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This volume is unusual in that the theme is quite broad in scope
yet focused on a specific topic; innovations and boundary-pushing
studies in areas not usually found in library literature. It
represents a look at the periphery of the field surveyed in
previous volumes and presents chapters grouped into two categories:
professional issues and transforming services. First section
chapters include the challenges facing librarians in an age of
litigiousness and threats to academic freedom, educating ethical
leaders for the information society by adopting practices from
business, valuing intellectual capital assets by looking at the
role of librarians in a knowledge society, and emerging practices
of open peer review as a means of achieving a "new science". In the
second section chapters include the effects of terminology on
health queries by analysing users' health literacy and topic
familiarity, an analysis of academic social networking via a case
study of users' information behaviour, a study on redefining
services and spaces for graduate student success by creating a
"scholars' commons", and a final chapter on serving adults and
teens in social spaces within a "virtual branch".
First published in 1993, the purpose of this book is to identify
and describe the most important factors that must be considered in
making decisions about the optimal ways to provide access to
information - in short, the best way to use the humans, the
machines, and the intangible resources known as information,
particularly at the organizational level. In recent years
executives have begun to outsource computing and telecommunications
functions, primarily to control costs. Traditional libraries and
information centres have been disbanded in favour of service
contracts or outright leasing of staff. Both the public and private
sectors are examining their information service operations from the
point of view of cost effectiveness. Decisions about owning versus
leasing of information are being made daily. Decision-makers are
finding that they must deal differently with funding and budgeting
of information systems and libraries from their earlier practice.
New paradigms for these service functions already exist. Not only
have corporations and governments begun to contract out entire
information service operations, but libraries themselves have begun
to consider the costs, effectiveness, and implications of
outsourcing some of their operations and services. This book
provides a framework for decision-makers to view and review
information services within their organizations. Entire units,
components of libraries and information centres are defined and
untangled so that the widest variety of organizations can analyse
their own environments. Each chapter is accompanied by comments
from a broad range of experts in the information field.
First published in 1993, the purpose of this book is to identify
and describe the most important factors that must be considered in
making decisions about the optimal ways to provide access to
information - in short, the best way to use the humans, the
machines, and the intangible resources known as information,
particularly at the organizational level. In recent years
executives have begun to outsource computing and telecommunications
functions, primarily to control costs. Traditional libraries and
information centres have been disbanded in favour of service
contracts or outright leasing of staff. Both the public and private
sectors are examining their information service operations from the
point of view of cost effectiveness. Decisions about owning versus
leasing of information are being made daily. Decision-makers are
finding that they must deal differently with funding and budgeting
of information systems and libraries from their earlier practice.
New paradigms for these service functions already exist. Not only
have corporations and governments begun to contract out entire
information service operations, but libraries themselves have begun
to consider the costs, effectiveness, and implications of
outsourcing some of their operations and services. This book
provides a framework for decision-makers to view and review
information services within their organizations. Entire units,
components of libraries and information centres are defined and
untangled so that the widest variety of organizations can analyse
their own environments. Each chapter is accompanied by comments
from a broad range of experts in the information field.
Volume 37 of Advances in Librarianship presents detailed examples
of local and regional mergers and collaborations and serves as a
companion to Volume 36 which presented a comprehensive broad review
of the factors that lead to mergers and other alliances, and the
methods used to ensure effective and successful collaborations.
While corporate mergers make headlines, library and information
science examples, especially at regional an local levels, have less
visibility. This volume demonstrates that such efforts are
occurring in libraries, among LIS degree programs, and enterprises
including networks and consortia. They are occurring as economic
conditions around the world mandate consolidation and/or
collaboration among agencies and enterprises to reduce or curtail
expenditures.
Volume 36 provides a broad review of the factors that lead to
mergers and other alliances, the methods used to ensure effective
and successful collaborations, and descriptions of the factors
which contributed to less successful efforts at consolidation. The
chapters include original research, case studies, literature
reviews and conceptual papers.
The field of librarianship has undergone traumatic shifts (mostly
downward) due to the global financial meltdown that began in the
fall of 2008. Libraries have been deeply affected by the worst
recession since the Great Depression. While "Advances in
Librarianship" endeavors to identify trends and innovations, the
trend addressed in this volume is admittedly not a happy one. The
current climate does however, present opportunities for analysis,
and far reaching searches for solutions and innovations that can
alleviate the challenges created by the clash of fiscal
retrenchment with steadily increasing use of libraries. Therefore
this volume addresses the ripple effects of the economic recession
from the point of view of librarianship, the need for advocacy, and
the necessity to tout the value that libraries bring to their
communities. Chapters focus on identifying means to change library
and library related organizations so that they focus on distinctive
assets and strengths, use free or low cost resources and
technologies, and position themselves to take advantage of
collaborative initiatives.
This volume of "Advances in Librarianship" makes contributions to
three largely unexplored areas in the field: managing intellectual
capital in libraries, reporting on the effects of spatial factors
and cooperation and competition upon intellectual capital
utilization in libraries; Native American Libraries, offering
findings which can apply in any country with ethnically or
culturally isolated libraries; and the nature and extent of the
engagement of humanities scholars with electronic texts. Other
topics explored in this volume include the growth and decline of
Operations Research both in general and within academic libraries,
approaches to intellectual capital in libraries, and an historical
analysis of the two streams of library education in Australia over
40 years. "The Advances in Librarianship" book series presents
current international research and professional issues in
libraries, the information industry, education and development of
information professionals. The series is a key resource for
practitioners, researchers, students and faculty members seeking
in-depth literature and solutions to current and emerging issues in
library and information science and related fields.
This volume presents international research and exhaustive reviews
of literature on a range of issues related to the evolving digital
environment. Topics addressed include: the educational impact of
the digital environment on LIS education curricula and delivery
mechanisms; information representation and learning in video games;
social semantic corporate digital libraries; the use of E-texts in
research projects in the humanities; and information access in
e-government environments. Issues surrounding the improvement of
library catalogues by emulating web-based search engines, and the
extent to which collaborative information seeking is/is not enabled
by existing search engines and tools are also explored. With the
growing trend for digital-only access to information, this text
makes an important contribution in both highlighting problems and
challenges, and pointing to pathways for future solutions. Part of
the Advances in Librarianship book series, it is a key resource for
practitioners, researchers, students and faculty members seeking
in-depth literature and solutions to current and emerging issues in
library and information science and related fields.
Management and Leadership Innovations, vol. 38 of Advances in
Librarianship presents techniques, cases and theoretical papers on
how libraries and other non-profit organizations can achieve
sustainability through application of the UN's Agenda 21, how to
interview candidates through non-traditional and interactive
processes to assess 'soft skills' needed to join a team, how a
model was developed to ensure successful school libraries, and how
academic libraries can provide leadership in sustaining and
preserving their surrounding communities' history and culture. It
also offers chapters on the utility of gossip in management, how to
provide mindful leadership within an organization, and how to
identify and manage levels of stress and burnout. The volume
presents a case study of how a library altered the skill sets of
subject librarians to function in teams using a matrix approach in
order to better serve clients. Another innovation is represented by
a chapter on staff development and service through participation in
a community of practice. Also included is a chapter on service
design a relatively new concept of service design which is critical
in improving user/customer satisfaction and patronage.
Assessment and outcomes evaluation have become increasingly
important in librarianship. Although initially used in educational
contexts to measure student learning, the strategy has migrated to
other contexts such as hiring, employee development, overall
organizational and institutional successes, measuring the outcomes
of projects and operational changes, and self assessment at the
personal level. This growing emphasis is partly due to increasingly
stringent requirements that funds are used effectively to improve
services and operations. The current economic climate and
retrenchments in non-profit agencies, have raised the need for
assessment and outcomes evaluation to a critical level. 'Contexts
for Assessment and Outcome Evaluation in Librarianship' focuses not
on the how of undertaking assessment and outcomes evaluation, but
rather on their successes and failures in various contexts in which
these tools have been and will be used.
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