Search

An interview with Valerie Wilson Wesley, author of the crime fiction "A Shimmer of Red," the third in the "Tamara Hayle" PI series, is presented. Wesley discusses how she came about with the character of real estate agent Odessa "Dessa" Jones, what inspired her to turn to cozies, and why she decided to include paranormal elements in this series.

The article looks at The Trove, which is a children's space and library located in the White Plains Public Library in New York. Sandra Miranda, the library's director, came up with the idea for The Trove. The children's sections has different areas including a castle, which is an activity room for crafts, tutoring, and after-school activity and a technology center where children have access to online tutors and games. INSET: The Big Picture.

The article looks at the architectural design and interior decoration of a public library in Queens, New York. We took the opportunity to match cutting-edge library service with cutting-edge design. We just needed a forward-thinking library; generous, risk-taking vendors willing to donate the furnishings and services; and an aggressive timetable. This idea did result in the opening of our "makeover library," the Court Square branch of the Queens Borough Public Library, New York. Known for understanding the needs of its customers, the library was just beginning the rollout of a new customer service model that included self-check, wireless access, staff on the floor assisting customers, information kiosks instead of reference desks, and increased technology. Today, the library had become what we called an "express branch." To support the library's service vision and create an express service branch, we reorganized the layout and used every inch of space to maximal effect.

The article discusses the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting, held January 14-17, 2005 in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting showed a bounce back in attendance from 2004. Unlike in past years, there was less of a highly charged atmosphere regarding national or international issues. While Midwinter exhibits are usually modest, the venue attracted an eclectic mix ranging from publishers and tech purveyors to the ASPCA and feature film producers Walden Media.

The American Library Association's (ALA) Annual Conference, June 24-30, in 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. 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. North Dakota state librarian Doris Ott reported that 43 public libraries have chosen to participate in a centralized filter operated by the state library and the North Dakota Information Technology Department. Ray English, director of libraries at Oberlin College, OH, discussed the first year of the Mellon Librarian Recruitment Program, which has awarded Oberlin and five other libraries $500,000 for a collaborative project that aims to recruit undergraduates to libraries.

Presents information on the joint annual conference of the American Library Association and Canadian Library Association held in Toronto, Ontario from June 19-25, 2003. Total attendance; Speakers; Exhibitors. INSETS: Gays & Lesbians Welcome;Whole Lotta Movin' and Shakin' Going On;Las Vegas-Clark County Scores;Conference on contrasts in Toronto

This article states that the Internet has transformed libraries. However, its impact has been even greater on integrated library systems (ILS), the technological backbone of many library operations and services. With these and other questions in mind, we invited a group of key players to a round table discussion during the Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference in Charlotte, NC, in April. On the technology side, open source software, specifically Linux, is being adopted by major U.S. companies, providing them with both lower costs and increased flexibility--things librarians want from their ILS. The key focus is integration with such functions as courseware and the visibility of the system.

In libraries with newly installed public access computers, patron numbers grew by nearly 25 percent in 2000 and 2002, with many of them new to libraries. They include home schoolers, travelers, and people from low-income families, who are much more likely to depend on library computers. This sampling of updated findings from the ongoing research on the U.S. Library Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation indicates the breadth and depth of the impact of this extensive gift to public libraries. These recent findings, combined with the early results of the program, demonstrate that the program's legacy is substantial. The largest gift to U.S. public libraries since that of Andrew Carnegie, the Gates Program will have brought computer "packages" into the majority of public libraries in all 50 states by the end of 2003. By then the contribution will total 40,000 computers since 1997 in about 10,000 eligible facilities. The program focused on libraries that serve populations where ten percent earn below the federal poverty line; it has reached into nearly every low-income area and isolated public library in America. The number of people in the United States who have at least limited access to computers and the Internet continues to grow, and large increases in the number of patrons at libraries--in some cases more than 100 percent--are part of this overall trend. These increases averaged 23 percent in the early states in 2000 and 24 percent in all the Gates states completed by mid-2002. Libraries provided access to a large number of low-income patrons. About half of adult library computer users have household incomes below $25,000, compared with 30 percent of the population of those states, according to the U.S. census. Internet use, library use, and public attitudes toward libraries as well as public access to computers have all changed positively since the Gates Program began. INSET: OCLC's Gates Portal Project.

In a different economic climate, the big news of the American Library Association 2003 Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, would have been the progress made by the American Library Association's Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA). The big news could have been the welcome preconference announcement by First Lady Laura Bush, a librarian, that President Bush planned to request $20 million to help recruit and train librarians and $166.4 million for library grants to states. However, the budget cuts faced by so many libraries--from public to academic to state library entities--was the predominant theme in chilly Philly. Indeed, on the first day of the conference, ALA President Mitch Freedman drew nearly 500 people in an urgently planned rally to "Save America's Libraries." Freedman's signature cause, higher salaries, sustained a high profile at the conference, with training sessions and working groups throughout the program. The Better Salaries and Pay Equity for Library Workers Task Force released a new version of the Toolkit. The dark days extended to the show floor, where many exhibitors groused about slow traffic. While in previous years, the conference placement office featured more jobs than applicants, this time 293 registered job seekers competed for 196 openings, with the best chances in public and academic library administration. At the ALA-APA Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, Council approved bylaws for the new organization, which will conduct activities--advocacy for library pay and the issuing of postgraduate certification--that ALA cannot do. Councilor Bernie Margolis, president of the Boston Public Library, said he would ask the ALA Executive Board to seek another legal opinion to determine if better salaries advocacy would be possible without jeopardizing ALA's tax-exempt status. INSETS: Library of the Year Nominations Sought;ALISE Meeting Focuses on Technology.

Deals with the annual conference of the American Library Association (ALA) in Atlanta, Georgia from June 13 through 19, 2002. Initiative introduced by Mitch Freedman, the incoming ALA president; Participants; Topics discussed; Products launched at the conference.

Focuses on the American Library Association's (ALA) formation of the Allied Professional Association (APA) to allow advocacy on librarian salary issues. Debate over the APA's establishment at the ALA's 2002 Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana; Role of President-elect Mitch Freedman in lobbying for better wages; Details of the forum on low pay in libraries; Other topics addressed at the meeting, including 2004 candidates, crisis communications training for librarians, and digital reference.

Focuses on the annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) in June 2001. Speakers; Questions regarding the Children's Internet Protection Act; Future prospects of digital rights management; Issue of database protection; The interest in electronic books; Children's books, which dominated the exhibits; Ethnic coalition-building. INSETS: Honoring Paraprofessionals;You Gotta Have Friends;Mystery Authors Lunch;Striking It Richland: Library of the Year 2001

The article presents details regarding the debate between librarians over the usefulness of search engines such as Google. Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines raise questions about expensive, proprietary databases. While the latter deliver precise and high-quality results, users may find them too complex and not be willing to learn how to work with them. Beyond commercial databases, Google's search box and relevancy ranking are pushing new designs for accessing cataloged content. Witness the Research Library Group's RedLightGreen project. Because of the nature of scientific discovery, and that so much of it is underwritten by tax dollars, we are going to find more and more freely available on the web. The specificity of the language, especially around medical content, lends itself to keyword search. But that is not the case for disciplines such as business and social science that have a much softer terminology around them. They require the intervention of editors and controlled vocabularies in order for researchers to retrieve the information they need. When you invest in a commercial database such as ProQuest, one of the things you pay for is the indexing and abstracting so researchers can retrieve these articles precisely, quickly, and easily. If we moved into a Google world we would replace this abstracting and indexing with keyword search. Thinking beyond an academic setting, there are a lot of people out there who are not going to have the benefit of formal information literacy. If Google is the first thing they turn to for information resources, we need to make sure that they are getting pointed at least to our library catalogs and other resources.

Reports on the downsizing and reorganization of the OCLC company. Purpose of the reorganization; Number of jobs affected by the downsizing; Changes in the position of top executives.

Discusses the trends in the design and structure of public libraries in the U.S. Common factors that drive public library design; Remarks from public library executive director Ginnie Cooper on the significance of library buildings; Factors to consider when considering a proper location for a library. INSET: A Carnegie for a New Century.

The Ramsey Free Public Library in New Jersey, the Schaumburg Township District Library in Illinois and Miami-Dade Public Library in Florida are as different from one another as any three libraries can be. From their geographic locations to facilities, from the populations they serve to their materials budgets, they span the gamut of public library service in the United States. All three libraries are seeing a large growth in audiovisual (AV) circulation. They are all increasing their budgets in an attempt to keep pace with usage. In dollars, a library serving a population of 25,000-49,999 spends on average a little over $28,000 on all AV materials. Audiobooks consume only 30 percent of the media budget, but spending on audiobooks has increased more than any other format--72 percent.

Amid the backdrop of a soft economy and looming budget cuts, academic librarians turned out in force April 10-13 for the 11th National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). ACRL President Helen Spalding took note of the many standing-room-only sessions and the wide-ranging slate of topics. Session topics included the more pressing issues in academe, e.g., digital library and reference initiatives, information literacy, recruitment and retention of librarians, scholarly communication, and copyright. Deanna Marcum, president, Council for Library and Information Resources, said that her greatest concern was "how to bridge traditional libraries and digital libraries." Duane Webster, executive director, Association of Research Libraries (ARL), cited the importance of measuring a library's value. Mary Ellen Davis, ACRL executive director, spoke passionately about the need for libraries to call attention to their role. University of Kansas Provost David Shulenberger suggested that federal legislation, as yet undrafted, could help cure an ailing scholarly communication marketplace. John Shumaker, president of the University of Tennessee, provided a supportive but hard-nosed look at the academic environment, which includes a new sense of accountability, especially for state-funded institutions, and a need to harness and unleash entrepreneurial energy. In the session on budget trends, Alan E. Guskin, Antioch University president emeritus, codirector of the Project on the Future of Higher Education, sketched a bleak future of shrinking resources (state deficits, endowment losses), with managers driven by the need to cut costs. In a well-attended session, librarians urged not only new steps to combat plagiarism but also a broader understanding of the problem and the learning opportunities it presents

Discusses the repercussions of the 2001 terrorist attacks of September 11th on libraries in 2002. Effects of the attacks on the USA PATRIOT Act; Budget concerns; Salaries and recruitment for librarians; Privacy concerns for patrons of public libraries; Virtual reference; Electronic books; Distance education for library education programs; Library science program that dropped the term library from their names in favor of education; Special librarians.

The article presents a number of tables and charts that demonstrate the results of a survey distributed by the journal that polled school libraries on library technology.

The article discusses job satisfaction among librarians. It presents median salaries among librarians and primary areas of job satisfaction, including working with young people, assisting library patrons, and connecting children with reading and learning. It also notes that librarians view themselves as overworked and underfunded.

The article profiles library professor Carolyn Brodie. Her work in developing education programs for youth service librarians is discussed. Brodie's work in conjunction with library professor Greg Byerly in connecting schools with online content is also explored. The article notes that Brodie has won several grants and awards, including the 2008 Scholastic Library Publishing Award.

Presents an interview with Ross Todd, a faculty at Rutgers University and director of research for the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries. Challenges facing school libraries; Lessons raised by studies on the relationship between school libraries and student learning; Ways to facilitate a cycle of renewal in school libraries; Value of libraries to students.

This article features ImaginOn in Charlotte, North Carolina, a joint venture of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County and the Children's Theatre of Charlotte. Children's Theatre executive director Bruce LaRowe presents views on the mission of ImaginOn. The library and theater leaders took a risk when they agreed to create a joint-use facility. INSETS: ImaginOn Facts;Collaboration--It's Harder Than It Looks.

This article presents information on the 2008 American Library Association Annual Conference to be held June 26 - July 2, 2008 in Anaheim, California.

This article focuses on the American Library Association's June 2006 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Fears that the city couldn't sustain the more than 12,000 librarians were dismissed by the readiness of hotels, restaurants and transportation. 900 conference attendees took part in "Libraries Build Communities," a volunteer effort that took place at more than 20 sites around the city. INSET: Welcome Relief.

Deals with the improvements implemented at Linebaugh Library, a public library in Rutherford, Tennessee, centered on services for children and teens. Award won by the library for its transformation; Ways by which Linebaugh Library helped the residents of Rutherford get to the library; Lack of library services for the Latino population.

The article focuses on the importance of the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment to the literacy rate in the U.S. The standardized test not only measures a student's knowledge of technology but also the seven proficiencies that make up a student's ability to use critical thinking to define, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create, and communicate information in a technological environment.

This article focuses on the success of the Grandview High School library in Colorado, under the leadership of principal Harry Bull. When Bull joined Grandview High School in 1997 as associate principal to help create the school--it opened in 1998--he made sure that a teacher-librarian, Beth Giles, was part of the planning cadre. Bull defied conventional wisdom in not only allocating a disproportionate amount of available funds for the library, but he also endorsed the decision to use a substantial part of those funds toward a quality reference collection rather than sheer number of books. In the seven years since the school opened, Bull never wavered in his encouragement and financial support of the library as the integral foundation of all other academic disciplines. Both Giles and library coordinator Patricia Holloway describe Bull as a man who understands the potential of libraries but also believes in hiring the right people and then making it possible for them to succeed. INSET: Runners-Up.

The article presents an overview of the popularity of self service options that libraries are providing to library patrons, including self-checkout and self service fine payment systems. A discussion of several libraries, including those in the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District in Nevada, that have successful self-service installations, is presented. The role that mobile devices and electronic books may have in the future of libraries is discussed.

The article discusses the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting, held in Boston, Massachusetts January 14-17, 2005. The demo-destroying sluggishness of the show floor's net connection at Boston's Hynes Convention Center received almost as much grumbling as the two-tier exhibits. All the top tech houses were ganged on the upper floor, which received little traffic despite an increase of several thousand attendees over the 2004 show in San Diego, while the ground floor exhibitors enjoyed droves of visitors. Boston proved a typically quiet Midwinter, with few significant vendor announcements. Nonetheless, enough products and word of forthcoming ones made the show interesting. The hot topics at recent meetings--RFID, self-check, Wi-Fi, federated searching, and ebooks--continued to fire discussion, despite privacy concerns, rising costs, and infighting among vendors.

This article focuses on the effort of Michael Bieber in enhance the content that library patrons receive from searches. Michael Bieber, associate professor of information systems, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is leading a group of information scientists and librarians in a project that provides a new way to think about integrating objects in the digital library-from search results in an EBSCO database to a library catalog to photographs in a digital archive. A student searches a ProQuest database and has found a pertinent article. Bieber who also is codirector of NJIT's Collaborative Hypermedia Research Libratory told LJ that project participants are using a" wrapper" specific to each system that analyzes the display screens such as where the author and title are located. The more than $2 million in funding being invested in this project includes $500000 from the Institute of Museum& Library Services $85000 from the National Science Digital Library program and $800000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The project has worked with NASA and with the NSF's Digital Library in the proof of concept stage and the participants have received permission from EBSCO Gale ProQuest and the Association for Computing Machinery to work with their data as a research project.