Customer Service in Libraries


Book Description

In this book, nine librarians from across the country describe their libraries’ best practices in this key area. Their contributions range from all-encompassing customer service policies and models any library can both adapt and be proud of to micro-approaches that emphasize offering excellent user-focused technology planning, picture book arrangement with patrons in mind, Web 2.0 tools to connect users with the library, establishing good service delivery chains, and making your library fantastic for homeschoolers. As past Public Library Association President Audra Caplan writes in her introduction to this book, “There is nothing magical about providing excellent customer service; it just takes the right people, the right philosophy and the passion to make it a reality.” If you’ve got all that, here are the best practices to make stellar customer service a reality for your library’s users.




Successful Social Networking in Public Libraries


Book Description

Most commentaries to date on library use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have focused on a handful of well-funded public libraries with high-profile employees. Now Crawford’s Successful Social Networking in Public Libraries fills in the rest of the picture, offering for the first time an in-depth look at how a large variety of public libraries are using social networks. Examining nearly 6,000 libraries across the US, Crawford Analyzes social network usage by libraries of many different sizes and funding levels, showing how many of them are active and effective in quite different ways Offers many examples that will help other libraries establish or refine their own social networking activities Lays out several key questions that libraries should ask themselves, such as “Who do we want to reach?” and “What’s the best way to interact with communities?” Gives libraries guidelines for setting social networking goals and conducting ongoing evaluation Includes illuminating comments from numerous librarians on the front lines of communication Based on broad research, Crawford draws a vivid portrait that shows how a wide range of public libraries is conducting digital outreach and marketing through social networking.




Doing Social Media So It Matters


Book Description

Provides context to the social media phenomenon and offers practical advice on how libraries can choose, use, and monitor these tools effectively, whilst identifying additional resources and best practices.




Teens, Libraries, and Social Networking


Book Description

Learn how teens use social networking technologies and how these same technologies can be used to engage them in library services. Teens and Social Networking Now: What Librarians Need to Know is organized around ten major topics, including using social networking sites to connect teens to young adult literature, social networking and legislative issues, social networking and safety/privacy issues, and the social and educational benefits of social networking. Expert practitioners explain how such issues can and should impact library services to young adults, focusing on concrete suggestions and specific steps for best practices and program designs that will help librarians utilize social networking tools to enhance library services to teens, both online and in the library. As background, the book explores the reasons so many teens use these sites. It also shares a profile of an award-winning public library's use of social networking to engage teen library users and a national survey of the ways YA librarians are using social networking to deliver public library services.




Library Science and Administration: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications


Book Description

Effective administration of libraries is a crucial part of delivering library services to the public. To develop and implement best practices, librarians must be aware and informed of the recent advances in library administration. Library Science and Administration: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly material on trends, techniques, and management of libraries and examines the benefits and challenges of library administration. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as digital libraries, information sciences, and academic libraries, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, practitioners, and librarians seeking current research on library science and administration.




Managing Social Media in Libraries


Book Description

Web 2.0 first created a scramble among librarians to participate in Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and other social media applications, and the turn is now towards management and consolidation. Managing Social Media in Libraries explores the developing information environment, the collaboration among library organizations, and the ways social media may convert the loose connections between library staff members. The book takes librarians beyond the mechanics of using social media, and establishes a framework to move library managers and leaders toward making social media effective. Managing Social Media in Libraries is structured around key topics in this area, including: refocusing after the first use of Web 2.0; library organisations as loosely coupled systems; social media within such systems; defining a purpose for the use of social media; connecting messages and tools; and integrating social media into standard websites. - Provides practical ways of thinking about social media for library managers and leaders - Provides examples of policies, workflows, and uses of social media tools for library managers and leaders - Defines organizations as coordinated systems and discusses how social media tools can emphasize the benefits of coordination




Social Media for Communication and Instruction in Academic Libraries


Book Description

The subject of the use of social media has renewed interest because of the impact that it had on the last U.S. presidential election and the impact that social media networks will have on subsequent elections. As guides in the information world, it is thus important that librarians be well versed in social media. This has called attention to the relevance and urgency of incorporating social media use into the academic library, both as a marketing tool and as an instruction tool. Social Media for Communication and Instruction in Academic Libraries is an essential reference source that offers guidance in using social media in academic libraries and in instruction with a special emphasis on assessment and evidence-based practice. Featuring research on topics such as digital libraries, marketing, and web analytics, this book is ideally designed for librarians, administrators, educators, managers, information technology specialists, professionals, researchers, and students.




Marketing with Social Media


Book Description

Get up to speed quickly on using social media to promote your library. This basic guide will get you ready to set up your account and explore such tools as Facebook, wikis, YouTube, Pinterest Google+, Foursquare, blogging platforms, QR codes, and Twitter. After an introductory survey of the tools, chapters cover maintaining accounts, coordinating with colleagues, planning for sustainablility, best practices, evaluation with built-in analytics, and references for additional information.




Ring Shout


Book Description

Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror “A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark’s combination of historical and political reimagining is cathartic, exhilarating and fresh.” —The New York Times A 2021 Nebula Award Winner! A 2021 Locus Award Winner! A 2021 Hugo Award Finalist! A 2021 World Fantasy Award Finalist! A 2021 Ignyte Award Finalist! A 2021 Shirley Jackson Award Finalist! A 2021 AAMBC Literary Award Finalist! A 2021 British Fantasy Award Finalist! A New York Times Editor's Choice Pick! A Booklist Editor's Choice Pick! A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist! A 2020 SIBA Award Finalist! Featured on the 2021 RUSA Reading List: Fantasy Shortlist! Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR | Library Journal | Book Riot | LitReactor | Bustle | Polygon | Washington Post IN AMERICA, DEMONS WEAR WHITE HOODS. In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die. Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up. Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Using Social Media in Libraries


Book Description

Since there’s no point in Twittering if no one acts on your tweets and there’s no point in having a Facebook page with a million “likes” if library use doesn’t increase, you’ll welcome the eight best practices presented here because they will help your library both actually do social media in a way that matters and do it well. The successful strategies presented here range from the Vancouver Public Library’s innovative use of Twitter to the United Nations Library’s adoption of a social media policy to the Farmington, Connecticut Public Library’s fantastic work using social media to reach teens who weren’t using the library. Other libraries highlight their ventures into media including blogs, Pinterest, and social catalogs.