Firing an old friend,painful decisions: The ethics between librarians and vendors

The past decade has brought many changes in the relationships between librarians and vendors and in the ethics between them. Foremost among these changes have been the advances in library technology and automation. In the past, the symbiotic relationship between librarians and vendors was relatively simple. Librarians wanted a vendor who could supply library materials efficiently, accurately, and with a good discount. The vendor was expected to be knowledgeable about library trends and needs and to be the party with the business savvy and sophistication to work with publishers. Now, not only do librarians expect vendors to supply materials efficiently and accurately, they also expect technological sophistication in the providing of these materials, automated systems, and service for the systems. This is especially true for the acquisition of serial publications and the needs of automated services such as check-in, claiming, ordering, and invoicing. Librarians now want more than just materials at a reasonable price. They want automated systems and databases for acquiring materials, managing budgets, and servicing collections. This paper will review the historical relationship of the ethics between vendors and librarians. It will explore the information and automation society and how the decline of business ethics in the eighties changed this relationship.     

(14) Public Library Development in Malaysia: A Brief Statement of Existing Conditions Together with a Research Proposal

Education is not static but dynamic, and evolving with changing needs, hopes and aspirations of the individuals and the society. The process of education is, therefore, closely tied to the prevailing conditions and aspirations of a particular society. So the diverse and changing needs of each society reflects on the current trends in library education and training. It is argued that library education must deal with the essential principles and theories relating to human communication and information dissemination. In this respect, the provision of library services is the hand-maiden of these theoretical considerations and principles. Library training is meant to teach or impart skills. The process of library training is required to equip an individual with the skills and techniques necessary to carry out certain tasks. In our view, this is the “how” of library practice.¹ Wherever possible, the two are found as complement to each other.     

西部图书馆人的生存与发展理念--来自西部贫困山区图书馆的报告

西部贫困山区图书馆的现状如何，西部图书馆人怎样发扬红军精神，艰苦创业，创新服务，发展事业，论文提供了一份真实的报告。     

Conceptual Revolutions: Who Needs Them and Why?

ABSTRACT

This article, rationale for the lifelong professional work of the author, shows how conceptual revolutions have changed the way we view our world. The author believes that another conceptual revolution is needed as we “learn how to live within the limits of the ecosphere that gave birth to us.” That means replacing the 10,000-year-old block-field agriculture system with perennial food and soil-building crops system. This change is needed to replace the energy-intensive planting, fertilizing, and harvesting of single annual crops by the application and use of expensive hydrocarbons that pollute the air, soil, and water. The 35th anniversary (November 2005) issue of Smithsonian magazine profiles Jackson as one of “35 Who Made Difference” in shaping our present and future world. This article is presented in PLQ because it lays out proactive alternative to an energy-intensive agriculture and modest, piecemeal environmentalism. The author's citations of scholars and ecological movements lead readers to numerous individuals and organizations working to create viable food-production pathway to achieve bright future for our world.     

偏远山区数字图书馆建设的思考

数字图书馆向我们走来,它与传统的图书馆相比,数字图书馆的用户不再是固定的而是在开放式、交互式的环境下资源共享。它使山区人民对信息的发展和使用更上了一个档次,在从事图书馆的工作中,逐步培养起超前意识和战略眼光,立足当前,着眼长远,加强学习,为贫困地区图书馆事业的发展做出贡献。     

Libraries in Georgia in 2004-2015

This article presents a report of libraries and librarianship in Georgia during the recent decade. Consideration is given to a variety of libraries, numerous programs and services, Open Source, library science education, and changes from Post-Soviet to contemporary library systems. The insights about this decade of change in this report resonate with many other libraries across the globe. The in-depth look at libraries in Georgia increases awareness of the recent past, current, and immediate future environments for libraries and librarianship.     

Libraries Without Walls

Abstract

An internship in a prison library provides excellent training both in basic library services and in dealing with under-served populations. This type of internship, one that imparts an alternate view of librarianship, provides an understanding of how organizations work and develops professional integrity and supervisory skills. A prison internship experience has wide application in the library field, grounding students firmly in customer service and library instruction skills.     

Do-It-Yourself Assessment

Abstract

Libraries have walls. Recognizing this fact, the Interlibrary Loan Department at Virginia Tech is creating systems and services that enable our customers to reach past our walls at anytime from any where. Customer in-reach enables Virginia Tech faculty, students, and staff anywhere in the world to obtain information and services heretofore available only to our on-campus customers. ILLiad, Virginia Tech's interlibrary borrowing system, is the library strategic system that attains this goal. The principles that guided development of ILLiad are widely applicable.     

从馆员书评开始，引领全民阅读的深入

论文指出：处在大力开展阅读活动,向全社会主动推广图书馆服务的新时期,更需要对全民阅读推广如何进一步深入作些冷静思考.民国时期,我国图书馆人在精致、完善和专业的开展阅读推广和书评活动方面的做法和经验,仍能给我们以启迪.图书馆员所要承担的职责和任务是无法由别人替代的,但与社会和全民的需求和愿望相比,始终存在较大的差距.从重视和推进图书馆员书评工作开始,或许就是把全民阅读推广引向深入的有效方向和举措.     

图书馆国际合作的探讨

馆际合作随着信息环境的进步与更高的服务需求而调整,而馆际合作系统的持续加强,改变了传统馆际合作的面貌,电子全文的方便撷取,逐渐改变读者的研究行为及使用渠道,图书馆必须审视自身的功能及未来的变化,并思考在信息社会中扮演如何的角色。     

公共图书馆建设现状研究

随着我国社会经济建设的快速发展,公共图书馆的基础设施建设、环境建设、服务手段都发生着可喜的变化。而公共图书馆快速普及之后,却并没有兴起全民读书的热情和良好的阅读习惯的培养。论文就现实社会公共图书馆读者工作、馆舍建设、队伍建设的实践为对象,探讨公共图书馆如何融入民众生活,使他们能自觉地接受图书馆的服务。     

Collaboration and Competition in Special Libraries

Librarianship has a long tradition of collaboration and cooperation between libraries, but the literature yields scant evidence of formal partnerships in practice in special libraries. This column explores the barriers to collaboration for special libraries, from organizational culture to legal constraints, as well as the potential benefits and how librarians can overcome the barriers to reap these benefits. Different types of collaboration, including among similar special libraries and between special libraries and other types of libraries and related organizations, as well as informal and formal cooperation, and short-term and long-term partnerships, are discussed. Collaboration and cooperation were part of the impetus to form professional associations. The column provides a brief history of professional library associations and their role in supporting library partnerships in the United States. The conclusion explores how the increasingly digital nature of information and library work affects collaborative library efforts and where the future of these efforts may lie, especially for special libraries.     

Philpapers Breaks New Ground for Discipline Based Repositories

This is the first in a series of columns intended to report on the progress of the Open Access (OA) movement in scholarly communication, chart the changes OA brings to the methods libraries and library users employ to acquire information, and estimate the value of OA materials for undergraduate library collections. At this point, it is not clear how long commercially published academic journals will be a sine qua non for college libraries. However, it is already obvious that undergraduate instruction can benefit from the scholarship available through Open Access at the same time that our libraries need the budget relief such resources offer. Librarians who work with undergraduates have very good reasons to stay current with the range and quality of OA content as well as with the best means of providing access to that body of scholarship. In addition, faculty teaching undergraduates depend upon librarians to keep them informed about changes in the information environment. With that in mind, “Out in the Open” is an attempt to introduce readers to the people, resources, and trends identified with the rise of Open Access.     

Curatorship as Social Practice

This article examines changes that have been taking place in the museum world over the past several decades—changes that have been transforming the social practice of curatorship in museums. We are seeing the emergence of more holistic, integrated and culturally relative approaches to curatorial work that acknowledge the relationships among objects, people, and society, and explore these relationships in social and cultural contexts. Through cross‐cultural comparison, curating can be seen as a form of social practice linked to specific kinds of relationships between people and objects as well as to wider social structures and contexts. This approach allows us to transcend debates over whether or not museums and curatorial work should be either object‐ or people‐focused. One approach cannot be separated from the other.     

Five years later: medical reference in the 21st century

In 2000, three groups of health sciences librarians-new library school graduates, those currently working at a medical library, and medical library directors-were interviewed about the status and future of medical reference librarianship. Five years later this follow-up article summarizes the responses from many of the same librarians about the biggest changes, newest trends, evolving roles, challenges, and hopes for the future.     

The Forecast for Special Libraries

ABSTRACT

Special libraries exist in an ecosystem consisting of the information industry, the library world, their own organizations, and workforce demographics. Librarians need to be aware of the trends shaping all of these facets. This column takes a close look at Outsell's Information Industry Outlook report for 2016 and its implications for special libraries. The outlook for special libraries is neither the previously forecast Baby Boomer retirement crisis nor the dire end of special libraries many feared during the recent recession. Instead, the special library world is transforming, creating both challenges and opportunities for special librarians. Millennials entering both the workforce at large and the library workforce will make their presence known. Savvy information professionals will stay on top of these trends and find their niche, whether in a traditional physical library or in emerging careers outside the library.

Column Editor’s NoteSpecial libraries share concerns with their more general academic, public, and school counterparts, but they also have unique characteristics and concerns which merit separate consideration. Libraries of all types are evolving, and just as special libraries can learn from the general literature on libraries, practitioners in all types of libraries can learn from the experiences and best practices of special libraries. “The Specialist,” appearing in even-numbered issues of this journal, addresses the administrative concerns of special libraries. The column's scope is a broad umbrella of specialized librarianship and includes corporate, non-profit, government, and independent libraries as well as the specialized departments and branches of academic and public libraries. Contributions from practitioners and scholars on any aspect of special libraries are welcome. Interested authors are invited to contact the editor at tmurray@stamps.org for submission guidelines.     

Early Literacy and the Public Library: An Opportunity of a Lifetime (of Reading)

In this article, author Bill Ptacek says that the future is now, and, at least from the 1970s through today, in the field of early childhood work, the future has come so fast that it is constantly upon us. That reality means that those concerned about young children in libraries have been about adaptation on a continuing basis. In this world of rapid change, innovation is constant: City firefighters come to the libraries in uniform to read stories to children, library outreach specialists take programs to daycare centers in their communities, and staff members create a space in a library devoted to early childhood reading. This tradition of rapid change means that the early childhood staff of most large public libraries in North America is changing for the future on a regular basis. The work unit should be considered seriously as one model for 21st century public library reform.     

关于Web2．0影响下数字图书馆发展的思考

随着信息环境进入Web2．0,网络及用户行为产生了巨大变化,人们不得不对数字图书馆将来的发展进行思考。文章认为,未来的数字图书馆将会走进家庭,嵌入社会,会加快与其它机构合作的步伐,会树立权威服务的意识,会注重以用户为中心和坚持文化和教育职能。     

美国图书馆政策的重点领域及对中国的启示

美国图书馆政策的重点涉及领域有经费来源、图书馆服务、管理体制与机制、信息资源保存和职业素质等。制定图书馆政策强化全社会的图书馆意识,努力构建完善的图书馆政策体系,不断修订和完善已有的图书馆政策,积极发挥行业组织在图书馆政策制定与实施中的作用,制定科学的图书馆政策评估机制,这都是美国图书馆政策带给我们的启示。参考文献12。