Download or read book The Library as an Agency of Culture written by Thomas Augst and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a special issue of the journal American Studies. Ten papers examine the role of libraries in the communities they serve and in the lives of readers. They specifically discuss the library's relationship to noise, elitism, democracy, health, and gender. Particular attention is given to the library's position in different parts of the United States and during different historical periods. Contributors include scholars of American studies, library science, English, history, and communication. There is no index. There's a small discrepancy in the title shown on the cover and the one on the title page, which reads: "The Library as an Agency of Culture." Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Download or read book The Library as Place written by John Buschman and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Public Libraries as Culture and Social Centers written by David W. Davies and published by Metuchen, N.J : Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1974 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Meaning of the Library written by Edith Hall and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Tracing what the library has meant since its beginning, examining how its significance has shifted, and pondering its importance in the twenty-first century, significant contributors--including the librarian of the Congress and the former executive director of the HathiTrust--present a cultural history of the library"--Dust jacket flap.
Download or read book Libraries In A World Of Cultural Change written by Liz Greenhalgh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of libraries and the role they play in both inner city areas and dispersed rural communities. It examines the library as a cultural institution, considering its spatial and symbolic presence and exploring its public service remit. The book is intended for undergraduates and postgraduates on library and information science courses and as supplementary reading for cultural and communications studies, tourism and recreation, human geography and sociology - as well as for public and academic librarians.
Download or read book Apostles of Culture written by Dee Garrison and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her Foreword, Christine Pawley sums up the importance of Dee Garrison's book as follows: "Nearly a quarter-century has passed since the first edition of Apostles of Culture appeared. Since no book-length study of the formation of the American public library has yet challenged Dee Garrison's 1979 analysis, it remains the most recent---and most-cited--- interpretation of the public library's past, a landmark in the history, and the historiography, of libraries and librarianship...For students and researchers who want to understand the development of a field that still suffers the status of the taken-for-granted, Apostles of Culture stands as a historical document. Its reissue allows its historiographical and political---as well as its historical---significance to be more fully appreciated."
Download or read book Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States written by Phyllis Dain and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1990-03-26 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a selection of papers from a 1987 conference of the same title. While the emphasis is on academic libraries, we are reminded of the crucial role of public and private libraries. Included are a survey of past research and stimulating ideas for future work, by Phyllis Dain; Wayne Wiegand's look at the role an ideology of reading played in the slow entry of academic libraries into scholarly communication in the 19th century; and a case study by Mary Niles Maack on the impact on African studies of collection inadequacies in U.S. and African libraries. Insightful reading for librarians working with research collections. Recommended. Library Journal This book does a fine job of identifying the formal contributions of U.S. libraries to scholary communication since the middle of the nineteenth century. Several chapters go a step beyond that by capturing in lucid articulation library and scholarly phenomena that too often are elusive and ambiguous. Library Quarterly In recent years, scholarly communication has become a concern of historians and sociologists interested in ideas and intellectual systems and in the social and institutional contexts in which ideas originate and are diffused. In this new intellectual history, attention id focused on the librarians who, in their effort to adapt to a new world of information technology and information overload, are inescapably aware of their historical legacy of buildings, collections, catalogs, methods of operation, and intellectual assumptions. Study of the historical dimension of the role of libraries and librarianship in the scholarly enterprise offers insights into the genesis of current problems and can inform plans for the future. Although library historians have created a growing body of useful works, including books and articles that relate library history to the mainstream of social and intellectual history, many questions remain to be investigated. The papers in this volume, which present the results of such inquiry by senior scholars in the field, were selected from presentations at an interdisciplinary conference held at the Library of Congress, Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The Historical Dimension, at which library historians and practitioners, social historians, and others concerned with the creation and communication of knowledge were brought together to reflect upon some of these questions. The conference was organized to consider the contributions of libraries and bibliographic enterprises to the processes of scholarly communication; reexamine the intellectual and cultural assumptions upon which scholarly resources and bibliographic services have developed; and analyze the scholarly library as a social and cultural institution. The contributors investigate aspects of scholarly communication such as institutional structures and functions, the nature and dissemination of scholarly resources in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences; and concepts of special collections, cultural property, and the uses of knowledge. Several focus on the United States; others take a comparative approach or deal with relationships between the United States and publishing and scholarship abroad, including the third world. Although varied in approach and scope, the papers are linked by a common interest in probing the nature of scholarly communication and its institutional and material manifestations and by the view that libraries and librarianship are social creations and social systems. The diversity of the papers and their combination of conceptual and empirical modes point up the complexity and richness of such investigation. Thus these essays, themselves substantial contributions to knowledge, also point the way to future research and discussion on themes of increasing importance to those concerned with scholarship, libraries, and the life of the mind.
Download or read book In the Process of Becoming written by Michael Jason Martin and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organizational culture may be defined as the shared norms, values, and beliefs of an organization. The culture expresses itself through symbols and sagas. Organizational culture shapes the behavior of those within the organization and provides a lens through which its members can interpret reality. This study sought to define the organizational culture of the Metropolitan Academic Library. The study was guided by Schein's five levels of cultural assumptions: assumptions about external adaptation issues; assumptions about internal integration; assumptions about the nature of truth and reality; assumptions about the nature of time and space; and assumptions about human nature, activity, and relationships. In order to triangulate data, I gave the librarians and library technical assistants of the Metropolitan Academic Library the Martin Culture Survey. I then conducted a multi-day, on-site visit, where I interviewed members of the Metropolitan Academic Library, made observations about the library, and performed document analysis. I found the culture of the Metropolitan Academic Library to be "in the process of becoming." The culture present in the library was not deep or rich; however, I did find some shared values, symbols, and sagas. With a recent turnover in administration, change was a dominant story of the Metropolitan Academic Library. The librarians and library technical assistants valued campus engagement, the people within the library, and service to the library patrons. These values find symbolic recognition in the coffee shop located in the library, the Christmas party, and the reference desk. Popular sagas of the Metropolitan Academic Library include the story of its humble origins and the building renovation.
Download or read book Libraries Archives and Museums written by Suzanne M. Stauffer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to consider the development of all three cultural heritage institutions – libraries, archives, and museums – and their interactions with society and culture from ancient history to the present day in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The text explores the social and cultural role of these institutions in the societies that created them, as well as the political, economic and social influences on their mission, philosophy, and services and how those changed throughout time. The work provides a thorough background in the topic for graduate students and professionals in the fields of library and information science, archival studies, and museum resource management, preservation, and administration. Arranged chronologically, the story begins with the temple libraries of ancient Sumer, followed the growth and development of governmental and private libraries in ancient Greece and Rome, the influence of Asia and Islam on Western library development, the role of Christianity in the preservation of ancient literature as well as the skills of reading and writing during the Middle Ages, and the coming of the Renaissance and the rise of the university library. It continues by tracing the gradual division between archives and libraries and the growth of governmental and private libraries as independent institutions during and after the Renaissance and through the Enlightenment, and the development of public and private museums from the “cabinets of curiousities” of private collectors beginning in the 17th century. Individual chapters explore the further growth and development of libraries, archives, and museums in the 19th and 20th centuries, exploring the public library and public museum movements of those centuries, as well as the rise of the governmental and institutional archive. The final chapter discusses the growing collaboration between and even convergence of these institutions in the 21st century and the impact of modern information technology, and makes predictions about the future of all three institutions.
Download or read book Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds written by Dorothy Holland and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2001-03-16 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text addresses the central problem in anthropological theory of the late 1990s - the paradox that humans are both products of social discipline and creators of remarkable improvisation.
Download or read book America s Commitment To Culture written by Kevin V Mulcahy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-28 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano are now legendary, as much because of NEA support of their work as for the work itself. This is one example of what can happen when politics meets culture, and it provides an appropriate snapshot of the issues explored in this book. As in other policy areas, cultural policies develop within a particular political context, evolve as a consequence of government action or inattention, and affect a variety of publics and interests. In this volume, the contributors explore the inescapable politics accompanying public culture. Surveying the philosophical, economic, legal, and political underpinnings of cultural assistance, they articulate not only governments role in the support of the arts, but also basic questions for future cultural policy. Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano are now legendary, as much because of NEA support of their work as for the work itself. This is one example of what can happen when politics meets culture, and it provides an appropriate snapshot of the issues explored in this book. As in other policy areas, cultural policies develop within a particular political context, evolve as a consequence of government action or inattention, and affect a variety of publics and interests.Americas Commitment to Culture discusses government support of culture as a public policy area. The book focuses on the rationales underlying public support for the arts and examines the development and practice of government as an arts patron. The contributors explore the inescapable politics accompanying public culture. Surveying the philosophical, economic, legal, and political underpinnings of cultural assistance, they articulate not only governments role in the support of the arts, but also basic questions for future cultural policy.
Download or read book Main Street Public Library written by Wayne A. Wiegand and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2011-10-02 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has more public libraries than it has McDonald’s restaurants. By any measure, the American public library is a heavily used and ubiquitous institution. Popular thinking identifies the public library as a neutral agency that protects democratic ideals by guarding against censorship as it makes information available to people from all walks of life. Among librarians this idea is known as the “library faith.” But is the American public library as democratic as it appears to be? In Main Street Public Library, eminent library historian Wayne Wiegand studies four emblematic small-town libraries in the Midwest from the late nineteenth century through the federal Library Service Act of 1956, and shows that these institutions served a much different purpose than is so often perceived. Rather than acting as neutral institutions that are vital to democracy, the libraries of Sauk Centre, Minnesota; Osage, Iowa; Rhinelander, Wisconsin; and Lexington, Michigan, were actually mediating community literary values and providing a public space for the construction of social harmony. These libraries, and the librarians who ran them, were often just as susceptible to the political and social pressures of their time as any other public institution. By analyzing the collections of all four libraries and revealing what was being read and why certain acquisitions were passed over, Wiegand challenges both traditional perceptions and professional rhetoric about the role of libraries in our small-town communities. While the American public library has become essential to its local community, it is for reasons significantly different than those articulated by the “library faith.”
Download or read book A History of Modern Librarianship written by Pamela Spence Richards and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad, comparative history of librarianship, this intriguing work goes beyond the standard focus on institutions and collections to help you explore the part modern librarianship played—and continues to play—in forming Western cultures. Previous histories of libraries in the Western world—the last of which was published nearly 20 years ago—concentrate on libraries and librarians. This book takes a different approach. It focuses on the practice of librarianship, showing you how that practice has contributed to constructing the heritage of cultures. To do so, this groundbreaking collection of essays presents the history of modern librarianship in the context of recent developments of the library institution, professionalization of librarianship, and innovation through information technology. Organized by region, the book addresses the widely recognized, international impact of Anglo-American librarianship and its continuing influence over the past century, combining critical analysis with chronological histories of modern librarianship in Europe, North America, Australia/New Zealand, and Africa. An introductory chapter explains the origins of the project, and a concluding chapter examines the effects of digitization on modern librarianship in the 21st century.
Download or read book Organizational Culture the Library and the Faculty written by Deborah Keeler and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because past research has shown faculty as the driving force affecting student academic library use, librarians have tried for decades to engage classroom faculty in library activities. Nevertheless, a low rate of library use by faculty on behalf of their students persists.This study investigated the organizational culture dimensions affecting library faculty demand at a community college.The study employed a sequential quantitative- qualitative research design.A random sample of full- time faculty at a large urban community college responded to a 46-item survey.The survey data showed strong espoused support (84%) for the use of library- based materials but a much lower incidence of putting this construct into practice (46%).
Download or read book Public Libraries in the 21st Century written by Ann E. Prentice and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-11-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book helps readers explore how public librarians have reinvented the ways they bring people and information together to meet 21st-century challenges. Public Libraries in the 21st Century provides an up-to-date picture of what the public library is today, what the public librarian needs to know, and how to apply that knowledge. The book offers a thought-provoking exploration of the social, political, economic, cultural, and technological influences that determine the role of the public library in our society. It also looks at ways in which that role continues to change to meet new challenges, while always keeping true to the mission of bringing people and information together. Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, the library reinvented and repositioned itself to be a force for people and their interaction with information. To illuminate that process, the book outlines the history and purpose of the public library. Issues of leadership, planning, decision making, organizing, and staffing are discussed, as is the impact of technology on how the library is managed and how it serves the community.
Download or read book Public Library Extension written by Lionel Roy McColvin and published by . This book was released on 1949 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Public Library Mission Statement and Its Imperatives for Service written by Public Library Association. Goals, Guidelines, and Standards Committee and published by Chicago : American Library Association. This book was released on 1979 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
