Cats are frequently a part of the library landscape. Just as they find a nook in shops, cats find a shelf at many libraries and add their feline charm to the service.
Editorial
Can We Talk About the MLS? | Editorial
By on April 29, 2013 157 Comments
Can we have a rational discussion about the MLS? Why is the MLS indispensable? What does it confer that could not be accumulated incrementally on the job just as well? Most important, can’t we have a fraternal, respected, and smart profession without overreliance on an expensive and unnecessarily exclusionary credential?
Discovering Reciprocity | Editorial
By on April 16, 2013 Leave a Comment
The content that a library owns or subscribes to should be discoverable in the way librarians want. However, this is not always the case when it comes to web-scale discovery systems.
Kudos for Print Archiving | Editorial
By on April 4, 2013 Leave a Comment
Collaboration among libraries has been a grand tradition, but the need to collaborate has, perhaps, never been more pressing than now.
The lack of available space, budget cuts, uneven usage, and availability of electronic resources and new technologies help give impetus to large-scale efforts, but there is a layer of collaboration that is less provocative and does not always receive the spotlight but which, nevertheless, is driven even more so by these factors and is just as integral to the future of libraries.
Sounds of Copyright Reform | Editorial
By on March 22, 2013 Leave a Comment
This country’s fascinating and invaluable patrimony of recorded sound and culture is at risk. Libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies have approximately 46 million recordings in their collections and more than six million are “in need” or “in urgent need” of preservation, according to the National Recording Preservation Plan released by the Library of Congress (LC) in December. The condition of another 20 million of the recordings is unknown, and these numbers do not include important material in private hands.
Diversity Never Happens: The Story of Minority Hiring Doesn’t Seem To Change Much | Editorial
By on February 20, 2013 18 Comments
African Americans and Hispanics are some of the strongest supporters of libraries, and yet they continue to be thinly represented among the ranks of librarians. It’s a familiar story and always a bad trade-off that hurts the profession and, more important, hurts our society.
Don’t Judge a Book by Its Dust | Editorial
By on February 5, 2013 4 Comments
When it comes to weeding decisions, how do libraries account for such odd sensations? Such an accounting may be an impossibility, an overly sentimental task, a romantic fetish for the codex, and yet old, physical volumes can become imbued with a moral, if not practical, quality that explains in part the deep allegiance that many private individuals feel for their local library.
No Guns in the Library: Curbing the Second Amendment in the Stacks | Editorial
By on January 9, 2013 29 Comments
The morally purblind pro-gun lobbyists have been so successful in saturating our society with firearms—from national parks to Amtrak trains—that public libraries across the country are also finding themselves having to grapple with Second Amendment radicals.
Three Cheers for Multnomah | Editorial
By on December 10, 2012 1 Comment
The most significant election news on November 6 happened in Multnomah County, Portland, OR. After a nearly 30-year struggle, the voters in Multnomah County decided by an overwhelming margin to create a permanent library district starting July 1, 2013.
I know library budget news can sometimes make eyes glaze; it often seems like the same story in a different place with different (shrinking) numbers.
OverDrive & Big (Private) Data | Editorial
Who owns library and patron user data? Libraries think they do but will that matter in an increasingly competitive landscape where data is very valuable?