Libraries in the USA and globally are undergoing quiet revolution. Libraries are moving away from a philosophy that is collection-centered to one focused on service. Technology is key to that change. ...The Patron Driven Library explores the way technology has moved the focus from library collections to services, placing the reader at the center of library activities. The book reveals the way library users are changing, and how social networking, web delivery of information, and the uncertain landscape of e-print has energized librarians to adopt technology to meet a different model of the library while preserving core values. Following an introduction, the first part begins with the historical milieu, and moves on to current challenges for financing and acquiring materials, and an exploration of why the millennial generation is transformational. The second part examines how changes in library practice can create a culture for imagining library services in an age of information overflow. The final chapter asks: Whither the library? * Provides a synthesis of current research on the impact of technology on behaviour, and connecting it with library services * Offers examples and practical advice for incorporating technology to meet user expectations and assess services * Suggests management techniques to overcome barriers to change and technology innovation
Cruising the Library examines the ways in which library classifications have organized sexuality and sexual perversion. The author studies the Library of Congress Subject Headings and Classification, ...as well as the Library of Congress's Delta Collection, a restricted collection of obscenity until 1964.
Over one hundred presentations from the 37th annual Charleston Library Conference (held November 6–10, 2017) are included in this annual proceedings volume. Major themes of the meeting included data ...visualization, analysis and assessment of collections and library users, demand-driven acquisition, the future of print collections, and open access publishing. While the Charleston meeting remains a core one for acquisitions librarians in dialog with publishers and vendors, the breadth of coverage of this volume reflects the fact that this conference continues to be one of the major venues for leaders in the publishing and library communities to shape strategy and prepare for the future. Almost 2,000 delegates attended the 2017 meeting, ranging from the staff of small public library systems to the CEOs of major corporations. This fully indexed, copyedited volume provides a rich source for the latest evidence-based research and lessons from practice in a range of information science fields. The contributors are leaders in the library, publishing, and vendor communities.
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.
Globalizing the Library focuses on the globalization of information and the library in the period following the Second World War. Providing an examination of the ideas and aspirations surrounding ...information and the library, as well as the actual practices and actions of information professionals from the United States, Britain, and those working with organizations such as Unesco to develop library services, this book tells an important story about international history that also provides insight into the history of information, globalization, and cultural relations. Exploring efforts to help build library services and train a cohort of professional librarians around the globe, the book examines countries in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific during the period of the Cold War and decolonization. Using the ideas of ‘library diplomacy’ and ‘library imperialism’ to frame Anglo-American involvement in this work, Laugesen examines the impact library development work had on various countries. The book also considers what might have motivated nations in the global South to use foreign aid to help develop their library services and information infrastructure. Globalizing the Library prompts reflection on the way in which library services are developed and the way professional knowledge is transferred, while also illuminating the power structures that have shaped global information infrastructures. As a result, the book should be essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of libraries, development, and information. It should also be of great interest to information professionals and information historians who are reflecting critically on the way information has been transferred, consumed, and shaped in the modern world.
At a time when libraries are no longer leading proprietors of information, many library professionals find themselves rethinking their purpose. In this collection of new essays, contributors share ...their experiences and ideas for keeping libraries integral to changing communities.
This important volume by one of the leading scholars in the field examines and discusses how library professionals can meet the demands of policy makers to open up the public library system without ...destroying its values. Based on a critical literature review, a survey of library professionals and consultations with other stakeholders, the book discusses the challenges involved in providing a service that prioritizes equity and social inclusion while at the same time attempting to promote and maintain quality, excellence and ethical standards. In assessing how those responsible for public libraries around the world go about this task the author advocates a service that is sensitive to difference and seeks to provide access to the best.
Information science was a burgeoning field in the early years of
the Cold War, and while public and academic libraries acted as
significant sites for the information boom, it is unsurprising that
...McCarthyism and censorship would shape what they granted readers
access to and acquired. Wild Intelligence traces a
different history of information management, examining the
privately assembled collections of poets and their
knowledge-building practices at midcentury.
Taking up case studies of four poets who began writing during
the 1950s and 1960s, including Charles Olson (1910-1970), Diane di
Prima (1934-2020), Gerrit Lansing (1928-2018), and Audre Lorde
(1934-1992), M. C. Kinniburgh shows that the postwar American
poet's library should not just be understood according to
individual books within their collection but rather as an archival
resource that reveals how poets managed knowledge in a growing era
of information overload. Exploring traditions and systems that had
been overlooked, buried, occulted, or censored, these poets sought
to recover a sense of history and chart a way forward.
Developing Librarian Competencies for the Digital Age identifies specific digital skills needed for success, ways of developing those skills, and ways of assessing them. This book identifies the crux ...of what it means to a librarian in the 21st century for library professionals at any stage in their career in any library setting.