Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

Starting next week, we'll have two new bloggers joining us on Points of Reference -  Lindsay Harmon, librarian at the American Academy of Art,  and Carolyn Mulac,  GIS Division Chief at Chicago Public Library.  Welcome Lindsay and Carolyn! If you've got something reference-related of interest that you'd like to see posted on Points of Reference, [...]

When there are no patrons, whether it be a sunny day, Spring Break, or another reason, how do librarians keep busy?  Some might even ask why the library is open if there are no patrons.  Librarians use this time to keep very busy - they do collection development, share ideas with colleagues to see what's [...]

We all rely on reviews when choosing new resources for our collections. As a longtime reviewer with a pile of new titles on my desk, it struck me that the act of reviewing really helps me as a librarian. Examining a work and thinking about how it would fit into my collection, whether it is [...]

Everyone wants free full text, but , as Mick Jagger said, you can't always get what you want. There are some places to find it. The Public Library of Science http://plos.org  publishes seven peer-reviewed science and medical journals. It has just added a new feature PLOS Currents, where researchers can share and discuss their latest [...]

With health care reform all over the news, people have questions. It is difficult to find objective information, but it is available if one knows where to look. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a Web site with a wide range of information:history of  health reform efforts, state variation and health reform, financial consequences of medical bills, [...]

An article in the Boston Globe  today reported that a private school, Cushing Academy,  has eliminated the books in the library.  The collection of 20,000 books will be given away and will be replaced by a digital library. The "learning center" will have lap-top friendly carrels  and where the reference desk was there will be a coffee shop [...]

We often have patrons come in to learn more about the latest medical or scientific breakthrough to hit the news. They hope that it means a cure for cancer, even though it only worked in two rats, or that there really is intelligent life somewhere out in space. How else would those UFOs get here? [...]

After many years of 10 to 15% cuts in our materials budget, we got really bad news: this year the cut is 25% of what's left! Given the financial woes of the city of Oakland and the State of California, it is not a total surprise, but why do the Powers that Be always hit [...]

There are currently 890 UNESCO World Heritage sites.  The list of sites, alphabetically arranged by country, can be found with extensive supporting information (in most cases descriptions, documents, maps, image gallery, etc.).  From the website, sites on the Official World Heritage List can be located in Google Earth.  In addition to the 890 sites themselves, features [...]

Libraries made the headlines in last night's local newscast. It seems that the San Jose Public Library, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is now taking reference questions via text messaging. We already interact with our patrons in person, by phone, by e-mail, and in online chat reference, so texting is the logical next step. [...]

Having learned from two of my librarian friends that they had read (unprompted by me) and approved of my July 19, 2009, Points of Reference post "The Catalogue Raisonné,"  I have been inspired to continue the theme. I announced my plan at the end of that post to return to the Houston Public Library's central [...]

govfresh.com is a commerical web site that was launched on May Day 2009. It aggregates all US Government news feeds through various social media outlets including Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.  The feeds include news from the White House and US departments, agencies and the military.  Congress and the Supreme Court are not official feeds since they come through Twitter and RSS [...]

Although I will not be at ALA this weekend you may be sure I will be thinking about past conferences.  It is said that when attendees evaluate a conference, they talk about their trip, what the hotel was like and of course, the food!  After all that they may mention a meeting or program that was "fairly [...]

Most reference librarians probably check the Internet Scout Project's Scout Report on a regular basis to find out about new, mostly free, online resources. The Internet Scout staff has just released its Best of 2008-2009, a highly select list of  favorite sites. See if you agree. Smithsonian's History Explorer Academic Earth Chronicling America: Historic American [...]