While much of the development of learning organizations within libraries has taken place in large academic institutions, Peter Senge’s theoretical concepts are just as valuable in public libraries, even comparatively small rural libraries. Utilizing the University of Arizona Library as a case study, a prototype of an organizational structure based on teams has been developed for the Teton Count...

This paper evaluates to which extent Google retrieved correct answers as responses to queries inferred from factual and topical requests in a digital Ask-a-Librarian service. 100 factual and 100 topical questions were picked from a digital reference service run by public libraries. The queries inferred simulated average Web queries. The top 10 retrieval results were observed for the answer. The...

Purpose – This paper aims to, through an analysis of the current literature, explore the current state of the library e-publishing community and its approach to preservation. Libraries are increasingly proposing publishing services as part of their workwith their communities, and recently, there has been a pronounced interest in providing electronic publishing (e-publishing) services. The libra...

Introduction. This paper reports on a study of publishers' attitudes towards e-books in the context of the global situation of e-book publishing. Comparative data are drawn from a replication of a survey carried out in Sweden, in Lithuania and in Croatia. Method. A self-completed questionnaire survey was undertaken, offering respondents the choice of a printed questionnaire or a response throug...

Censorship challenges to books in UK public libraries have received renewed attention recently, partly due to press coverage regarding libraries stocking ‘extremist’ material. Guidelines for dealing with these types of challenges and the general management of controversial material have been published; however there has been little recent research into the phenomenon of challenges to books in t...

The use of 200 public libraries in New York City was analyzed according to their neighborhood characteristics. In addition to demographic, economic, and cultural factors traditionally considered, the social and spatial interactions within a neighborhood were related to public library use. Correlation and regression analyses were implemented for all the libraries. The research found that traditi...

This paper reports on the initial findings of the first phase of a study funded by San Jose State University, USA to provide insight regarding how public libraries can be more involved in community-wide disaster planning, strengthening their role as core members of their communities' disaster preparedness and response infrastructure. The first phase of the study involves a nationwide survey of ...

THEBENTONFOUNDATION REPORT, Buildings, Books, and Bytes: Libraries and Communities in the Diptal Age, bases its conclusions on three separate data collections: a gathering of insights from Kellogg Foundation grantees, a telephone survey, and a focus group interview. In order to judge the weight that can be placed on the report, the quality of the information obtained through these investigation...

LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 62, No. 3, 2014 (“Essays in Honor of W. Boyd Rayward: Part 2,” edited by Alistair Black and Charles van den Heuvel), pp. 581–595. © 2014 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois Abstract The redefining of the scope and function of the public library in the twenty-first century, and reconstruction of the virtual and physical space it occupies, appear to have taken publi...

Introduction. The e-book and its associated technology have emerged as a disruptive technology over the past ten years. The aim of this paper is to discuss some of the consequences of this development, based on the work of the e-books in Sweden research project. Argument. To explain the impact of the e-book phenomenon we use Winston’s theory of technological innovation, with particular referenc...