A Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Library

Weigand, W. A. (2015). Part of our lives: A people’s history of the american public library. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.

            This short 270-page book about the history of American libraries. After reading this I felt invigorated and proud to be part of the library system. It covers the origins of the library from Benjamin Franklin to Harry Potter. The transformation and evolution of the library system in the United States is impressive and agile. It will fill anyone with hope for the library’s future relevance and perseverance.

            I was taken by surprise to learn about the exclusion of women in libraries and the viewpoints on literature in the early days of the library. Many topics covered professionally and academically are included in this history from icons like Pura Belpre, the first Puerto Rican librarian to the principles of the American Library Association (ALA) like the Library Bill of Rights.

            I recommend this book to all library students and library supporters.

Tags: library, American Library Association, public library, history, Library Bill of Rights

Beyond the Scanned Image: A Needs Assessment of Scholarly Users of Digital Collections Citation: Green, H. E., & Courtney, A. (2015). Beyond the Scanned Image: A Needs Assessment of Scholarly Users of Digital Collections. College & Research Libraries, 76(5), 690-707. doi:10.5860/crl.76.5.690 Summary: This paper presents an analysis of how humanities scholars use digital collections in their research and the ways in which digital collections could be enhanced for scholarly use. The authors surveyed and interviewed humanities faculty from twelve research universities about their research practices with digital collections and present analysis of the resulting responses. The paper also analyzes a sample of qualitative responses from the Bamboo Technology Project’s workshops with faculty, librarians, and technologists about the use and functionalities of digital materials for humanities research. This paper synthesizes these data analyses to propose the critical need for interoperability and data curation in digital collections to increase their scholarly use, and the importance of user engagement in development of digital collections. Analysis: I appreciated this paper for its direct impact on the current needs of my library for online collection development.  The analysis of the use process and functionalities of digital materials for a specific subject (humanities) can be used towards the creation and user-focused development of our new online collections.