The impact of the public library as a creative place in the community: A contextual review

This review examines recent literature on the public library as a creative place and the ways in which socio-cultural impact is being measured in assessments of cultural value. Inputs such as funding and staffing are frequently measured against outputs such as visitor numbers and lending frequencies, but qualitative measures (outcomes and impacts) are minimal in the literature because of the lack of persuasive evaluative frameworks and the difficulty of designing and facilitating the evaluations at local and national levels. Nevertheless, when combined with data about outputs and outcomes, the impact on individuals and their communities can be measured effectively and reported persuasively (Poll 2012, p.124). This contextual review provides an overview of current thinking about public libraries and creative spaces with particular attention paid to the rise of so-called makerspaces and Fab Labs. This includes discussion on the types of creative activities that are occurring in the public library context, and an outline of the rhetoric and reality of the public library as a community space. These outlines are reconsidered in a discussion of the evaluative frameworks that have been employed by libraries in the past, followed by an account of some prominent creative spaces that have been formally evaluated. The existence of creative spaces in public libraries is in a state of constant flux, and the development and redevelopment of evaluative frameworks will ensure that published reports will continue to appear throughout 2015 and beyond. This review provides a brief snapshot of the state of the field as it is in the first quarter of 2015.

Perceptions of leadership in the public library: a transnational study

This study explores the topic of leadership as perceived and practised by public library leaders. Library leaders have a wide-ranging impact on society but have been largely overlooked as the subject of serious study. Prior to this study, only one small interview-based study and five survey-based studies have been undertaken on public library leaders/leadership — all in North America. No study on the topic has been researched and published outside of North America. The current study is the most in-depth study to date, drawing on face-to-face interviews with thirty public library leaders. As this study was undertaken in three national jurisdictions — Ireland, Britain, and America — it is also the first transnational study on the topic. The study investigates library leaders’ perceptions of leadership, and critically explores if head librarians distinguish classic leadership from management practices, both conceptually and in their work lives. In addition to exploring core leadership issues, such as positive or negative traits, the study also investigates the perceptions of library leaders on matters closely connected with their careers. The study investigates the impact of public library leaders on their followers and on the broader society they serve. This study of the perceptions of senior public library leaders, across national boundaries, makes a theoretical contribution not just to leadership in librarianship, but also to the broader theory of library and information science, and in a limited way to the broad corpus of literature on organizational leadership. The study aims to develop an understanding of the perceptions of current leaders in the field of public librarianship. The results of the study show that leadership is a relatively scarce quality in public libraries in Ireland, Britain, and America. Many public library leaders focus on management and administration issues rather than leadership. The study also illustrates that varying leadership styles are practised by the interviewed librarians, and that there are no universal or common traits, even within national boundaries, for effective public library leadership. The implications of the study for both practising librarians and research literatures in librarianship and organizational leadership are also explored and a future research agenda developed.

Intra-organisational marketing culture and market orientation: a case study of the implementation of the marketing concept in a public library

The measurement of both marketing culture and behaviour provides the opportunity to gain more insight into the overall market focus of organisations. This article seeks to determine the market orientation and marketing culture of all staff within organisations, to ascertain to what extent other members of an organisation support or create barriers to the successful implementation of the marketing concept. This paper will provide a brief overview of the existing literature in the field of market orientation and marketing culture. After detailing the research design and methodology, a summary developed from 11 focus group sessions - consisting of all staff in one public library service in Victoria, Australia - is presented. The findings indicate that while all areas within this organisation are committed to marketing, there are various interpretations of marketing and how it should be implemented. In addition, the research finds a number of factors that could be instrumental in the successful implementation of the marketing concept in public libraries.

Jewish life in oriental countries : a list of books and manuscripts exhibited at the New York public library March 30th to December 31st, 1926

Prepared and arranged by Joshua Bloch

Public Library, Orihuela, Alicante (1992)

In Collaboration with Pedro L. Valle López

Public Library, Madrid (1990)

Proyecto de la biblioteca pública de Fuencarral, Madrid

Public library consumer health information pilot project: results of a National Library of Medicine evaluation

In October 1998, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) launched a pilot project to learn about the role of public libraries in providing health information to the public and to generate information that would assist NLM and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) in learning how best to work with public libraries in the future. Three regional medical libraries (RMLs), eight resource libraries, and forty-one public libraries or library systems from nine states and the District of Columbia were selected for participation. The pilot project included an evaluation component that was carried out in parallel with project implementation. The evaluation ran through September 1999. The results of the evaluation indicated that participating public librarians were enthusiastic about the training and information materials provided as part of the project and that many public libraries used the materials and conducted their own outreach to local communities and groups. Most libraries applied the modest funds to purchase additional Internet-accessible computers and/or upgrade their health-reference materials. However, few of the participating public libraries had health information centers (although health information was perceived as a top-ten or top-five topic of interest to patrons). Also, the project generated only minimal usage of NLM's consumer health database, known as MEDLINEplus, from the premises of the monitored libraries (patron usage from home or office locations was not tracked). The evaluation results suggested a balanced follow-up by NLM and the NN/LM, with a few carefully selected national activities, complemented by a package of targeted activities that, as of January 2000, are being planned, developed, or implemented. The results also highlighted the importance of building an evaluation component into projects like this one from the outset, to assure that objectives were met and that evaluative information was available on a timely basis, as was the case here.

Digital Curation Program of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a digital library that strives to serve the public through digital collections accumulated from a wide variety of partners. Our chosen topic for the DPLA exhibit project is Perspectives on the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War remains a controversial topic of national interest, making it a topic of depth and of many perspectives. Our goals with this exhibit were to gather different perspectives of the war through personal stories, the media, presidential administrations of the war, military personnel, and the general public, including famous figures. We strove to demonstrate the variety of perspectives on the Vietnam War through a variation of digital objects and content that will be engaging for users: both black and white and color photos, videos, and audio files. Furthermore, we wanted to ensure that our digital materials are of high quality, properly documented, and easy to search and find thus all of our objects are from DPLA and are from usable original sources. This poster will describe our processes for organizational, object selection, building our exhibit, attainment of our goals, and detailed steps of our overall operation. The poster will also include details about the minor issues and bumps that occurred while reaching our final product as well as the team members’ perspectives on the project as a whole including: problems, words to for the wise, and triumphs.

How Does the Denver Public Library System Respond to its Customer's Requests for Global Information?

The interaction between globally available information and public library users is a changing one. Global information is readily available yet provider and user struggle to find efficiencies of time and resources. As a primary resource of global information the Denver Public Library (DPL) is approaching this challenge by providing changing technology to a changing user and by providing a customized approach to immigrant populations. DPL provides global information to library users through collections, programs and Internet. Internet and collections global information usage cannot be directly measured due to privacy restrictions. Only 12.5% of general user programs focus on global information. Four percent of budget serves the immigrant users. This is greater than national averages.