Books in the Practical Guides for Librarians series

Do you want to improve the usability of your library website, but feel that it is too difficult, time-consuming, or expensive? In this book, you will learn that in-house usability testing on a budget is not only feasible, but it is practical, sustainable, and has the potential to lead to remarkable improvements of the content, design, and layout of your website. Usability Testing: A Practical Guide for Librarians will teach you how to: .Make the case for usability testing .Define your audience and their goals .Select a usability testing method appropriate for your particular context .Plan for an in-house usability test .Conduct an effective in-house usability test .Analyze usability test results and make decisions based on those results .Create and implement a plan for ongoing, systematic usability testing Step-by-step instructions, along with a myriad of examples, allow you to use this book as a practical guide, and adapt the techniques for your own context. Techniques are appropriate for libraries of all types, including academic, public, and special libraries."

The vast array of options for online teaching can seem intimidating and endless. Take a look at the pros and cons of different options available for teaching online, tips and tricks for engaging various audiences and strategies for hybrid learning. Learn how the biggest rookie can become an online teaching professional.

Through simple explanations and step-by-step guides, library professionals will learn how to strengthen privacy protections for:*Library policies*Wired and wireless networks*Public computers*Web browsers*Mobile devices*Apps*Cloud computingEach chapter provides an overview of the security risks and the respective preventative steps.

Understanding How Students Develop is a one-stop source of practical advice for both librarians who are just beginning to work with students from elementary school through college, as well as helpful tips for seasoned library user services professionals, including school, reference, instruction, and outreach librarians.

Data Management will guide readers through data management basics and best practices following through the data lifecycle. Guidance for starting and growing a data management service includes suggestions for assessment. Specifics about how to use the reference interview to help with data management, writing data management plans for grants, and finding collaborators are covered in depth. Specialty areas such as teaching data management and data reuse are also included.

Teen Services Today: A Practical Guide for Librarians gives all library staff the tools they need to work with teens. Whether you are the teen librarian, the clerk who's been assigned to 'do something' about teens or the branch manager who sees an underserved population, this book will provide you with the building blocks to create successful relationships with the teens who use your library.

Teaching Google Scholar in your library instructional sessions can increase students' information and digital literacy skills. Students' familiarity with Google Scholar's interface works to the instructor's advantage and allows more time to address students' information needs and teach foundational information literacy skills and less time teaching a new database with a less-intuitive database interface. Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians will illustrate instructional methods and incorporate step-by-step guides and examples for teaching Google Scholar.

This book provides librarians interested in developing a residency program with practical advice about how to create, manage, and assess such a program. It offers an overview of the history of library residencies, describes the benefits of the program for stakeholders, and addresses components of developing, managing, and assessing the program.

This book is the essential guide for every librarian wishing to bring the health and wellness benefits of yoga and meditation to all ages and abilities. Includes everything from mom and baby yoga, chair, yoga and online meditation meet-ups, to a mindfulness book club and a Wabi Sabi wall.

This book provides in-depth practical advice and examples of public and academic library programming activities. Included in this volume are methods for identifying target audiences, activities and ways to find and generate even more ideas, tools for assessment and budgeting, and tips on planning programs from inception to execution.

Designed for any librarian who needs to teach either one person at a time or an entire class, How to Teach: A Practical Guide for Librarians is a standalone guide to becoming proficient in teaching users how to access, evaluate and use information. This book is designed for all librarians and library staff who teach as part of their role and is useful to library school students new to teaching.

Historical geographic resources have traditionally been only accessible in print, and in person. But due to the popularity of online mapping and increased digitization, historical maps and other geographic resources are resurfacing, providing users with rich information publically accessible online. Discovering and Using Historical Geographic Resources on the Web provides library and archival staff, and their users, with information on how to locate, interpret, understand, and use these resources.

Many librarians don't have the technical expertise needed to create online tutorials. Creating Online Tutorials: A Practical Guide for Librarians will help guide them through the basics of designing and producing an online tutorial.

Implementing Web-Scale Discovery Services: A Practical Guide for Librarians is a source for librarians seeking to evaluate, purchase, and implement a web-scale discovery service. The book breaks down each phase of the project into decision points and action plans to help librarians select and implement a system that meets their specific needs.

Reference service remains a core function of modern libraries. However, how and where we provide assistance has evolved with changing technologies and the shifting habits and preferences of our users. One way libraries can provide the on-demand, in-person assistance while managing and developing new services and resources that will benefit current and future users is to reconsider how their reference points and services are staffed and adopt a staff-based reference model. In Implementing an Inclusive Staffing Model for Today's Reference Services, Nims, Storm, and Stevens describe step-by-step how to transition from the traditional librarian-staffed reference desk to an inclusive reference model where non-MLS personnel are equipped and empowered to answer reference questions wherever these questions might be asked.

As more users expect to use their mobile devices, librarians will want and need to develop the necessary skills to reach this growing user base. Mobile Devices: A Practical Guide for Librarians will aid libraries and librarians as they go through the process of planning, developing, implementing, marketing, and evaluating mobile services.

Collection Evaluation in Academic Libraries: A Practical Guide for Librarians equips academic collection managers to select and implement a method or several methods of evaluating their library collections.

Academic librarians who need quick and easy tools to start, advance, or evaluate development operations would be key audiences for this work. From providing basic flow charts to simple proposal and gift templates, this work would also discuss external funding holistically to include an overview of grants and grant reporting.

Genealogy: A Practical Guide for Librarians covers the big picture of genealogy and evidence-based research, plus the variety and availability of many record types, but also provides practical advice for both researchers and librarians.

This is a standalone guide that provides the steps, guidance, templates, examples, and best practices for planning and executing a successful loanable technology program, including: preparing a needs assessment; selecting appropriate equipment; cataloging, processing, and housing equipment; developing forms for billing; and assessing the program.

The demand from library users for audiovisual materials and remote access combined with the unceasing deterioration and inaccessibility of many audiovisual formats requires libraries to adapt their collections to meet current and future demands. While this changing landscape of digitization and resource management may seem daunting, it represents an opportunity to bolster a library's relevancy and competitiveness. Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources fills a gap as a single concise guide for real world basics, broad concepts, and practical needs from technologies to collections to promotion. The easy-to-read book is geared towards the ongoing management of digital audiovisual resources, presenting real world scenarios and ways to think through balancing all of the many factors and needs for these collections, dealing with limited resources, materials with different levels of significance, materials facing different levels of preservation risk, factors for decision making, and resources for other options.