Intro to Ref and Info Services in Today's School Library

Farmer, L. S. (2014). Introduction to Reference and Information Services in Today's School Library. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN: 978-0-8108-8718-3

Publisher's Description
In Introduction to Reference and Information Services in Today's School Library, one of America’s premier school library educators covers the A-Z of both reference and information services for today’s library.

Everything from teaching students how to use sources to both in-person and virtual reference service is covered. A key feature of the text is an annotated bibliography of core print and electronic sources for elementary, middle, and high school collections.

Yes, reference and information services are vital library functions in the digital age. Even students who appear to be tech savvy have trouble finding the right information efficiently - and knowing what to do with it. This book examines information needs and behaviors, and provides strategies for assessing and meeting the informational needs of the school community. The book also addresses the conditions for optimum service: physical access (including virtual access), effective interaction and collaboration, instructional design, and systematic planning. Newer issues such as embedded librarianship, curation, collective intelligence, and web 2.0 intellectual property are also addressed. This book introduces the entering professional, and updates practitioners, to current standards and useful strategies.

Table of contents is online.

The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Blends

McArdle, M. M. (2014). The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Blends . Chicago, IL: ALA Editions. ISBN: 978-0-8389-1256-0

Publisher's Description
Genre fiction has always been a complex mixture of themes and elements. The increasing popularity of “genre blends,” or fiction that straddles the traditional labels, means greater pleasure for readers but a greater challenge for readers’ advisory. In this informative and entertaining book McArdle gets library staff up to speed on these engaging titles, showing how such crossover fiction appeals to fanbases of multiple genres. Complete with booklists, summaries, read-alikes, and thorough indexes, this guide

• Covers suspense, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, and science fiction, as well as non-genre titles that don’t neatly fit into any categories
• Offers guidance for shelving, displaying, and marketing genre blends
• Shows how to make the most of online discovery tools in cataloging these titles
• Includes “Blend MVPs,” a section spotlighting several popular authors who regularly move between genres, and a useful bibliography of additional resources

Providing a unique look at how common genres are often combined, this guide will open up new worlds of fiction to readers’ advisors and those whom they serve.

Table of Contents

Series Introduction

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Adrenaline Blends: Blends on the Edge of Your Seat
2. Fantasy Blends: Blends with Magic
3. Historical Fiction Blends: Blends from the Past
4. Horror Blends: Blends that Give You Goosebumps
5. Mystery Blends: Blends with a Puzzle
6. Romance Blends: Blends that Are Looking for True Love
7. Science Fiction Blends: Blends that Ask “What If?”
8. Whole Collection Blends: Looking Beyond the Fiction Stacks for Blends
9. Readers’ Advisory for Blends

Appendixes

A. Literary Fiction Blends

B. Genre Blending MVPs

Bibliography

Index

A Guided Inquiry Approach to High School Research

Schmidt, R. K. (2013). A Guided Inquiry Approach to High School Research. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
ISBN: 978-1-61069-287-8

Publisher's Description

A Guided Inquiry Approach to High School Research is derived from a formal research protocol and provides proven techniques and supporting materials that facilitate the process for permitting students to choose their own topic, easily grasping how to search for information, and successfully completing a seemingly daunting research assignment—a process that makes understandings deep and integrative. The included detailed project lessons, student handouts, and rubrics and assessment tools are the result of many years of classroom testing and refinement.

Features

• Introduces the Information Search Process to students

• Supplies step-by-step lesson plans that educators can utilize to guide students with their chosen inquiry

• Examines the task of the teaching team in guiding students in their inquiry and to provide them with the skills to find, process, and synthesize new information on their own

Implementing Web-Scale Discovery Services: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Thompson, Jolinda. Implementing Web-Scale Discovery Services: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-8108-9126-5

Description
This book offers a great introduction to web-scale discovery services, including easy to understand descriptions of their structure and scope. It offers an easy to follow guide for librarians seeking to evaluate, purchase, and implement a web-scale discovery service. It presents the information in check lists, decision trees, and quotes from early adopters, and includes information on how to customize these systems to meet each library’s specific needs. It also provides a basic overview of four products: 

• EBSCO Discovery Service
• Primo, Ex Libris
• Summon, ProQuest
• WorldCat Discovery Service, OCLC 

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Evolution of Web-Scale Discovery in Libraries
Chapter 2: A Closer Look at Web-Scale Discovery Options
Chapter 3: Making the Best Content Match for Your Library
Chapter 4: Evaluating the Discovery Layer
Chapter 5: Other Important Web-Scale Discovery Service Features and Functions
Chapter 6: Selecting and Purchasing a Web-Scale Discovery Service
Chapter 7: Configuring System Content Integration and Customization for Local Needs
Chapter 8: Configuring and Branding the Discovery Layer
Chapter 9: Introducing the Service to Users
Chapter 10: Usability Testing of Web-Scale Discovery Services
Chapter 11: Maintaining a Web-Scale Discovery Service
Chapter 12: The Future of Web-Scale Discovery

Creating a Streaming Video Collection for Your Library

 

Duncan, Cheryl J. and Erika Day Peterson. Creating a Streaming Video Collection for Your Library. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-8108-9318-4

Description
This book will serve as a key reference and source of best practices for libraries adding streaming video titles to their collections or for any library that is already offering streaming video. Since this is a relatively new area of collection development, this book will help libraries and video vendors establish consistent guidelines, licensing models and workflows.

Table of Contents 

Chapter 1 Selection
Section 1.1 Individual Titles
Section 1.2 Subscription Packages and Purchased Collections
Section 1.3 Independent Film Distributors and Major Studios
Chapter 2 Licensing
Section 2.1 Right to Digitize Content
Section 2.2 Acquiring a Streamed File
Section 2.3 Hosted Content
Section 2.4 Consortia
Section 2.5 Receipt & Payment
Chapter 3 Non-Licensed Content
Section 3.1 Videos on the Web
Section 3.2 Copyright, Fair Use, and the TEACH Act
Section 3.3 International Copyright Laws and National Treatment
Chapter 4 Access
Section 4.1 Vendor Platform Implementation
Section 4.2 Digitization and Streaming
Section 4.3 Content Systems and Discovery Tools
Section 4.4 Accessibility
Chapter 5 The Media Server
Section 5.1 Streaming Digital Media Files
Section 5.2 Factors to Consider
Section 5.3 Hosted Solutions
Section 5.4 Setting Up a Local Server
Chapter 6 Metadata
Section 6.1 MARC (AACR2 and RDA)
Section 6.2 Dublin Core
Section 6.3 METS
Section 6.4 MODS
Section 6.5 MPEG-7
Section 6.6 MPEG-21
Section 6.7 PBCore
Section 6.8 VRA Core
Chapter 7 Administration
Section 7.1 ERM
Section 7.2 Class Use and Course Reserves
Chapter 8 Support
Chapter 9 Evaluation
Section 9.1 Use Statistics
Section 9.2 User Feedback
Section 9.3 Vendor Assessment
Chapter 10 Future
Additional Resources
Appendix A Frequently Asked Questions
Appendix B Sample License
Appendix C FAQ for Patrons
Appendix D Suggested ERM Fields
Appendix E Checklist for Troubleshooting
Appendix F Vendor List