The majority of Americans think local libraries serve the educational needs of their communities and families pretty well and library users often outpace others in learning activities. But many do not know about key education services libraries provide. This report provides statistics on library usage and presents key education services provided…

Aligning with current difficult economic times, this book helps libraries assist users entering or already involved in the small business community. Authors Weiss, Serlis-McPhillips, and Malafi are public librarians who have incorporated small business services within their library. In their book they point the way to addressing the needs of job…

Purpose: The "advanced loans" module of the relatively new library software, ABCD, is an addition to the normal loans module and it offers a "generic transaction decision-making engine" functionality. The module requires extra installation effort and parameterisation, so this article aims to explain to the many potentially interested libraries,…

While libraries offer next generation public services such as mobile access and e-books, these services are often neither home-grown nor sustainable. Libraries have a history of lending and services built on a simple model: they purchase an item and then provide it to the community. Unfortunately, the latest generation of services offered by…

Advances in technology, changes in demographics, and the increasingly global nature of the economy indicate that many jobs lost during the recent global recession will not be returning. Regardless of their major field of study, college students would benefit greatly from becoming more entrepreneurial in their thinking, yet opportunities for…

In this essay, we embrace a vision of the future of academic libraries where librarians confront and creatively address the lack of racial and ethnic diversity within our profession and actively pursue a social justice agenda within our libraries and in the communities we serve. This future requires that we acknowledge that many of our current…

Proud Readers Own What's Learned (PROWL) was developed out of the need to find an engaging, creative process for readers to express what they have read and, frankly, to let teachers see that the students actually read the books. In other more prescriptive reading programs students can go through the motions and actually pass tests without having…

Rurality is rarely considered or oftentimes completely neglected in conversations about culturally relevant pedagogy. Yet, without a relevant curriculum, students both in and out of rural communities are left with dominant and deficiently positioned narratives about rural people. School librarians must provide counter and critical narratives for…

A significant number of distance students report they "stray" from their home universities by using local libraries, despite the fact that distance education librarians work hard to provide customized resources and services tailored to their programs and needs. Are public libraries and special libraries able to meet the research needs of…

Research has established a connection between print exposure and reading skills. The authors examined the impact of book access on print exposure via a monthly book distribution program. At 10 months of implementation, 170 families enrolled in the Imagination Library Program in Syracuse, New York responded to a survey. Results indicated that…

Culturally diverse older adult learners are among the fastest growing age groups for which public libraries promote the needs of lifelong learning today. This article explores the past, present, and future of informal and non-formal public learning environments as safe and welcoming, with supportive educational programming provided by librarians…

Several studies have researched the reasons and patterns for academic library users' interlibrary loan requests for materials already available at their college or university library. This study examines interlibrary loan statistics at the University of Delaware for four academic years to determine whether WorldCat Local impacts requests for…

In the author's small school district of about 1,450 students and over 150 staff members, she is considered a local expert on all things social media. She has a minor presence on many of the social-media platforms including Twitter, Blogger, Pinterest, and Edmodo, and more accounts that she can remember. Interacting daily with her personal…

Stanford University's (California) Julie Sweetkind-Singer is a recognized authority on digital preservation, and has been honored by the Library of Congress for her work in the field. She currently serves as both the assistant director of Stanford's Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data and Services and as head of the Branner Earth Sciences…

At the Verman Kimbrough Memorial Library at Ringling College of Art + Design, librarians are constantly striving to communicate the library's role as the center of research on campus as well as ensuring they are staying current with users' needs. While the visual components of library marketing and outreach used at the institution are paramount…