Greetings and happy spring! Arrowhead Library System (ALS) has a long-standing commitment to maintaining a collection of current publication titles of interest to librarians, library staff and library trustees. The collection is housed at the ALS Headquarters in Mountain Iron, but all titles can be requested via the online catalog (if you have a borrower’s card from an ALS library) or via the statewide MnLINK catalog (if you have a borrower’s card from Duluth Public Library). If you have questions about borrowing titles from the ALS Professional Collection, feel free to call ALS staff! Here are the latest additions to the ALS collection:
The Library Staff Development Handbook: How to Maximize Your Library’s Most Important Resource
Mary Grace Flaherty
Rowman & Littlefield, 2017
023 FLA 2017
The Library Staff Development Handbook: How to Maximize Your Library’s Most Important Resource provides practical tips, suggestions for resources, and concrete examples for addressing the multiple and varied aspects of staff development. From crafting a job description to recruitment, hiring and retention, and from progressive discipline and succession planning to continuing education, performance appraisals, and the importance of workplace fun, this handbook can serve as a companion for managers, supervisors and library staff as they negotiate the challenging range of staffing issues and the opportunities they provide in the library setting.
The Dysfunctional Library: Challenges and Solutions to Workplace Relationships
Jo Henry, Joe Eshleman and Richard Moniz
ALA Editions, 2018
023 HEN 2018
Frankly, it’s not something we like to talk about. There is an unfortunate stigma to acknowledging workplace dysfunction, let alone trying to grapple with the problem. But negative behaviors such as incivility, toxicity, deviant behavior, workplace politics, and team and leadership dysfunction not only make the library a stressful workplace, they also run counter to the core values of librarianship. An important tool for library leaders and managers as well as library staff, this book examines these negative relationship-based issues and suggests practical, research-based solutions by
- discussing the importance of understanding oneself as related to the library workplace;
- identifying attributes specific to libraries that foster personal success;
- showing how organizational dysfunction is rooted in problems such as poor communication, inadequate leadership, and lack of employee engagement;
- breaking down relatable scenarios to analyze what’s behind them and how to defuse them, ranging from a gossipy coworker who fails to contribute to the organization to workplace bullying and mobbing;
- exploring causes, results, and potential solutions in the areas of cyberloafing, fraud, theft, and sabotage;
- delving into the importance of conflict management, surveying a variety of approaches and applications;
- examining the use of teams in libraries and the impact of favoritism, nepotism, and sexism; and
- providing techniques for successful collaboration, leadership, organizational communication, and other key management topics.
By tackling the dysfunctional library head on, managers as well as library workers who find themselves in a toxic situation will be poised to better meet library goals and move the library forward.
36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing: From Aliens to Zebras
AnnMarie Hurtado
ALA Editions, 2018
027.3 HUR 2018
The Handbook of Art and Design Librarianship integrates theory and practice to offer guidelines for information professionals working in art and design environments who need to support and anticipate the information needs of artists, designers, architects, and the historians who study those disciplines. Since the first edition of this title, the world of art and design libraries has been transformed by rapid advances in technology, an explosion in social media, and the release of new standards and guidelines. This new edition, offering mostly entirely new chapters, provides an accessible, fully updated guide to the world of academic art and design libraries from a range of international experts who reflect current practice at a global level. Featuring a foreword by Clive Phillpot, Fermley Press, London (formerly Director of the Library, Museum of Modern Art, New York), this book’s coverage includes:
- Case studies and library profiles, providing benchmarks for developing facilities;
- Teaching and learning, including the ACRL Framework;
- Special collections, metaliteracies, instructional design, and cultural differences;
- Developments in institutional repositories, digital humanities, and makerspaces; and
- Contemporary library design, spaces for collaboration and sustainability.
LGBTQAI+ Books for Children and Teens
Christina Dorr and Liz Deskins
ALA Editions, 2018
306.76 DOR 2018
There is a rich and varied body of literature for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, asexual/allied and intersexed young people, which can function as a mirror for LGBTQAI+ individuals and as a window for others. This resource for librarians who work with children and teens not only surveys the best in LGBTQAI+ lit but, just as importantly, offers guidance on how to share it in ways that encourage understanding and acceptance among parents, school administrators, and the wider community. Helping to fill a gap in serving this population, this guide
- discusses the path to marriage equality, how LGBTQAI+ terms have changed, and reasons to share LGBTQAI+ literature with all children;
- presents annotated entries for a cross-section of the best LGBTQAI+ lit and nonfiction for young children, middle year students, and teens, with discussion questions and tips;
- offers advice on sensitive issues such as starting conversations with young people, outreach to stakeholders, and dealing with objections and censorship head on; and
- ideas for programming and marketing.
This resource gives school librarians, children’s, and YA librarians the guidance and tools they need to confidently share these books with the patrons they support.
