November/December 2012

Features

Personal Branding for Librarians

By Karen G. Schneider
The trend of establishing and maintaining a personal brand has been a hot topic for some time with the public at large...

Barbecue? Flamenco Dancing? Learning Gets Interactive in Louisville

By Judy Rosenfield
On a sunny spring Saturday at the Louisville (Ky.) Free Public Library (LFPL), hundreds of people with schedules in...

Departments

Librarian's Library: Making Sure Libraries “Measure Up”

By Karen Muller
Times are tough for libraries, and when times get tough, managers—whether college administrators, a principal, a...

Editor's Letter: Gauging Your Interest

By Laurie D. Borman
A few weeks ago, ­American Libraries sent you a survey. And despite all the other surveys and polls and requests...

Will's World: Trust in Your Trustees

By Will Manley
It frustrates me profoundly to have someone in the library profession approach me at a conference to challenge my...

Rousing Reads: The Wild and Poetic Life of Westerns

By Bill Ott
I’m hooked on Westerns. Not the genre-blends that are popular today—the cowboy romances and the zombie...

President's Message: We Are ALA

By Maureen Sullivan
I recently learned that another national library association has adopted the slogan “I am (my national library...

In Practice: The DIY Patron

By Meredith Farkas
Like many librarians, I was a frequent user of libraries as a child. Yet I have always avoided asking for help. I...

Background on Our Budget

By James Neal
The past year has been challenging for ALA, reflecting both the difficult economic conditions affecting libraries...

Newsmaker: An Interview with John Chrastka

John Chrastka, ALA’s director of membership development from 2003 to 2011, didn’t leave library advocacy...

News Stories

How Libraries Count in the 2012 Election

As icons of civic engagement in America, libraries are perfectly positioned to host voter registration drives and, as...

The Campaign Is On to Form the Nation’s First Library PAC

The tweet announcing the formation of the EveryLibrary.org campaign came a day earlier than its founder and executive...