Systems and Technologies

With its high level of transparency and accuracy, blockchain technology is a concept with far-reaching implications for the future of recordkeeping. In the newest volume of the Library Futures Series, Sandra Hirsh and Susan Alman lay out blockchain's challenges and opportunities. We recently had the chance to speak with them about how they originally got interested in the technology and where they see it leading next.

The first volume in the new Archival Futures series published jointly by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and ALA Neal-Schuman, Laura A. Millar's new book A Matter of Facts: The Value of Evidence in an Information Age is an urgent manifesto for our "post truth" world.

ALA Editions/ALA Neal-Schuman is pleased to present a selection of free programs at the 2019 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition exploring the profession’s issues and trends. The programs scheduled to take place at the ALA Store, located near the main entrance to the Exhibit Hall on the lower level of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, are:

Saturday, June 22

Shop and browse the ALA Store at the 2019 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition for products that meet the widest range of your promotional and continuing education/professional development needs—as well as fun gift items. Located near the main entrance to the Exhibit Hall on the lower level of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the ALA Store hours are:

In his foreword to Foundations of Information Ethics, Robert Hauptman sums it up best: "An ethical attitude to the production, dissemination, storage, access, and retrieval of information and data is beneficial and necessary to a well-functioning information society; this is affirmed by crisis after crisis concerning false news, fake facts, social media privacy invasions, and everything else." John T. F. Burgess and Emily J. M.

(Disclaimer: The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this post are those of the author[s] and should not be attributed in any manner to The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent.)

How do you guide students to move beyond just finding answers and towards critical thinking? It's exactly the approach Michelle Reale outlines in her new book Inquiry and Research: A Relational Approach in the Classroom. An associate professor and head of access services and outreach at Arcadia University, she took some time out from her duties to speak with us about the epiphany behind writing the book, the role of reflective practice in information literacy, and much more.

To celebrate Love Data Week, we are pleased to share this guest post by Andrew Cox, co-author of the Facet Publishing, UK book Exploring Research Data Management, which was originally posted to the Facet Publishing blog.

To celebrate Love Data Week, we are pleased to share this guest post by Selena Killick, co-author of the Facet Publishing, UK book Putting Library Assessment Data to Work, originally posted at the Facet Publishing blog.