Writing Effectively in Print and on the Web: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Blakiston, Rebecca. Writing Effectively in Print and on the Web: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-4422-7885-1.

The written word is our primary tool for communication – with colleagues, administrators, Writing effectively will help you be a stronger colleague, manager, and librarian.

Poor use of words can lead to misunderstandings and inefficiencies.

In this book, you will learn how to: stakeholders, and users. 

• Define your audience and your primary messages
• Simplify your writing so that it is succinct and understandable
• Structure your written content so that it is most usable and accessible to your audience
• Approach different forms of writing in a way that is most effective to getting your message across
• Establish a voice and tone that reflects the identity of your organization and yourself as a professional

The book covers writing for both print and Web-based publications and is aimed at all types of libraries.

Data Management: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Henderson, Margaret E. Data Management: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-4422-6438-0.

Libraries organize information and data is information, so it is natural that librarians should help people who need to find, organize, use, or store data. Organizations need evidence for decision making; data provides that evidence. Inventors and creators build upon data collected by others. All around us, people need data. Librarians can help increase the relevance of their library to the research and education mission of their institution by learning more about data and how to manage it.

Data Management will guide readers through: 

1.       Understanding data management basics and best practices.

2.       Using the reference interview to help with data management

3.       Writing data management plans for grants.

4.       Starting and growing a data management service.

5.       Finding collaborators inside and outside the library.

6.       Collecting and using data in different disciplines.

Gamification: A Practical Guide for Librarians

McMunn-Tetangco, Elizabeth. Gamification: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. ISBN: 9-781-4422-7913-1.

From the publisher:

Games can seem to do the impossible: reach patrons and drive traffic to projects and services. But how can libraries use gamification and game elements to improve instruction and outreach, or to encourage the use of particular areas and services? In this guide, readers will learn about how to structure game activities in order to best reach their patrons. Chapters devoted to topics such as personalization, goal setting, working with partners, games in instruction, and assessment illustrate some of the many ways games can have an impact in libraries. Everything in this book is presented from a practical point of view – email templates, real-life examples, and scenarios are included. Games have a lot of potential for use in many different library services, and this book will help you decide how they might work best for you. From the first seeds of a project’s beginning to its eventual maturation, this book will help you develop, implement, and evaluate game-style projects at your library.

Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Alfonzo, Paige. Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-4422-4358-3.

From the publisher: 

Teaching Google Scholar in your library instructional sessions can increase students’ information and digital literacy skills. Students’ familiarity with Google Scholar’s interface works to the instructor’s advantage and allows more time to address students’ information needs and teach foundational information literacy skills and less time teaching a new database with a less-intuitive database interface.

Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians will illustrate instructional methods and incorporate step-by-step guides and examples for teaching Google Scholar. It begins with providing you with essential background:

• What Google Scholar is
• How to set up Google Scholar using OpenURL
• How to design Google Scholar instructional sessions
• How to incorporate active learning activities using Google Scholar

After reading it, you will be ready to teach students critical skills including how to:

• Use specific Google Scholar search operators
• Incorporate search logic
• Extract citation data, generate citations, and save citations to Google's My Library and/or a citation management program
• Use Google Scholar tools- including “cited by,” “alerts,” “library links,” and “library search”

Google Scholar is a powerful research tool and will only become more popular in the coming years. Learning how to properly teach students how to utilize this search engine in their research will greatly benefit them in their college career and help promote life-long learning. Google Scholar instruction is a must in today’s modern information literacy classroom.

Collaborative Grant-Seeking: A Practical Guide for Librarians

de Farber, Bess G. Collaborative Grant-Seeking: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-4422-6327-7

A collaborative approach to grant seeking can stimulate and reshape the culture of your library organization. The exciting and rewarding activities of developing a successful grants program can yield enormous dividends for the benefit of your staff, patrons, and community. Collaborative Grant-Seeking: A Practical Guide for Librarians will share new insights for those who want to access grant funding without reinventing the wheel. Based on years of practical grant writing and collaboration development experience, this resource provides a complete guide for setting up a library grant-seeking program, and for combining forces with community partners to increase grant funding to libraries. Venturing into the grants world can be scary and unpredictable. This book offers detailed strategies and practical steps to establish a supportive and collaborative environment that creates the capacity to consistently develop fundable proposals, and gives readers the confidence needed to make grant-seeking activities commonplace within libraries.
Collaborative Grant-Seeking will share featured topics unavailable in other grant writing publications, such as:

• interpreting sponsor guidelines
• identifying appropriate funding programs
• determining the feasibility of project ideas
• asset-based (vs. need-based) proposal development strategies
• actual examples of successful and unusual library projects
• initiating and sustaining collaborative relationships