In her biography about her horticulturalist father, Jonathan Baldwin Turner, Mary Turner Carriel wrote the following of Turner's quest to fence prairies; words that may also serve as an allegory for present-day libraries: What he could have done to tempt the pioneer from his home in the East to settle upon the fertile lands in the West. The first…

In these difficult economic times, everyone is on the lookout for savings. This author, an adult services librarian at New City Library in New York, has spent the last two years implementing small-scale open source and freeware replacements where proprietary or paper solutions once ruled. While none of these projects is individually revolutionary,…

When staff at the Wisconsin State Law Library began compiling a wish list for a new website, the topic of a new domain name came up almost immediately. Their old website was located at http://wsll.state.wi.us. Spelling that relatively complex domain over the phone day after day provided the impetus to explore other options. Whatever domain name…

A halo of signs, some stuffed into thick plastic sheaths while others curled under yellow tape, cluttered the service desks of the New City Library. They bleated out messages of closings, procedures, and warnings. Their number undermined their cause. All too often a customer would ask a question that was answered by the very sign they had pushed…

The digital era has revolutionized society's perception of space. Even so, against this backdrop, the struggle to preserve and enhance library space is a battle for the hearts and minds of the communities. It is ongoing, and it will never end. In this article, the author explores two characteristics of successful drives to revitalize physical…

With information technologies' pervasive use within all departments and by all staff, libraries and library staff get their fair share of mandated projects. Knowing how to successfully operate in this kind of environment is important to the overall success of the library as a whole. What is meant by mandated project? A mandated project is a…

Since SC LENDS started operating in June 2009, more public libraries have come on board. All of this on the back end connects to a Mozilla-based staff client that has distributions for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, using SSL encryption to keep communications secure and private between remote libraries and the servers hosted at a high-end…

Today's academic libraries must demonstrate their value to cost-conscious university administrators. Budget trade-off decisions that involve the library can be difficult for any university administrator to make, and such decisions are complicated by the recent appearance of massive global digital libraries that seem poised to replace the…

Cumberland University (CU), where the author serves as a library technical assistant, is a small, private liberal arts college located in Lebanon, Tennessee, about 30 miles east of Nashville. CU was the first college in Tennessee to have campuswide wireless internet access, and organizations such as the Alumni Association have a strong presence in…

Technology has ushered itself into our culture without borders or boundaries. Students and educators have fallen victim to the notion of "information at your fingertips" and "easy access" while taking many things for granted. In the past few years, there have been several articles written about the use of textbooks in the academic library. Most of…

The University of Minnesota-Duluth is the second largest campus in the University of Minnesota system. The UMD library, which serves more than 11,000 students and 500 faculty members, is primarily an undergraduate library. The reference team consists of eight librarians, including author Sunshine Carter, reference and electronics resources…

The global economic crisis of the past 2 years has brought harsh circumstances to most libraries, calling into question many of the ways that librarians allocate resources. Lean budgets force libraries to devise strategies that make the very most of the resources available. Many libraries face the reality of doing more with less, often much less.…

The rapidly evolving digital world inspires much use of nautical terminology: (1) navigation; (2) discovery; (3) the voyage; and (4) the new terrain at the end of the journey. Considering how quickly new technologies are arriving on smartphones, the nautical adventure is continuing at an increased pace. Innovations in basic library services follow…

It's an obvious observation that librarians today find themselves dealing with collections of ever larger proportions of electronic content. The degree to which that shift has already taken place varies from one type of library to another. Some organizations, especially those involved with specializations in biomedical, scientific, or business,…