Learning the RC: Public Information and Resources for Libraries

When I first started working for a public library in Sacramento, I had a supervisor who made it a hobby to do background checks on people. It might be about a person she read about in the new, or some gossip she was digging up on a disgraced staff member. But the stuff she found was always in the public record. I've always wondered how a person could perform a background check on someone else. The Sourcebook to Public Record Information (026.973 SOU 2008) is probably how. The first section basically tells you how "public" information is organized, such as how info gets into the public record in the first place, where it is held (government or business databases), and your rights to access it. The second section is the breakdown of the agencies that hold the information by state. A very handy book. I had a patron who was interested to learn which house his mother owned back in 1940s. It wasn't online and I wasn't sure where to point him. This book would be that resource to try to find those older records.

Now, I love libraries. And when I plan my trips, if there is a cool library where I'm going, then for sure I'm gonna check it out. But read a "guiness" record book on libraries? Pass. The Library World Records (027 OSW) book by Oswald is just that. It has lists on movies featuring libraries and the biggest and smallest books and the most "fascinating" libraries. (Seriously, can that really be a list?) But while it may tell me what the first book written in Dutch is, it doesn't tell me which library holds said book. Thanks Oswald, but no thanks.

Margaret A. Edwards's The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts: The Library and the Young Adult (027.626 EDW) is a book of ideas on developing the "people in their teens who have outgrown the role of children and have become the eager, anxious understudies of adults" into readers. Edwards collected a selection of her articles, written through out her career in order to define her philosophy of why are how to serve this population, the most notable in the second article being, they are looking to define themselves and they will soon be the ones leading the nation. What better time to turn them into "thoughtful readers"? While this collection may not be modern, I recognize the title as canon within the YA field. Edwards's writing is clear and humorous and I think I will read this book.

I'm thinking of moving to Colorado. I'm a librarian. I want to get a job in libraries. Other than public libraries, what other library institutions might I work in? I open the American Library Directory 2012-2013 (027.073 AME 2012-2013 v. 1 & v.2) and turn to the Colorado section and I see in alphabetical order by name of city the libraries I may apply to for work, such as the USDA Agricultural Research Service (if I perhaps had a specialty in Agronomy). Should I wish to work for an Armed Forces Library, I can quickly turn through the pages and scan for the appropriate letter designation (A) to see that Fort Carson has one. Volume two also has information about networks and consortia, training courses, libraries in Canada and the US territories and military libraries overseas. A very handy directory.

The Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (of the ALA) drew together a selection of documents related to the Americans with Disabilities Act to help libraries "implement the law." Titled The ADA Library Kit : sample ADA-related documents to help you implement the law (027.663 ADA ), it looks as though they surveyed their member libraries to see what they were doing to obey the law and how they were going about it and then asked, very nicely, if they could reproduce their documents in one book. The chapters tell you the titles of the documents, grouped according to subject. The index in the back lets you quickly see what topics are addressed (such as accessibility in the book stacks). I think I'd rather just call my lawyer, but for small libraries I could see how borrowing a ready made document could quickly speed the institution through the process and demonstrate intention to comply.