On Libraries and New Media, powered by Library Journal and School Library Journal
Few things can be more frustrating to library patrons—or staff, for that matter—than a self-check system that’s ill-suited for its setting. But when such a system runs smoothly, it increases efficiency, protects materials, promotes library programming, and instills confidence in patrons, which translates into increased circulation and a staff with more time to focus on things like programs and services.
Gale today launched Analytics On Demand, a new geographic information system (GIS) that combines local demographic data with information from a library’s ILS to generate real-time reports on circulation trends and patron lifestyles. Powered by business analytics provider Alteryx, with regularly updated demographic and consumer lifestyle segmentation data from Experian Mosaic, the foundation of the new service is built on the same tools as Gale’s DemographicsNow: Business and People.
empower – give (someone) the authority or power to do something – Oxford Dictionary of American English Someone whom I greatly admire recently set me thinking about the mission of librarians. David Lankes has that effect on many of us. In a talk late last year at the Digital Library Fall Forum, Lankes recast the usual […]
With the help of Operation Photo Rescue, a non-profit, volunteer network of photographers, image restoration artists, and graphic designers, Fondulac District Library (FDL), IL, recently launched “Saving Memories,” a program to help community members digitize and restore photographs that were damaged when 24 tornadoes touched down in Illinois on the night of November 17.
Librarianship is undeniably a service profession. Given that, you would think that our literature would be filled with advice on how to provide astonishing customer service. Instead, it isn’t. Perhaps this is because it can be difficult and expensive to provide surprisingly excellent customer service. But I don’t think it necessarily should be if we […]
The Mozilla Foundation’s new Web Literacy Standard is intended to serve as a roadmap for competent Web use and comprising “the skills and competencies people need to read, write, and participate effectively on the Web,” according to Mozilla’s site.
Oklahoma’s Pioneer Library System (PLS) this week became the first library in the U.S. to debut Envisionware’s new 24-Hour Library. Officials plan to use two new vending units to offer 24 hour pickup for reserve materials at a small new branch near a busy shopping area, and to enhance access to materials in another location near a community center and a middle school.
LJ Columnists Barbara Fister and Michael Stephens discussed improving student understanding of how information is created and stored, as well as ways to keep students engaged with MOOCs during their presentations for The Digital Shift: Reinventing Libraries last week.
Last week’s “The Digital Shift” virtual event, “Reinventing Libraries,” produced by Library Journal and School Library Journal, looked at the broad spectrum of ways in which libraries are remaking themselves and rethinking their missions—and how to accomplish them—in the digital age. Throughout the day, panelists gave presentations, took questions from honing new skills, developing new ones, and thinking ahead about what assets will make a successful library—and a successful librarian—in the future.
The original developers of network technology wanted to democratize access to information, but while networks have succeeded in improving access, the ways in which governments and corporations are now gathering and using personal data has been an unfortunate consequence, argued author and computer science pioneer Jaron Lanier during a LIVE from the New York Public Library (NYPL) event on October 10.
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