American Library Association Journals
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“Stepping on Eggshells” and Dodging that “Can of Worms”: Discussions of Drama Illuminate Selection Practices of North Carolina School Librarians
No full textResearchers conducted in-depth interviews with three elementary and two middle school librarians in North Carolina about their perception of and experiences with Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel Drama, including whether or not they had decided to add this popular but controversial novel to their collections. Drama, appropriate for children ages ten and up, tells the story of a group of friends putting on a school play while navigating the world of friendships and romantic crushes. The friends discuss sexual orientation, and the novel includes a scene in which two boys share a brief kiss on stage in the production. Because of this LGBTQIA+ content, the novel has become a favorite target of censors, with many libraries reporting complaints and challenges to the content of this volume. As librarians discussed their experiences with Drama, researchers discovered that, to some degree, each of the interviewees attempted to create “safe” collections, though what was meant was different in each case. These efforts can be partly attributed to the pervasive narratives of anxiety and loss that they associate with the procurement of potentially controversial items
U.S. National and Interstate Bicycle Routes
No full textThe Oregon Coast Bicycle Route is an internationally celebrated route, with between 6,000 and 10,000 riders per year, but it is not recognized within the national U.S. Bicycle Route System (USBRS). The USBRS is not a government program but rather a collaborative project of state and local officials and nongovernmental organizations. Federal action on interstate bicycle routes has been largely symbolic and intellectual, while state jurisdictions continue to undertake most of the work of building and implementing bike routes and bikeways. Most of the federal government’s published information on national bicycle routes is directed toward local and state governments, not addressed to the general public
Stop the Presses! Let’s Begin Conversion to the New Depository Library System
No full textBy 1997, the last working photo-offset printing press owned by the Government Printing Office will be dismantled for shipment to the Smithsonian Institute. The presses will be sold one by one over the years because less and less government information will be published in printed form. The specialized printing jobs still remaining will be contracted out
Chapter 1. Introduction to Bibliometrics and Current Data Sources
No full textThe term bibliometrics is widely attributed to Alan Pritchard from his 1969 paper titled “Statistical Bibliography or Bibliometrics” (Andrés 2009; Gingras 2016; Pritchard 1969). However, before the term was coined, bibliometrics was already emerging as a viable scientific discipline in the 1960s, in large part due to the foundation of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) led by Eugene Garfield and the subsequent development of the Science Citation Index (SCI; Mokhnacheva and Tsvetkova 2020). The intention in creating the SCI was to “eliminate the uncritical citation of fraudulent, incomplete, or obsolete data by making [scholars] aware of criticisms of earlier papers” (Garfield 1955). Later, the ISI recognized the power of the data available in the SCI for creating networks among journals and their citations and developed what is now the widely used (and disputed) Journal Impact Factor (JIF), the average citations per publication. The JIF rose in popularity at Garfield’s suggestion that it would be helpful to librarians for managing library collections. However, less discussed in the literature are Garfield’s other suggested applications, which include use by individual researchers for selecting reading lists, by editors for evaluating journal performance, and in the study of science policy and research evaluation (Garfield 1972). Although there have been mounting critiques on the limitations of the JIF, many of these described applications remain core to bibliometrics more broadly, even though the JIF may not be the metric of choice
Chapter 4. Assembling a Patron Engagement Ecosystem
No full textChapter 4 of Library Technology Reports (vol. 58, no. 2), “Assembling a Patron Engagement Ecosystem,” looks at the current offering of patron engagement products available to libraries, including the features of the products and interoperability scenarios and provides information about which integrated library systems are supported
Book Review: The Library Liaison’s Guide to Collection Management
No full textWith The Library Liaison’s Training Guide to Collection Management, Armstrong and Dinkle have created a thorough and thoughtful guide for library liaisons. Since much of this kind of work is specific to local institutions—which the authors keep in mind throughout the book—creating such a guide is no small feat
Chapter 2. Companies and Products
No full textChapter 2 of Library Technology Reports (vol. 58, no. 1), “Companies and Products,” provides an overview of library engagement platforms currently available. Each software platform is introduced, target customers are described, and service and tool offerings are shared
Chapter 6. Access Workflow
No full textChapter 6 of Library Technology Reports (vol. 57, no. 4), “Creating Adaptable Digital Preservation Workflows,” focuses on how to provide digital materials to users whether those materials are processed or unprocessed. The workflow includes multiple pathways for mediated and unmediated access to materials and reminds archivists that some users require specialized accessibility technology to access materials and that fact should be factored into access mechanisms
Chapter 1. Why Is Video Accessibility Important?
No full textChapter 1, “Why Is Video Accessibility Important?” of Library Technology Reports (vol. 57, no. 3) explains how the prevalence of video content on the internet and the ways in which libraries use video content make it important that videos be made accessible for all users. It also offers background on who has a need for accessible videos
Chapter 6. Conclusion
No full textManaging IT in a library crisis means managing the crisis. Be flexible—in approach, with staff, and with yourself. Understand going in that you aren’t going to be able to cover every base and no one expects you to. If you’re an IT manager you have a whole team that you’re leading. If you have been as fortunate in your career as I have been, that means that you have a team of colleagues with great skills and great ideas. They’ll be relying on you to make difficult decisions (and take responsibility for them), keep organizational communication active (both vertically and laterally), and coordinate their efforts, as well as enacting ideas of your own. The organization will be relying on you to project confidence, make yourself as available as possible, and react in an agile fashion as conditions change