You know that having good relationships with the media will benefit your archives or other cultural institution, and perhaps you have even included them in a plan to enhance your the marketing and public relations efforts. After all, media can not only help you spread the word about your programming or achievements, but at times they can also provide bad press. Developing a good relationship with the media is key to helping you weather such storms.

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Public Relations and Marketing for Archives: A How-To-Do-It Manual edited by Russell D. James and Peter J. Wosh. The suggestions below can help you foster a strong relationship with the media on behalf of your institution.

Cultivation of the Media

All media outlets report the news, but their methodologies vary. This will have an impact on the ways in which you interact with various news venues. In forging relationships, it is important to think like a public relations professional as well as an archivist and to adopt the primary goals of a public relations professional.

Developing Mutually Beneficial Relationships with the Media

When developing positive relationships, you must combine professional integrity with basic courtesies. “Please” and “thank you” go a long way in fostering mutual respect. Use the following basic principles for effective public relations:

• Use honest communication to maintain credibility.

• Network with media personnel.

• Meet the publishers, editors, and journalists whenever possible.

• Hand out brochures and pamphlets related to the archives.

• If a person is new to the area, give him or her additional information about the community—a little kindness can go a long way!

• Attend events at which the media will be present, such as ribbon cuttings, government meetings, and cultural events.

• Always ask the media for a deadline; if you cannot meet the deadline, explain your reasons and see if an extension is possible.

• Send public service announcements to all local television, radio, and newspaper outlets.

• Think of events as party invitations—they are appreciated even if possible attendees need to decline.

• Overlooking individual outlets can create ill-will.

• Always maintain an open, consistent, and impartial relationship with the media; be sure that all media outlets receive the same press releases and notices of a newsworthy story.

• Fairness of actions will result in reciprocity and goodwill.

• When multiple media representatives are present, be sure to speak to each of them.

• To create personal relationships, contact individuals rather than departments.

• Maintain two-way communication to build relationships.

• Do not wait until you need the media to contact them.

• Formally thank the media for their coverage of an event or publication of a story or photograph.

• Conduct environmental research and evaluation to determine actions or adjustments needed to maintain good working relationships.

• Understand community issues that will benefit and potentially damage the promotion of the archives.

• Maintain professional relationships with the media without showing favoritism.

• When calling a journalist, find out at the beginning of the conversation if he or she needs you to call back or can speak at that moment.

• This is a professional courtesy that makes an impression and lets the reporter know that you understand the constraints placed on him or her.

• After talking with the reporter, have materials ready to send to demonstrate that your public relations department is serious and well organized.

- Excerpted from Public Relations and Marketing for Archivists: A How-To-Do-It Manual, pp. 74-75. © 2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery.

• Why did you decide there was a need for a book like this in the first place?

I never thought of writing a book on this subject at all!  I think it was Pat Schuman who approached me when she heard that I was training nearly all the public service staff of the Chicago Public Library on this topic. That would have been 1998 or 1999. I never even thought of training others on anger, but about 25 years before that, public libraries asked me to help their staffs learn techniques for coping with so-called “problem patrons.” They assumed that I knew about it since I’d worked as a library aide in a mental hospital while in college, and then – in my first professional library position – I was a jail librarian. My angry patrons at that time were inmates and correc­tional officers; both were highly frustrated and quick to anger. By the time I was training staff of the Chicago Public Library, I’d had angry patrons in every library where I’d worked, and I’d been speaking and teaching on the topic for a long time.

Let me say that, though I may have started writing based on my own experiences, the revised edition of Defusing the Angry Patron reflects the comments and experiences of thousands of public and college librarians and paraprofessionals who have attended my workshops, as well as dozens of reference librarians, circulation staff, and other public and academic library workers who responded to a short, informal survey I conducted in 2009. All of those library workers reconfirmed the need for such a book.

• What new ideas and information will readers discover in the revision of Defusing the Angry Patron, Second Edition: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians?

When Charles Harmon asked me to write the revised edition, I initially thought that nothing much had changed since the original book (2000): angry patrons still present serious dilemmas for library staff, and the way libraries are run (among other things) still angers users. They are incensed by antiquated library policies, by their inability to get the materials and computer time they want, and by staff whom they perceive as rude or condescending. Also, they still see the library as a safe place to let off steam. Unfortunately, anger is still contagious – a customer’s angry steam can still cause staff to feel mad, frustrated, victimized, and/or helpless.

I soon realized that at least three things had indeed changed. First, the quantity of difficult encounters in libraries – including the number of incidents with angry patrons – has grown significantly (according to anecdotal evidence; firm statistics are difficult to find). I assume this is the result of a dramatic increase in patrons’ expectations. Options have proliferated in terms of formats and media, as well as expedited delivery methods. Self-service and 24/7 services via websites were novel – and not offered by most libraries — ten years ago. Now those advances are commonplace, and users have developed even higher expectations, especially in terms of speed of access. After all, now customers shun email and phone calls for instant messaging and texting, and e-book readers can download entire books in under a minute. We know that unrealistic expectations yield frustrated users.

Second, we are living in a new digital landscape. In addition to traditional face to face reference, most libraries now offer virtual reference by email, instant message, texting, or chat. The anonymous, faceless nature of VRS presents unique challenges.  Meanwhile, Web 2.0 and social media — both recent phenomena — allow easy, instant interactions between users and libraries as well as among library users. Many libraries are harnessing the power of social media to promote their services, and to make the library accessible to more and different users. The downside is that complaints, angry comments, and misinformation spread quickly: one unsatisfied user can broadcast complaints to millions of people world-wide with a few clicks on a computer keyboard. Libraries are still figuring out how to respond to this new breed of “difficult situation.”

The third change is in how libraries respond to angry patrons now. Three examples are:

1. In the past ten years, many more libraries have created procedures to enforce behavior policies. Libraries, for example, are codifying what a staff person should do – step by step – about a user who has broken the rule against excessive noise as compared to a patron who has ignored the policy on limited renewals.

2. Libraries are invoking stiffer penalties with people whose anger blows out of control. These penalties are, of course, directly related to both policies and procedures. And fortunately, libraries are being more proactive in educating the public about their policies.

3. Many more public libraries, as well as academic and special libraries, employ private security guards, though (again) it is difficult to find any statistics on how many libraries do – and on whether having them alleviates angry incidents. But just this week I read that the Boulder (CO) Public Library has reported a “sharp decline in security problems” since it began hiring private security guards three years ago, and has numbers to back up their claim.

• Who should read your book?

It was written primarily for frontline staff – anyone who works directly with customers –  and their supervisors and managers. (Already that covers most library staff.) I was addressing all staff members who are sick and tired of being yelled at by patrons; angry themselves because they feel dumped on by the public; unsure what to do when someone looks upset; frightened by the unexpected high emotion some customers show over a simple library transaction; and, frustrated by their own behavior under pressure. But in the end, the book is for everyone, since the techniques I offer in the book work with any human beings (including colleagues and family members).

• What one thing do you most want them to know?

How about two things? First, I want everyone to realize that they do not need to feel powerless in the face of anger, even if the person’s natural first reaction is paralysis. Second, it’s essential that you avoid fighting fire with fire, even if your natural first reaction is to retaliate. Usually, the patron isn’t the whole problem (which is why I don’t use the term “problem patron”). Rather, the problem is in the interaction among the library as an institution with its rules and procedures, the user’s expectations of the library and personal style of communication, and the staff member’s expectations of customers and personal style of communication. If we change something about any of those things, usually we can “fix” the problem. And often the easiest thing to change is our own way of responding to the customer.

• Please tell us a little bit about your consulting business – why you started it and the kinds of training you do.

I became an independent library consultant in 1980 because I didn’t want to continue as a library director. To be frank, I disliked the human resources aspects of the job, and I also wanted to give up the 60 hour work week so I could have time for a baby. I was fortunate to have had a number of small consulting jobs and staff workshop offers already, so I felt I might be able to make the leap into consulting.

From the beginning, my consultancy has specialized in extending public library services to people who do not use them in traditional ways or places. In other words, I have worked with people most public librarians never see. So my focus has been on the people aspects of librarianship as compared to technology or collections or buildings. I’ve pretty much split my time between consulting and training.  On the consulting side, I’ve concentrated on planning, assessment, and the establishment of new library services. For example, helping libraries plan for and provide services for people with disabilities has been a major focus. Another has been assisting libraries who want to measure the impact of services on users.

On the training side, I’ve done everything from lunchtime lectures to multi-day workshops and college courses, usually in the same areas on which I consult. My most popular workshops are on customer service, outcome measurement, serving people with disabilities, and defusing anger. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work in over 40 states, training more than 10,000 professionals and paraprofessionals.

• In addition to consulting and training, you‘ve written 13 books and numerous reports and articles.  How does your writing relate to your work?

The two are intertwined. The books allow me to extend what I know to many more people than I’ll ever actually meet; they also serve as the only PR for my consulting and training. Everything I learn while preparing to write, I also use in my work; and anything I learn from my consulting and training, I use in my writing.

• This is your 4^th book for Neal-Schuman. Any comments?

Actually, it’s my 6^th book for Pat Schuman.  My first book, Using Bibliotherapy: A Guide to Theory and Practice, was written at the request of ALA Publishing (now called ALA Editions). But when I submitted the manuscript, it was rejected because the editor thought my ideas were too radical (i.e. they didn’t conform to an earlier book ALA had published on the topic) and my style too academic. A mutual friend, Kathleen Weibel, urged me to take the manuscript to Pat who had a “Neal-Schuman Professional Books” imprint under Oryx Press. Pat liked the book, and devoted a good deal of time (an unusually large amount, I now know) to editing it. She taught me that readers trust authors and don’t question the source of every comment and the provenance of every idea. (Basically, we cut out most of the many footnotes.)

Using Bibliotherapy and The Bibliotherapy Sourcebook, a companion volume Pat requested, went on to win ALA’s Shaw Award for Library Literature in 1980. The award says, in part, “Her work points us in new, useful directions.” Pat and I were both jubilant – I was a first-time author who couldn’t believe her book was so well received, and she was a smart and hard-working editor who saw the irony (and enjoyed sharing it with her publishing colleagues): the American Library Association’s awards committee recognized my ideas as new and useful, while ALA Publishing had found them “radical,” unacceptable, and unpublishable.

Since then, I’ve written books for 6 other publishers, but have returned to Neal-Schuman the most often — whenever possible. I have enjoyed working with the Neal-Schuman team, and am sorry that Pat and Jack’s retirement means that Neal-Schuman will soon become an imprint of (you know it’s coming…) ALA Editions. Still, I’ll always be grateful to Kathleen and to Pat for making me an author.

Learn more about Defusing the Angry Patron: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Second Edition on the book’s Web page.

Librarians and non-specialists who need to access public information will find everything they need in Finding Official British Information: Official Publishing in the Digital Age. Author Jane Inman helps people navigate the many sources and types of materials now available in this age of information.

From the press release:

Jane Inman, Communications and Information Manager for the Environment and Economy Directorate, Warwickshire County Council (U.K.), uses her extensive experience working with official publishing to create an easy-to-use guide for non-specialists focusing on the digital access and availability of public information. The book includes contributions from Howard Picton. Inman covers every body of British government, from local to national. She includes definitions and statistics and explains why access to official information is so important. In each section, Inman offers thorough examples, types of publications, and resources for further information. Every area she describes includes a “how to find” section for quick reference.

Click here to find out more about this and other titles in Neal-Schuman’s press release database.

From the press release:

An Evaluation of the Benefits and Value of Libraries, to be released in North America by Neal-Schuman Publishers on March 10, 2012, offers practical guidance on gauging library performance through clear, understandable economic methods.

Library consultant Viveca Nyström and e-channels librarian Linnéa Sjögren offer authoritative guidance on conducting benefits assessments in a way that assumes no prior knowledge of economics. The first three chapters provide an introduction to performance analysis and benefits assessment that can be applied to any library setting. Other topics include the financial benefit assessment, cost-benefit analysis on one-time investments, and customer surveys. The authors also describe the persona method, which uses personas of fictional library users to generate data, and the balanced scorecard method, which is used for systematic follow-up. The book is packed with practical examples and numerous sample customer surveys.

Click here to find out more about this and other titles in Neal-Schuman’s press release database.

Without a careful plan that includes a clear goal, consistent message, and targeted audience, a library’s efforts to produce a newsletter, develop a brochure, or create a website can fall short of quality public relations, and even do more harm than good. Bringing  the same enthusiasm to the planning of the project, and not just the project itself, can ensure that your library’s outreach efforts are successful. Identifying a clear goal for the project can be a good first step in the planning process.

Library Public Relations, Promotions, and Communications, Second Edition: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians by Lisa A. Wolfe walks you through four key questions that can help you identify and flesh out this goal.

You probably have some idea–no matter how vague–of what you want to achieve with your public relations efforts. Answering the following questions in the next section may help you to clarify your public relations goal.

1. What is it that you want to tell people?   This is your message. You need to determine what it is you want people to know or understand. Often your message will have a quality that is more subjective than just conveying information. For instance, you won’t just want people to know about your books-by-mail service–you’ll also want them to believe that it is a valuable community service. At other times, you will just want to convey information, such as how the library’s new overdue policy works. It is important to try to keep your message as simple and focused as possible.
2. Who do you want to tell?   Determining the audience for your message is critical to your success. Think about who needs to know what you are communicating. If your message is preschool storytime hours, then your primary audience is parents of preschoolers and your secondary audience may be day-care providers. Deciding who needs to receive your message will help you determine how to communicate it. Remember to consider your internal audiences. Chapter 5 provides an in-depth discussion of choosing your audience.
3. When do you want to communicate your message?   Timing is everything. Trying to spread the word about school library services is probably more appropriate during the school year than during the summer when families, teachers, and students aren’t focused on school. If you are promoting an event, it is important to communicate your message intensively in a concentrated time period before the event. Sometimes it may take you longer to plan your public relations/communications efforts than to implement them.
4. Why do you want to tell people about this? Do you want them to do anything?   These questions go back to the subjective nature of your message. Once people learn about what you are trying to communicate, do you need them to act? Is this a proactive message? Do you want them to attend an event? Actively support the retention of a library service? Vote for supplemental funding?

Look carefully at the answers to these questions. They should form the foundation of the public relations goal. Remember that a goal should include a statement of what you want to achieve, delineate a time frame for achieving it, and indicate how you are going to measure your success.

 

- Excerpted from Library Public Relations, Promotions, and Communications, Second Edition: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, pp. 17-18. © 2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery

Have you given thought to the whole life-cycle of managing a library collection? This is a topic discussed in depth in Making a Collection Count: A Holistic Approach to Library Collection Management, and today co-author Holly Hibner speaks with us about her book. Holly is currently the Adult Services Coordinator at the Plymouth District Library in Plymouth, Michigan. Holly was the recipient of the Michigan Library Association’s Loleta D. Fyan Award in 2007 and is the co-founder of the popular blog Awful Library Books.

• Why did you and your co-author Mary Kelly decide to write Making a Collection Count: A Holistic Approach to Library Collection Management?

Gluttons for punishment? Just kidding. Someone at Chandos contacted us, saying she had seen some of our previously-published articles and presentations on Slideshare. She asked if we had considered writing a book (we hadn’t!). Mary and I are always looking for a new experience, and we love projects that push our skills to the limit and force us to learn new things. A book seemed like the perfect way to share our passion for collection management, while learning something new.

• How does the holistic approach you take differ from other resources on library collection management?

There are plenty of books about collection development. They talk about the selection process and the weeding process, but we hadn’t found anything that looked at the big picture of collection management. Our approach considers every stage in what we call the collection lifecycle, from selection to weeding and everything in between. We believe that a collection is only successful if every stage in the lifecycle is constantly evaluated. A collection has to be managed at every step.

• What will readers discover from your book?

Readers will be inspired to look at the collections they manage from different points of view. They will discover techniques for things like taking a physical inventory and evaluating their collection management workflow. They will find that managing a collection is a challenging and rewarding experience!

• What is the most common challenge facing librarians in collection development?

Keeping up with ever-changing formats is a challenge common to librarians in every type of library. Librarians have to decide what formats will work in their collections, and for their patrons. They also have to plan their budgets accordingly, considering which titles they will purchase in multiple formats. Librarians who started out managing a collection of books may soon find themselves managing a collection of books, e-books, DVDs, BluRays, CD-ROMs, and audio books!

• What do you consider to be the most important change to the field of librarianship that you have witnessed?

Librarians have had to adapt to technology. They have had to keep up with those changing formats I mentioned above, and be able to search more sophisticated catalogs and databases. Librarians have become trainers, teaching our library users how to find and use information in a variety of formats.

Learn more about Making a Collection Count: A Holistic Approach to Library Collection Management on its Web page, and don’t forgot to check out the blog Awful Library Books for more from Holly.

Conducting needs and assets assessment for outreach in your community is a necessary step in developing an effective community outreach plan. Having ideas for how to improve community outreach is great, but how can we know exactly what our community’s needs are?

Successful Community Outreach: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians by Robert S. Martin, Barbara Blake, and Yunfei Du contains stellar community outreach plans help libraries build the strong partnerships that undergird these critical ties.

Outreach programs or services are designed to connect, educate, and serve nontraditional or underserved communities and populations. Bear in mind that community outreach can be focused on bringing new users into the library to provide services and resources that they need. But it can also be designed to take the library out into the community, working with other community organizations, to create and demonstrate value to the community. Underserved and unserved segments of the community can benefit from both types of outreach. Going out into the community can sometimes be a more effective way to raise awareness of the library, generate new users, and demonstrate public value. If you are considering adding a new service or program, then you need to assess if there is a need for it and, if so, the level of that need. If you are reviewing an established service or program, then you need to evaluate what users think of that service or program and how it is being provided or delivered.

Together the needs and assets assessment will help you find answers to questions such as:

1. Are there groups in the community we are not reaching? If so, what groups?

2. Is the library the right organization to address the needs of this group? If so, does the library currently offer programs that could benefit this target group? If so, what are they?

3. To what extent are these programs or services successful with the target group? If these programs and services are not being used by the target group, why?

4. Are there new services or programs that might better meet the needs of the target group? If so, what are they?

5. Is there a way to make the library and its services more useful to the target group through community partnerships? If so, what organizations and programs in the community might the library consider as partners?

6. What expectations does the target group have of the library? How can the library meet those expectations?

7. Are there additional materials or information the library and/or its partners could provide to better fill the need of the target group?

8. Do staffing patterns or library hours need to be adjusted to meet the needs of the target group?

- Excerpted from Successful Community Outreach: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, pp. 35-36. © 2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery

Academic archives are going through dramatic changes, and it is important for archivists and other LIS professionals to stay on top of new trends and practices. Written by expert archivist Aaron D. Purcell, Academic Archives offers all the guidance readers need to start and maintain these important collections. From the press release:

In today’s world, academic archives serve multiple roles, encompassing records management programs, special collections
departments, and other archival repositories. Because of these nontraditional functions, modern academic archivists require different sets of skills and training from those of their predecessors. Academic Archives: Managing the Next Generation of College and University Archives, Records, and Special Collections, to be published on February 29, 2012 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, offers valuable guidance for archivists of all levels, helping them start or manage archives and remain current on new and future trends.

Click here to find out more about this and other titles in Neal-Schuman’s press release database.

More than one librarian has had to take over a library’s book discussion group on top of a thousand other duties. If you are pressed for time, it can be hard to plan and execute a good book discussion meeting. The resources listed below tell you where to find ready-made questions for book discussion groups on the internet so that you can be prepared for your next book discussion group.

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Running Book Discussion Groups: A How-To-Do-It Manual by Lauren Zina John.

Ready-Made Questions
There are a number of sources for read-made questions that can be used in book discussions. Commercial and academic book publishers, bookstores, libraries, online book clubs, and even fee-based discussion group consultants are now posting free lists of discussion questions on the Internet. Some publishers, especially paperback publishers, insert discussion questions at the back of their books. Literature professors often post their class questions and syllabi on the Internet.

Although you’ll find more material on current best-sellers and well-studied classics, the Web can yield plentiful material on more obscure books too. Here are some resources for finding good book group questions online, starting with the easiest (and cheapest) places to find ready-made questions. (…)

• Google (www.google.com). A Google search is a “quick and dirty” way to find book group questions. Simlpy combine the title of your book with the phrase “book group” or “book discussion.” A Google search for “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “book discussion” (conducted in March 2005) yielded questions from sites including the Random House Reader’s Guide, The Multnomah County Library Homework Center, and the State of Vermont Department of Libraries, which also offered a book discussion kit.
•Amazon (www.amazon.com). Some of the publishers that sell books on Amazon provide reader’s guides and questions. To find discussion questions when they are included, search for the book by title and click on the title to get more information. At this point, a book information box will appear in the left-hand column. Generally, the box includes links to customer and editorial reviews, but if the publisher has also provided reading group guides and questions, you’ll find them here.
• The Book Report Network (www.tbrnetwork.com). This site is a portal that links to a growing number of Web sites that provide author interviews, reviews, and commentary — along with interactive elements such as polls, message boards, questions, and contests. The Book Report Network was founded in 1996 and is physically based in New York City. One of the sites that it links to, ReadingGroupGuides.com, enables readers to search for guides that include discussion questions. Another Web site, AuthorYellowPages.com, is a searchable directory of author Web sites. Many of these author Web sites also provide links to discussion questions.

 

Figure 6.1

•The Internet Public Library Online Criticism Collection (www.ipl.org). The Internet Public Library was an online references service founded in 1995 as part of a graduate seminar at the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Today the University of Michigan continues to support this site with funding from Sun Microsystems and Intel. The FAQ for the site describes it as “the first public library of and for the Internet community.” Among the many wonderful reference services offered here, you will find many resources for group leaders. The full text of many literary works is available here, including the complete works of Shakespeare, Aesop’s Fables, classic mythology, and American short stories and novels by writers including Mark Twain, Luisa May Alcott, and Willa Cather. The Online Literary Criticism Collection (www.ipl.org/div/litcrit) contains critical and biographical Web sites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, title, nationality, and literary period. The collection links readers to criticism of American, Canadian, European, Latin American, and Asian literature, in some cases going as far back as medieval and ancient times. Because this section is not updated regularly, it is a better source for classics and well-reviewed books that are at least ten years old rather than bestsellers. I have personally used the site to find comprehensive information on authors including Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, and Alice Munro. This is also a good place to find links to published interviews with contemporary authors. Figure 6.1 shows the portal pages for the online Literary Criticism Collection.
• SparkNotes (www.sparknotes.com). The “Literature Study Guides” section of this Web site, which includes guides to both contemporary and classic literature, is prepared by literature students but appreciated by a far wider audience. A question from the SparkNotes guide to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets asks,”What do the origins and parts of the names reveal about the characters? Consider the names of Lucius Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, and Voledemort?” Here’s a question from the SparkNotes guide to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: “How does Humpert change over the course of the novel? How does his attitude toward Lolita change (if it changes), and what is Humpert’s attitude about Lolita and the whole affair when he writes this manuscript in his jail cell?

-Excerpted from  Running Book Discussion Groups: A How-To-Do-It Manual, pp. 85-89. © 2008 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Read more of Lauren John’s writing on her book discussion blog!

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery.

 •  What will readers discover in Practical Open Source Software for Libraries?

 

I hope that in reading Practical Open Source Software for Libraries librarians will learn that open source is about so much more than cost savings and code.  In addition to the theoretical lessons in the book though, they will walk away knowing about at least one new open source tool (hopefully many more) that they can use to provide better services in their libraries today.

•  What do you consider the biggest challenge that you address in your book?

 As with all technologies, there are many preconceived notions about open source software that libraries have.  These notions are often fueled by fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) and not in fact accurate.  In the book I try to dispel these myths and educate librarians about what open source really is and what it really means to use open source software in our libraries.

•  What is the biggest advantage of libraries adopting open source software?

Freedom!  When choosing open source software for your library you’re choosing to be in control and have the freedom over the direction the software takes.  Many people choose open source because it can often offer cost-savings, but the real power and value in open source is the freedom to use, distribute, alter, and study the software for any purpose.

•  Who should read your book?

I’d of course love if everyone read the book.  Barring that the book is geared toward those who make software decisions in the library. This does not limit the audience to administrators and systems librarians, but to those who evaluate software both for the library staff and the patrons they serve.  The book will also interest those looking to learn more about open source in general and find alternate software applications for their home computers.

Learn more about Nicole’s book on its Web page, and don’t forgot to check out her website for more information about open source software.