Library Administrator's Digest

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, along with sophisticated sorting equipment, will shorten the time it takes to check in and check out materials, and will help the district deliver items among district branches faster, getting them into the hands of patrons sooner.

Video Games Now Available

Making Room to Read Is in a Swirl

"The kids love putting their pennies, nickels and quarters into the device and watching the coins swirl to the base," says Mary Lynn Thomas, children librarian.

All Systems in Distress

[...] this fall, as the traditional credit markets seized up and froze, it was clear that the municipal bond market, largely an innocent bystander in the dramatic unwinding of the credit markets, was heading for trouble. The entire credit system is undergoing massive change, which is sending policy analysts back into the history books to see how widespread and deep-seated financial crisis were handled in earlier eras.

Salary Cut

Systemwide Access

The stand-alone automation system at BCPL has meant that there's never been an easy way for users at either of the member libraries to borrow materials from BCPL, which has the largest collection in the Four County Library System.

What Change Agents Are Made Of

[...] true change agents see a future no one else does, and that vision won't let them rest. [...] the most effective change agents have a fervent core of supporters, cultivated through intensity and caring.

Flaws in the Selfish-Worker Theory

In spite of the recent turmoil in the world's capital markets, I'm a big fan of capitalism, which deserves much of the credit for the recent progress in reducing global poverty.

Student Mural

The library is extremely honored to be a part of this project and especially proud that young people created such a dynamic mural with depictions that share a rich legacy, said Clyde Scoles, director of the ToledoLucas County Public Library.

New Dvd for Trustees

The Misadventures of a New Library Board Member as a tool to assist members of a library board better understand their roles and responsibilities, relationship to the director and organization, and advocacy.

Greetings From Indiana!

The public library community has formed a coalition with the state library and has hired a consulting firm to help us determine how best to provide library service to all of the residents of Indiana.

Layoffs Rock Publishing World

Time Inc.; American Express Publishing; and Condé Nast Publications announced layoffs due to budget cuts.

Kidbits From Miss Holly

Word Smart (Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence) Music Smart (Musical Intelligence) Logic Smart (Logcial/Mathematical Intelligence) Picture Smart (Visual/Spatial Intelligence) Body Smart (Kinesthetic Intelligence) People Smart (Interpersonal Intelligence) Self Smart (Intrapersonal Intelligence) Nature Smart (Naturalist Intelligence) Which one is your child's strength?

From The Editor

I Don't Believe It!

In the winter 2008 issue of Lines of the Glenview (IL) Public Library appears this paragraph: A speaker at a library technology conference recently stated 'Forty percent of what public libraries will be doing five years from now has not even been invented yet.' The shift from print to online resources and the transition from analog to digital technologies are shaping new service patterns in the world of librarians and librarianship.

Oral History

While I'm not that enthusiastic about public libraries becoming museums or historical societies, the fact is that there are relatively few historical societies compared to libraries, and without libraries doing something to preserve local history, it will be lost forever.

Salary Cut

In the last 20 years of my employment I told the board of trustees that I would take no salary increase greater than the cost-of-living increase that they would receive, even though some would receive step increases as well. In one recession when we had a midyear budget cut and had to close branches and lay off staff (no cuts to the materials budget, though), we had to institute unpaid furloughs for the staff.

Consolidation

[...] Calvert organized the state with 23 counties and Baltimore City, which isn't in a county. Public libraries, which, by a law passed in 1948, were organized by county, with board members appointed by the governor until about 1964, when board appointments were moved to the local county authority, county executives or county commissioners.

More Print Change

LAD is a periodical, of course, but it doesn't rely on advertisers, only the interest and loyalty of its readers, leaders in the library profession.

Distress

Public libraries, unlike a list of retail stores I recently saw listing all the wellknown chains going into Chapter 11 or closing stores in early 2009, never go out of business, laying off the entire staff and closing doors forever.

Trustees

[...] I have to look at this DVD, and you might too.

Here, Take My Library

The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District has been one of the fastestgrowing public libraries in the nation recently, and its director, Dan Walters, has presided well over the frantic pace.

New Graphics