Category: Publications

ALCTS Publishing has released its third and final guide in the Sudden Position Guide series, the Sudden Position Guide to Acquisitions. Authored by Deborah Hathaway, Paul Kelsey, Stacey Marien, and Susan E. Thomas, the Sudden Position Guide to Acquisitions arms those new to library acquisitions with the tools and resources needed for traditional collection development and print monograph, streaming media, e-book, and serials acquisitions. In addition, it familiarizes those new to the field with scholarly communications and open education, licensing electronic resources, negotiating with vendors, cataloging, and working with library systems. Through this guide, readers will gain the knowledge and competencies required for library acquisitions work. The work of acquisitions is challenging and constantly evolving, and new acquisitions library workers will need a wide range of skill sets to perform their responsibilities well in this position. Budgeting and accounting, managing purchase orders and invoices, evaluating usage statistics, submitting fiscal reports, supervising employees, and…Continue Reading

The December 2020 issue of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) was published on December 21, rounding out a year many of us are glad to see behind us. Contrary to my fears as the year started, library technologists of all stripes continued to do great things and write about them. Our final issue of 2020 has some great material for you. Core President Christopher Cronin writes about the possibilities brought forward by the creation of Core out of the previous ALA divisions in Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures. Our December “Editorial Board Thoughts” column, Public Libraries Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Creating a New Service Model, by board member Jon Goddard, highlights some of the ways COVID-19 has changed the landscape of service for libraries of all kinds, but particularly for public libraries. In our “Public Libraries Leading the Way” column this issue, Jessica Hall at the Fresno Public Library describes an…Continue Reading