Describes how Nashville (Tennessee) mayor Phil Bredesen has enlisted sports fans to help champion a $100 million overhaul of the city's library system. Discusses Internet filtering and balancing printed materials and technology. Highlights politicians from Illinois, Washington, Georgia, Texas, Rhode Island, and California who have increased…

Branches in shopping malls help build community by attracting new patrons to the library. They help libraries offer exciting new venues with a retail-like approach and raise awareness of the work libraries are doing. In some cases, though not at Glendale, the library is more cost-effective owing to the smaller space used to serve patrons. These…

Librarians like to say their libraries are the heart of their communities, and in Cynthia Fuerst's case, it is a fact. For the Kankakee Public Library, this took long, hard effort by an inspired library director, the mayor, and a developer who wanted to revive business in an economically devastated downtown. When Fuerst became the library's…

Iowa State University's cost study proves academic librarians can keep cataloging in-house and save staff costs. Several factors play a role in the productivity surge at ISU: increasing use of shared cataloging; growth of online authoring files; expanding role of support staff; increasing automation of catalogers' work; and structural flattening…

Profiles Dorothy M. Schirtzinger, library director at the Lee County Library System (LCLS) in Fort Myers, Florida. Discusses her education and early jobs; mentors; the educational mission of the library; increases and developments in staff, branches, budget, and in-library and outreach programs; automation; federal funding; and future plans. (AEF)

Reports on Bill and Melinda Gates's tour of Alabama, the first state to be wired to the Internet by the nonprofit Gates Library Foundation, and the model for connecting 1000 more libraries this year. Mutual appreciation between Alabama librarians and the Gateses resulted. An interview with Bill Gates focuses on challenges libraries face in…

Describes recent changes in the District of Columbia Public Library. Highlights include the search and appointment of a new director; financial problems; past managerial problems; needed technology updates; the impact of municipal government problems; and a sidebar with a biography of the new director, Molly Raphael. (LRW)

In December 2006, the Missouri River Regional Library (MRRL) in Jefferson City, embarked on a journey. They had been watching the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County (PLCMC), NC, on its adventure through the wilds of Web 2.0, and they decided to follow the trail it had blazed. What PLCMC had done was pretty revolutionary. The library…

Discusses how librarians in the new role of "informationist" can help doctors and researches of medical information. Describes existing models of the informationist; potential benefits of working across professional boundaries outside the library; professional requirements; and unresolved issues for the new role, including potential…

Discusses chief factors that contributed to the rebirth of Chicago's central public library and its branch libraries: (1) a politically connected commissioner, (2) better funding, and (3) a central library. Highlights include a review of the library's administrative management styles, staff training techniques, past and current facilities,…

In addition to building a new facility and providing innovative services to its students/faculty/administration, the Valley Library of Oregon State University, winner of the Gale Group/Library Journal Library of the Year Award, has created partnerships with public libraries, the business community, school districts, and other academic…

Toni Garvey, director of the Phoenix Public Library (PPL) and LJ 2004 Librarian of the Year, has practiced her profession in a Western county jail, for the politicized board of a Southern public library, in the children's room of a university community, and through the up and down economics of a major American city. She has managed branches and…

Argues that bookstores are not superior and do not pose a threat to libraries. Discusses what libraries can learn from bookstores; where bookstores fall short; low wages of bookstore clerks; misshelving problems in bookstores due to the classification system; how the library classification system can be improved; and libraries' strengths. (AEF)

Focuses on possibilities for providing reference service to remote users of digital collections. Discusses international digital reference networks; factors that limit global electronic reference service; and drawbacks of e-mail and use of real-time interactive technologies for the reference encounter. Highlights some pioneering projects. (AEF)

Suggests that digital resources and telecommunications give librarians the best chance in decades to reexamine and achieve many of their fundamental goals. Discusses the goals of providing the right information in appropriate formats, keeping the intellectual record, providing personalized information services, and serving as educators, and cites…