If you’re like most libraries today, you’re struggling to keep up with the need for more constant and more targeted communication. It seems that we’re always introducing new services, events, and projects in order to remain relevant to our user community – but how do we find time to communicate with all of our stakeholders? And how do we stay on top of all of the latest and greatest modes of communication? If we only had more staff.

I’ve spoken to library staff from libraries all over North America and have heard countless stories about innovative new services that failed. I always ask people why they think the initiative didn’t work at their library and the answer has always been about the culture — whether it was because of controlling IT staff, managers who wouldn’t give staff time to experiment with new technologies, or administrators who were deathly risk-averse. While there are many things a staff member without authority can do to ensure the success of a project, institutional culture is a barrier that can only be fixed by people in charge.

Libraries haven’t always put “a passion for reading” at the top of their requirements for new employees. Determining a candi- date’s ability to inspire readers to find their next great read is as important as knowing whether or not they can effectively conduct the reference interview. “What’s your favourite book and why would I enjoy it?” allows candidates to identify their reading interests and share their selling skills with you. “Name five bestselling authors you would recommend to customers” should be easily handled by someone applying to work in a fic- tion department. “Talk about a recent book that might appeal to our business community” should be handled easily by some- one looking to work with a specialized collection.    In addition to aiding customers in readers’ advisory, an avid reader can also inspire the team to discover their passion for books.

I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about mobile technologies. You might blame it on the media for its ongoing love affair with the ubiquity of mobile devices. Or you could blame it on the launch of the iPad (the device that most reviewers and technology pundits are claiming will change the face of computing). Or, you might look closer to home and just blame it on an unhealthy attachment to my own mobile phone (the less said about that, the better). Whatever the reason, if I get excited about a new technology, application, or interface these days, it is very likely that it is a mobile technology, application, or interface.

On January 25, 2010, the headline of The Onion, an American satirical weekly, read “Massive Earthquake Reveals Entire Island Civilization Called ‘Haiti.’” Unfortunately, this is funny because it is almost true. Many people in North America had never given any consideration to the poorest nation in the western hemisphere until a 7.0 earthquake on January 12, 2010, made it impossible to ignore it any longer. Haiti’s government has reported more than 200,000 people were killed, a greater number injured, and around 1.5 million were left homeless. Homes, schools, and hospitals collapsed. Even the presidential palace and parliament were destroyed. Before the earthquake, the 2009 Human Development Report ranked Haiti, a small island nation with a population of approximately 10 million, 149th out of 182. Half a million children aged six to 12 were not in school, and 38% of the adult population was illiterate. Less than half the population had access to drinking water.

As a tech-savvy modern librarian, I am always looking for better ways to understand, organize, and present information to a broad audience. Collaboration is key to my current job in the marketing department of Toronto Public Library, and I love finding new tools to help complete the task at hand. I am unabashedly a lover of technology. I was thrilled for an opportunity to test out Google Wave when it first came out last fall and can now say that I am a lover of that, as well!

When my placement at Coutts began I was also starting a course on collection development. Prior to the class and placement, my knowledge of the role of book vendors and approval plans in building a library’s collection was sketchy at best. The course and placement were an interesting juxtaposition because of the different perspectives they offered. On one hand, the professor for my collection development class provided us with a cautionary viewpoint alerting us to the temptation to surrender our skills and knowledge in collection development to book vendors. On the other hand, my time at Coutts provided me with insights into the importance that book vendors and approval plans can play in building a library’s collection.

Libraries can stay relevant to their users by strategically riding the wave of societal trends. As a library director I spend a great deal of time searching out ways to keep my library relevant in today’s fast-changing environment. I’ve found that one method to do this is to keep myself current about societal trends and to strategise regularly about how my library might ride the wave of those trends to better serve the needs of the library’s users. This article explains the process that I go through to do this. It doesn’t take long, it is invariably interesting, and I’ve consistently found that it produces results. As you work, keep in mind that your primary goal is to identify trends and evaluate them for implications they might have for your library. That will help keep you focused among the myriad of fascinating ideas that you will discover.

There are numerous user studies published in the literature and available on the web. There are studies that specifically address the behaviours of scholars while others identify the behaviours of the general public. Some studies address the information-seeking behaviours of scholars within specific disciplines while others identify the behaviours of scholars of multiple disciplines. There are studies that only address undergraduate, graduate, or post graduate students or compare these individual groups’ information-seeking behaviours to those of scholars. Still other studies address the behaviors of young adults (Screenagers (Rushkoff 1996) and Millennials). The Digital Information Seeker: Report of the Findings from Selected OCLC, RIN and JISC User Behaviour Projects reviewed 12 major studies within the UK and the USA from the last five years, looking at the changing information needs of library users and exploring how libraries can support the use of digital resources.

The release of the Ontario Ministry of Culture’s Third Generation Public Libraries in January 2009 provided this researcher with an ideal opportunity to apply critical theory to an analysis of provincial planning documents from the 1950s. The focus of critical research and a key source of evidence is discourse. Thus the language we use to talk about our profession, our work, our institutions, and our users can tell us a lot about social struggles over what it means to be a public service within today’s political and economic landscape.