The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
The Little Division That Could
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) annual meeting and President’s Program was Monday afternoon. Although there were envelopes stuffed with program handouts, there were only 100 copies of most items, and there were well over 125 people in the room. I was fortunate to snag an evaluation, a copy of the annual report, and [...]
America, deafness, and ALA
Browsing the trade show/exhibit hall today, I across a booth for a company that specializes in children’s books on deafness and deaf culture. I began signing (I learned American Sign Language in college) with one of the men at the booth, who told me he was the illustrator for the books, while the man behind [...]
World Book Cart Drill Team Championship
Yesterday (Sunday) was the World Book Cart Drill Team Championship. Our library (St. Charles PL, IL.) participated as the Bookettes. We had some incredible competition! First place winners were students from Madison, WI who did a routine to Hewey Lewis and the News music, plus one of their members performed two backflips and The Worm [...]
Hear Here — Audiobook Trends in Libraries
The PLA Blog has a policy of not blogging vendors, and with very good reason, since it can get messy if it seems too much like an endorsement, and avoiding those shades of gray is best. We will, however, allow posts that include vendor information if it relates directly to a particular library project. While [...]
OCLC “Library Blogger Salon”
All sorts of fun (it’s what happens when you get a bunch of bloggers together, and leave a laptop out at their disposal ). It was neat to have so many smart librarian bloggers in one room (which started out feeling very big, then quickly felt tiny because there were *so* many bloggers), to finally [...]
OCLC Symposium: Mining The Long Tail
(This post is a little delayed due to spotty internet access in my hotel) Chris Anderson spoke in more detail Friday on his Wired article (and upcoming book) “The Long Tail” at the OCLC Symposium. I had to leave after he spoke for another event, missing out on the followup speakers and Q&A. But here’s [...]
Do Libraries Change Lives?
How do you demonstrate the impact of library services and programs? If you receive any federal funds (LSTA) to support projects you either are now, or will be soon, using outcomes based measures to do so. This morning I attended the ASCLA President’s Program “Advocacy is Not Enough: Using Outcomes Measures to Demonstrate Library Impact.” [...]
Addressing the information needs of the transgendered community
I was immediately interested in this program as soon as I saw the title. I felt that this specific community was always lumped together with gays, lesbians, and bi-sexuals, yet they have certain information needs that are completely different from the other groups. I was happy to see a fairly large turnout and a very [...]
Readers advisory for non-fiction?
My day has been interesting. After getting lost in McCormick Place, and putting about a half mile or more on my gymshoes, I managed to catch part of the RUSA/PLA program, “Taking the Guesswork out of Non-Fiction Readers Advisory”. By the time I got there, all of the handouts were gone, but I heard that [...]
Building libraries for the Y generation
Here’s my favorite soundbite: You’re getting something right when they’re sleeping in the library. This session looked at some recent academic library building projects, but the design principles are relevant for public libraries, too. Lots of emphasis on collaborative spaces, modular furniture, natural light. The computer workstations weren’t crammed one on top of another. Instead, [...]
