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Penn State University Libraries

Library and Information Studies

 

Contact

Dawn Amsberry, selector for Library Science
Library Learning Services UP
814-865-5093

Martin Goldberg
Beaver Campus Library
724-773-3791

Bernadette Lear
Harrisburg Library
717-948-6360

Articles and Databases

Library and Information Sciences Abstracts (LISA) - Abstracts and indexes 440 periodicals in twenty languages.  Online thesaurus available.  Coverage 1969 to present.

Library, Information Sciences, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA)  - Ebsco product.  Abstracts and indexes approximately 500 "core journals" [publisher's emphasis], 50 "priority journals," 125 "selective journals", books, research reports, and proceedings.  Coverage 1984 to present, however a few may have coverage fron the mid-1960s to present.   LISTA includes indexing of the PaLa Bulletin, the newsletter of the Pennsylvania Library Association from 2007 to the present.

Library Literature and Information Sciences - H.W. Wilson Product. Abstracts and indexes 390 journals, over 300 books, book chapters, conference proceedings, thesis and pamphlets.

Library Literature - essential for historical research. Indexes library science journals from 1876 to 1999 June.  Paper edition only.

ERIC - CSA product. Especially helpful for articles about libraries and reading in colleges and schools.

WorldCAT - since Penn State does not offer a library science program, researchers need to consult the catalogs of other university libraries. WorldCAT includes more than 10,000 libraries, including those serving the largest LIS programs.

Search for Books

The majority of Library and Information Studies book are found in the Library of Congress Zs.

CLASS Z - BIBLIOGRAPHY. LIBRARY SCIENCE.  INFORMATION RESOURCES (GENERAL)

Subclass Z Books (General). Writing. Paleography. Book industries and trade. Libraries. Bibliography (abridged listing)

Subclass Z Subjects
Subsection Subject
 Z4 - 115.5 Books (General)
 Z116 - 659 Book industries and trade
 Z662 - 1000.5 Libraries
 Z1001 - 1121 General bibliography
 Z1201 - 4980  National bibliography
 Z5051 - 7999 Subject bibliography
 Z8001 - 8999 Personal bibliography



Subclass ZA Information Resources (General) (abridged listing)
Subsection Subject
 ZA3038 - 5190 Information resources (General
 ZA5049 - 5190 Government information

 

For the entire Z listings  — Library of Congress Z listings

Web/Print Sources

American Library Association Archives - holds archival documentation of the early years of the profession.

Bibliography of Library History - this semiannual list of books, dissertations, and journal articles updates American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (see below)

Center for the Book, Library of Congress - along with its state-level affiliates, the Center promotes reading through its annual Book Festival, research, and other activities.

Davies Project, Princeton University - provides founding dates, closing dates, locations, and other information for thousands of libraries existing in the U.S. before 1876. Includes college, public, social, and other kinds of libraries.

Google Book Search - contains partial text of many current books, and full-text of many historical items published before 1923.

The Kept-Up Academic Librarian - a popular blog about news in higher education, pertinent to librarians.

Library History Buff - compiled by a retired librarian from Wisconsin, this site has a lot of information about library history, and collecting "librariana" artifacts.

LISZEN - a searchable database of more than 700 library-related blogs

Melvil Dewey Papers, Columbia University - essential resource for the early history of professional librarianship. More than 100 boxes of historical documents contain much information about Dewey, his interacts with other librarians, the founding of ALA, the development of library education, and other topics.

Office of Research and Statistics, American Library Association - publishes salary surveys and other national statistics

The Researching Librarian - links to online databases, statistics, and other information for library science researchers.

NEW! SPEC Kits (Association of Research Libraries) -  from 2006 to the present.  Older SPEC kits (1973-2005) are available throug Hathi trust.  For those who use RSS Readers, ARL has a feed to alert you of new publications: http://publications.arl.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/SPEC_Kits/~rss

Reference Sources

80 Years of Bestsellers  - lists Publisher's Weekly's bestselling fiction and nonfiction titles for each year from 1895 to 1975.

A.L.A. Catalog ("1893", 1904-1911, 1926) - published every few years from 1893 to 1952, this was ALA's list of books recommended for libraries. Useful for assessing fiction and popular collections in their historical context.

A.L.A. Glossary of Library and Information Science - updated several times between 1943 and 1983, a helpful dictionary for old terminology.

American Library Development, 1600-1899 - a chronology of important events in all aspects of librarianship. Unfortunately, there is no counterpart for the 20th century.

American Library Directory - published since 1908, this resource lists college, governmental, public, school, and special libraries throughout the United States. Modern editions provide self-reported information about holdings, subject specialties, database subscriptions, opening hours, and more.

American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature - an index of articles, books, and other publications about the history of libraries and librarianship.

The Bowker Annual - published under various titles since the 1950s, this yearly report includes legislative information, recommended book lists, and copious statistics about libraries, librarianship, and the book trade.

Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on American Public Library Development - includes the definitive list of public libraries founded by Andrew Carnegie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Dictionary of American Library Biography - brief biographies of path-breaking librarians from colonial America to the late 20th century. See also the first and second supplements, published in 1990 and 2003.

Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, 2nd edition - Not at Penn State, but a helpful starting point for almost any topic. Penn State has the 1968 edition, which has historical interest.  We have the 2nd edition. First Update supplement.

Whole Library Handbook 4 - where else can you find the most popular flooring color used in academic libraries? Provides practical tips, trivia, humor, and other "librariana" not found in other sources. See also the first, second, and third editions.

Professional Journals

More Resources

 

Library and Information Studies Programs

The American Library Association has numerous links on their website www.ala.org to help those of you who are thinking about a career in library and information studies.  If you are interested, librarycareer.org is a good place to begin.  Also below are a few links to help you:

The Directory of ALA-accredited master's in library and informational studies programs in the United States

The ALA offers scholarships and other financial assistance to help future library and information studies students.

Penn State also offers scholarships for future library and information studies students.

 

Book Publishers

Since Penn State does not offer a degree in library and information science, University Libraries does not purchase many books pertaining to that area. In addition to consulting WorldCAT (see above), researchers should also visit the web sites of companies which tend to publish books pertaining to library and information science. The most common ones are below:

 

Professional Organizations

 

Library Conferences, Meetings, etc.

This list is to aid you in planning your professional calendars. This list should not be considered either comprehensive of all library-related conferences, meetings, etc. or definitive concerning locations, times, etc. Use the provided hyperlinks to retrieve official information from the websites of the respective conferences, meetings, etc. Conferences, meetings, etc. will be removed once they are over.  If you wish to have any conference, meeting, etc. included in this listing or wish to report any errors on this listing, please contact Glenn Masuchika.

A principal contributor to this listing is Dolores Fidishun. Her blog Dolores' List of CFPs is a detailed accumulation of calls for papers and presentations in the disciplines of  Library Science, Information Science, Instructional Design and Technology, Education, including Adult Education, and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Marian Dworaczek's (University of Saskatchewan Library) has retired and no longer supports her Library-Related Conference page. In its place, we are offering the Information Todays, Inc. Industry events page http://www.infotoday.com/calendar.asp.

  

Library Conferences and meetings in 2013

Dates

Conference

Location

January 13-14 9th International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Science Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA
January 25-29 ALA Midwinter Conference Seattle, Washington
January 23-25 21st BOBCATSSS 2013 Ankara, TURKEY
January 22-25 2013 ALISE Annual Conference Seattle, Washington
February 11-14 Code4lib 2013 Chicago, Illinois
February 12-15 iConference 2013 Fort Worth, Texas
February 12-15 ICAL 2013 : 2nd International Conference on Academic Libraries New Delhi, INDIA
February 24 CIS Collaborative Information Seeking Workshop 2013 San Antonio, Texas
February 27-March 3 Music Library Association Annual Meeting San Jose, California
March 24-27 35th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2013) Moscow, RUSSIA
March 25-27 Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) 2013 Manchester, UNITED KINGDOM
April 2-3 North American Data Documentation Initiative Conference (NADDI) Lawrence, Kansas
April 4-5 ASIS&T Research Data Access and Preservation Summit (RDAP 13) Baltimore, Maryland
April 10-12 ICoASL 2013 : 3rd International Conference of Asian Special Libraries New Delhi, INDIA
April 10-13 ACRL 2013 Indianapolis, Indiana
May 2-4 LOEX 2013 Nashville, Tennessee
May 3-8 Medical Library Association Annual Meeting and Exhibition Boston, Massachusetts
May 8-10 Workshop for Instruction in Library Use (WILU) Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA
May 16-17 Conference for Entrepreneurial Librarians Greensboro, North Carolina
May 29 - June 1 Canadian Library Association 2013 National Conference and Trade Show Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA
June 6-9 Association of Jewish Libraries Annual Conference Houston, Texas
June 6-9 North American Serials Interest Group Annual Conference 2013 Buffalo, New York
June 23-28 4th Information : Interactions and Impact (i3) Aberdeen, SCOTLAND
June 27- July 2 American Library Association Annual Conference Chicago, Illinois
July 13-16 American Association of Law Librarians Annual Conference Seattle, Washington
July 18-21 Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing Annual Conference 2013 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
August 1-4 National Storytelling Conference Richmond, Virginia
August 11-17 Joint Annual Meeting for the Council of State Archivists and Society of American Archivists New Orleans, Louisiana
August 17-23 IFLA World Library and Information Congress SINGAPORE
August 19-22 COLIS 8 Copenhagen, DANMARK
October 22-25 European Conference on Information Literacy Istanbul, TURKEY

 

Special thanks to Vicki Brightbill for designing the table and acting as the CMS consultant to the Library and Information Studies Research Guide group.

The members of the Library and Information Studies Research Guide group are Dawn Amsberry (selector), Amy Deuink, Joe Fennewald, Dolores Fidishun, Martin Goldberg, Bernadette Lear, and Glenn Masuchika.