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Recent Releases Collection Management Friends Groups and Foundations Library Administration and Management

Reference Services "Results" Series Services to Children Trustees

In today’s competitive environment, every decision and every dollar counts! To ensure the best use of your library’s resources, you need the best information available. That's where PLA Publications can help. As a member, you receive the greatest savings on PLA publications, which cover a wide range of public library concerns and issues.

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Recent Releases

As competition for dollars continues to intensify, library staff and trustees must learn to connect the library directly to what the community values most. Through an effective, sustained advocacy effort, libraries can be positioned -- and remain -- top-of-mind for the public and funders. Creating an advocacy plan for your library is the first step.

Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose and Persuasion: A PLA Toolkit for Success
ISBN: 978-0-8389-8430-7
Price: $100.00
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Field Guide to Emergency Response: A Vital Tool for Cultural Institutions
Heritage Preservation

Every year across the country, hundreds of museums, libraries, archives and historic sites experience emergencies large and small. The Field Guide to Emergency Response can help anyone respond with the best professional step-by-step advice on what to do immediately after a disaster. This handbook explains initial steps to take, essential response to functions, and conditions you are likely to encounter. The instructional DVD illustrates typical problems after a disaster and demonstrates basic salvage techniques.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8426-0
ISBN-10: 0-8389-8426-6
Price: $35.00
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Public Library Service Responses, 2007
These 18 service responses are an update of the original 13 service responses that were published in the 1997 publication, "Planning for Results: A Public Library Transformation Process." Each service response contains eight sections: the title, the description, suggested target audiences, typical services and program in libraries that select this as a priority, potential partners, policy implications, critical resources and possible measures.

Price: $25.00
Available for dowload in PDF format
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Nursery Rhymes, Songs and Fingerplays 
Young children who hear rhymes develop phonological awareness, the ability to hear the different sounds in words, an important pre-reading skill. Encourage parents to read nursery rhymes to their preschool children by giving them a copy of Nursery Rhymes, Songs & Fingerplays, a delightful collection of more than 80 of the best rhyming verses for children. This colorful, 20-page booklet makes it easy to share rhymes, songs and fingerplays with children!  Available from the Public Library Association, in partnership with the West Bloomfield Township (MI) Public Library.

Item #: 73-701
Price: $64.00/packet of 50
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Collection Management

Weeding Manual
Compiled by the Gwinnett County (Georgia) Public Library Staff, Weeding Manual clarifies deselection procedures and offers applicable policies for nonfiction, fiction, foreign language, periodicals, video, and music collections.

2002. 80p.
ISBN: 0-8389-8188-X
Price: $30
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Collection Development and Resource Access Plan for the Skokie Public Library
This comprehensive plan will help guide the process of developing a collection to meet the needs of your community. Also provides a clear outline of the roles, duties, and responsibilities of all persons involved in the selection of materials.

1999. 123 p.
ISBN: 0-8389-8050-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8050-7
Price: $24
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Friends Groups and Foundations

Forming and Funding Public Library Foundations, 2nd Edition
Revised and updated by Benjamin Goldberg

Covers the basics of forming a library foundation. Includes private vs. public foundations, choosing a board, articles of incorporation, bylaws and more.

2005. 27 p.
Price: $28
ISBN-10: 0-8389-8269-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8269-3
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Library Administration and Management

Defending Access with Confidence: A Practical Workshop on Intellectual Freedom
Catherine Lord

This interactive, ready-to-use Intellectual Freedom training program for public library employees is based on American Library Association guidelines relating to intellectual freedom.  Defending Access with Confidence provides libraries with step-by-step directions for planning and rolling out a comprehensive training program on access issues, and on how to resolve challenges to access.  As a result of this training, library employees will gain an understanding of the history and philosophy of intellectual freedom in American libraries, and will be better able to identify and interpret library policies, and to recognize and respond effectively to challenges to access.

2005. 151 p.
Price: $60
ISBN: 0-8389-8331-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8331-7
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Reference Services

A Guide to Research @ Your Library
John Donlan

This brief guide will help your patrons more effectively complete research at your library.  Written by a professional librarian and research trainer with twenty-five years’ experience, this easy-to-understand how-to book is ideal for everyone who wants to learn more about a subject, or just find their way around the often confusing “giant brain” that is the library.  In clear, concise language it shows you how to make the most effective use of your library and the Internet’s powerful research tools.

2002. 57 p.
Price: $24
ISBN-10: 0-8389-8276-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8317-1
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The Public Librarian's Guide to Providing Consumer Health Information
Andrea Kenyon and Barbara Palmer Casini

Authored by Andrea Kenyon, director of the Katherine A. Shaw Division of Public Services at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Barbara Palmer Casini, director of the Memorial Library of Radnor Township in Wayne, Pensylvania, this comprehensive guide contains helpful information for librarians seeking to provide the best consumer health information for their patrons. Includes chapters on:

• Performing a Community Needs Assessment
• The Health Information Consumer
• Health Reference Services
• Ethical Responsibilities and Legal Implications of Providing Health Information
• Building a Consumer Health Collection
• The Internet
• Partnerships to Provide Consumer Health Information
• Planning and Funding Consumer Health Information Services
• Promotion and Programming for Consumer Health Information Services

2002. 157 p.
ISBN 0-8389-8200-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8200-6
Price: $32
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"Results" Series

Managing Facilities for Results: Optimizing Space for Services
Cheryl Bryan

Carving out new service areas within existing space, forgoing massive additions or expensive new buildings, offers a cost-effective solution for budget-conscious libraries. Building from the proven Results Series  model, this volume dovetails with the basics outlined in The New Planning for Results: A Streamlined Approach.

2007. 221 p.
Price: $55
ISBN-10: 0-8389-0934-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-0934-8
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Creating Policies for Results From Chaos to Clarity
Sandra Nelson, June Garcia

A new offering in the bestselling "Results" series from PLA (that includes The New Planning for Results, Staffing for Results and Managing for Results), Creating Policies for Results is the must-have resource for creating and updating policies. No public library can afford to be without it.

What does a librarian do if an unattended child remains at closing time? Can nonresidents get a library card? What is the library's position on Internet filters? These are but a few of the kinds of issues that require clear, up-to-date library policies.

If your staff makes decisions on the fly, if policies are nonexistent, outdated, and no one knows what they are, your library may be experiencing policy chaos. The answer is to create current, customized policies geared to your library. Now it's easier than ever using this one-stop, step-by-step guide that dovetails with PLA's The New Planning for Results.

Covering governance and organizational structure, management policies, and services relating to customers, circulation, information, and groups, this comprehensive how-to addresses each major library area. Follow these guidelines to assess existing policies, develop new ones, and communicate all changes to improve consistency.

• Create sound and legally defensible policies
• Customize policies appropriate to your library's specific mission, customers and size using proven work forms
• Serve customers more effectively by updating, clarifying, and communicating new and revised policies
• Address needs of a changing customer base
• Create guidance and contingency plans for emergencies
• Add details and enforcement procedures for as many situations as possible

A new offering in the bestselling " . . . for Results" series from PLA (that includes The New Planning for Results, Staffing for Results and Managing for Results), Creating Policies for Results is the must-have resource for creating and updating policies. No public library can afford to be without it.

2003. 288 p.
Price: $50.00
ALA Member Price: $45.00
 ISBN: 0-8389-3535-4
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Staffing For Results: A Guide to Working Smarter
Diane Mayo and Jeanne Goodrich.

How long does it take to...catalog a book? This latest entry in the PLA Results series will help you to answer that question and others you have related to the output and performance of your staff. By analyzing, in a systematic way, how long work activities take and then assigning steps to each unit of work, you will have a quantifiable measure of the output of your staff. The only book of its kind, Staffing for Results equips you to not only gauge performance and output but also build on what you learn to maximize and even increase productivity.

Using common public library tasks as the context, Staffing for Results walks you through the process of measuring work, identifying best practices, assigning costs to each activity, analyzing resource allocation, and communicating results. With more than 20 figures and workforms that you can customize for your setting, six easy-to-follow chapters provide step-by-step guidance on how to ensure that your library is optimizing its resources. By the end of the process, you'll be able to answer questions such as:

• Who is doing the work?
• How long does it take?
• What steps are required?
• Can the work process be streamlined?
• Is this the best use of people available?
• Do we need more staff?
• Can support staff handle a job done by a library professional?
• How can the data be communicated to support needed changes?

Giving you tools from the experts of PLA to get the job done, this indispensable guide will help you to show and prove results!

2002. 192 pages
ISBN: 0-8389-0826-8 - ALA Order #: 0826-8-2233
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-0826-6
Price: $42.00
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The New Planning for Results: A Streamlined Approach
Sandra Nelson

A classic resource, Planning for Results has long served to help public librarians envision, evaluate, and respond to community needs with distinctive programs and services. The New Planning for Results continues with an all-in-one guide that outlines a tested, results-driven planning process, revamped and streamlined to enable librarians to respond quickly to rapidly changing environments.

2001. 316 p.
ISBN 0-8389-3504-4
Price: $55
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Managing for Results: Effective Resource Allocation for Public Libraries
Sandra Nelson, Ellen Altman & Diane Mayo

Managing for Results requires librarians to take a proactive approach to marshaling and managing all of the library’s resources effectively. Using this planning guide, librarians will be able to identify their key resources, make choices among different priorities, and assign resources to achieve results.

The key to successfully allocating resources is first knowing what you want to accomplish. Most of a library’s resources are already allocated to some objective or another. However, Managing for Results forces you to evaluate whether resources are being used to achieve the real objectives of the library in the community. This may mean reallocating resources, or evaluating library goals to be sure that the library’s resources are used to ensure that the library achieves its mission, serves the community, and gives patrons what they need and want.

The numerous workforms are designed to enable librarians to identify, collect, and analyze the information needed to correctly allocate resources. They focus on the factors needed to allocate resources, such as the number of professional staff needed, how to budget for library materials, the amount of space needed for programs, and the type and amount of software and hardware needed for the community served.

Using the workforms and the guidelines, librarians can focus on their specific library’s needs and objectives. The process outlined in Managing for Results can be used regardless of the planning process used, the size of the facility, and the library’s mission.

1999. 362 p.
ISBN 0-8389-3498-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-3498-2
Price: $45
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• The Guidebook is the introductory guide to the planning process, which explains each step in the process. Its two parts incorporate thirteen service responses and guidelines for developing customized responses.
• The How-To Manual contains detailed instructions on how to perform each step in the process and includes work forms to aid in completing the various planning tasks. The manual’s loose leaf design makes it easy to add notes, share materials with others, and make copies of the work forms.

Planning for Results (Guidebook and How-To Manual) 1998. 328p.
ISBN 0-8389-3479-X
Price: $40

Guidebook, 1998. 120p.
ISBN 0-8389-3488-9
Price: $20
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Services to Children

Bare Bones Young Adult Services: Tips for Public Library Generalists
Renee J. Vaillancourt.

Offers a quick-start guide to superior service for library staff working without a young adult services librarian. Provides answers to common questions, describes the seven developmental needs of young adults and shows how to interact with them; discusses readers advisory services for teens and more.

2000. 120 p.
ISBN 0-8389-3497-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-3497-5
Price: $30
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Trustees

Trustee Facts File, 3rd Edition
Illinois Library Association, Illinois State Library; Robert P. Doyle and Robert N. Knight, editors

Librarians and trustees in need of assistance in providing effective training for trustees can turn to Trustee Facts File, a straightforward resource tool that provides expert information on library service, with an emphasis on trustees’ major areas of responsibility. Intended to serve as a resource to help trustees understand and fulfill their duties responsibly, this book addresses trustee duties and responsibilities, orientation for new trustees, board organization, legal responsibilities, and liability, policymaking, intellectual freedom and many other issues relevant to public libraries and trustees nationwide.

2004. 88 p.
Price: $20
ISBN-10: 0-8389-8317-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8276-1
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A Library Board's Practical Guide to Finding the Right Library Director
Authored by the Detroit Suburban Librarians' Round Table Succession Planning Committee, this guide will help library boards better understand the process of hiring a library director, consider the variables, envision their goals, develop a plan, work as a team, and obtain optimum results for their library.

ISBN: 0-8389-8349-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-8332-4
Price: $20
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