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Crowley, Bill. Spanning the Theory-Practice Divide In Library and Information Science. Scarecrow, 2005. ISBN 0810851652. $45.00. Purchase from Amazon.com.
Spanning the Theory-Practice Divide in Library & Information Science, by Bill Crowley, is an analysis of the reasons why "faculty-generated scholarship" is often irrelevant, seldom applied, or sometimes unacknowledged by practitioners. The author discusses this "gap" between theoretical and pragmatic worlds from the points of view of practitioners and academics, as well as others outside of campus boundaries. A great deal of time is devoted to dense, somewhat protracted syntheses of a multitude of documented ideas and theories about the "gap" as it applies to the larger academy. The correlation between the conclusions about academia, in general, and the world of library and information science is not always strong, particularly in the first part of the book. This makes one wonder if a better title should have been selected. In later sections, the author identifies and explains a number of problems encountered in library settings, and derives from these experiences a few tidbits for bridging future gaps. The analyses and references will be useful for those conducting research in this area, but the book does not overwhelm with practical suggestions for spanning the divide.
Christine Ryan is Electronic Resources Librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
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Woolls, Blanche, and David Loertscher, eds. The Whole School Library Handbook. ALA Editions, 2004. ISBN: 0-8389-0883-7. $45.00. Purchase from Amazon.com.
Modeled on ALA's bestselling The Whole Library Handbook (ALA Editions, 1998), this 448-page volume is a veritable vertical file of articles from books and professional journals for the school library/media professional. Woolls and Loertscher, both well-known and respected for their extensive contributions to the field, have collected a wealth of resources for the busy practitioner.
Readers will find a wide range of advice from experts on how to run a successful school library program, including thought-provoking articles, extensive practical checklists, contact info for organizations and vendors, a listing of names-to-know, resources and strategies to facilitate collaboration and advocacy efforts, essential data, and even arcane trivia.
All this info in one volume can be overwhelming to someone new to the field, so I'd recommend using it as a supplement to one of the standard texts in the field, such as Running a School Library Media Center, 2nd edition (Neal-Schuman, 2002), The School Library Media Manager, 3rd edition (Libraries Unlimited, 2004), or even Where Do I Start? A School Library Handbook (Linworth, 2001).
Alice Yucht (alice@aliceinfo.org) is retired and now teaches courses for new school librarians while blogging about school/library/life at http://www.aliceinfo.org.