Book-based resources tend to catch our readers' eyes. No exception, The Atlas of New Librarianship Online stood out for its fresh take on the evolving role of libraries and librarians. As this intro (and the name) suggests, the resource is especially useful for our librarian readership, providing a self-described mashup of "topical map, scholarly theory, practical example, persuasive argument, textbook, and inspirational sermon."
What is the goal of a library? What is the work of a librarian? Perhaps, "a new librarianship" has emerged, an expanded role "based not on books and artifacts but on knowledge and learning." To facilitate this, librarians must embrace an expanded role, too: "to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities." R. David Lankes, an award-winning scholar and director of the University of South Carolina's School of Information Science, makes these claims in The Atlas of New Librarianship, a book he published in 2011. The next year, the book won the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. Now freely available under a Creative Commons License, readers can download the book as a PDF or ePub file. Its in-depth insights encapsulate "input from hundreds of librarians and professors from 14 accredited library programs, 25 formal presentations to more than 50 conferences, and 14 publications." And, since its initial publication, the Atlas added new indexes (highlighted in the Expanding the Atlas section).
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