Libraries: a Design Manual by
This book explains systematically all technological and planning requirements of library design. Special features such as RFID, signage, acoustics or specific structural load issues are explained in texts by experts from the fields of architecture and library science. Finally, approximately 40 best-practice case studies of contemporary library design are documented extensively. They are organized in four categories - national libraries, large public libraries, small public libraries, university libraries, and comprise high-profile examples.
Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow by
The author traces the establishment, growth, and eventual demise of separate public libraries for African Americans in the South, disrupting the popular image of the American public library as historically welcoming readers from all walks of life. Using institutional records, contemporaneous newspaper and magazine articles, and other primary sources together with scholarly work in the fields of print culture and civil rights history, the author reconstructs a complex story involving both animosity and cooperation among whites and blacks who valued what libraries had to offer. African American library advocates, staff, and users emerge as the creators of their own separate collections and services with both symbolic and material importance, even as they worked toward dismantling those very institutions during the era of desegregation.
Reading Publics: New York City's Public Libraries, 1754-1911 by
The author’s history of New York City's public libraries over the course of more than a century and a half illuminates how the public and private functions of reading changed over time and how shared collections of books could serve both public and private ends. This material examines how books and reading helped construct social identities and how print functioned within and across groups, including but not limited to socioeconomic classes. The author offers an accessible while scholarly exploration of how republican and liberal values, shifting understandings of "public" and "private," and the debate over fiction influenced the development and character of New York City's public libraries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This book is an important contribution to the social and cultural history of New York City that firmly places the city's early public libraries within the history of reading and print culture in the United States.
Rural and Small Public Libraries Challenges and Opportunities by
Thus, this volume begins by defining the challenges that rural and small libraries face before shifting to an analysis of ways that these obstacles can be overcome or mitigated. Building off of this foundation, the authors explore ideas for enhancing community partnerships and outreach, using rural and small public libraries as centers for local cultural heritage activities, and training rural public librarians to better serve their publics. The authors of this volume bridge the gap between academic research and practical application, creating a volume that will allow rural librarians, trustees, and their allies to argue for greater support and enact change to benefit their service communities.
