Information Outlook

Dianna Wiggins has been taking some time off this year, but not by choice: in February, her department at the YMCA of the USA was eliminated. But the layoff hasn't slowed her down. In addition to seeking a new career opportunity as an information professional...

Where do people expect to find a library's e-books, and how can librarians make sure these expectations are met? Traditionally, people have looked for books in the library's catalog, so they tend to look for e-books in the same place. The machine-readable...

After a slow start, users are becoming interested in digital books, and library e-book collections are growing rapidly. Suddenly, libraries have entire collections of e-books rather than just a few titles, and because of this they need to develop collections...

Unfamiliarity with Copyright Law Hinders Research Many scholars avoid researching certain topics or issues--or abandon studies that are already under way--because they lack an understanding of copyright law or are frustrated by its requirements,...

June brings us the SLA Annual Conference and, with it, new opportunities for sharing information, networking with colleagues, and experiencing those "aha" moments that seem to always occur at conferences. Author Nicholas Carr will be an interesting...

Hearing-Impaired Info Pro Receives Diversity Award Nancy Snell, a hearing-impaired information professional who works in Atlanta, is the recipient of the 2010 SLA Diversity Leadership Development Program (DLDP) Award, which includes a US$ 1,000...

In my previous column, I wrote about some of the issues facing us in the transition to a new, and much more complicated, printed book (p-book) and electronic book (e-book) ecology. I explored our too-shallow understanding of e-books and how they differ...

Elation and frustration--I experienced both when I discovered that a colleague had a set of expensive directories that I frequently consulted sitting on his shelf. I was delighted because it meant that I would no longer be going to the library two...

Marketing a library on a college or university campus might seem to be a fairly simple proposition. The primary purpose of a university, after all, is to educate its students, and a library would appear to be central to that goal. As it turns out,...

Last year, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) unveiled the results of its Alignment Study, a two-year project designed to establish and communicate the core identity and value of the information profession and information professionals. The study...

Leapin' lizards! Annie is going digital! Effective June 13, Little Orphan Annie will no longer be syndicated for newspaper comic pages. The reason? Revenue from the fewer than 20 papers that still carry the 85-year-old comic strip isn't sufficient...

Each of us makes decisions that turn out to be incorrect or that we later regret, though we may not understand how or why we make them. John Hammond, Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa (2006) summarized the inherent difficulty in decision making very well...

WebWorkerDaily offers plenty of tools to help workers make the most of online opportunities.WebWorkerDailyhttp://wetaworkerdaily.comAlthough this site is described as a resou ree that covers "the future of work, " the future clearly is now. Information...