Librarysoul

We are celebrating and shining a spotlight on Books as Tools, tools for innovators, with a series of the same name, and founded in on our belief that books aren't books. They’re incendiary tools for personal revolution and organizational change.

In ancient times, there were buildings in local communities that contain a collection of books that people could borrow for free. You may not realize it, but that tradition continues today, but they have a lot more than books.

Mortimer Adler explains the two types of inspectional reading: systematic skimming or pre-reading and superficial reading.

In Brief: Librarians make frequent reference to “the traditional library” yet there is no accepted definition of the term. Responding to a debate that began at the 2013 ACRL National Conference, the author presents the results of a literature survey that explores the rhetorical usage and meaning of the phrase. Results indicate that the “traditional library” is commonly defined as a physical space emphasizing physical collections, and is often invoked as a counterpoint to the “modern” or “digital” library. A discussion of the potential value of such rhetoric follows.

We all collect data in our work on libraries, but is it the right data to be able to tell the story of our library’s impact on people’s lives? When a member of Congress asks - "how has the library ...

Everybody loves a library. In politics at least, it is hard to find more than a handful of people with a word to say against them. But what libraries need now is deeds, not more words.

  There’s no committee that says, ‘This is the type of person who can change the world – and you can't.'  Realizing that anyone can do it is the first step. The next step is figuring out how you're going to do it"...

Jane Austen first editions & historic Canadian beer labels share the shelves at our very own shrine to the printed word

The Guardian has gotten a fair amount of ribbing on Twitter for opening a coffee shop in London, but the venture is just another element in the newspaper’s attempt to open up its journalism and engage more with its readers.

The future of the library in the digital age.

WITH Anthony Marx, president and CEO of the New York Public Library. Eli Neiburger, associate director of information technology and production at Ann Arbor District Library. (@ulotrichous)

The financial crisis has given mayor Bloomberg the opportunity to make cuts to libraries.

Some librarians like to disparage something they call the “traditional library.” The reasons vary depending on circumstances, and understanding the criticism is made more difficult because no one seems to agree on what a “traditional library” is, except that it exemplifies whatever the critical librarian doesn’t like about libraries or librarianship. I find this sort of rhetoric divisive and self-defeating, but that’s a topic for another column. Instead, I’ll provide a description of traditional libraries as I see them, and offer a brief encomium.

A Manchester library under threat of closure is to be taken over by a local high school.

This network is for librarians and others interested in Library 2.0.

This past week I had the chance to attend a day of the New Jersey Library Association Annual conference down in Atlantic City. In its own way, the location is somewhat apropos as a setting for a li...

Not just an excuse to rant about how awesome libraries are.

The British Library has undertaken an economic evaluation of its services to determine how it generates economic value for its users and the wider public.  It found that the economic value the Library delivers for society is £5 for every £1 invested.

Think back to the last time you visited your local library. Did you check out a new best-selling book? Borrow a DVD? Meet your study group? Look something. Joseph Janes, the Chair of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington and the Founding Director of the Internet Public Library join with David Votta, the Community Engagement Library at Midwest Collaborative for Library Services in interview.

At the recent meeting of our North American Customer Advisory Board we asked librarians what are some of the challenges they face that they would like help with, and this is what we learned.  You can vote for what you think is the number one challenge out of these.

Taksim Gezi Park is the Zuccotti Park of Istanbul. It has quickly become the nerve center for the protesters. In true Occupy-fashion a library has come together in less than a week to serve the faithful.

I am NOT saying blogging is finished! I’m saying a specific era is possibly coming to an end. And I still think blogging is, for information professionals, still extremely useful, very rewarding, and a great thing to do.

Recently Andy Woodworth blogged about how he wasn’t blogging that much any more, and today @tinamreynolds sparked a debate on Twitter about whether the library bloggging community was slowing down, and if so, why?