Small and midsize institutions have proven the success of a blended library/IT organization, a hybrid model in which both librarians and IT professionals report to the same senior leader. What hasn't been proven is how well such a blend works for larger universities. There the challenge has become part of the larger institutional budget debate:…

While the National Library of Medicine created the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) as a network to provide medical and health information, historically few nonmedical academic libraries have participated. University medical libraries and hospital libraries have been the major focus of the Network. Recently, the NNLM has…

Fewer employees, shorter hours, diminished collection budgets, reduced programs and services--all at a time of record library usage. In this book, library expert Carol Smallwood demonstrates that despite the obvious downsides, the necessity of doing business differently can be positive, leading to partnering, sharing, and innovating. This…

Innovations from Google[TM] and Amazon[R] are clear wake-up calls that as a profession and an industry things need to be done differently. Automation vendors and librarians must work together to ensure that the profession is positioned to take advantage of changing culture and technology to assume a rightful place at the table where rich and…

In recent years, many higher education institutions, from liberal arts colleges to major research universities, have integrated their information technology (IT) and library organizations. Still more institutions are actively exploring the possibility of doing so. Their reasons for combining the separate organizations range from positioning the…

In 1990, the Louisiana Board of Regents commissioned a task force on libraries to develop a plan for greater cooperation and resource sharing among the state's academic libraries. The mission was hampered by the sparsity of automated facilities and the failure to secure state funding for public library automation, but by 1992 the task force had…

Based on fiscal year 1986 annual reports from 48 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, this report describes interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing activities supported by the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA), Title III, funds. In response to the 1984 amendment to Title III (which required each state to include in…

Building joint-use libraries to foster new types of learning and collaboration is a growing phenomenon that is of great interest to academic library planners around the world. Noteworthy among these efforts, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in San Jose, California, is a collaboration of a metropolitan university library and a major public…

Describes one library's use of technological innovation to provide Associated Press updates over the library's 24-hour dial-up service during the Persian Gulf War. Suggests five rules for innovation: (1) develop a shared vision; (2) foster frequent, formal, and informal communication; (3) empower employees; (4) take limited risks; and (5) use, but…

This discussion of effective communication for leaders in the field of librarianship begins by providing a historical overview which highlights the librarian's influential role from the earliest days of recorded language; the evolution and modification of words in individual languages from crude forms to their electronic storage and transmission;…

This collection of 12 papers commemorates the retirement of Bernhard Adams. Adams had a 30-year career at the Bochum University Library (Germany) and advocated innovation and automation in libraries. The papers are: (1) "Gemeinsame Wegstrecken: Bernhard Adams zur Ehre" ("Common Milestones: In Honor of Bernhard Adams") (Harro…

This book presents the following papers on library organizational and management issues: (1) "Knowledge Management: An Essential Framework for Corporate Library Leadership" (Deanna J. Streng); (2) "Critical Factors for Collaboration in an Academic Library Setting" (Charlotte M. Knoche); (3) "Salaries of Academic Librarians…