Diversity in Youth Literature
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Surveying the landscape of youth literature, this contributed volume shows how books have grown to include the wide range of our increasingly diverse society.
The Library Innovation Toolkit
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Progress for the sake of progress is all too often a drain on precious time and resources. The communities and users that libraries serve are always changing; true innovation helps libraries adapt to meet their needs and aspirations both now and in the future. This stimulating collection offers numerous snapshots of innovation in action at a range of libraries, showcasing ideas and initiatives that will inspire librarians at their own institutions.
Putting the User First
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User experience is everywhere. From your library's website to the signage by the elevators, everything contributes to the overall user experience of our patrons. Just one simple idea can transform your library: put the user first. But as you likely already know, just because something's simple doesn't mean it's easy. How best to identify, implement, and evaluate user-driven changes in order to improve physical and virtual services? The good news is that even small changes can make big headway. Putting the User First: 30 Strategies for Transforming Library Services will give you 30 hands-on strategies and practical suggestions to enable you to begin transforming your library, library services, and even your personal practice to be more responsive, effective and user-centered today.
Teen Spaces
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This is a practical guide to revamping libraries to create spaces for teens. The book includes step-by-step instructions and easy-to-use templates, information on teen spaces policies, ways to involve teens in the space-renovation process, tools, worksheets, instructions, and vendor information, and much more.
Useful, Usable, Desirable
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Useful, usable, desirable, like three legs of a stool, if your library is missing the mark on any one of these it's bound to wobble. Every decision you make affects how people experience your library. In this useful primer, user expereince (UX) librarians Schmidt and Etches identify 19 crucial touchpoints such as the library website, email, furniture, parking lot, events, and newsletters. They explain why each is important to your library's members and offer guidance on how to make improvements. From library administrators to public relations and marketing staff, anyone concerned with how members experience your library will benefit from this book's * Coverage of the eight principles of library UX design, explaining how they can guide you to better serve your library's members * Advice on simple, structured ways to evaluate and improve aspects such as physical space, service points, policies and customer service, signage and wayfinding, online presence, and using the library * Scorecard system for self evaluation, which includes methods for determining how much time, effort, and skill will be involved in getting optimum performance
Greetings! I joined the MLS Consulting and Training team in April 2016 and am thrilled to serve as a Consultant for libraries all over Massachusetts. My professional interests cover a wide range of library topics, including user research (UX), information literacy, early literacy and reading development, outreach and programming, readers' advisory, space planning, and digital resources. Prior to working at MLS I was a youth services librarian in public libraries, as well as the head of public and school product management for a well-known information services vendor. I've honed my teaching and presentation skills over the course of many years and have taught workshops on topics such as collection development, social media for public libraries, informational text and text complexity, and student research behavior (a few of you may even know me from my cupcake workshop days!) I also teach Children's Literature to pre-service school librarians and am the co-host of the podcast, "This Podcast is Overdue" along with April Mazza.
I am always up for a library visit or a call should you need a fresh view or a sounding board. Just email or call!
