This updated edition enables readers to understand how academic libraries deliver information, offer services, and provide learning spaces in new ways to better meet the needs of today's students, faculty, and other communities of academic library users.

Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.

"Provides information about librarianship as a career, including types of libraries, types of jobs within libraries, professional issues, and educational requirements"--Provided by publisher.

This book features original research, reflective essays and conversations, and dialogues that consider the relationships between theory, practice, and critical librarianship through the lenses of the histories of librarianship, intellectual and activist communities, professional practices, and underexplored epistemologies and ways of knowing.

International Librarianship at Home and Abroad examines both the concept and reality of international librarianship. The intent of this book is not to glorify international librarianship, but to instead explore different ways that international librarianship might be understood and practiced. The book seeks to enrich and improve the everyday work done by librarians both at home and abroad in areas such as collection management, library services, and learning styles and techniques. - Describes familiar librarian work, such as resource sharing, weeding and distance reference services - Explores features and how they contribute to, and reflect, international librarianship - Offers further examples on how to incorporate more explicit elements of international librarianship into home library practice

It is absolutely essential that today’s law librarians are digitally literate in addition to possessing an understanding and awareness of recent advancements and trends in information technology as they pertain to the library field. Law Libraries in the Digital Age offers a one-stop, comprehensive guide to achieving both of those goals. This go-to resource covers the most cutting-edge developments that face today’s modern law libraries, including e-Books, mobile device management, Web scale discovery, cloud computing, social software, and much more. These critical issues and concepts are approached from the perspective of tech-savvy library leaders who each discuss how forward-thinking libraries are tackling such traditional library practices as reference, collection development, technical services, and administration in this new “digital age.” Each chapter explores the key concepts and issues that are currently being discussed at major law library conferences and events today and looks ahead to what’s on the horizon for law libraries in the future. Chapters have been written by the field’s top innovators from all areas of legal librarianship, including academic, government, and private law libraries, who have strived to provide inspiration and guidance to tomorrow’s law library leaders.

This book offers a timely mix of thought-provoking chapters bringing together national and global studies on critical librarianship, and conveying the kind of research which current library managers and researchers need, mixing theory with a good dose of pragmatism.