America's Star Libraries: The New Star Libraries By Francine Fialkoff, Editor-in-Chief, fialkoff@reedbusiness.com - 11/15/2009
With diminishing budgets and cuts to service in too many libraries, it seems fortuitous that just six months after launching “America's Star Libraries, the LJ Index of Public Library Service” (LJ 2/15/09), we're back with Round 2 (p. 18–26), sponsored by Baker & Taylor's Bibliostat.
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Get to Effective Weeding By Diane J. Young - 11/15/2009
Raise you hand if you can't face weeding. You are not alone. All over the country, books are stacked three high on window sills, Fodor's Yugoslavia 1987 languishes on the shelf, and HVAC systems send out BTUs to heat and cool the broken spines of Harry Potter. This can change. In my 20 years as a reference librarian and public library administrator, I've been deep in collection development wo...
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It's Not About Dewey By Francine Fialkoff, Editor-in-Chief, fialkoff@reedbusiness.com - 11/01/2009
More than a decade ago, when big box bookstores were sprouting up all over, we were inundated with articles telling us to run libraries more like bookstores, including one in LJ titled “B&N: The New College Bookstore” (LJ 2/1/98). Most of us took the advice in stride, incorporating what we thought was good from the bookstore model—comfy chairs, cafés, displays at chec...
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No Human Contact By John N. Berry III, Editor-at-Large, jberry@reedbusiness.com - 11/01/2009
Contacting the “leaders” of our profession, and all those who pose as leaders—the “big deals” of librarianship—gets more difficult and frustrating every time I try. The menu on most library phone systems is as long as the one at my doctor's office. The recorded voice goes on for half a minute, telling me what button to push for every option but the one I wan...
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Lousy Job Market, Great Career By Francine Fialkoff, Editor-in-Chief - 10/15/2009
Just half a year before June 2008 graduates flipped the tassels on their caps from one side to the other, the recession officially began. They walked out into a job market where, as one fall 2008 University of South Florida grad put it in a letter to LJ, "What does it take to get a public library job? I know the economy is bad and that budgets are tight.
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We Must All Serve the Disconnected By Mary Kelleher - 10/15/2009
Sometimes I envy my public library colleagues. Yes, those of us in academic libraries regularly get professional development funds, faculty status, considerable respect from the teaching faculty, and blessed quiet at 3:15 in the afternoon. But at public libraries, all patrons are considered equal—young or old, rich or poor, marginalized or member of the library board.
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CASE STUDY: Home Away from Home By Michael Rogers - 10/01/2009
“They're here already, and we're not even open yet,” Jackie Artoff said, checking her email. “Maybe we should just give her a key to the place and let her open up. We could all sleep another half hour,” replied Teri Mazur. Both women were on the morning shift at East Littell Library.
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Design Institute 2007 December 11, 2007 at Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center:Design Institute 2007
Learning Gardens New York's GreenBranches program links the library to the street.
Green Picks: LBD May 2007 Want to reduce your library's carbon footprint? Join the Cradle-to-Cradle revolution. Helen Milling shares the green products her firm is using.
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