Librarians are the ultimate information workers, with little they can count as done at the end of the day. Staying productive and motivated when there are no finished items that you have created at day's end can be difficult. For just this reason, David Allen, author and productivity expert, has proposed an information-worker-centric theory of…

Reference librarians are constantly balancing their reference duties against other duties, for example, collection development and departmental liaison. The author works as a reference librarian at Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries in Commerce, Texas. The university has approximately 11,000 students, a large number of whom are…

This article presents the story of how Pepperdine University migrated its library management functions to the cloud using what is now known as OCLC's WorldShare Management Services (WMS). The story of implementing this new service is told from two vantage points: (1) that of the library; and (2) that of the service provider. The authors were the…

It is no secret that library budgets are in a downward spiral like the rest of the economy. The recent annual budget survey by the "Library Journal" indicates that per capita funding for libraries will decline 1.6%, and total library budgets will be reduced by 2.6% in FY 2010. Librarians are all too familiar with this bad news, and some of them…

"Embracing the chaos" is an ongoing challenge for librarians. Embracing the chaos means librarians must have a plan for responding to the flood of new products, widgets, web tools, and gizmos that students use daily. In this article, the author argues that library instruction and access services have been grappling with that chaos with…

The rumored death of librarianship caused by the advent of technology has not, and will not, come to pass. In this article, the author describes how technology has exponentially increased the librarian's ability to provide library service at the Calcasieu Parish Public Library, where she serves as head of Collection & Computing Services. The…

Library blogs exchange information and ideas on everything from the everyday, such as library services, to the profound, such as values held by librarians (high-quality reliable resources, academic freedom, open access, and so on). According to medical librarians who maintain library blogs, a typical month includes two to four contributors writing…

It seems that the demand for public access computers grows exponentially every time a library network is expanded, making it impossible to ever have enough computers available for patrons. One solution that many libraries are implementing to ease the demand for public computer use is to offer wireless technology that allows patrons to bring in…

Provides advice for systems librarians facing the question of when to provide CD-ROM access and when to provide online access to databases for their patrons. Discusses price, updates, effective resource utilization, and determining users' needs. (AEF)

Discusses the importance of library systems administrators addressing the Year 2000 problem in their libraries. Reviews Web-based resources that deal with understanding the problem, offer vendor statements about their products, and discuss how some libraries are preparing for the Year 2000 problem. (AEF)