"This indispensable guide is armed with concise, easily digestible ratings from an authoritative dream-team of praciticing librarians and information professinals." "E-Reference Ratings test drives 180 resoruces in 14 subject areas, from Arts to Science to Technology and everything in between. Each subject category is matched with an easy-to-understand chart that ranks tools from one to four stars, in seven categories, including Scope, Writing, Design, Bells and Whistles, Ease of Use, Linking, and Value." "In-depth descriptions of each tool are included, and a multitude of added features, including contributor biographies and exhaustive indexes, will earn this guide a spot at every reference desk."--Jacket.

In this new edition of the definitive Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook, edited by CheriT Weible and Karen Janke, expert contributors clearly explain the complexities of getting materials for patrons from outside the library. This collection presents a complete view of the interlibrary loan (ILL) process, with contributions from all areas of the technical services community, providing Guidance on how to do ILL efficiently and effectively, with advice on being a considerate borrower and lender Details of preferred staffing and management techniques, showing how best practices can be implemented at any institution Discussion of important issues that can fall between the cracks, such as hidden copyright issues, and the logistics of lending internationally As consortia and other library partnerships share ever larger fractions of their collections, this book gives library staff the tools necessary for a smoothly functioning ILL system.

For courses in Educational Policy and Educational Leadership; For potential and current K-12 administrators From a leader in the field-a comprehensive text covering education policy and the policy process that encourages future educational leaders to be proactive-and gives them a firm understanding of educational policy and the important political theories upon which it is based. While expressing the belief that it is important for today's school leaders to know how to track educational policies and to seek to influence them, Frances Fowler, a well respected authority in the field of educational policy, recognises that most leaders have little or no background in political science or policy studies and even less experience with the state politics of education. For these future and current administrators, Professor Fowler presents essential background information about the cultural, economic, demographic, and institutional roots of educational policy. She identifies and describes the major policy actors, and gives educators in depth descriptions of each stage of the policy process, complete with numerous examples of how policy unfolds in the development of educational policy. A goal of the book is to ensure that educational leaders understand the basic political theories that underpin educational policy development. To that end, the author provides example of how to apply this knowledge in everyday practice.

Through the perspectives of interlibrary loan (ILL) specialists, this book examines what ILL departments are doing, the value of ILL librarians in the evolving library environment, and how library collections and services are being affected by new ILL policies. Tapping a knowledge base of more than a dozen ILL practitioners, Posner offers diverse viewpoints on all that ILL specialists can do to help connect people and information, enabling library administrators, whose support ILL needs to succeed, to grasp how ILL is essential to fulfilling the information-sharing mission of all librarians. This volume also emphasizes how the ever-increasing interconnections between ILL and other areas of library activity behoove non-ILL librarians to be more aware of emerging ILL developments.

Supplementing your local collection through resource sharing is a smart way to ensure your library has the resources to satisfy the needs of your users. Marshall Breeding’s new Library Technology Report explores technologies and strategies for sharing resources, helping you streamline workflows and improve resource-sharing services by covering key strategies like interlibrary loan, consortial borrowing, document delivery, and shared collections. You’ll also learn about such trends and services as: OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing, and other systems that facilitate cooperative, reciprocal lending System-to-system communications that allow integrated systems to interact with resource-sharing environments Technical components that reliably automate patron requests, routing to suppliers with tools for tracking, reporting, and staff intervention as needed Specialized applications that simplify document delivery, such as Ariel, Odyssey, or OCLC’s Article Exchange How the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) can enable borrowing among consortial libraries using separate integrated library systems The Orbis Cascade Alliance consortium, examined using a case study