The New Librarianship

How librarians can be radical positive change agents in their communities, dedicated to learning and making a difference. This book offers a guide for librarians who see their profession as a chance to make a positive difference in their communities—librarians who recognize that it is no longer enough to stand behind a desk waiting to serve. R. David Lankes, author of The Atlas of New Librarianship, reminds librarians of their mission: to improve society by facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. In this book, he provides tools, arguments, resources, and ideas for fulfilling this mission. Librarians will be prepared to become radical positive change agents in their communities, and other readers will learn to understand libraries in a new way. The librarians of Ferguson, Missouri, famously became positive change agents in August 2014 when they opened library doors when schools were closed because of civil unrest after the shooting of an unarmed teen by police. Working with other local organizations, they provided children and their parents a space for learning, lunch, and peace. But other libraries serve other communities—students, faculty, scholars, law firms—in other ways. All libraries are about community, writes Lankes; that is just librarianship. In concise chapters, Lankes addresses the mission of libraries and explains what constitutes a library. He offers practical advice for librarian training; provides teaching notes for each chapter; and answers “Frequently Argued Questions” about the new librarianship.

An essential guide to a librarianship based not on books and artifacts but on knowledge and learning. Libraries have existed for millennia, but today the library field is searching for solid footing in an increasingly fragmented (and increasingly digital) information environment. What is librarianship when it is unmoored from cataloging, books, buildings, and committees? In The Atlas of New Librarianship, R. David Lankes offers a guide to this new landscape for practitioners. He describes a new librarianship based not on books and artifacts but on knowledge and learning; and he suggests a new mission for librarians: to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. The vision for a new librarianship must go beyond finding library-related uses for information technology and the Internet; it must provide a durable foundation for the field. Lankes recasts librarianship and library practice using the fundamental concept that knowledge is created though conversation. New librarians approach their work as facilitators of conversation; they seek to enrich, capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities. To help librarians navigate this new terrain, Lankes offers a map, a visual representation of the field that can guide explorations of it; more than 140 Agreements, statements about librarianship that range from relevant theories to examples of practice; and Threads, arrangements of Agreements to explain key ideas, covering such topics as conceptual foundations and skills and values. Agreement Supplements at the end of the book offer expanded discussions. Although it touches on theory as well as practice, the Atlas is meant to be a tool: textbook, conversation guide, platform for social networking, and call to action. Copublished with the Association of College & Research Libraries.

The sheer amount of resources on the subject of information literacy is staggering. Yet a comprehensive but concise roadmap specifically for librarians who are new to instruction, or who are charged with training someone who is, has remained elusive. Until now. This book cuts through the jargon and rhetoric to ease the transition into library instruction, offering support to all those involved, including library supervisors, colleagues, and trainees. Grounded in research on teaching and learning from numerous disciplines, not just library literature, this book shows how to set up new instruction librarians for success, with advice on completing an environmental scan, strategies for recruiting efficiently, and a training checklist; walks readers step by step through training a new hire or someone new to instruction, complete with hands-on activities and examples;explores the different roles an instruction librarian is usually expected to play, such as educator, project manager, instructional designer, and teaching partner;demonstrates the importance of performance evaluation and management, including assessment and continuing education, both formal and informal; andprovides guided reading lists for further in-depth study of a topic. A starter kit for librarians new to instruction, this resource will be useful for training coordinators as well as for self-training.

"Libraries have existed for millennia, but today the library field is searching for solid footing in an increasingly fragmented (and increasingly digital) information environment. What is librarianship when it is unmoored from cataloging, books, buildings, and committees? In The Atlas of New Librarianship, R. David Lankes offers a guide to this new landscape for practitioners. He describes a new librarianship based not on books and artifacts but on knowledge and learning; and he suggests a new mission for librarians: to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. The vision for a new librarianship must go beyond finding library-related uses for information technology and the Internet; it must provide a durable foundation for the field. Lankes recasts librarianship and library practice using the fundamental concept that knowledge is created though conversation. New librarians approach their work as facilitators of conversation; they seek to enrich, capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities. To help librarians navigate this new terrain, Lankes offers a map, a visual representation of the field that can guide explorations of it; more than 140 Agreements, statements about librarianship that range from relevant theories to examples of practice; and Threads, arrangements of Agreements to explain key ideas, covering such topics as conceptual foundations and skills and values. Agreement Supplements at the end of the book offer expanded discussions. Although it touches on theory as well as practice, the Atlas is meant to be a tool: textbook, conversation guide, platform for social networking, and call to action."--M.I.T. Press Web page.

Libraries have existed for millennia, but today many question their necessity. In an ever more digital and connected world do we still need places of books in our towns, colleges, or schools? If libraries aren't about books, what are they about?In Expect More, David Lankes, winner of the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature, walks you through what to expect out of your library. Lankes argues that communities need libraries that go beyond bricks and mortar and beyond books. We need to expect more out of our libraries. They should be places of learning and advocates for our communities in terms of learning, privacy, intellectual property, and economic development.Expect More is a rallying call to communities to raise the bar, and their expectations, for great libraries.

Monograph on Innovation in the field of library science and library administration in the USA - stresses the social role of librarianship in the current era of social change, maintains that librarianship should assume new dimensions of leadership in the community, and covers organizational structures, bureaucracy, professionalism, administrative aspects, etc. References.

In This Book is Overdue!, acclaimed author Marilyn Johnson celebrates libraries and librarians, and, as she did in her popular first book, The Dead Beat, discovers offbeat and eloquent characters in the quietest corners. In defiance of doomsayers, Johnson finds librarians more vital and necessary than ever, as they fuse the tools of the digital age with love for the written word and the enduring values of truth, service to all, and free speech. This Book Is Overdue! is a romp through the ranks of information professionals who organize our messy world and offer old-fashioned human help through the maze.

How librarians can be radical positive change agents in their communities, dedicated to learning and making a difference. This book offers a guide for librarians who see their profession as a chance to make a positive difference in their communities—librarians who recognize that it is no longer enough to stand behind a desk waiting to serve. R. David Lankes, author of The Atlas of New Librarianship, reminds librarians of their mission: to improve society by facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. In this book, he provides tools, arguments, resources, and ideas for fulfilling this mission. Librarians will be prepared to become radical positive change agents in their communities, and other readers will learn to understand libraries in a new way. The librarians of Ferguson, Missouri, famously became positive change agents in August 2014 when they opened library doors when schools were closed because of civil unrest after the shooting of an unarmed teen by police. Working with other local organizations, they provided children and their parents a space for learning, lunch, and peace. But other libraries serve other communities—students, faculty, scholars, law firms—in other ways. All libraries are about community, writes Lankes; that is just librarianship. In concise chapters, Lankes addresses the mission of libraries and explains what constitutes a library. He offers practical advice for librarian training; provides teaching notes for each chapter; and answers “Frequently Argued Questions” about the new librarianship.