Saturday may be the official Independent Bookstore Day, with events planned across the country in celebration of your locally owned shop, but the good news for these local booksellers is that they seem to be thriving the other 364 days... Read More

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.“ —attributed to Oscar Wilde. Whether or not he actually did say it, this aphorism captures the experience of many who have... Read More

Dion Mindykowski is director of the Tahquamenon Area Library in Newberry, Michigan, located on the rugged, rural Upper Peninsula. Here, even the local librarian must be made of sterner stuff than the average book nerd. Foreword first met... Read More

At long last, a large institution has thrown its weight behind open access. A large group of institutions, actually. The Oberlin Group, which is made up of a bunch of libraries from institutes of higher education across the United... Read More

My first substantial job after college (after lots and lots of college) was the fulfillment of a childhood dream: I ensconced myself behind the counter of my local library and became a distributor of books. As a patron, I’d always... Read More

Kyrsten Bean, who works with teens at Orinda Library in Contra Costa County, California, is not easy to categorize. And that’s just fine with her. She’s a punk rocker with a classical-­pianist father. By day, she travels to... Read More

We librarians all have patrons who want specific materials removed from the shelves. It’s difficult to predict which items will inflame sensibilities or which strike readers as incendiary. Knowing your community is part of the battle,... Read More

Jessica Ordich and her puppet persona provide information literacy instruction to adult learners. Fictional character you would like to be marooned with on a deserted island? Joe Kavalier from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay... Read More