American Library Association Journals
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Best of the Best Business Web Resources 2024
No full textThe BRASS Best of the Best Business Reference Web Resources Award was established in 2009. The award recognizes three websites highly relevant to information professionals involved in providing business reference services. The websites are nominated and selected by the BRASS Education Committee members in early 2024. The criteria include the quality of content, ease of use, and technical execution.This year we recognize resources that provide free access to collective bargaining resources, datasets, and country profiles that are useful to business librarians, students, and researchers. Reviews are written by members of the BRASS education committee
Opening Up: A Global Context for Local Open Access Initiatives in Higher Education
No full textOpen access policies and mandates can be a useful tool in persuading faculty at higher education institutions around the globe to produce and share open scholarship. But are such policies widely written, accepted, and adopted? Leveraging information found on the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies, this paper analyzes open access policies at higher education institutions worldwide. The data indicate that Europe holds the most policies, while fewer policies have been enacted in the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and Asia due to a myriad of barriers. Overall, better strategies to promote open access are needed, and such strategies may not necessarily take the form of an open access policy. My own investigation of global open access policies has informed my practices with respect to open access. In this paper, I demonstrate how librarians acting as policy entrepreneurs can assist with the promotion of open access at their institutions and then conclude with suggestions, solutions, and pathways beyond policy adoption to promote and advocate for open access
Book Review: Copyright: Best Practices for Academic Libraries
No full textThe heart of US copyright law is composed of two principles: the right to decide if a copy, and what kind of copy, may be made of a work and the right of first sale, which limits how much control a creator has over their work once it changes ownership. The Constitution gave Congress the power to pass laws regarding copyright and other types of intellectual property (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). Together these rules, along with an exception built into the law in 1976, form the foundation of the modern American library
Known Item Search and Subject Search
No full textThe traditional distinction between known item search and subject search is analyzed drawing on Robert Pagès’ distinction between particulars and specimens, the distinction between objects and their properties, Robert Fugmann’s distinction between individual concepts and general concepts, and the difference between referring and describing. The resulting analysis coincides with E. J. Lowe’s four-category ontology
Breaking the Mold of Promotion and Tenure Polices that De-Incentivize Open Access Publishing: A Case Study of an LIS Faculty
No full textFor almost thirty years, academic librarians have encouraged their faculty peers and patrons to publish in open access (OA) journals and other venues. Despite these efforts, one of the most difficult barriers to OA still exists: academic faculty at US higher education institutions lack strong incentives to publish in OA venues. This article describes one library school’s adoption of a faculty promotion and tenure policy—with evaluative criteria—that strongly and clearly supports OA publishing. The author concludes with recommendations for further research on how academic rewards systems can better incentivize OA publishing, as well as how to effectively develop and implement such policies
Book Review: Virtual Technical Services: A Handbook
No full textIf you are looking for a book that practically promotes and elegantly advocates for library technical services employees undertaking remote or hybrid work into the future, look no further. Reading Mary Beth Weber and Melissa De Fino’s Virtual Technical Services: A Handbook brings up a lot of memories and emotions from working as a technical services librarian employed throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and at the epicenter of the 2020 uprisings. However, the scope of the book is much broader than that, touching on past crises (e.g., Hurricane Sandy, 9/11) and preparing for future crises
Book Review: Making the Most of Your ILS: A User’s Guide to Evaluating and Optimizing Library Systems
No full textThe integrated library system (ILS) is the backbone of the modern library. It maintains and manages the collection’s inventory and facilitates discovery and lending of materials. With time, even well designed and configured systems can develop pain points that frustrate both the workers and patrons using these programs. Libraries may not be able to consider a new solution like a newer library services platform (LSP), so an ILS needs to be analyzed over time to ensure that it continues to perform in a reliable and efficient manner
Intention and the Unexpected: Manifesting the Storytelling Librarian’s Goals
No full textTelling stories to children requires planning and creativity. With thorough plans and tools, the storyteller librarian intends to benefit children.However, what often occurs during storytime is ultimately not in the librarian’s control. One can hope storytime goes well, but transforming that hope into a manifested outcome begins with intention. Intention is a means of activating our will and creativity to do what is necessary to accomplish goals. Setting intentions for dealing with the unexpected includes what we desire to happen. This helps create a type of container for storytime that includes skills, tools, and desires.Here I’ll explain how to work with intention in ways that benefit the storyteller librarian, referred to in this article as storyteller
Leading with Intent: Museums and Libraries and Collaboration, Oh My!
No full textMore than two hundred children’s museums in the United States support interactive learning opportunities for young children. In contrast, there are more than 17,400 public libraries, including central, branch, and mobile libraries.However, some families do not benefit from these anchor institutions. Five main factors were found to impact individual use of public libraries alternatives, awareness, and understanding of universally free libraries or understanding them as only providing books, access hours operation, location and transportation, experience or not feeling comfortable, or previous bad experiences and interest
