The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
Service Responses -Efficiency and Effectivness
How many libraries still maintain a vertical file? How many people use the vertical file? No really, how many people actually use it. We all want to do things efficiently and effectively. This morning we heard that efficiency is doing things right and effectiveness is doing the right thing. In the case of a vertical [...]
Turning the Page: The Other Bill
The PLA Spring Symposium Turning the Page workshop began with a video welcome from Bill Gates Sr., his opening line: “I’m Bill Gates, the other one.” The father of the man who brought us Microsoft gave a warm and inspiring welcome to the 100+ attendees. He encouraged us to use the workshop to strengthen our [...]
The Service Response session was summed up nicely by the Stephen Covey quote “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”. Service responses help to identify what the main thing is. We have spent the morning so far looking at the 18 defined services responses that define “what a library does [...]
2009 PLA Spring Symposium Turning the Page
I’m thrilled PLA invited me to blog this year’s Spring Symposium in Nashville. I’m attending the Turning the Page workshop, scheduled to begin in 7 minutes. Turning the Page: Building Your Library Community is a workshop PLA created to provide librarians, staff, trustees and supporters with the tools they need to advocate for their libraries. [...]
Silk Purses and Sow’s Ears
Ah, statistics. We love ‘em and we hate ‘em. This is a picture of a book cart on the floor at the Darien Library. It is a wonderful illustration of how even the most innovative libraries are bound to our most treasured statistic: materials circulation. I took this picture last week in Darien when I [...]
CIL 2009: What’s Hot in RSS
The last day of Computer in Libraries I had a jam-packed schedule and I decided I would wait to post about any sessions. Steven M. Cohen, who writes the blog Library Stuff and moderated Tuesday’s Open Libraries track, presented hot RSS sites from Z-A with two letters missing (X and N) but with prizes thrown [...]
Discounted Group Subscriptions to Public Libraries
For a limited time, PLA is offering a discount on group subscriptions to Public Libraries. Save 40% off the cover price when you order five or more subscriptions. Offer ends June 30. Download the order form (PDF, 1 Mb)
