real-world case studies produced in collaboration with leading libraries, researchers and practitioners (Biblioteca Nacional de México, Bodleian Libraries, British Library, National Archives of Zimbabwe, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Sweden). Chapters consider the viewpoint of a variety of stakeholders, including library users, researchers, and publishers, and provide overviews of the complex digital preservation and access issues that surround e-legal deposit materials, such as web archives and interactive media. The book will be essential reading for practitioners and researchers in national and research libraries, those developing digital library infrastructures, and potential users of these collections, but also those interested in the long-term implications of how our digital collections are conceived, regulated and used. Electronic legal deposit is shaping our digital library collections, but also their future use, and this volume provides a rigorous account of its implementation and impact.

Classroom Assessment Techniques for Librarians provides the tools librarians need to quickly and meaningfully assess student knowledge in the classroom. The authors, Melissa Bowles-Terry and Cassandra Kvenild, share 24 tried and true assessment tools, along with library-specific examples, to help librarians assess students' ability to recall, analyze, and apply new knowledge. The assessment tools in this book actively engage students by asking them to think, write, and reflect. Librarians can use results of these assessments as a starting point to define and measure information literacy learning outcomes as well as to improve their teaching skills and instructional design. This collection of assessment techniques can be adapted to multiple learning environments, including traditional one-shot library instruction, online instruction, and for-credit courses. This book is essential for academic libraries, and will prove useful to school libraries with strong information literacy programs, as well as library and information school collections.

Unashamedly a book for the bookish, yet accessible and frequently entertaining, this is the first book devoted to how libraries are depicted in imaginative writing. Covering fiction, poetry, and drama from the late Middle Ages to the present, it runs the gamut of British and American literature, as well as examining a range of fiction in other languages-from Rabelais and Cervantes to modern and contemporary French, Italian, Japanese, and Russian writing. While the tropes of the complex catalogue and the bibliomaniacal reader persist throughout the centuries, libraries also emerge as societal battle-sites where issues of personality, gender, cultural power, and national identity are contested repeatedly and often in surprising ways. As well as examining how libraries were deployed in their work by canonical authors from Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Swift to Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Jorge Luis Borges, the volume also examines in detail the haunted libraries of Margaret Oliphant and M. R. James, and a range of much less familiar historic and contemporary authors. Alert to the depiction of librarians as well as of book-rooms and institutional readers, this book will inform, entertain, and delight. At a time when traditional libraries are under pressure, Libraries in Literature shows the power of their lasting fascination.

The changing higher education environment requires a new kind of relationship among faculty, academic liaison librarians, and students. A core resource for any LIS student or academic librarian serving as a liaison, this handbook lays out the comprehensive fundamentals of the discipline, helping librarians build the confidence and cooperation of the university faculty in relation to the library. Readers will learn about connecting and assisting faculty and students through skilful communication and resource utilization with coverage of key topics such as; orientation meetings, acquiring subject specialization, advice on faculty communication and assistance, online tutorial creation, collection development, information literacy instruction, embedded librarianship, library guides, new courses and accreditation, and evaluation methods. Written in a straightforward way that lends itself to easy application, Fundamentals for the Academic Liaison provides ready guidance for current and future academic liaison librarians.

Archivists and archival institutions are reappraising and deaccessioning now more than ever before. Archival reappraisal and deaccessioning have become vital tools for managing archival collections. Reappraisal and Deaccessioning in Archives and Special Collections is the first book dedicated entirely to the topic of reappraising and deaccessioning in special collections and archives. This edited volume features 13 chapters offering informed opinions, practical recommendations, and valuable examples for reappraising and deaccessioning. Readers will gain important insight into the most important element of reappraisal and deaccessioning: decision-making. Through mostly case studies, the chapters address important issues inherent in these practices including: ethical concerns, donor relations, appraisal questions, and disposition options. The case studies cover collaborative and solo projects, various material types such as manuscripts, records, and artifacts, and a range of scenarios from major projects involving thousands of linear feet of material to ad hoc projects removing single items. Chapter topics include: weeding vs. deaccessioning, getting rid of contaminated materials, donor-driven deaccessioning, and using reappraisal and deaccessioning to improve access to existing collections. Readers will find beneficial information on streamlining workflows, carrying out procedures, creating policies, and implementing these practices locally. Additionally, the chapters cover the intricacies of disposition options, such as transferring to other institutions, returning material to donors, and destruction. This volume can serve as a valuable resource for large and small repositories, experienced and novice archivists, and those working with manuscript and archive collections.

Blues Hall of Fame Inductee, 2019 - A "Classic of Blues Literature" In 1941 and '42 African American scholars from Fisk University-among them the noted composer and musicologist John W. Work III, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel C. Adams Jr.-joined folklorist Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress on research trips to Coahoma County, Mississippi. Their mission was "to document adequately the cultural and social backgrounds for music in the community." Among the fruits of the project were the earliest recordings by the legendary blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. The hallmark of the study was to have been a joint publication of its findings by Fisk and the Library of Congress. While this publication was never completed, Lost Delta Found is composed of the writings, interviews, notes, and musical transcriptions produced by Work, Jones, and Adams in the Coahoma County study. Their work captures, with compelling immediacy, a place, a people, a way of life, and a set of rich musical traditions as they existed in the 1940s.

The digital humanities in academic institutions, and libraries in particular, have exploded in recent years. Librarians are constantly developing their management and technological skills and increasing their knowledge base. As they continue to embed themselves in the scholarly conversations on campus, the challenges facing subject/liaison librarians, technical service librarians, and library administrators are many. This comprehensive volume highlights the wide variety of theoretical issues discussed, initiatives pursued, and projects implemented by academic librarians. Many of the chapters deal with digital humanities pedagogy-planning and conducting training workshops, institutes, semester-long courses, embedded librarian instruction, and instructional assessment-with some chapters focusing specifically on applications of the "ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education." The authors also explore a wide variety of other topics, including the emotional labor of librarians; the challenges of transforming static traditional collections into dynamic, user-centered, digital projects; conceptualizing and creating models of collaboration; digital publishing; and developing and planning projects including improving one's own project management skills. This collection effectively illustrates how librarians are enabling themselves through active research partnerships in an ever-changing scholarly environment. This book was originally published as a special triple issue of the journal College & Undergraduate Libraries.

This unique guide offers fresh insights on how graphic novels and comics differ from traditional books and require different treatment in the library-from purchasing, shelving, and cataloging to readers' advisory services, programs, and curriculum. Challenging librarians to rethink some of their traditional practices, Maximizing the Impact of Comics in Your Library provides creative and proven solutions for libraries of all types that want to get comics into the hands of fans and promote readership. The author describes how libraries would benefit from an in-house classification system and organization that accounts for both publishers and series. In addition, acquiring comics can often be tricky due to renumbering of series, reboots, shifting creative teams, and more-this book shows you how to work around those obstacles. Shelving and displays that reflect comic readers' browsing habits, creative programs that boost circulation of comics and graphic novels, and how comics can play a vital role in educational institutions are also covered. Addresses common challenges librarians face with comics and graphic novels collections and shows how to surmount them Offers a solutions-focused approach Describes how comics can be used to better engage your community and to educate youth Fills a gap in the professional literature, covering topics not touched upon in the existing literature Serves as a vital resource for public, academic, and school libraries

With a renewed emphasis on facilitating learning, supporting multiple literacies, and advancing equity and inclusion, the thoroughly updated and revised second edition of this trusted text provides models and tools that will enable library staff who serve youth to create and maintain collections that provide equitable access to all youth. And as Hughes-Hassell demonstrates, the only way to do this is for collection managers to be learner-centered, confidently acting as information guides, change agents, and leaders. Based on the latest educational theory and research, this book: presents the argument for why collection management decisions and practices should focus on equity, exploring systemic inequities, educational paradigm shifts, developments in the information environment, and other key factors; lays out the theoretical foundation for developing and managing a library collection that facilitates learning, supports the development of multiple literacies, and provides equitable access to an increasingly diverse group of young learners; touches upon current competencies and standards by AASL, YALSA, and ALSC; uses a learner-centered and equity perspective to cover core issues and criteria such as selection and removal of materials, budgeting, and cooperation among libraries; shows how a business viewpoint can assist the learner-centered collector in articulating the central significance of the collection to learning; discusses how library staff can work collaboratively to create policy and negotiate budgets; and includes customizable tools and templates, including a Stakeholder Contact/SWOT Analysis, Decision-Making Model for Selecting Resources and Access Points that Support Learning and Advance Equity, and Collection Development Analysis Worksheet. This resource will be as useful to current school librarians and supervisors, youth librarians in public libraries, and educators as it will to LIS students.