Class and librarianship
The current crisis of capitalism has led to the renewed interest in Marxism and its core categories of analysis such as class and exploitation.…
Libraries in Society
Libraries in Society (Clive Bingley, 1978) was published in the year that my career in public libraries began. In this reader, edited by David…
Remembering What You Read: Reading Journals & Collection Knowledge
Has your mind ever drawn a blank when a customer asks your opinion about a book? You know you read it but can’t remember…
The Right ‘Man’ For The Job?
I am a big fan of titles which have question marks in them. The most important element of Open to All? The Public Library…
Investing in RA: Skill-Building Strategies
It’s one of the skills all library staff should know, but few are truly comfortable with: readers’ advisory. What do you do when a…
Open to all?
The title for this column was taken from a piece of ground breaking research which I took part in as Head of Libraries in…
“So Many Books, So Little Time”: Creating Your Own Genre Plan
The results from Library Journal’s survey of readers’ advisors, “The State of Readers’ Advisory", suggest that “the biggest cause of RA angst is keeping up…
Why Do Library Workers Not Have the Skills To Meet Community Needs?
The simple answer to this very Big Question is ‘because they are Library Workers’. In other words, they are trained in all of the…
Bookmarks!
I have always held a fascination with bookmarks. It probably all started with the return of a dog-eared library book and the librarian of…
Prioritizing Library Services For Those With the Greatest Needs
One of the critical findings of Open to All? The Public Library and Social Exclusion (2000) was that people who use public libraries the…
Karl Marx and Critical Librarianship
Karl Marx is critical to an understanding of the Needs Based Library because he introduced the theoretical concept of the Base and the Superstructure.…
Reluctant Readers’ Advisors: Help Your Staff Help Readers
While most staff, even those without professional training, are comfortable with performing reference tasks as part of their job, many become quite hesitant when…
News from Nowhere: The Needs Based Library
In too many workplaces people are unhappy and alienated from what they do. This has a negative impact on their efficiency, effectiveness and productivity,…