A report of an OCLC Research survey of library special collections holdings and practices at selected institutions in the United States and Canada. Numerous charts and tables summarizing responses are included. Recommendations for best practices are also provided.

This book brings the best of leadership theory and research together with biblical reflection and examples of leadership in action to offer a practical guide to Christian leaders. Combining expertise in leadership studies and biblical studies, Justin Irving and Mark Strauss explore how leadership models have moved from autocratic and paternalistic leader-centered models toward an increased focus on followers. The authors show how contemporary theories such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and servant leadership take an important step toward prioritizing and empowering followers who work with leaders to accomplish organizational goals. Irving and Strauss organize their book around "nine empowering practices," making it accessible to students, church leaders, and business leaders. Integrating solid research in leadership studies with biblical and theological reflection on the leadership ideas that are most compatible with Christian faith, this book is an important resource for all Christian students of leadership.

The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians: A Profession Apart discusses the current demographics of librarianship in North America and examines how a huge retiree rate will affect the profession. With the average age of librarians increasing dramatically since 1990, this book examines the changes that will have to take place in your library, such as recruiting, training, and working with a smaller staff. The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians provides you with insights on how to make your library’s transition easier when several of your colleagues leave your library. Valuable and intelligent, The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians discusses trends through easy-to-read charts, tables, and comprehensive data analysis. Exploring possible reasons for the anomalies of this trend, this book explores several surprising facts, such as: 16 percent of the 1995 American Research Libraries population of librarians will retire by the year 2000, another 16 percent between 2000 and 2005, 24 percent between 2005 and 2010, and 27 percent between 2010 and 2030, leaving the ARL lacking seasoned librarians the number of ARL cataloging librarians are decreasing, but the number of reference librarians seems to be increasing 54 percent of all ARL librarians who have twenty or more years of professional experience have worked at only one library in the course of their careers Canadian ARL librarians are older than their United States counterparts in 1990, 48 percent of ARL librarians were 45 years old or older; in 1994, the number increased to 58 percentThe Age Demographics of Academic Librarians provides you with valuable insight into the unusual shape and movement of the academic librarian age profile as well as some speculation on its possible effects so you can predict how it will affect your library in the future and help you prepare to take preventative actions.

This book describes the application of The ClimateQUAL® survey protocol (originally Organizational Climate and Diversity Assessment–OCDA©) to over 55 libraries with thousands of individual respondents in the US, Canada and UK. The ClimateQUAL toolkit provides the ultimate management tool for effective organizational adaptation by employing deep assessment of a library’s staff opinions to plumb the dimensions of climate and organizational culture important for a healthy organization in a library setting. It tests critical attitudes around 26 validated dimensions. The ClimateQUAL survey measures include work attitudes, diversity climate, leadership and several other dimensions of library climate. The book describes the procedure for evaluating the structure and psychometric properties of each of these scales. The survey protocol provides feedback based on normative data from the libraries that have already participated. By using these normative scales and institutional results effectively, significant improvements can be achieved. Among other results, the ClimateQUAL research shows that the most effective techniques for remediation are not top-down, but those that engage the entire staff. The book touches on all significant findings of the 15-year project, including the positive impact of diversity on customer service experience and the emerging understanding of a new concept—the healthy organization—and how it is built. A full view is provided of the history and experience with ClimateQUAL since its inception and its use in libraries.

The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country’s libraries–including the Library of Congress–have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age. With meticulous detective work and Baker’s well-known explanatory power, Double Fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former CIA agents, and warehouses where priceless archives are destroyed with a machine called a guillotine. Baker argues passionately for preservation, even cashing in his own retirement account to save one important archive–all twenty tons of it. Written the brilliant narrative style that Nicholson Baker fans have come to expect, Double Fold is a persuasive and often devastating book that may turn out to be The Jungle of the American library system.