Download or read book Approaches to the Study of Public Library Services and Users written by National Center for Education Statistics. Learning Resources Branch and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Public Library Governance written by Edward Abbott-Halpin and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-09-07 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major changes in public libraries throughout the world have led to an increased focus on governance issues. Forging successful futures for public libraries depends on effective governance. This book defines governance and examines its many facets in relation to public library provision internationally, differentiating governance from the policies, processes and practices of public libraries. The perspectives of leaders, practitioners, researchers, decision makers, and service users are presented, offering a variety of views from the past, the present and potential approaches in the future. Decision-making and the roles of decision makers involved in governance are explored. Prominent figures from the public library community throughout the world have contributed their knowledge and experience. Wicked problems facing the public library sector are identified and the varying approaches adopted internationally to deal with them are outlined. There are many practitioner and professional practice issues associated with provision of libraries and views on library usage and delivery vary according to user and practitioner standpoints. Globally diverse content provides directions for the future development of public libraries and for dealing with the emerging challenges facing the library world.

Download or read book How Libraries and Librarians Help written by Joan Coachman Durrance and published by American Library Association. This book was released on 2005 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors developed the "How Libraries and Librarians Help (HLLH) Outcome Model," field testing it in six libraries over two years. In this practical reference, they share their findings, step-by-step HLLH methods, and library success stories that bring the process to life with outcomes like, "Empowering Youth" and "Strengthening Community."

Download or read book Public Libraries and Their Communities written by Kay Ann Cassell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public Libraries and Their Communities: An Introduction provide an overview of public librarianship today. It covers library organization, policy development, staffing, fiscal organization including funding sources and budgets, the legal framework, relationships with local and state governments, advocacy, services and service development for different age groups and for different groups of users, development of programming and outreach, collection development, promotion and marketing, and current issues and trends. In addition to context and concepts, the book uses many examples from both large and small public libraries to bring principles to life. Examples include real library policies, case studies, strategic planning, organization charts and library budgets. Many think that public libraries are not complicated to run.This book aims to show that public libraries are very complicated and require much skill on the part of the director, staff, and Board of Trustees to meet the needs of their local users.Advocacy and marketing have become important parts of the work of public libraries. Funding is always challenging so public libraries must constantly be making the local government and its citizens aware of the public library – its programs, collections, and services. This book's focus is on how public libraries reach beyond the walls of their buildings and touch the lives of their citizens.Meeting community interests and needs is essential for 21st century public libraries. For students the book offers discussion questions at the end of each chapter. These questions also provide discussion starters for public library staff development.

Download or read book User Education and the Public Library written by Angela Gehrig and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book User Participation Approaches and Applications in the Planning of Public Library Services written by Margaret Duncan Menzies and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Current Practices and Future Plans of Public Library Webmasters written by Primary Research Group and published by Primary Research Group Inc. This book was released on 2005 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new report from Primary Research Group is based on interviews with webmasters from the San Jose Public Library, the Salt Lake City Public Library, the Alexandria Library, the Los Angeles Public Library, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Public Library, the Houston Public Library, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Colorado Virtual Library and the Boston Public Library. A free sample chapter is available for download. A few of the report?s conclusions are summarized below:CONTENT MANAGEMENTLibraries take widely varying approaches to the issue of how should control the website and who should be empowered to add content to the site. Some libraries prefer to centralize access in the hands of just a few librarians who act as gatekeepers to the website. Others prefer to empower as many librarians as possible to contribute to the site, and to oversee their own contributions to the site. To achieve this, some libraries have purchased off the shelf content management systems, while others have developed in-house content management systems that allow non-technical librarians to function independent of the need for technical help. THE IMPACT OF CASCADING STYLE SHEETS (CSS)Cascading style sheet, that allow librarians to edit entire sites, or subsets of site, with one click of the mouse, have become popular ways to introduce some uniformity and lower the labor demand of editing public library websites. Cascading style sheets are important because librarians are finding more and more reasons to add more and more content to their sites. Public library websites have often quickly become unwieldy monsters that voraciously eat up librarian time. Correcting and editing these beasts by hand is dangerous and cascading style sheets allow proper measured feeding without loss of limb. MOST POPULAR PAGESSome of the most popular pages on the public library websites surveyed were the events calendar, basic library info page, database gateways and children?s and teen pages.STAFFINGRelative to the importance of the library website to the overall success of the library, the size of most library web staffs, when such staffs exist, is quite small. Usually one to three individuals run the website, and they often have other responsibilities. The strategy that most have pursued to overcome their small staffs is to devolve responsibility for content to subject specialist librarians, and to empower them to be able to edit the portions of the website for which they are responsible. UNIQUE CONTENTMost librarians interviewed stressed the need to develop unique content that would draw traffic to the website. Among the type of content mentioned were: interactive storytelling and educational games, reading lists and contests, book reviews by librarians posted online, subject guides, and events calendars. CHILDREN?S & TEEN SERVICESOne of the most vibrant areas for website development has been services for children and teens. This age group grew up with access to the world wide web and it is truly the only generation for which web use and communication is as natural as turning on the television for most Americans. Libraries have responded with books clubs, personalized spaces, interactive stories and games, and other features aimed at this audience. Nonetheless, many libraries have just scraped the surface of their potential in this area. We like what the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Public Library has done in this area, developing unique content, focused marketing and web teams to create a unique site for Charlotte area children. SPECIAL COLLECTIONSMany libraries have plans to digitize their special collections, or at the very least, to digitize finding aids for those collections and increase access to them through the library website. We expect that this will soon become a major area of public library investment and a challenge for website administrators who must devise access schemes to digitized resources.

Download or read book The Public Library Effectiveness Study written by Nancy A. Van House and published by Chicago : American Library Association. This book was released on 1993 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of the Public Library Effectiveness Study was to define effectiveness for the public library institution. The research was designed not to measure effectiveness or evaluate particular libraries or groups of libraries, but rather to identify the feature or features of a public library that most directly attest to its effectiveness. The major questions the study addressed were what measures have been used to define effectiveness; what are the indicators and dimensions of public library effectiveness; whether constituent groups differ in their preferences among indicators and dimensions and in their definitions of public library effectiveness; and whether differences in the individual libraries' domains affect their constituents' preferences concerning effectiveness or organizational performance on the indicators. The study focused on public libraries and is intended to serve as a prototype for a methodology for identifying effectiveness indicators and dimensions for other types of libraries. The five chapters are: (1) "The Enigma of Effectiveness"; (2) "Methodology"; (3) "Findings Regarding Indicators and Dimensions of Effectiveness"; (4) "Findings Regarding Roles"; and (5) "Conclusions." The questionnaires used in the study, as well as the statistical findings, are found in the appendices. Also included is a 38-item bibliography. (JLB)

Download or read book Understanding Community Librarianship written by Alistair Black and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the information society, is the community focused library a real possibility? This book reappraises the relationship between the library and its communities through an examination of the rise and decline of ’community’ librarianship over the last three decades. The authors consider key models of community based library service and argue that bland assertions of community prevalence mask a complex and problematic relationship between a highly traditional public service bureaucracy and its users. The resulting uncertainty of purpose, they claim, explains much of the current ’crisis’ of the public library movement. Drawing on recent social science theory and empirical work in the field, this book offers a new and critical perspective on the current public library debate. It is essential reading for librarians, students of information and library science and all who have a stake in the future of the public library. As a case study of community, public service and the local state it should also be of value to those with an interest in community development, cultural policy and local government.

Download or read book The Evaluation and Measurement of Library Services written by Joseph R. Matthews and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide provides library directors, managers, and administrators in all types of libraries with complete and up-to-date instructions on how to evaluate library services in order to improve them. It's a fact: today's libraries must evaluate their services in order to find ways to better serve patrons and prove their value to their communities. In this greatly updated and expanded edition of Matthews' seminal text, you'll discover a breadth of tools that can be used to evaluate any library service, including newer tools designed to measure customer and patron outcomes. The book offers practical advice backed by solid research on virtually every aspect of evaluation, including quantitative and qualitative tools, data analysis, and specific recommendations for measuring individual services, such as technical services and reference and interlibrary loan. New chapters give readers effective ways to evaluate critical aspects of their libraries such as automated systems, physical space, staff, performance management frameworks, eBooks, social media, and information literacy. The author explains how broader and more robust adoption of evaluation techniques will help library managers combine traditional internal measurements, such as circulation and reference transactions, with more customer-centric metrics that reflect how well patrons feel they are served and how satisfied they are with the library. By applying this comprehensive strategy, readers will gain the ability to form a truer picture of their library's value to its stakeholders and patrons.

Download or read book The Physical Accessibility of Public Libraries to Users written by Sung Jae Park and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this study is to gain a finer-grained picture and better understanding of the travel patterns of library users, and the activities, demographics, and other factors that affect library access. Previous studies of physical accessibility of public libraries, which have focused on library users' single-destination trips and their travel distance, do not provide a full understanding of library use patterns in their full temporal and spatial environment. By analyzing individuals' daily travel activity, this study modeled library access patterns of users and suggested ways to improve library access. To accomplish this purpose, this study employed a mixed methodology including two-phases, quantitative and qualitative research. In the first phase, pre-existing quantitative household travel survey data were analyzed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The data set for analysis was collected from the Metropolitan Travel Survey Archive, which stores 79 household daily travel data sets. Daily activities of 409 people who visited public libraries were extracted from the Puget Sound Region data set. Even though secondary data analyses allow researchers to analyze social phenomena in inaccessible settings, the interpretations of a secondary analysis can be limited due to a researcher's lack of knowledge of the setting. In the second phase, therefore, qualitative approaches were pursued to ensure the credibility of interpretations of secondary data analysis. During interviews with librarians from the area of study, questions intended to elicit corroboration of conclusions drawn from the secondary data analysis were asked.

Download or read book Measuring The Effectiveness Of Public Library Services written by Lok Nath and published by OrangeBooks Publication. This book was released on 2021-09-08 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is research work carried out by the author while pursuing his Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science (MLISc). The sample libraries chosen have been closed to the author as he used to spend there hours during his study. Also both the libraries have been playing a crucial role in dissemination of knowledge to every section of the society since their establishment. While the Amir-Ud-Daula Public Library was established in the year 1882, Acharya Narendra Dev Pustakalya was established in the year 1959.

Download or read book Public Library Users and Uses written by Choong Han Kim and published by Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth analysis of some 8,000 users sampled at a number of public libraries offers explanations and insights into the ways people use libraries in their local communities. Ample evidence supports the hypothesis that one's principal occupation or lack of one has a major bearing on the ways one uses the local public library; the public library will be an occupational necessity to most employed people in the decades ahead.

Download or read book A Trauma Informed Approach to Library Services written by Rebecca Tolley and published by American Library Association. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are only now coming to terms with how common trauma really is; a landmark Kaiser study that surveyed patients receiving physicals found that almost two-thirds had experienced at least one form of abuse, neglect, or other trauma as a child. Though originating in the fields of health and social services, trauma-informed care is a framework that holds great promise for application to library work. Empathetic service, positive patron encounters, and a more trusting workplace are only a few of the benefits that this approach offers. In this important book Tolley, experienced in both academic and public libraries, brings these ideas into the library context. Library administrators, directors, and reference and user services staff will all benefit from learning the six key principles of trauma-informed care; characteristics of a trusting and transparent library organization, plus discussion questions to promote a sense of psychological safety among library workers; how certain language and labels can undermine mutuality, with suggested phrases that will help library staff demonstrate neutrality to patron ideas and views during information requests; delivery models that empower patrons; advice on balancing free speech on campus with students’ need for safety; how appropriate furniture arrangement can help people suffering from PTSD feel safe; guidance on creating safe zones for LGBTQIA+ children, teens, and adults; and self-assessment tools to support change toward trauma-responsive library services.

Download or read book Customer Service in Libraries written by Charles Harmon and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, nine librarians from across the country describe their libraries' best practices in this key area. Their contributions range from all-encompassing customer service policies and models any library can both adapt and be proud of to micro-approaches that emphasize offering excellent user-focused technology planning, picture book arrangement with patrons in mind, Web 2.0 tools to connect users with the library, establishing good service delivery chains, and making your library fantastic for homeschoolers. As past Public Library Association President Audra Caplan writes in her introduction to this book, "There is nothing magical about providing excellent customer service; it just takes the right people, the right philosophy and the passion to make it a reality." If you've got all that, here are the best practices to make stellar customer service a reality for your library's users.

Download or read book Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age written by Eric Novotny and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Effectively assess whether any library is making good use of the reference/user service resources available today Libraries need to develop standards by which they can assess their individual performances in a larger context, and Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age makes significant contributions to this ongoing discussion. The book addresses its subject matter via approaches ranging from case studies of individual libraries to general discussions of best practices. The contributors explore the impact of the Internet on the field of evaluation, focusing on electronic reference and instruction. They highlight current issues, present research results, and offer expert advice on how to assess online reference and instruction. All chapters are well referenced to facilitate further study, and many include tables, appendixes, checklists, and other helpful features that make difficult information easy to access and understand. The chapters that make up Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age are as rich and varied as the backgrounds of their authors. Experienced researchers provide the results of studies conducted to determine the nature and effectiveness of the online reference services offered by various libraries. Practitioners and administrators from different institutional settings (academic libraries, public libraries, consortiums, etc.) provide their perspectives on the issues facing librarians who need to assess the electronic services they provide. In this important new book: Andrew Briedenbagh shows how a chat service can be implemented and suggests which data should be collected for it Buff Hirko examines VET: the Virtual Evaluation Toolkit Ruth Vondracek shares the experiences of a university library as it entered a statewide e-reference consortium, and offers advice and issues to consider before entering such a partnership librarians from San Jose State University present a model for evaluating electronic reference services that can be used in public or academic libraries Kathleen Kern discusses holistic evaluation chat transcripts are addressed in several chapters, including Joseph Fennewald’s comparisons of question categories, Lesley Moyo’s analysis of the use of instruction in the virtual environment, and Caleb Tucker-Raymond’s proposed set of quality measures for chat reference Laurie Probst and Michael Pelikan report on the use of a “Tell Us What You Think” button to gather user feedback Kristi Nelson and Catherine L. Ross examine a research study that asked library school students to submit a reference question online and report on their experiences Melissa Gross, Charles McClure, and R. David Lankes suggest measures to determine the cost and benefits of a virtual reference service librarians from Utah State University describe the development of their online instructional module Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age is designed as essential reading for library administrators, public service librarians, and researchers. It provides general advice for practitioners as well as an examination of research results and methodological issues. We urge you to consider making it part of your professional or teaching collection today.

Download or read book The Library s Public written by Bernard Berelson and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: