May 19, 2013

Gallery: LibraryAware Community Award Winners Canton Public Library and Township (MI)

Eva Davis (Canton PL Director) and Board of Trustees with the big check

On Friday, May 10, Michigan’s Canton Township and the Canton Public Library were presented with the LibraryAware Community Award.

Send Me Your Library Cats | Editorial

mikekelley

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.

It Takes Two: Up Close with Librarians Margaux DelGuidice and Rose Luna

It Takes Two: Up Close with Librarians Margaux DelGuidice and Rose Luna

“[Our] library in Freeport is the heart of that community,” says 2013 Mover & Shaker Margaux DelGuidice, who shares duties with fellow honoree Rose Luna at the Freeport Memorial Library in Long Island, NY. These two powerhouses also hold full-time teacher librarian positions at two area high schools, and have devoted countless hours to professional advocacy. In our interview, they share their inspirations and passions, their best practices for constructive collaboration, and their goals for the future of libraries.

Dan Brown’s Dante: Positioned to Dominate Best Sellers

Dan Brown’s Dante: Positioned to Dominate Best Sellers

LJ reviewer Jeff Ayers on the king of the historical thriller, he’s back!

A Battle Joined: Gettysburg | May 15, 2013

A Battle Joined: Gettysburg | May 15, 2013

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, check out these recent titles.

Skip Prichard Named CEO and President of OCLC, Will Take Over July 1

Skip Prichard Named CEO and President of OCLC, Will Take Over July 1

Skip Prichard was named the next President and CEO of OCLC, effective July 1. (In the meantime, he will serve as President-elect, effective June 3.) Prichard will succeed Jay Jordan, who will retire June 30, after 15 years as OCLC President and CEO.

Prichard most recently served as President and CEO of Ingram Content Group, a position he left just shy of a year ago, saying he’d met the goals he came to achieve. Previously, he was President and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning, a position he vacated after the business was sold to Cambridge Information Group in 2007.

Q&A: Jay Bushman, Co-Creator of Welcome to Sanditon

Q&A: Jay Bushman, Creator of Welcome to Sanditon

In Jane Austen’s unfinished novel, Sanditon, a group of people set out to build their own town on the English seaside. Welcome to Sanditon is a modern, multiplatorm adaptation of the novel from the team behind the wildly popular Pride and Prejudice–based videoblog series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Jay Bushman was the transmedia producer and a writer for the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and is Welcome to Sanditon’s showrunner and creator.

What is Alleged Defamation Worth? $1 Billion, on a Librarian’s Salary

Here we go again. Another academic librarian received a letter threatening legal action over criticizing a publisher’s practices in a personal blog. But it’s not Edwin Mellen Press that’s the plaintiff this time; Jeffrey Beall, University of of Colorado, Denver librarian and author of the Scholarly Open Access blog, received the letter from OMICS Publishing Group, an OA publisher based in India (with an office in Los Angeles).

Because Life’s Too Short | Books for Dudes

Because Life’s Too Short | Books for Dudes

May is for manful titles, courage and resolution, old crime stories and new thrillers. Read Hobbs’s debut novel Ghostman, Kerr’s A Man Without Breath, Hillerman’s (1986) Skinwalkers, and more.

Making Room for Innovation

ATTRACTION ABOUNDS At top, the 4th Floor Maker space with its 3-D printing lab was a highlight of the night at the 2013 
Tennessee Library Association annual conference held in the library space; the Labrary storefront (bottom) likewise attracted passers-by into its experimental area to see how future library design might look. 
4th floor photo by Mary Barnett; Labrary photo courtesy of Jennifer Koerberber

Two library service prototyping spaces, in two very different places, have a remarkable amount in common. Nate Hill runs and operates the 4th Floor in Chattanooga, a large public library loft space operating as a flexible community makerspace and event space. Jeff Goldenson co-ran and operated Labrary, a 37-day design experiment occupying a vacant storefront in Cambridge.

Can Information Professionals Afford Apprenticeships? A Thought Experiment | Peer to Peer Review

I have a gift for picking despised professional niches. I used to run institutional repositories, and if there’s a niche in academic librarianship more despised than that, I’m honestly not sure what it might be. From the frying pan into the fire—now I teach library school. If nothing else, I’ve greatly expanded the universe of librarians and archivists who despise my work!

Graphic Novels Reviews | May 15, 2013

Graphic Novels Reviews | May 15, 2013

Reviews of Aya: Love in Yop City, Siegfried, and Agent Gates and the Secret Adventures of Devonton Abbey: A Parody, plus a full list of Graphic Novel titles from the May 15 issue.

Settlement Expands UC Berkeley Library Service to Disabled

Shelves of print books in UC Berkeley's Doe/Moffitt Library

Rarely are defendants in a dispute settled out of court enthusiastic about the remedies they’re required to supply. But Elizabeth Dupuis, UC Berkeley Associate University Librarian and Director, Doe/Moffitt Libraries, told LJ that the library is excited by the prospect of unprecedented access. But then, this isn’t exactly your standard adversarial legal case. Print-disabled U.C. Berkeley students David Jaulus, Brandon King, and Tabitha Mancini, represented by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), had entered into structured negotiations—a collaborative problem-solving alternative to litigation—with the university over their inability to access materials.

BEA For All: A Librarian’s Guide to BookExpo America 2013

ljx130502webBEA1a

To make the most of BEA, here are the offerings that are best for librarians—not all of them are particularly aimed at our profession, but eavesdropping on “the other side” can be illuminating. Though ebook questions feature heavily, we’re moving on from library availability concerns to debates surrounding secondhand ebooks, the effects on authors, and e-publishing of out-of-print titles.

The Downside of Being Universally Liked | Advocate’s Corner

Jason Kramer

Libraries have no natural predators. Believe me. Having worked in partisan politics and lobbied on contentious issues, I know what it means to have opponents. Since I started lobbying for libraries no one has called me names, hung up on me, or slammed a door in my face.