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But I Want To Hold It In My Hand! Print Resources
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick and Patricia Dewdney. Communicating Professionally: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Library Applications, 2nd ed. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1998. ISBN 1-55570-340-2. Purchase from Amazon.com.
Ross and Dewdney cover all aspects of professional communication, from writing reports to making presentations to training others as effective communicators. The authors focus on communication as an interactive process between communicator and receiver, and stress the importance of context in any successful encounter. The first part of the book focuses on such basic communication skills as making eye contact, learning to ask useful questions, and using inclusive and nondiscriminatory language, while the second part teaches readers how to put these skills into practice in a variety of library applications. Useful sidebar tips and factoids and extensive bibliographies round out this comprehensive and useful guide.
White, Herbert S. Librarianship -- Quo Vadis? Opportunities and Dangers As We Face the New Millennium. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 2000. ISBN 1-56308-807-X. Purchase from Amazon.com.
Readers familiar with Indiana University SLIS Dean Emeritus White's long-running "White Papers" column in Library Journal will have a good sense of what to expect in this volume, a chronological compilation of his columns, articles, and speeches between 1995-1999 (plus a couple of earlier pieces). Its $65 price tag may put the book outside of many librarians' budgets, which is unfortunate, as White's insights are undoubtedly worth the price of admission. He is one of few information professionals to think and write seriously about our profession as a whole -- and where we're headed -- rather than concentrating on one or two practical aspects. White's many targets include ALA's tendency to focus on the trivial at the expense of the important, library managers who deal with budget cuts by paradoxically announcing improvements in service, and the "more is always better" approach to information. The only drawback to this otherwise excellent collection is that themes (and sometimes entire paragraphs) tend to be repeated across several pieces, but it may take just such repetition to drive these points home and start readers thinking about the issues facing librarianship today.