The rise of technology gives individuals new options when it comes to viewing and managing their collection of reading materials. Where there used to be wooden bookshelves filled to the brim with bound volumes of paper, there now sits a small, handheld, battery-powered device that, when one thinks about it, does so much more than simply show one…

For nearly a decade now, librarians have discussed and deliberated ways, for the sake of convenience, to integrate internet-like searching into their own catalogs to mimic what academic library patrons have been using outside the library. Discovery tools and web-scale discovery services (WSDS) attempt to provide users with a similar one-stop shop…

There is a growing shift to digital offerings among public libraries. Libraries increasingly are fulfilling roles as technology hubs for their communities, with high demand for technology and career development training resources. Ebooks and other digital materials are on the rise, while print is being scaled back. More libraries are turning to…

Selection for digitization is about more than which items to scan. Selection is what shapes the online collections that are built by libraries, archives, historical societies, and other cultural heritage institutions. By selecting well, institutions can concentrate on the parts of their collections that are best suited to digitization, that make…

Recent years have seen an explosion of the number of institutions involved in or beginning to think about web archiving. Many National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) members, as well as other universities, historical societies, and state and local governments, have recognized the need for and importance of preserving a variety of web content…

Several years ago, National Public Radio (NPR) librarians began developing a new content management system (CMS). It was intended to offer desktop access for all NPR-produced content, including transcripts, audio, and metadata. Fast-forward to 2011, and their shiny, new database, Artemis, was ready for debut. Their next challenge: to teach a staff…

Within academic library collections, electronic journals are a mainstay. Ebooks, on the other hand, have established themselves as a viable alternative to the print book more slowly. The growing acceptance and prevalence of ebooks cannot be ignored. As libraries continue to build their collections, ebooks play an increasingly larger role in…

Selecting the most appropriate content for a community is a challenge librarians have faced since the dawn of libraries. Formal patron-driven acquisition (PDA) models have been around for at least a decade. These models attempt to collect materials based on known patron demand. Some libraries simply use a suggestion form, while others use…

The Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) had a legacy website that was remotely hosted and maintained by a volunteer. They wanted a more significant presence on PPLD.org and an easier interface with which to update information. The developers decided to create a new Friends site in Drupal, using RWD, CSS3, and HTML5. The plan was to…

There has been a noticeable divide the past few years within the library world regarding electronic books. Many academic libraries have been purchasing or leasing web-based academic ebooks for years. Most public libraries on the other hand (thanks in large part to services such as OverDrive) have directed their attention toward downloadable…

Social media now offer a fresh opportunity to enliven the learning process. But to gain traction, they will have to prove their relevance. Librarians are quite vocal in advocating for the preservation of human interaction around digital media; one might say that it is their charge to be certain that the human factors within digital libraries are…

Today data is everywhere. Businesses, governments, universities, scientists, and individuals are creating it at an unprecedented level and pace. Everybody is talking about it. We were just getting used to the concept of gigabytes of data. Then, it changed to petabytes. Now, various technology firms claim that more than an exabyte of data is…

Technology has transformed libraries. There are digital libraries, electronic collections, online databases and catalogs, ebooks, downloadable books, and much more. With free technology such as social websites, newspaper collections, downloadable online calendars, clocks and sticky notes, online scheduling, online document sharing, and online…

Clinton Community College (CCC) is a small campus serving a rural community just outside the city of Plattsburgh in upstate New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. The Leroy M. Douglas Sr. Library (Douglas Library) is located in the George Moore Academic and Administrative Building (Moore Building). Prior to…

In this article, the author discusses how the Berklee College of Music preserves its past and learns for the future. Though the library has received support from the college administration for the creation of an archive, it has been difficult for the interest in preserving the college's history to compete with more urgent needs, such as being able…