More than simply a vital collection development tool, this book can help librarians help young adults grow into the kind of independent readers and thinkers who will flourish at college.

Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project contains 19 chapters by 52 authors from Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Scotland, Spain, and the United States. The chapters in this book are authored by both new and longtime members of the Wikimedia community, representing a range of experiences.

Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.

A new visual history of the Library of Congress from its creation in 1800 to the present day.

The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

This seven-volume set offers a core collection of hand-selected titles in 58 curriculum-specific subject areas. Volumes are organized into broad subject areas such as Humanities, Languages and Literature, History, Social Sciences and Professional Studies, Science and Technology, and Interdisciplinary and Area Studies. The seventh volume provides helpful cross-referencing indexes which explain the relationship between RCL subject taxonomy and LC ranges. New to this edition are the inclusion of interdisciplinary subject areas and the selection of electronic resources and web sites essential for undergraduate library collections. Non-book selections will be easily identified by a graphic indicator included in the item record. All selections will be assigned an audience level marker indicating whether the title is most appropriate for lower-division undergraduate, upper-division undergraduate, faculty, or general readership. Records will also include a notation if they previously appeared in BCL3 (Books for College Libraries, 1988) or have been reviewed by Choice.

Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.

Carnegie and the Carnegie Corporation provided funding for 1,681 public library buildings in 1,412 U.S. communities between 1889 and 1923. This philanthropy had a great impact on the growth of public library development in the United States. Free public libraries supported by local taxation had begun with Boston in 1849 and slowly spread throughout the country. The Carnegie benefactions made them leap forward. This internationally famous celebrity chose libraries as one of the primary sources for his philanthropy. He also attached two conditions to his offer of money for a public library building--the local community had to provide a suitable site and formally agree to continuously support the library through local tax funds. The latter solidified acceptance of the concept of tax support for libraries.

Books recommended for undergraduate and college libraries listed by Library of Congress Classification Numbers.

Spanning the centuries from maritime activities before Columbus to the nation's maritime involvement today, this rich, complex archive provides a new history of the United States from the fundamental perspective of the sea that surrounds it, and the rivers and lakes that link its vast interior to the seacoast. 350 photos, 55 in color. 10 maps.