Category: Publications News

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Atlas Wins Award 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature

Immediate Release
Mon, 02/27/2012 – 09:48
Contact: Cheryl Malden

CHICAGO – “The Atlas of New Librarianship” by R. David Lankes has been named the winner of the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. The award, which is given annually by the American Library Association, will be presented at the association’s Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., in June.

The book was co-published by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of ALA, and The MIT Press. In his book, Lankes articulates a new purpose for librarianship: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.” He envisions a profession based not on books and artifacts but on knowledge and learning which are created through conversations. The innovatively structured text, graphics and accompanying website are designed to stimulate further conversation about the field of librarianship.

The Award Committee praised the book for its unique visual map of ideas and their relationships to theory and practice. One committee member declared, “It made me think critically about our profession and our future…. I was taken out of my comfort zone and that was a good thing.” Other members praised the Atlas as “challenging,” “complex,” and “exciting both in its ideas and its design.”

Describing the book as “rich in optimism,” Kathryn Deiss, ACRL content strategist, said that “The Atlas of New Librarianship” creates “a platform for vital conversations about the future of librarianship.” The book’s unusual format presents more than 140 Agreements (statements on aspects of librarianship) and visually represents the threads that connect key ideas.

R. David Lankes, PhD, is a professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and director of its library science program. He also directs the Information Institute of Syracuse (IIS), a research center and think tank. Lankes was the provocative speaker for the Midwinter Conversations at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas.

The members of the ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award jury were: Chair, Susan E. Searing, Library & Information Science Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; June L. DeWeese, head of access services, University of Missouri at Columbia; Jasmine Y. Posey, training services librarian, Greenwich (Conn.) Library; John C. Sandstrom, head of acquisitions, New Mexico State University; and William Newbold Schultz, Jr., catalog librarian, Appalachian State University.

About ACRL

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 12,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl

About MIT Press

The MIT Press is the only university press in the United States whose list is based in science and technology. This does not mean that science and engineering are all we publish, but it does mean that we are committed to the edges and frontiers of the world–to exploring new fields and new modes of inquiry. We are a major publishing presence in fields as diverse as architecture, social theory, economics, cognitive science, and computational science, and we have a long-term commitment to both design excellence and the efficient and creative use of new technologies. Our goal is to create books and journals that are challenging, creative, attractive, and yet affordable to individual readers.

THE MIT PRESS | 55 Hayward Street | Cambridge, MA 02142

About “The Atlas of New Librarianship”

For more information about “The Atlas of New Librarianship,” visit http://www.newlibrarianship.org.

To purchase “The Atlas of New Librarianship” visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12560

The ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature Award will be presented at the ALA Award Ceremony and Reception, Sunday June 24 at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

More information about the ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature including how to submit a nomination is available on the ALA website.

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Web chat con David Lankes sul futuro delle biblioteche

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Web chat con David Lankes sul futuro delle biblioteche

Giovedì 17 Novembre alle 16.00 David Lankes, professore di Nuova Biblioteconomia all’Università di Syracuse negli Stati Uniti, terrà una web chat intitolata “I Bibliotecari come Agenti del Cambiamento”. Il professor Lankes discuterà sul ruolo futuro delle biblioteche e su come i bibliotecari possono promuovere il cambiamento sociale attraverso una maggiore interazione con le comunità. L’indirizzo online per partecipare alla web chat (in inglese) è: www.ambasciatausa.it/lankes

Secondo le teorie di Lankes, sta oggi emergendo una nuova biblioteconomia basata sulla conoscenza e sulla comunità. Nella webchat Lankes illustrerà il futuro ruolo dei bibliotecari come facilitatori della creazione di conoscenza e offrirà esempi di biblioteche che coinvolgono la propria comunità. La professione di bibliotecario, secondo Lankes, deve essere più interattiva e propositiva, deve coinvolgere gli utenti attraverso i social media, deve accogliere gli ebook e le nuove tecnologie. I bibliotecari del futuro non saranno più solo nelle biblioteche, ma si sposteranno in nuovi spazi come le scuole e le aziende.

David Lankes è professore di Nuova Biblioteconomia all’Università di Syracuse. Presso la stessa università ricopre anche gli incarichi di Direttore dell’Information Institute e del Library Science Program. Lankes è uno dei più affermati studiosi della disciplina che studia l’organizzazione delle biblioteche, e ha incentrato la sua attività su come il concetto di partecipazione può ridefinire il ruolo delle biblioteche. Lankes è particolarmente rinomato per la sua attiva promozione delle biblioteche nella società odierna e per i suoi studi sull’importanza dell’informazione nei processi di trasformazione industriale.

Venerdì 18 Novembre David Lankes interverrà al Congresso dell’Associazione Italiana Biblioteche con una presentazione intitolata “A New Librarianship for a New Age” (Una nuova Biblioteconomia per una Nuova Era). Durante il congresso Lankes sarà disponibile per interviste con i giornalisti. Il programma dell’evento è disponibile su: www.aib.it/aib/congr/c57/prog.htm3

U.S. Embassy Rome, Italy
Public Affairs – Press Office
E-mail:RomePressOffice@state.gov
Phone 39 – 06 – 4674 2426

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Announcing the Next Atlas of New Librarianship Reading Group

This Monday we will be starting a new Atlas reading group using a new forum, and with a new twist. The first year library students of Syracuse University will be moderating a weekly discussion of the Atlas on the blog of the companion website http://www.newlibrarianship.org/wordpress/?page_id=20. Each week a team of students will start off the conversation with a blog post, followed by discussion in the comments of that post powered by Disqus.

So grab your copy of the Atlas and join us Monday and start the conversation. Here is the schedule for the different threads:

Mission: September 19 – 25
Knowledge: September 26 – October 2
Facilitating: October 3 – 9
Communities: October 10 – 16
Improve Society: October 17 – 23
Librarians: October 24-31

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“School Libraries: What Next?” Ebook Project

This looks like a great project. In light of full disclosure I have been asked to right the forward.

We are delighted to accept submissions for a collection of crowd sourced short essays on the future of school libraries from multiple perspectives, to be published in e-book format to coincide with Treasure Mountain and AASL in October 2011. We believe this e-book is a way for librarians to take the lead as content creators and publishers with custom, community-significant content for patrons. We imagine e-readers as publishing platforms for us, not competition.

Whether you’re an ardent supporter or see the proverbial handwriting on the wall, what do you see as the next 10 or 20 years of school libraries? This book will also tackle an “elephant in the room” question: with the nation’s education systems in an economic depression and many school librarians being pink-slipped, what is the future of school libraries? How might they be reinvented to remain deeply significant – for student learning? Should they? What past practices will we need to jettison? What stalwart beliefs must we hold tightly?

We’re posing a set of essential questions that will encourage you — and us! — to think deeply about the future of school libraries in the areas of:

  • Gaming
  • 21st-Century Learners
  • Who and When Do We Teach?
  • Reading
  • Emerging and Multiple Literacies
  • Networks and Organizations
  • The Physical Library
  • The Virtual Library
  • Collaboration
  • Collection Development
  • Librarian Coursework and Professional Development

You can learn more about our project, the topics we are exploring, and how to submit by visiting the links on the Submissions page. The Submission Guidelines document will let you know more about the length, style, and topics.

Thank you for your interest in our experiment – we hope you will join us! Please visit the project page by clicking here.

Best,

Kristin Fontichiaro

Buffy Hamilton

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Atlas Reading Group

From the New Librarianship website:

Hello librarians and friends! I’m Emma Montgomery, a LIS graduate student at Syracuse University, and for six weeks this summer I’ll be hosting a Twitter reading group for The Atlas of New Librarianship. Starting the week of June 20th I’ll be reading a thread of Dr. Lankes’ book each week and posting thoughts and questions on Twitter using the hash tag #atnewlib. I hope you will all join me! The goal is to have a community through which we can engage with and explore the issues raised in the Atlas. So grab your copy of the Atlas, tell your friends, and I’ll see you on Twitter!

Please join in!

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Cool Atlas News

Two cool Atlas related pieces of news:

1. MIT Press has decided to do a second print run of the Atlas of New Librarianship. Note this is not a second edition (seeing as it was just released last month) so no new matieral.

2. But, speaking of new content for the Atlas, I’ll be adding some new Agreement Supplements to the Atlas Website (and the iPad app in a little bit). These were produced by some amazing doctoral students here at Syracuse. They will be going live over the next week or so, please check back. Agreements include:

  • Innovation
  • Web 2.0
  • User-Centered Design
  • Issues of Institutional Repositories
  • Community as Collection
  • Hybrid Environments

These supplements provide additional resources and perspectives (sometimes differing) of topics discussed in the Atlas. For faculty out there, they also make a great assignment and I’d love to work with you to get them on the site. As always, they are really points to start conversations about the profession.

I’ll mark them as “proposed” supplements – meaning they are open for discussion and consideration for any future editions of the Atlas.

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iPad Atlas App Walkthrough

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So to coincide with the launch of the Atlas of New Librarianship next week at the ACRL conference, I will be releasing a companion iPad app (and website too). The purpose of this app is two-fold: to give you something of use in engaging with the Atlas of New Librarianship, and to show you what one person can do with $400 worth of software and no ability to program in C.
I do all of this to show that you can too. Librarians don’t have to become computer scientists to take advantage of the new mobile tools. To be sure, talented and dedicated programmers can make better apps – and to be equally sure there are librarians out there that already are. You need to be there too: able to rapidly prototype, specify and meet short-term needs online.

Libraries are places of conversation and learning. They are places to create knowledge, and increasingly that means building software and apps. Whereas 100 years ago we helped scholars write books, today we can help scholars, housewives, small businesses, and students create apps.

This is my app. It is not perfect. It is not the future of ebooks I have talked about in the past. It is instead an example. Join me in making it better.

While the app won’t be available until next week, I am posting a walkthrough of it here.