More than eight in ten Americans between the ages of 16 and 29 read a book in the past year, and six in ten used their local public library. At the youngest end of the spectrum, high schoolers in their late teens (ages 16-17) and college-aged young adults (ages 18-24) are especially likely to have read a book or used the library in the past 12…

In this column, the author discusses how the management of e-books has introduced, at many libraries and in varying degrees, the challenges of maintaining effective technical services workflows. Four different e-book workflows are identified and explored, and the author takes a closer look at how particular variables for each are affected, such as…

The informatics moment is the moment when a person seeks help in using some digital technology that is new to him or her. This article examines the informatics moment in people's everyday lives as they sought help at a branch public library. Four types of literacy were involved: basic literacy (reading and writing), computer literacy (use of a…

The Excelsior College Library is turning fearful faculty members into empowered copyright role models. Geared towards institutions operating without a copyright policy or department, this article outlines a three-step process for fostering faculty collaboration surrounding copyright practices: (1) Give faculty and course developers the tools and…

Sixteen scholarly papers and twenty abstracts comprise the content of the eighteenth annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the conference, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship.…

This paper features the winners of this year's National Medals for Museum and Library Service, the nation's highest honor for libraries and museums. The award celebrates libraries and museums that make a difference for individuals, families, and communities. Medal winners are selected from nationwide nominations for institutions that demonstrate…

This paper defines and classifies vulnerable groups, elaborates the necessity of information literacy education of vulnerable groups, analyzes the feasibility for the library to carry out the education, and then discusses specific measures taken by the library to fulfill it.

As librarians work to make their services more user-centered, to put forward their best and most approachable faces in order to meet user needs, they are still met with students who approach them hesitantly and apologize for asking them questions, and by students who are obviously intimidated by the libraries in which they work. A good part of…

There is no doubt that the "Going Green" movement is in full swing. With global warming and other ecological concerns, people are paying closer attention to environmental issues and striving to live in a more sustainable world. For libraries, this is a perfect opportunity to be active in a campus-wide program and simultaneously promote library…

Midwestern gardeners are legendary for enduring and outwitting winter, with its heavy snowpack and recurring freezes and thaws. Most of them also reckon with a relatively short growing period. All of them find their horticultural plans complicated by hot, humid summers. In fact, the Midwest deals with four seasons dictating special considerations…

It's been over a year since Blu-ray defeated HD-DVD in the battle of high-definition discs. Despite the economic crunch, Blu-ray is continuing to gain momentum in the consumer and library markets. It is seeing broader adoption owing to several factors. According to an April 2009 Harris Interactive poll, 12 percent of public libraries and 11…

Women who promoted library services to children in the United States in the late nineteenth century introduced the systematic use of survey research on library practice to the field of professional librarianship. They created a series of qualitative survey-based reports, the "Reading of the Young" reports, which were presented at ALA conferences…

ERMes, the latest version of electronic resource management system (ERM), is a relational database; content in different tables connects to, and works with, content in other tables. ERMes requires Access 2007 (Windows) or Access 2008 (Mac) to operate as the database utilizes functionality not available in previous versions of Microsoft Access. The…

When American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) "Standards for the 21st Century Learner" were released in late 2007, librarians rushed to incorporate them in curricula at the local and state level and in existing lessons. After an initial frenzy of simply replacing old learning objectives with new ones, the field settled into the task of…

In "Fool's Gold: Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library," Mark Herring paints a fairly grim picture of the future of libraries. Basically, he posits that a confluence of events and attitudes have come together to bring about the demise (unless something is done, and soon) of the library as people know it. First, people mistakenly believe…