In an age of experimentation, library users from Cerritos, California, to Salt Lake City to Seattle are experiencing public libraries the likes of which they have never before seen. While the 1990s may be remembered as the era of the anchor facility, when libraries were called upon to define and support a community's renaissance, this decade's…

Few public buildings, and no libraries, have ever received the sort of acclaim that Seattle's central library garnered even before it opened in May 2004. "The Seattle building is thrilling from top to bottom," wrote Paul Goldberger in "The New Yorker." Herbert Muschamp, in the "New York Times," agreed: "In more…

Some faculty and administrators naively believe that undergraduates come to campus as information literate individuals since these students know how to use computers and the Internet. Yet, as librarians, they know that there is more to IL than surfing search engines, IMing, and word processing. So marketing IL becomes a very important task. This…

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) brings together experts from around the country and around the world and asks them to turn their intelligence to the problems that libraries, archives, and information organizations face as they integrate digital resources and services into their well established print-based environments. In…

In 2000, Stately grants, earmarked to cover 50% of operational costs and purchases of mobile libraries in Norway, were proposed to be canceled. An intense lobby resulted in a transfer of operational costs to block grants. Grants toward the purchase of mobile libraries in Norway no longer exist. This paper discusses whether it is possible during…

This paper discusses library development in the changing environment arising within the forthcoming Information/Knowledge Society. The role of the library as a social institution is examined in the context of the evolution of the whole literary and knowledge system. Ideas about conceptual changes to be introduced by the library in order to respond…

Discusses four competing public images of the public library and its relation to information technology, as identified in recent research: the traditional library, the resisting library, the adapting library, and the co-opted library. Suggests that the public perceives the management of public information as a complex problem requiring a variety…

The previous head of the Central Library of Riverside City and County Public Library (RCCPL) (California) examines the economic failure of the system and the effects of the move to total outsourcing to a private commercial firm, Library Systems & Services (LSSI). Concludes that RCCPL had problems long before it was outsourced to LSSI. (AEF)

Discusses the trade union library system in China that has fallen on hard times amid economic and social changes of the past 20 years. Focuses on a history of the trade union library movement; services provided by trade union libraries; problems faced by union libraries; and reform of trade union libraries. (AEF)

Approval plans are used by many libraries as an adjunct to title-by-title selection, and sometimes as a substitute for it. The author examines this approach to purchasing library materials, considering positive and negative effects approval plans may have on collection balance as well as on acquisitions budgets and workflow. The article also…

At the University of Maryland, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from information studies, computer science, education, art, and psychology worked with seven children (ages seven to eleven) to design a new digital library for children. This partnership led to new approaches for collection development, cataloging (metadata standards), and…

Twenty-six scholarly papers and ten abstracts comprise the content of the thirteenth annual Brick and Click Libraries Symposium, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship. The…

Twenty-one scholarly papers and fifteen abstracts comprise the content of the tenth annual Brick and Click Libraries Symposium, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The peer-reviewed proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of…

The purpose of traditional copyright law was to encourage the creation of works based on and to ensure reasonable access to original thought. Despite this harmonious intent, an intrinsic tension exists between libraries and copyright holders, as the former promotes "free" access to information that ultimately reduces the income of the…

Personal Digital Assistant serials are not just a subset of electronic serials from an acquisitions/collection development point of view because of their total dependence on patron-owned technology. Even if viewed as a "free" resource there are issues of expense and effort involved in gathering, classifying, and providing access and awareness of…