Pat Scales, a spokesperson for First Amendment issues, provides school librarians with guidance on: (1) how to handle questions from parents about books that employ offensive language; (2) selecting age-appropriate books for middle school libraries; (3) the difference between banning books and removing reevaluated books; and (4) whether books…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a bimonthly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) Diversity in Research Universities (Bernadette Gray-Little); (2) An…

Bookbabies, an initiative from the Flemish Reading Association and the Flemish Centre for Public Libraries, is a pilot project organised in 10 Flemish cities where local public libraries worked together with 82 couples with young babies for two years to set up a programme called "having fun with books". The objectives of the research…

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…

Today, the world is looking for people with innovative spirits, who seek and take on new challenges, develop rich thinking processes, and visualize unique possibilities. There is a need for individuals with flexible critical and creative thinking throughout all vocations and professions. There is a need for people who are geared toward…

Graphic novels are the perfect meeting place of words and pictures and as such offer an excellent way of getting visually-oriented students to read. Teacher-librarians picked up on this a long time ago and have been adding graphic novels to their collection in ever increasing numbers. In this article, the author discusses how teachers and…

"Academe"'s readers know the importance of academic freedom and the history of the (American Association of University Professors) AAUP's defense and promotion of academic freedom for faculty. Librarians have an analogous set of interlocking policies concerning their ethics and related issues. The author has always been proud that the American…

Dispositions make up the affective side of the library media profession. They work in concert with the content, skills, and knowledge base used to meet the needs of students and faculty. At first the author had difficulty with the term :dispositions" when it appeared in "AASL's Standards for the 21st-Century Learner". Through further analysis she…

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…

This article discusses three strategies for building a data center or service. These strategies are: (1) "audit" a way to alliances; (2) "share" oversight but "own" the warehouse; and (3) join new professional "cultures." These strategies have more to do with people and organizations than technology since technology mirrors and amplifies what…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate various issues related to Chinese language localisation in Evergreen, an open source integrated library system (ILS). Design/methodology/approach: A Simplified Chinese version of Evergreen was implemented and tested and various issues such as encoding, indexing, searching, and sorting…

This article explores the geography of virtual questioning by using geographic information systems to study activity within the Florida Electronic Library "Ask a Librarian" collaborative chat service. Researchers mapped participating libraries throughout the state of Florida that served as virtual "entry portals" for users as…

This article presents an insider's guide to navigating the American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference in Chicago on July 9-15. As for the extracurricular activities, Chicago has a lot to offer. This article provides tips from the arts and entertainment bible "Time Out Chicago" on where to go and what to do (on a limited…

Duane Webster oversaw the Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) Statistics and Measurement Program as it evolved into the Statistics and Assessment Program. During his 20-year tenure as ARL's executive director, Duane was instrumental in the creation of ARL's Web-based Interactive Statistics and played a leadership role in the development of a…

This article uses Wellington City Libraries as the basis for a case study of a future-focused, reorganized staffing structure in a public library network. It covers the change from why, how, departure from a building-based hierarchical structure, new staff and line responsibilities, union involvement, implications for staff training to culture and…