Information technologies and civic engagement: Perspectives from librarianship and planning

Urban planning and librarianship are parallel fields in many ways. Both have theoretical and practical underpinnings driving each discipline; are interdisciplinary in focus; and both professions gather and disseminate information to stakeholders. Essential to the success of each discipline is an engaged user population. The authors use a case study from the Village of Oak Park to examine and reflect upon the effect of the Internet and other technologies in the public's ability to participate in an open planning process. The Village of Oak Park is known for its architectural heritage and outspoken community. Within its 4.5 square miles live a diverse population of approximately 52,000 people from different cultures, races, ethnicities, professions, lifestyles, religions, ages, and incomes where a majority of the population have some advanced education and over 80% of the households report home Internet use. How does a community like the Village of Oak Park engage in the planning process? What role does information play in this process? Can modern Information Technologies facilitate civic engagement? These questions are examined during a year-long case study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in cooperation with the Village of Oak Park (VOP). Specifically, the investigators examined how information is gathered and used in the planning process and how the introduction of Information Technology (IT) tools influenced public participation and introduced many citizens to e-government through the planning process. The use of these tools is compared to the traditional planning process. Data from the project is presented to demonstrate a different kind of role librarians play in the research process. Last, the authors discuss the role of privacy in the gathering and sharing of information with the reliability of that information and the impact of privacy on the public planning process.     

Museum as Soup Kitchen

In this paper, I suggest that museums have not explored their potential opportunities enough when dealing with their communities under stressful conditions. Each reader, however, should decide when what I am talking about is no longer appropriate for museums in general or your museum in particular. While some museums have moved more in the direction of serving their communities, I am struck by how little philosophical change has actually taken place in most museums after a year into this universal economic downturn. I argue that incorporating a broader palette of social services may make institutions more useful, but at some point these institutions might cease to be traditional museums. My question would be: “Should you care?” I do not suggest that all museums become full‐service community centers, though some might explore that option. Perhaps the question might become: How do we expand our services so that we make museums’ important physical assets of safe civic space and objects useful for tangible three‐dimensional learning into more relevant programs that reach all levels of community, and are rated by many more as essential to their needs and their aspirations for their children?     

Going the Extra Mile

Abstract

Even though every library, whether research, academic, public, special, or school will tailor their service to accommodate the specific needs of their customers or community, a common thread-our attitude toward customer service-bonds all librarians. How can we improve our desire to serve with a smile? Does a smile make a difference in customer service? What are some libraries doing to motivate their employees? How can we help one another on the job? This article will explore these and other related questions. Today's libraries are competing with a variety of information sources, some of which are easily available to the user through the Internet. In order to help preserve our most valued asset-our customers-libraries need to incorporate a well-developed, quality customer service program in their operational plan and budget.     

Frog Voices,Whispers, and Silences: Problems and Issues in Collecting for an African Studies Library in Africa

SUMMARY

This article is an attempt to respond to two questions about discrete special African studies collections in African university libraries. First, do we need to have such collections at all? Second, if we do, how can we write collection development policies that make sense, given the present turmoil in African studies and indeed in the social sciences in general? Librarians have a responsibility to recognise that their practice cannot be value-free, and that their collections are biased by the choices made by writers, by publishers, and by themselves. Their duty, especially in Africa, may simply be to ensure that African voices are not drowned out in their collections.     

The Library as Center of Meaning

Libraries can further increase their relevancy by becoming centers of community meaning even more directly than they already are, making visible to a community what matters to it and how it understands itself and its world. This function can be advanced by libraries adopting platforms that gather anonymized usage information and make it accessible not only to users but to the global of community of developers who can do unprecedented things with it, including intersecting it with information from communities near and far so that we can learn from one another at a new scale.     

The Books Are Shelf-Ready; Are You?

Over the past 2 years, shelf-ready services, the outsourcing of cataloging and processing services, has become the hot topic in the library world. This article examines the implications of shelf-ready service, both operationally and organizationally, for both library and vendor. Using the format of a dialog between librarian and vendor, the article discusses the following questions: Why are you interested in contracting for (or providing) these services? What do you hope to gain? What are the stumbling blocks to implementing a shelf-ready program? What is the impact on workflow and staffing in your organization? How many and what kinds of jobs are affected? How do library/vendor responsibilities change when shelf-ready procedures are applied to an approval plan … to firm orders … to standing orders? How can quality control be assured? Which errors really matter? Are the same standards applied to vendor staff as to in-house staff? How are standards affected by shelf-ready? How do both library and vendor know when they’re “ready for shelf-ready” in a given situation?     

网络环境下图书馆的信息服务模式

在网络环境下图书馆如何开展卓有成效的信息服务？本文就网络环境下图书馆信息服务模式进行了研究和探讨,并提出了建立学科专业导航库、信息推拉服务、My library系统团体定制服务、网上咨询服务和最新信息报道等信息服务的若干模式和实施方法。     

A Conversation about Machine Project

Abstract: How can you carve out a museum space that’s less authoritative? And how you can make work that is smaller, more intimate in that same space? Kio Stark and Mark Allen discuss Machine Project, the Echo Park, Los Angeles exhibiting space that doubles as an interactive setting, an alternative performance venue, and an active agent in creating events around the local area, including in museums such as the Hammer.     

图书馆:什么地方侵犯了读者的合法权益

图书馆虽然一直在强调“读者第一,服务至上”,但侵害读者合法权益的现象却时有发生,那么,图书馆在什么地方侵犯了读者的合法权益?如何保护读者合法权益?本文进行了分析。     

大学园区图书馆云服务模式应用研究-以杭州下沙高教园区为例

云计算正引领着IT技术新一轮的发展,必将对图书馆界产生巨大影响。目前,国内高校区域性、集聚式的发展格局已经出现,如何实现区域性高校图书馆资源共建共享已成为当前普遍关注的问题。该文以正在建设的浙江省高校数字图书馆下沙分中心(XADL)为例,引入云计算的理念,探讨高校图书馆基于云架构的共建共享服务模式的实现。     

80年代以来图书馆为科研、为生产服务的进展与展望

In all respects of the scope, content, mode, etc. of library services to scientific research and industrial production during the eighties, there were fairly marked breakthroughs and innovations. Some of the following new questions were raised, demanding for a research work conducted in terms of theory:How can the reader services participate positively but prudently in the activities of scientific research and industrial production? How can the functions of reader services be extended and developed? How can the functions of reader services be extended and developed?How should be relations between the basic services and the newly developed services be dealt with?What changes might take place in the nature,effects and functions of libraries?It is quite possible to cause a revolution in the theory of library science if we reconsider the above-mentioned questions.     

Goodbye,Paley… Hello,Charles!: Marketing a Library Move

How do you prepare a campus for the closure of one main library and the opening of a brand-new building? Temple University Libraries faced this question in 2019. Their marketing team answered the call by creating a campaign that honored their original Paley Library while building excitement for the new Charles Library. As part of this campaign, library staff worked together to create their own “Mean Tweets” video, reading real tweets patrons had posted about Paley over the years. In this column, the team's director reflects on the process and how it changed the tone of their overall campaign.     

Hiring in an Academic Library: Fit is Essential

Candidates readily assure search committees that they will join up, collaborate, and participate in a group. The challenge for the search committee is learning whether the candidate will truly fit with the existing group and organizational culture. How do we gauge how a new hire will fit? Hiring for fit is critical in libraries because each member of the group interacts on behalf of the library with students, faculty, administrators, and staff. Such work demands not only collaboration but also a shared vision. This article describes how one library altered the hiring practice to address the issue of “fit.”     

Towards a Re-Interpretation of Public Library Purpose in Africa

This paper is of the view that public library services as they are presently, in Africa, have not changed very much from the service introduced by the colonial masters at the inception of these libraries. The libraries do not suit the needs of the people as they are mostly elitist institutions serving just a minority of the people in these countries. It is the view of the writers that this colonial mentality and parochial attitude towards service should change if public libraries have to make any impact in Afiica. New and improved services such as community libraries, cultural preservation and services for the visually handicapped are recommended.     

重大公共安全突发事件中图书馆应急服务专家笔谈

面对重大公共安全突发事件,公共图书馆该如何应对?如何建立起一个科学合理的图书馆应急服务体系和服务机制?魏大威和廖永霞介绍了国家图书馆在面对2019新冠肺炎疫情这一重大公共卫生安全突发事件过程中所采取的一系列应对举措,并提出应对重大公共卫生安全突发事件还需要图书馆不断健全应急机制、完善应对策略、强化自身能力,才能更充分地做好服务保障;柯平指出,建立图书馆应急服务机制,包括应急保障机制、联动机制和信息共享机制,并提出了关于图书馆应急服务机制的十个方面的建议;张智雄结合中国科学院武汉文献情报中心组织开展的以COVID-19科研动态监测为代表的应急情报服务工作的体会,总结了面对重大公共安全突发事件中专业图书馆应急服务组织的几点认识,强调在重大公共安全突发事件下专业化的情报组织整编有着重要的社会价值;王有强结合国际图书馆界相关实践经验,提出应该充分发挥图书馆文献信息资源优势,在重大突发公共安全事件应急管理的决策、研究、宣传等方面充分发挥文献支撑服务作用;滕五晓提出,图书馆是我国公共服务体系中的重要组成部分,需要用系统思维构建以读者为本、以能力提升为宗旨的图书馆应急服务;周璐调研报道了新冠疫情暴发后国内公共图书馆开展应急服务情况,指出公共图书馆作为市民服务的公共机构,建立起一个科学合理的应急服务体系至关重要。     

大数据、云计算与图书馆

大数据时代的到来为图书馆服务提出了挑战,图书馆的传统业务受到冲击和压力,如何面对大数据,如何使用大数据,如何理解云计算下的大数据功能是本文提出的观点。论文还论述了图书馆在大数据环境下使用云计算技术的新途径。     

Public records and minorities: problems and possibilities for Sámi and Kven

The Kven and Sámi peoples of northern Norway have been represented as groups without a voice in public records. Through the project ‘National Minorities in Public Records in Norway,’ however, hundreds of documents written in the Sámi and Kven languages were found inside the public archives. These documents were neither labeled, nor cataloged in any way as non-Norwegian-language documents. This essay raises a number of questions related to how a lack of knowledge has influenced our understanding of ethnic minorities both in archives and in research related to minorities. Furthermore, recent experience leads us to a few more questions concerning the usage of sources. How do Norwegian ministries treat requests for access to official documents less than 60-years old related to the Kven and Sámi peoples? How were documents in minority languages arranged and archived by archival personnel? How can an oppressed collective memory serve as a counter-memory for minorities? How can archival documents change our understanding of minorities? What might archivists do to make minorities more visible in archives? This paper describes my personal experiences and reflections in connection with the project.     

Modes of Engagement Among Diasporic Audiences of Asian New Zealand Film

The formation of a diasporic community within a host society may be signalled through community members’ creative contributions in the realm of cultural production. The ways in which diasporic audiences engage with diasporic cultural texts potentially offers social and cultural trajectories of their understandings of themselves as they negotiate their new environment. This article examines these trajectories, focusing on the ways New Zealand audiences of Asian descent engage with Asian diasporic films. It addresses three key questions: How do audiences’ referential reflections on diasporic films intersect with and contribute to their diasporic journeys and perceptions of themselves in New Zealand society? What kinds of values and beliefs do diasporic audiences feel are important to affirm and negotiate, both within representations of diasporic communities and in their New Zealand-based lives? And what roles do diasporic films play in this ongoing negotiation process?     

组建联合型社区图书馆的实践与启示

联合型社区图书馆模式是具有中国特色的社区图书馆建设模式，以社区牵头，创建联合型社区图书馆，充分发挥同一社区内各社会单位图书馆的资源优势，各种类型图书馆之间相互沟通，共同向社会居民开放，可实现资源优化共享，使各方图书馆共同受益。     

Educating,learning, and growing: A review of the teaching role in academic librarianship

Abstract

This literature review aims to answer three questions: (1) Why is teaching important in the role of an academic librarian? (2) What teaching-related initiatives have been used by academic librarians to acquire teaching competencies? (3) How does teaching in academic libraries relate to the community of practice formed by educators across disciplines at a higher education institution? A review of the literature highlights the importance of teaching in academic libraries. Findings suggest that onboarding processes at academic libraries should accommodate the pedagogical and andragogical gaps of new librarians by implementing mentorship programs and providing ongoing feedback. Establishing such protocols would establish a framework for supporting a community of practice with regard to academic librarianship and teaching.