As part of our mission to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all library patrons, our profession needs to come to terms with the consequences of mass incarceration, which have saturated the everyday lives of people in the United States and heavily impacts Black, Indigenous, and people of color; LGBTQ people; and people who are in poverty. Jeanie Austin, a librarian with San Francisco Public Library's Jail and Reentry Services program, helms this important contribution to the discourse, providing tools applicable in a variety of settings. This text covers practical information about services in public and academic libraries, and libraries in juvenile detention centers, jails, and prisons, while contextualizing these services for LIS classrooms and interdisciplinary scholars. It powerfully advocates for rethinking the intersections between librarianship and carceral systems, pointing the way towards different possibilities. This clear-eyed text begins with an overview of the convergence of library and information science and carceral systems within the United States, summarizing histories of information access and control such as book banning, and the ongoing work of incarcerated people and community members to gain more access to materials; examines the range of carceral institutions and their forms, including juvenile detention, jails, immigration detention centers, adult prisons, and forms of electronic monitoring; draws from research into the information practices of incarcerated people as well as individual accounts to examine the importance of information access while incarcerated; shares valuable case studies of various library systems that are currently providing both direct and indirect services, including programming, book clubs, library spaces, roving book carts, and remote reference; provides guidance on collection development tools and processes; discusses methods for providing reentry support through library materials and programming, from customized signage and displays to raising public awareness of the realities of policing and incarceration; gives advice on supporting community groups and providing outreach to transitional housing; includes tips for building organizational support and getting started, with advice on approaching library management, creating procedures for challenges, ensuring patron privacy, and how to approach partners who are involved with overseeing the functioning of the carceral facility; and concludes with a set of next steps, recommended reading, and points of reflection.

The wisdom and insight contained in this book can help make the library a center for positive aging.

Increasingly, libraries are struggling to deal with a growing diversity in the cultural background of their patrons. Problems arising from this cultural diversity afflict all library types--school, public and academic. Library Services for Multicultural Patrons is by and for all libraries that are striving to provide multicultural services to match the growing diversity in the cultural background of patrons. The book is designed to offer helpful tips and practical advice to academic, public, and school librarians who want to better serve the multicultural groups in their communities. The contributors to the book are themselves practicing librarians and they share creative ideas for welcoming multicultural patrons into libraries and strategies for serving them more effectively. Librarians will find in these chapters tried and true tips and techniques for marketing and promotion, improving reference services for speakers of English as a second language, and enhancing programming that they can easily implement in their own libraries and communities. The chapters are divided into the following categories for ease of access: 1) Getting Organized and Finding Partners, 2) Reaching Students, 3) Community Connections, 4) Applying Technology, 6) Outreach Initiatives, 6) Programming and Events, and 7) Reference Services. Librarians of all types will be pleased to discover easy-to-implement suggestions for collaborative efforts, many rich and diverse programming ideas, strategies for improving reference services and library instruction to speakers of English as a second language, marketing and promotional tips designed to welcome multicultural patrons into the library, and much more.

"This book begins with a survey of the history and development of services to adults and the status of adult services today. It will also introduce the reader to adult learning and leisure theory and how it applies to adult services in the public library. Part II covers tools for planning and assessing adult services. Part III focuses on various specific adult services. Part IV discusses core competencies for the adult services librarian in terms of initial professional training and continuing professional development."--Preface.

As the United States becomes ever more comfortable with recognizing the cultural diversity of the many groups that make up its population, library services must seek to meet patrons' needs as they are shaped and expressed by their cultural backgrounds. This goal is particularly important for youth library services. For young people of Hispanic heritage, library services attuned to their specific needs and interests are crucial. Many librarians struggle with how to properly create and maintain library programs and collections that are suitable to the needs of Hispanic youth. In this series of essays prepared for the Trejo Foster Foundation for Hispanic Library Education Fourth National Institute, national leaders in librarianship present their insights about how best to meet the needs of young Hispanic library patrons. The text is introduced by the editors, and the essays are arranged in parts: Programs; Collections; Planning and Evaluating; Bibliographical Resources; and For the Future. Information about the contributors and an index conclude the volume.

In 1996, nearly 40 million United States citizens were reported to be living in poverty. This enormous number set in conjunction with the rapid growth in demand for more information technology presents librarians with a wrenching dilemma: how to maintain a modern facility while increasing services to the economically disadvantaged. Karen Venturella has gathered a diverse group of librarians and facilitators--including Khafre Abif, head of Children's Services for the Mount Vernon Public Library in New York; Wizard Marks, who directs the Chicago Lake Security Center in its mission to improve the area; Lillian Marrero, who has concentrated on providing services to the Spanish speaking population; Kathleen de la Pena McCook, director of the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Florida; and 15 others--to find strategies for dealing with the current crisis of disparity. These writers address both the theoretical issues of ensuring access to information regardless of ability to pay, and the practical means for meeting the needs of low income populations. Appendices include the ALA's "Policy on Library Services to Poor People," "The Library Bill of Rights," and a listing of poverty-related organizations.

More than simply a vital collection development tool, this book can help librarians help young adults grow into the kind of independent readers and thinkers who will flourish at college.