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This article features the University of Liverpool's arts and humanities library, which applies a new search tool to improve the user experience. In nearly every way imaginable, the Sydney Jones Library and the Harold Cohen Library--the university's two libraries that serve science, engineering, and medical students--support the lives of their users (as opposed to expecting the students to conform to the library). Considering their focus on the users' experience, it is no surprise that the Liverpool librarians were among the first--not just in the UK but the world--to investigate using a discovery tool to improve how their user community can get to the library's content. Discovery tools, which include ProQuest's Summon and EBSCO's Discovery Service (EDS), allow the user--through a single search box--to search a base index of metadata as well as many of the library's digital resources such as proprietary databases, the catalog, and institutional repositories. Mimicking the Google experience, results from both internal and external sources can be served up in a single relevancy-ranked batch.

This article describes how the 2006 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in New Orleans will long symbolize the significance of libraries and librarians to a convention city--and to the community around it. As the first major convention in the Crescent City since the ravages of Hurricane Katrina ten months earlier, the conference served as a sign of the city's emergence back toward--but hardly near--normalcy. For ALA, which made the gutsy and not completely popular decision last fall to stick with New Orleans, it was a vindication of sorts and a chance to spotlight the library community's commitment to its own. The contributions were many. ALA and others in the library community announced an array of grants. "Library Journal" spearheaded the pro bono restoration and makeover of the New Orleans Public Library's (NOPL) Alvar Street Branch with Meyer, Scherer, & Rockcastle, Ltd., NOPL, and Baker & Taylor. ALA, Highsmith, and Bretford revamped NOPL's Children's Resource Center. ALA's Hurricane Library Relief Fund hit the $370,000 mark. The H.W. Wilson Foundation announced a $100,000 gift to NOPL. Springer Science+Business Media donated ebooks valued at $1 million to seven of the city's universities. The Southeastern Library Network has $896,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help academic libraries recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced major grants to support Gulf Coast public libraries in Louisiana and Mississippi.

In this article, the author talks about The Trove, a children's space--library doesn't quite cut it--located in the White Plains Public Library, New York. Sandra Miranda, the library's director, came up with the idea for The Trove, although it took the work of many--from her staff to the architects to theatrical designers and fabrications--to realize her vision. With a mission of creating learning opportunities for White Plains' young children and ensuring them greater success in this world, The Trove is really many different things. It provides different environments, and experiences, for children from birth through grade six. The author gives a brief description of The Trove and its programming spaces: StoryTrove, which is for preschoolers and their families, and The Castle, which provides activities, including tutoring, for the after-school set.

The temperature may have been sweltering and the logistics a challenge, but that didn't stop the American Library Association (ALA) in Chicago from drawing more attendees than ever before. The 27,800 who came, including 6,731 exhibitors, set a new record, topping the previous record of 26,542 in 2001 in San Francisco and the Chicago totals of 24,000 in 2000 and 24,500 in 1995. Numbers alone do not capture the high energy of this show, one of the best in years. ALA did have some trouble handling the crowd. Both attendees and exhibitors criticized the confused and disorganized--bordering on dangerous--process of onsite registration, which left many waiting a full hour to sign up. Sessions ran the gamut, yet there was a distinct focus on the future, including the usual anxiety about whether libraries would keep up. ALA inaugurated a new president, Michael Gorman, who, perhaps unfairly, has gained the most notice for his cautions on blogs and digitization. Meanwhile, the new wave of librarians--and some veterans--made this the most-blogged library conference so far, with blog entries gathered on a first-ever conference wiki (http://meredith.wolfwater. com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page). While turnout at ALA membership meetings remained paltry, those sessions were the only place for members to introduce some highly political stances later adopted by Council, including a condemnation of the war in Iraq and defense of materials related to sex.

Few public buildings, and no libraries, have ever received the sort of acclaim that Seattle's central library garnered even before it opened in May 2004. "The Seattle building is thrilling from top to bottom," wrote Paul Goldberger in "The New Yorker." Herbert Muschamp, in the "New York Times," agreed: "In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting building it has been my honor to review." The accolades hardly stopped there, and by year's end the library had won an armful of awards, including the American Institute of Architect's Honor Award for Outstanding Architecture. Seattle's new building succeeds as well as a library as it does a work of art. Despite all the coverage, the most important questions, at least for librarians, were barely asked, never mind answered: How does this building work as a library? Does it serve the information needs of Seattle's citizens? As a library, is there anything new here? The quick answer to all three questions is yes. Seattle's new building succeeds as well as a library as it does a work of art. What Seattle's team of architects and librarians did was no less than to deconstruct the public library--laying out its various services and collections--then put it back together, seemingly unburdened by history. As Ginnie Cooper, executive director of the Brooklyn Public Library, put it, "From now on, anyone who builds a public library will have to first come to Seattle and study this central library." A year after its opening, the library's foundation and Seattle's Office of Economic Development sponsored a study to assess the new building's effect on the local economy. In its first year of operation, the study reports, the library was visited by over 2.3 million individuals, 30 percent from out of town. Seattle's library is becoming a destination point for a global community. The study also says that, in its first year, the building was responsible for $16 million in new economic activity. Over the next 20 years, the life of the bond issue, the central library is expected to generate $320 million. The study also finds that the library could help reposition the downtown as a cultural center as well as improve and promote the city's identity.

The American Library Association's (ALA) Annual Conference, June 24?30, in steamy Orlando, drew 19,575 people, including 5,739 exhibitors, the lowest total since Miami in 1994, not counting the SARS-shadowed conference in Toronto last year (see statistics, p. 15). Although this years conference was filled with exciting events, this abstract is able to cover but a few, owing to space restrictions. A more detailed account of the numerous meetings and happenings is provided in the full text article. Top issues covered were funding and recruiting, as well as technology implementation, including the increasingly popular RFID. ALA began to confront some organizational issues, including a possible dues increase. National politics was a hot topic, too. A benefit screening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 drew a nearly full house to a 2300-seat auditorium. At the Opening General Session, former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, author of the best seller Against All Enemies, gave an impassioned speech, both lament and warning, about America's failure to confront its national security challenges. He criticized the USA PATRIOT Act and urged librarians "to continue to be outspoken." His remarks earned a sustained standing ovation. Other events at the annual conference included a panel discussion where a capacity crowd heard a members speak on "The Future of Libraries: Disappearing Libraries and Invisible Librarians." Clifford Lynch of the Coalition for Networked Information noted that libraries will diverge in maintaining the twin responsibilities of access and stewardship. He said that major research libraries are starting to ask how much they should invest in stewardship and how much they should "kick off" to national libraries. Lynch further observed that research libraries will devote much more effort to managing content that is created by scholarly communities but does not pass through publishers--including institutional repositories.

Discusses digital reference services, also known as virtual reference, chat reference, or online reference, based on a round table discussion at the 2002 American Library Association annual conference in Atlanta. Topics include numbers and marketing; sustainability; competition and models; evaluation methods; outsourcing; staffing and training; and future possibilities. (LRW)

In an age of experimentation, library users from Cerritos, California, to Salt Lake City to Seattle are experiencing public libraries the likes of which they have never before seen. While the 1990s may be remembered as the era of the anchor facility, when libraries were called upon to define and support a community's renaissance, this decade's library projects are responding to a new set of expectations and opportunities. A key element, of course, is technology. While older buildings may have accommodated technology, today's new libraries are formed by it. Librarians are keenly aware of the competition, from the mega-bookstores to Kinko's, and retail models are also driving service and design. Rolled into this is a respect for traditional library environments that encourage quiet study and reflective learning. The goal is to be nothing less than the locus for activity in the community. This article presents four libraries in development now that take risks to expand their reach: (1) Darien Library; (2) the Free Library of Philadelphia; (3) St. Louis Public Library; and (4) the North Natomas Library. While each is unique, they all have the potential to make people think about libraries in entirely new ways.

Discusses security and safety issues for public libraries, especially high-profile central facilities, in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Highlights include inspecting bags as patrons enter as well as exit; the need for security guidelines for any type of disaster or emergency; building design; and the importance of communication. (LRW)