The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
What’s Your Perspective?
The July/August “Perspectives” column in Public Libraries magazine will focus on the decision by HarperCollins to limit the check-out of eBooks. The editor for that issue, Nanci Milone Hill, is currently looking for personal perspectives on this topic. Do you have an opinion on how the library world should react to this decision? An opinion [...]
Is Your Library Planning Programming Focused on Fatherhood? PLA Wants to Hear the Details!
Is your library planning Father’s Day Programming? Does Your library offer programs or services that focus on dads and their families? We’d love to hear the details. PLA is helping IMLS gather examples of public library programming focused on fathers to help inform President Obama’s fatherhood initiative. Please send the following information by Tuesday, June [...]
All About Ebooks
At last month’s Book Expo America, Simba Information’s Michael Norris provided lots of great information about how/why/and who purchases ebooks and also who is buying print books. A couple of points from his presentation: *Print book buyers outnumber ebook buyers by 5 to 1. *1/4 of the books on Amazon’s top 100 list are $1 [...]
Calling All Bloggers!
PLA is looking for volunteers writers to fan out and cover all aspects of the upcoming ALA Annual Conference for the readers of the PLA Blog. Our bloggers cover programming, exhibits, social events, author events, anything related to the conference and public librarianship, and then share it on the PLA Blog. This is a great [...]
Complexity made Simple
This is a mind map from Karen Coyle. The mind map is a diagram of “users and what users might want to do with data” from a linked open data workshop. Readers, librarians, you don’t have to know linked open data from strawberry rhubarb pie to look at this and get something out of it. [...]
Treasure Trove of Library Love Letters
Back in 1971, Marguerite Hart, a librarian at the Troy (Mich.) Public Library sent letters to notable people asking them to write letters to the youth of Troy, congratulating them on their new library. Hart received 97 letters addressed to Troy’s young people from individuals who spanned the arts, sciences, and politics across the 50 [...]
Order Your 2011 PLDS Report or Subscription
The Public Library Association’s (PLA) 2011 Public Library Data Service (PLDS) Statistical Report is now available for advance purchase and will begin shipping in July. The report presents timely and topical data to assist public library administrators in making informed management decisions. Published annually since 1988, the PLDS Statistical Report is compiled from voluntary surveys [...]
Two more reasons for Library Outposts: the DPLA and YouMedia Learning Labs
In 2007-2008 I worked on a public library service model project called the Library Outpost. The project anticipated the mass move from print information to electronic information that has become a vivid reality as Amazon reports that it now sells more electronic books than physical books. The Outpost is a digital hub, offering a public [...]
