Only a few information technology organizations predict the future by inventing it.1 One of the canonical examples is Xerox PARC, which in the early 1970’s produced the first mouse, pioneered Graphical User Interfaces, invented Ethernet, and developed the first laser printer, along with dozens of other innovations. Among contemporary organizations, the inheritor of this lineage […]

In the Library with the Lead Pipe is pleased to welcome another guest author, Steve McCann! Steve is a Digital Projects Librarian specializing in information architecture, usability studies, and data analysis. In 2008, when I was visiting Anaheim, CA, for the ALA Annual Conference, I had a rather unpleasant experience renting a car. I had […]

“The indicators that served as benchmarks in the past, such as number of volumes and number of journal subscriptions, are no longer sufficient because of the more expansive role that the contemporary library has assumed” (Weiner, 2005). “The measurement of quality will come back to the questions of who are the users, what are the […]