Employees are valuable. The cost of hiring, training, and retaining staff--not just librarians, but all staff--generally makes up the largest part of a library's budget. Since library support staff usually comprise 60-80 percent of the work force, it makes perfect fiscal sense to motivate this segment of employees to stay. There is an even more…

When Leslie Polott arrived at the Hudson Library and Historical Society in 1996. She headed out into the community to find out what people wanted from their library. After rounds of surveys, focus groups, and town meetings, she knew: a library that was the center of their educational and cultural lives, that provided more opportunities for…

The New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) is coming back from Hurricane Katrina--thanks to the State Library of Louisiana, NOPL in mid-September set up a temporary web site (nutrias.org). Unfortunately like many libraries in the Gulf region, it sustained significant damage and retained hope for renewal. This article reports the extent of damage…

While preparing to migrate from Innovative Interfaces' text-based serials module to its new Millennium Serials product, the author, a manager of technical services operations in a small academic library, found herself faced with a number of decisions regarding how to store holdings information. Holdings data is information about individual items…

Management literature appearing in "Library Quarterly," 1931-2004, is examined in this essay. A total of 145 articles are identified that focus on administrative and managerial issues related to libraries during this period. Management literature is construed expansively and includes accounting, administration, assessment, budgets, facilities,…

It has long been commonplace in reading studies to say that despite the efforts of authors, publishers, censors, and others to restrict access to print culture, readers evade those restrictions and exert control over their reading. This control can take many forms, from obtaining banned books to interpretive practices that subvert intended…

Mass digitization of the bound volumes that we generally call "books" has begun, and, thanks to the interest in Google and all that it does, it is getting widespread media attention. The Open Content Alliance (OCA), a library initiative formed after Google announced its library book digitization project, has brought library digitization projects…

This article presents operational guidelines or instructions to a newly graduated librarian from library school. The author discusses some important factors to consider in the field of library work as a school librarian. He also presents seven strategies to keep in mind for a successful first year for a school librarian: (1) put people first; (2)…

Provides a case study of the acquisitions processes that were necessary when Cardiff University's School of Engineering made a decision to subscribe to electronic-only versions of journals where such subscriptions were less expensive than the print equivalent. In doing so, addresses issues of electronic subscriptions management in UK academic…

School library media center scheduling, particularly the fixed versus flexible scheduling controversy, continues to be debated in spite of decades of advocacy for flexible scheduling. According to van Deusen (1999), flexible scheduling is "a plan wherein classes meet for instruction in the library resource center when they have a specific need…

The 2004 and 2005-06 workshops sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges and the National Institute for Technology & Liberal Education have generated much data that can be used to describe aspects of the campus cultures at some 130 institutions that foster information literacy. These data are particularly informative regarding collaboration…

This survey of regional depository libraries grew out of an informal meeting held in the fall of 1987. The meeting's purpose was to allow regional librarians to discuss their shared problems and concerns. A direct result of this meeting was a decision to gather more information about regionals and how they operated, organized and staffed their…

This annotated bibliography lists 36 books, reports, and journal articles on total quality management (TQM). Several discuss the implementation of TQM in the library setting. All but one of the sources were published in 1990 or later. Annotations include major themes and arguments, case studies, contents of collected works, and a number of…

This SPEC kit which contains its accompanying SPEC Flyer prepared by the Systems and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) focuses on strategic planning. A planning process which emphasizes redefining goals and objectives and reordering priorities based on a dynamic environment, strategic planning has been considered to be particularly applicable to…

The Systems and Procedures Exchange Center's (SPEC) Kits contain up-to-date information on the latest issues of concern to college and academic libraries and librarians today. This subject index to SPEC Kits covers all kits currently available from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Office of Management Services. Under each subject…