This article presents a case study of the intranet implementation and adoption process of a SharePoint intranet at a small academic library and investigates why the many Web 2.0 tools of the library intranet are currently underused. Staff interviews showed that common goals for an intranet, such as information dissemination, knowledge sharing,…

John Fiske (1842-1901) was an American historian, philosopher, lecturer, and prolific author. Renowned as a popularizer of evolutionary theory, Fiske rubbed elbows with Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. From 1872-79 he served as Assistant Librarian at Harvard University, occupied mainly with what is known today as "Technical Services," i.e.,…

It is hard to imagine a Microsoft venture falling under the weight of a competitor. That's the post-mortem offered by many academic librarians as they ponder the software giant's recent and sudden announcement that it is shutting down its book-digitization project. The librarians' conclusion: Google did it. Microsoft quietly revealed in May that…

Social networks are fundamental to all people. Their social network describes how they are connected to others: close relationships, peripheral relationships, and those relationships that help connect them to other people, events, or things. As information specialists, school librarians develop a multidimensional social network that enables them…

Libraries are constantly evolving and changing expectations for the user and the information environment. More than just being an authoritative source for research, expertise, and quality content in the form of books and journals, the information center is evolving into a more expansive role. With the growth of information technology awareness and…

The World Wide Web has come a long way in a very short time. A little more than a decade ago, with the invention of Mosaic, the first browser to display images inline with text instead of displaying images in a separate window, and Netscape, the first graphical user interface (browser), people began to experience a rapid expansion of information.…

This paper analyzes librarians' reactions to the Open OCLC WorldCat. A detailed survey was sent to ARL libraries to explore what, if anything, the libraries are currently doing to prepare for these changes and how they plan to cope with the probability of having all their records open to the whole world. Survey findings indicate that most of the…

Last week the venerable publisher John Wiley & Sons made a surprise announcement that it would purchase Blackwell Publishing Ltd. for about $1.13-billion, an acquisition likely to have broad consequences for the world of academic journals and libraries. Assuming that the deal is completed, Wiley's scientific, technical, and medical division will…

Steve and Tina Nabinger rely on one another not only as man and wife, but also in professional life... as practicing librarians in Upstate New York. They are librarians in love, who love to collaborate. Together they make up a dynamic duo spawning creative library lessons for their elementary and middle school students in Upstate New York. In this…

This is not another tired lament for a Golden Age when all students were brilliantly prepared for college, but rather an elaboration of a central pedagogical reality the authors had each separately faced--it is not easy to teach the complex set of skills subsumed under the heading "research," that organic, contingent, messy, recursive…

This article discusses some of the premigration tasks at Minnesota State Mankato in preparation for migration to a new integrated library system, ALEPH. The authors describe the review of circulation policies to make sure that only relevant, current data and practices were carried over. There is emphasis on the need for ongoing review of policies…

While a positive attitude for librarians helps, there is a knowledge base and a research base in the field, a structured set of protocols, and a range of skills that have to be taught and practiced at the preservice level. In this article, the author discusses the importance for librarians to exude more enthusiasm about their work. She offers…

Hoping to do for electronic books what the iPod has done for digital music, a new generation of e-book devices recently hit the market. This article argues that even with improved screens, the new e-book devices are not ready for college. The screen is the big innovation in the new e-book devices, the most prominent example of which is the Sony…

Getting kids excited about the library isn't as difficult as media librarians think. All it takes is giving them some control. They'll be surprised at how quickly their attitudes change once they let them play a role in everything from programming and technology to book selection and design. It may take some getting used to, but listening to what…

This article is a brief description of a young librarians' first six months in the profession. The article lists five things the librarian knows he has done wrong, and five things he knows he has done right.