best practices – The Gale Blog

Exchanging Ideas: Inspiring Conferences I Attended in 2017

April 24, 2019December 28, 2017

| By Heather Hedden, Senior Vocabulary Editor, Gale |

Gale participates in a variety of industry conferences, not merely as an exhibitor, but from a thought leadership perspective as well where they have the company’s subject matter experts speak at various conferences beyond the traditional library field. As a senior vocabulary editor who updates and maintains the Gale subject thesaurus, I truly believe that conferences are not just for developing business, but also serve as a place for exchanging creative ideas. I have spoken at a number of conferences this year and have enjoyed both sharing my knowledge and coming away with new ideas.

The conferences I attended throughout 2017 were so empowering, I wanted to share them with you:

Booklist Webinar: Best Practices for Large Print

Join Booklist and Thorndike Press for this free, hour-long webinar on building successful large-print collections. Speakers will include Nancy Pearl, Nora Rawlinson (EarlyWord), Tamara Kraus (Hickory County Public Library, NC), and Lisa Joyce (Portland Library, ME). Don’t miss this valuable program, featuring advice on all things large print: collection-development trends, reading group tips, and best …Read more

5 Simple Readers’ Advisory Best Practices

7月8, 2014June 24, 2014

By Kara Kugelmeyer

How do you discover your next read? I am always on the lookout for my next read. For me one of life’s sweetest moments is discovering a new title that I am sure will open up a new universe for me.

With thousands of books published each year and no way to read them all…sigh.Finding those trusted sources to recommend my next read is important to me. While there are a host of ways to find that next good book, I the best is to ask the original readers’ advisory service – public librarians.

Readers’ advisory (RA) is both and art and a science and practitioners support all formats: print,large print, eBooks, audio, etc., and of course all genres as well!

How Somers Library Uses Social Media

June 5, 2014April 9, 2014

By Valerie Herman

Social media offers an opportunity that intersects beautifully with the librarian’s role; after all, curating information and disseminating it to the public is what we have always done, but now we can do it faster, better, and more extensively.

The Education Advantage in a Matter of Words

February 26, 2018March 28, 2014

By Bethany Dotson

在1月底,我有独特的乐趣to travel to snowy and frigid Chicago to interview Valerie Gross, President and CEO of Howard County Public Library (MD). We were there to discuss Valerie’s ideas, laid out most prominently in her book,Transforming Our Image, Building Our Brand: The Education Advantage.

Putting the “Pub” in Public Library

February 23, 2018March 17, 2014

By Harmony Faust

To say I’m a fan of craft beer is accurate, but perhaps doesn’t paint the full picture. The fact is, for my husband and I, it’s “our thing.” We appreciate craft beer to the point that last month, for the fourth consecutive year, we traveled to the Annual Winter Beer Festival of the Michigan Brewers Guild. That’s right,Michigan’sBrewers Guild. This places us outdoors in the middle of February at a beer festival. The high was 24 degrees but surrounded by good beer and good friends, no one seemed to notice.

Libraries: Critically important or critically endangered?

February 26, 2018February 28, 2014

By Harmony Faust

Join us for a live Twitter Chat with Valerie Gross, president & CEO of the Howard County Library System in Maryland (Library of the Year 2013) and author of the provocative new titleTransforming Our Image, Building Our Brand: The Education Advantage.

Hear Valerie’s thoughts on how to keep your library essential, not optional, and chat with your colleagues about important issues like funding, branding and the perceived value of libraries today.