A Library Can Say Hello in Almost Any Language
According to the traditional Bible story, the Tower of Babel tumbled down when its builders each had to communicate in a different language. When challenged with serving New York City’s most...
View ArticleWhat is an Adult Graphic Novel?
We recently added an adult graphic novel collection to our library. We have had young adult graphic novels since the early 2000s. Tween and beginning reader graphic novels were added in 2008. Yet...
View ArticleHidden Gems – Five Lesser-Known Periodicals for Your Collection
As budgets shrink, the quest for quality grows. A while ago my library surveyed patrons about their preferences and how they wanted to see materials collections develop. One item that arose much to...
View ArticleGenre-fying Your Library’s Fiction Collection
We are in the final stretch of our “genre-fying fiction” marathon, and want to share our observations. In hindsight, we would have done some things a bit differently, but we also remind ourselves that...
View ArticleSeparate or Keep Together?
This is the kind of question librarians like to fight over. Should you separate fiction into genres, or should all fiction be left together? Or do you split the difference and mark different genres in...
View ArticleLibrary of Things Shapes Dialogue on Library Collections
For many years, libraries have been primarily associated with books. Many people, including the taxpayers who fund public libraries, continue to hold on to this relationship. Linguistically this makes...
View ArticleTo Series or Not to Series…Does it Matter?
If you’ve been following our past few entries, you know we have been talking about putting fiction into genres, but in the “genre-fication process” we are going through, we are also labeling our books...
View ArticleWeeding Backlash at Berkeley Public Library
Recent collection development policy changes transformed the weeding policy and process at the Berkeley (California) Public Library (BPL) to a more centralized method. This change has ruffled feathers...
View ArticleDeveloping Book Donation Resources
Many new and start-up libraries are looking for ways to acquire books cheaply because of their small budgets. In 1992, I wrote an article for Against the Grain about finding resources to build...
View ArticleLove or Respect – the Collection Development Dilemma
In theory, we are all professionals and whether we like a particular area of the collection or not, we should be able to do our job of adding new materials and withdrawing those that are no longer of...
View ArticleThe Obligation of Libraries
Obligations: a duty or commitment; an act or course of action to which a person or organization is morally or legally bound. I have been thinking recently a great deal about obligations in relation to...
View ArticleCollection Development: Catering to the Hispanic Community
According to the United States Census Bureau, the estimated Hispanic population as of 2014 is roughly 17.4% of the United States’ 319,000,000 population.[1] While not all of the individuals who...
View ArticlePolicies for Library Inclusion of Self-Published Works
Among the many administrative decisions libraries have to make, few are so potentially altering to the scope of their collection as whether or not to include self-published works. Though many are wary...
View ArticleNot Everything with Books is a Library
If you closely follow library stories across the world you may have come across this heartwarming one: A small rural public school’s largely abandoned library in Las Plumas County, California, was so...
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