What’s New in Open Shelf? October 15 2014

What’s New in Open Shelf? is a Table of Contents of sorts. Open Shelf publishes when we have compelling new material. Every two weeks is our plan.

In this release we are talking about … the Prime Directive … well, sort of.

Space may well be the final frontier but Rochelle Mazar has a perspective that’s closer to home. In The “Language of Space” she explores how we support (and perhaps abuse) our users with the way we design and utilize our spaces.

What happens in those spaces if often something quite traditional: reading. Pauline Dewan take the “readers’ advisory” model from public libraries and applies it to the academic library. The article is fittingly called “Adopting Readers’ Advisory Practices in the Academic Library.”

Diana Maliszewski is upset and also excited. And for good reason. In “Dumping Ground or Hallowed Ground?” she takes on the image and status of the teacher-librarian and then extols the importance of the new report from the Canadian Library Association Leading Learning – Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada.

Robin Bergart’s popular Random Library Generator column continues. This time the subject is Lorna Rourke. Find out why “Texas Hold’Em” and “Five-Card Draw” are parts of her professional repertoire.

There’s “good UX” and then there’s “bad UX.” Aren’t sure what makes user experience (UX) one or the other? Me either. So read the latest On the Verge column from Amanda Etches: “Doing REAL User Experience Work.”

And now back to the Prime Directive. Finally, Star Trek meets Open Shelf. The recent FanExpo in Toronto impressed and bewildered me. Why do people do this? And why do we let them into our libraries? Just kidding about that last bit. To explore “fandom” in a bit more detail I asked an old friend and a new colleague to explain why they are Trekkies, and what, if anything, this has to do with libraries. Sally Grande asks “Exploring Fandom: Why Star Trek?” and Aaron Kimberley responds with “Exploring Fandom: Libraries and Other Fanclubs.”

And finally, in From the Editor I talk about my favourite success strategy: failure.

Always, let us know what you think of Open Shelf.

…Mike Ridley
Editor-in-Chief, Open Shelf