The Arrowhead Library System has added a number of new books to our Professional Collection that are available to borrow now! All these items can be found and requested in the online library catalog and in MNLINK. To search for books that match your type of library, use Ctrl + F and type Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries or Special Libraries into the search bar at the bottom of your screen.

If you are a library worker and want to learn more about the Professional Collection or would like to suggest a book for purchase for this collection, please contact Stephanie at stephanie.wichlacz@alslib.info.

New Books by Title and Description:

Advancing a Culture of Creativity in Libraries: Programming and Engagement

Megan Lotts

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries

This book shows academic and public libraries the many benefits of nurturing a culture of creativity, offering hands-on guidance on encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration, launching active-learning events that highlight collections and services, fostering goodwill and trust-building, and forming partnerships that promote library visibility.

Today’s library workers have many roles to play: information gatekeepers, connectors, collaborators, and storytellers. The key ingredient is creativity, which acts as the lynchpin of functioning successfully as a team as well as impacting communities in positive ways. This book examines creativity and how it can be applied in library work culture, programming, and outreach. Lotts shows how libraries can encourage staff to approach teaching, learning, and problem-solving in unconventional ways. This invigorating book

demonstrates why the challenges of our current historical moment provide us with a unique opportunity to stop and consider our work and our goals;
dives into several case studies of creative and playful library projects, many of which can be adapted for reuse, investigating how they came to be and the impact they have had on their communities;
discusses getting buy-in from administrators and funding organizations;
offers pointers on collaborating with communities;
guides readers in assessing the impact projects have on communities; and
talks about how to learn and grow from failure and frustration.

Listen to a podcast featuring the author now!

AI and Information Access: Benefits, Challenges and Lessons

G.G. Chowdhury and Sudatta Chowdhury

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries

This book is tailored for the knowledge sector, from LIS professionals to students and academics. It’s a perfect title for those seeking to understand Generative AI and how it applies in their context.

Libraries and information services are constantly evolving and adapting to the capacity and capabilities offered by emerging technologies. With the emergence of Generative AI, the information sector wonders how it will impact information users and professionals. The book examines this vital question by first raising evidence-based questions around user interactions with AI and its efficacy in providing responses that are relevant and suitable for specific user needs and contexts. Through the critical analysis of these case studies, the book discusses whether and how the conventional models of information search process, information seeking and retrieval, are applicable to explain the user interactions with the Gen AI tools for information access. This approach to AI and information explores

the impact of AI tools on information by changing user behavior, shifting the gap in user access and impending users to find the best data and being critical;
how libraries and database search services adapt these tools to improve access to information and data;
the ways in which the use of these tools could generate new knowledge in information science, seeking and retrieval research, and education; and
how these tools can be trained to best fulfill the user’s needs and context.

While exploring the implications of AI for the overall library and database services, the book will aim to portray the overall picture of applications of Generative AI in the information science field.

Career Services and Workforce Development Centers for Libraries: A Guide

Raymond Pun, Arpine Eloyan, and Michael R Oppenheim

Recommended for: Public Libraries, Academic Libraries

With the rise of unemployment, increased career growth opportunities, and changing workforce demographics, libraries can support job seekers in several ways. Career Services and Workforce Development Center for Libraries: A Guide serves as a resource for libraries interested in creating, supporting or enhancing their career services, economic and workforce development programs for their communities.
Going beyond collection development and hosting job fair activities, the book covers:

teaching resources and interviews from library leaders supporting workforce development initiatives or collaborations
ideas on how libraries can be embedded in the workforce development community by providing a series of job readiness activities, programs, and services
how academic and public librarians can support their users exploring career opportunities and development
examines employment trends and resources such as generative artificial intelligence to dive into these issues so libraries can stay active in identifying new skill development and technologies to support their communities

How can one start a career services or job center program in their libraries? What are specialized career services in libraries being offered? How can libraries advocate for funding for workforce development? Divided into five chapters, each chapter addresses these questions and provides a series of examples, ideas, and resources for readers to consider replicating in their own libraries. If you are looking for ideas for your libraries to support a community of job seekers, this is the book for you.

Foundations of Library and Information Science, Fifth Edition

Richard E. Rubin and Rachel G. Rubin, foreword by Camila A. Alire

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries

Richard E. Rubin’s book has served as the authoritative introductory text for generations of library and information science practitioners, with each new edition taking in its stride the myriad societal, technological, political, and economic changes affecting our users and institutions and transforming our discipline. Rubin teams up with his daughter, Rachel G. Rubin, a rising star in the library field in her own right, for the fifth edition. Spanning all types of libraries, from public to academic, school, and special, it illuminates the major facets of LIS for students as well as current professionals. Continuing its tradition of excellence, this text addresses

the history and mission of libraries from past to present, including the history of service to African Americans;
critical contemporary social issues such as services to marginalized communities, tribal libraries, and immigrants;
the rise of e-government and the crucial role of political advocacy;
digital devices, social networking, digital publishing, e-books, virtual reality, and other technology;
forces shaping the future of libraries, including Future Ready libraries, and sustainability as a core value of librarianship;
the values and ethics of the profession, with new coverage of civic engagement, combatting fake news, the importance of social justice, and the role of critical librarianship;
knowledge infrastructure and organization, including Resource Description and Access (RDA), linked data, and the Library Research Model;
the significance of the digital divide and policy issues related to broadband access and net neutrality;
intellectual freedom, legal issues, and copyright-related topics;
contemporary issues in LIS education such as the ongoing tensions between information science and library science; and
the changing character of collections and services including the role of digital libraries, preservation, and the digital humanities.

In its newest edition, Foundations of Library and Information Science remains the field’s essential resource.

From Interrogation to Integration: Centering Social Justice in Special Collections, Archives, and Preservation

Editors: Kim Hoffman and Rachel Makarowski

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Special Libraries

From their inception, special collections and archives have memorialized the lives of people in power, serving as a tool to preserve the status quo and perpetuate systemic oppression.

From Interrogation to Integration: Centering Social Justice in Special Collections, Archives, and Preservation collects case studies, research projects, lesson plans, stories, practical strategies, color illustrations, and accessible, low-cost solutions from authors who have grappled directly with the legacy of harm present in their own institutions. The volume is organized into five themes:

Research
Description
Preservation and Access
Outreach
Instruction

Centering social justice in our daily practice and tasks is a form of resistance against external pressures. From Interrogation to Integration contributes to ongoing efforts to create a more inclusive, diverse, just, and equitable profession while acknowledging both the scale and complexity of that work.

From Learners to Leaders: Empowering Student Volunteers in the School Library

Dione Mila and Diana Haneski

Recommended for: School Libraries

Creating a library leadership program is within reach! Complete with a plethora of customizable forms, templates, and tools that you can modify to suit your own needs, this book offers a roadmap for giving your learners the guidance and direction to take the lead in running their school library space and teaching their peers.

Juggling the responsibilities of teaching, budgeting, curating, programming, planning, and advocating, it’s no wonder that school librarians feel overstretched. Training student volunteers in leadership skills is the solution you’ve been looking for. Empowering students will not only assist you in balancing the day-to-day operations of the school library, it will also give learners the valuable experience they need for their future growth while fostering a sense of ownership and pride in their tasks. The authors share nuts-and-bolts advice drawn from their own successful student volunteer programs and other real-world success stories to guide you at your own school library. Using this book, you will

be introduced to the many benefits of learner-led library leadership, which nurtures critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration and communication, inclusivity and respect, and creativity and initiative;
discover how empowering student volunteers can give you breathing room to focus on high priority items, tackle ever-growing pending tasks, foster collaborative relationships, and tend to your own wellness and stress management;
walk through the essential steps for making it happen, from creating a “call for volunteers” poster and conducting interviews with learners to drafting a parent information letter and permission form, managing sign-in sheets, and completing a reflection rubric;
receive clear, actionable frameworks for goal setting, building your leadership team, training learner leaders, offering praise and motivation, and effective behavior management; and
learn strategies to use your student leadership program for generating greater visibility for the school library, increased administrative support, better communication with the school community, and more opportunities for extracurricular clubs and programming.

Listen to a podcast featuring the authors now!

Gardening for Kids: Learn, Grow, and Get Messy with Fun STEAM Projects

Brandy Stone

Recommended for: Public Libraries, School Libraries

Sharpen STEAM skills―and have a blast―with educational gardening projects for kids 8 to 12. Discover how fun and educational growing plants can be. Gardening for Kids is packed with essential information for beginner gardeners and tons of awesome projects that help kids grow their science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) skills. Go outside with easy-to-try experiments that will teach you all about the environment, plants, and what it takes to grow and maintain your very own garden. Find out what your soil is made of, make a miniature greenhouse, race seeds, and so much more!

Gardening for Kids provides:

Gardening 101―Learn everything you need to get your garden started today, from basic safety tips to helpful advice on caring for your plants.
25 Gardening projects―Dig into the natural world with a ton of fun experiments like sprouting food scraps, building plant forts, and more―each one focusing on specific STEAM skills.
A chance to grow together―This book features handy tips for expanding projects to work with groups of kids so you can share the fun in classrooms and community gardens.

Grow a love of science, technology, engineering, art, and math―plus lots of plants―with Gardening for Kids.

How to Talk to Porcupines: A Youth Worker’s Communication Field Guide

Allegra Birdseye-Hannula

Recommended for: Public Libraries, School Libraries

Youth have unique stories to tell, and prickly personalities (also known as porcupines) share their stories to express a need. It’s important to help unlock and hear the porcupine’s story to address the need. But quills hurt―especially when they get under your skin. This guide is designed to give you environmental cues, tips, and tricks to respond appropriately when prickly personalities arise.

Discover new ways to connect and communicate with young people so you can feel more confident when working with prickly personalities and learn how to:

Identify porcupines in the field
Recognize when and how communication breaks down
Improve your communication know-how to skillfully redirect prickly personalities
Add effective and impactful communication strategies to your tool kit
Acquire new tools and strategies to help youth name their big emotions

Bonus: Each section includes activities designed to help you apply your learnings and develop your own action plan for redirecting and de-escalating porcupines.

(Duplicate copy, Workbook will publish in Summer 2026) The Kind Librarian: Cultivating a Culture of Kindness and Wellbeing in Libraries

Helen Rimmer

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries

This book will prove an ideal reference for librarians and anyone interested in fostering a culture of kindness and well-being in professional settings.

Information professionals work in dynamically changing environments with a diverse range of patrons, which can sometimes present stressful situations. This book seeks to aid staff in information and heritage organizations in steering through challenges by fostering a culture grounded in kindness and wellbeing, promoting a more supportive and understanding work environment. The strategies presented in this book will ensure the sustained mental health and satisfaction of both staff and the patrons they serve, underlining a human-centered approach to library management and community service. Coverage includes

practicalities of kindness in the workplace;
crafting a culture of kindness; and
kind use of data for wellbeing.

This book explores the practical implementation of policies that support a kind and healthy work environment. Readers will learn how to create strategies that foster collaboration, open communication, and mutual respect among staff and patrons.

Read a blog post by the author now!

The Library as Playground: How Games and Play are Reshaping Public Culture

Dale Leorke and Danielle Wyatt

Recommended for: Public Libraries

Digital and analog games have long served modern public libraries as educational tools and as drawcards for new patrons – from dedicated gaming zones and children’s spaces to Minecraft gaming days, makerspaces, and virtual reality collections. Much has been written about the role of games and play in libraries’ programming and collections. But their wider role in transforming libraries as public institutions remains unexplored.

In this book, the authors draw on ethnographic research to provide a rich portrait of the intersection between games, play, and public libraries. They look at how games and play are increasingly spilling out of designated zones within libraries and beyond their walls, as part of a broader reconfiguration and “re-imagining” of libraries in the digital era.

The library’s association with play has historically been understood through its classification as a “third place”: somewhere to relax, socialize and experiment outside of the utilitarian demands of work and home. But far from just offering patrons an opportunity for detached leisure, this book illustrates how libraries are connecting games and play to policies agendas around their municipality’s economic and cultural development. Attending to the institutionalization of play, the book sheds new light both on the contradictions at the heart of play as a theoretical concept, and what libraries are in contemporary public life.

(Free downloadable book by IFLA) New Horizons in Artificial Intelligence in Libraries

Edited by Edmund Balnaves, Leda Bultrini, Andrew Cox & Raymond Uzwyshyn

Download the PDF copy here, or email Stephanie for a copy of the PDF

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries

Originating from an IFLA Artificial Intelligence SIG Satellite Conference and the IFLA Information Technology Section membership, this volume brings together insights from leading experts around the globe. It explores the cutting-edge intersection of AI technologies, digital infrastructures, and library services, offering both theoretical frameworks and practical implementations.

There is increasing use of AI technologies in many aspects of library operations and types of libraries. This ranges across public, national, research, academic and special libraries and includes public and reference services, automated classification, special and research collections, archives and customer service through chatbots and discovery systems. Vendors are also adding elements of AI in new and existing library products including search and discovery and research platforms and recommender systems. The role and impact of AI present opportunities and challenges and open future possibilities. IT plays a significant role in the development and use of AI technologies, but ethical considerations and wider organizational thinking must also play an equally significant role. AI’s uses can have considerable impact and possible unintended consequences on library operations and services and wider societal implications. All of this is considered in this both pragmatic and wider philosophical text. This publication provides an opportunity to explore developing new library AI paradigms, including present use case practical implementation and opportunities on the horizon as well as current large ethics questions and needs for transparency, scenario planning, considerations and implications of bias as library AI systems are developed and implemented presently and for our collective future.

IFLA article on this resource release

The Passive Programming Playbook: 101 Ways to Get Library Customers off the Sidelines

Paula Willey and Andria L. Amaral

Recommended for: Public Libraries, School Libraries

This book offers 101 passive programming ideas that are extendable, adaptable, customizable, and above all, stealable―so your passive programming never runs dry.

Passive programming is a cheap, quick, fun way to make all library customers feel like part of the community. It can support reading initiatives, foster family engagement, encourage visit frequency, and coax interaction out of library lurkers―while barely making a dent in your programming budget. Passive programming can be targeted at children, teens, adults, or seniors; used to augment existing programs; and executed in places where staff-led programming can’t reach. It can be light-footed, spontaneous, and easily deployed to reflect and respond to current news, media, library events, and even the weather. But even passive programming pros run out of ideas sometimes, and when that happens, they want a fresh, funny source of inspiration.

Roll for Adventure: Tabletop Roleplaying Adventures for Your School or Public Library

Lucas Maxwell

Recommended for: Public Libraries, School Libraries, Academic Libraries

Become the ultimate Game Master and deliver tabletop role-playing games with confidence!

For librarians, teachers, school staff, and parents who want to run a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) but who don’t know where to begin, this practical guide includes five tabletop role-playing adventures written so a first-time Game Master can jump straight in and start playing. Alongside the adventures the book includes

examples of safety tools to allow players to stay safe;
a comprehensive TTRPG glossary;
practical tips for helping new players at the TTRPG table;
practical tips for first-time Game Master and new players;
ideas on how to establish role-playing sessions and festivals in your school; and
lists of potions, magic items and non-player characters, including their motivations and occupations.

A companion to Maxwell’s bestselling Let’s Roll, this book is a must-read for librarians and teachers looking to deliver exciting and creative games and quests. Now roll the dice and have fun!

Small Public Library Management, Second Edition

Cindy Fesemeyer and Christina Jones

Recommended for: Public Libraries

A lifesaver for new library directors and a go-to resource for those already in the role, this comprehensive handbook presents a concise and approachable overview of managing and running a small public library.

Most libraries in the US are small in size and rural in location. And, since most of them don’t require a degree to be hired as Library Director, many new hires step into the position with limited management or librarianship experience. This handbook will quickly get new directors up to speed on managing staff, drafting budgets, crafting policies, overseeing a building and its collections, and strengthening the library’s place in the community. The authors, with years of small library management experience between them, offer expert guidance on all those topics and many more besides. Small public library directors at all stages of their career, as well as their board members and library trustees, will

benefit from this handbook’s up-to-date perspectives on what it takes to run your library in today’s post-pandemic, politically polarized, technologically advanced, socially isolated world;
receive to-the-point advice on governance, strategic planning, human resources, policy development, facilities, services and programs, and other foundational tasks;
become informed on how to safeguard intellectual freedom, handle challenges to materials and programming, and protect patron privacy;
get pointers on broadening their personal network, understanding what outside resources are available, and spearheading effective advocacy and community engagement;
learn from real-life “Success Stories” and “On the Job” words of wisdom sprinkled throughout the text; and
find adaptable templates, self-enrichment activities, and other tools to facilitate ongoing professional development.

(Duplicate copy) Well-Being in the Library Workplace: A Handbook for Managers

Edited by Bobbi L. Newman

Recommended for: Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries

Fostering well-being in today’s library workplaces is no longer a luxury but a necessity, particularly for managers tasked with guiding and supporting their teams. Amidst budget cuts, attempts to ban or restrict books, attacks on library staff online and in-person, and potentially hostile and aggressive patrons, taking care of ourselves and our staff by putting good policies and practices into place is more important than ever. In this book, Newman and her expert contributors will lead you through creating an environment that nurtures the health, satisfaction, and well-being of its workers and helps prevent or reduce the internal factors that create an unhealthy workplace. You will receive actionable advice on

navigating the pitfalls of vocational awe, which can lead to unrealistic expectations and self-neglect;
setting and re-calibrating healthy boundaries;
approaching difficult conversations by creating spaces for positive staff communication;
overcoming limited budgets;
the proper mindset for encouraging realistic performance expectations among employees;
using recognition, appreciation, and staff professional development as tools for wellness;
nurturing social connections and collaboration to combat loneliness;
effective techniques for addressing sensitive issues such as disabilities, confronting anti-fat bias, and moral injury;
emotional and invisible labor mitigation; and
self-care methods for library leaders at risk of burnout.