Topics cover RFID and self-issue in libraries, technology training and current trends in library technology, as well as practical approaches to designing and delivering digital library services and learning services in a virtual environment. 

Websites

Websites

AbilityNet
Adapting technology – Ability Net is a national charity helping disabled adults and children use computers and the internet by adapting and adjusting their technology.
BCS: The Chartered Institute for IT
The Institute fosters links between experts from industry, academia and business to promote new thinking, education and knowledge sharing.
BIC (Book Industry Communication)
BIC is an independent organisation set up and sponsored by the Publishers Association, Booksellers Association, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and the British Library to promote supply chain efficiency in all sectors of the book world through e-commerce and the application of standard processes and procedures.
Campus Technology
A higher education technology website and magazine that provides updated information about advanced networking for the campus enterprise and carries features on learning resources, library management systems and shared services.
JISC
The UK’s expert on information and digital technologies for education and research. JISC can provide expert help and guidance with institutional and cost management, research, the student experience and sustainable futures.
LibTechRFP
Ken Chad has set up this wiki to enable the development of standard, open and re-usable specifications for library systems.

Technology blogs

Technology blogs

Artefacto blog
Updates, tutorials and announcements from Artefacto: Creative technology & creative learning for the cultural sector.
Library Technology Guides
The website aims to provide comprehensive and objective information related to the field of library automation. Blog of Marshall Breeding.

Articles and reports

Articles and reports

Community engagement solutions for public libraries
This briefing paper by Ken Chad outlines the challenges public libraries face in reshaping their community profile. It highlights how emerging community engagement solutions may help target existing and potential users in repositioning public libraries and refreshing their services. May 2021.
A guide to RFID in libraries
Simon Edwards and Mick Fortune, 2008. This guide provides libraries with a reliable, neutral and supportive document to help them invest in RFID and gain all the available benefits.
A librarian's guide to RFID procurement
Mick Fortune, new edition 2016. Book Industry Communication (BIC) and the National Acquisitions Group (NAG) have produced this downloadable document. It provides libraries intending to issue tender documents for RFID systems with a comprehensive checklist of questions they should ask themselves and their suppliers in order to ensure they get the functionality and levels of interoperability they require.
A librarian’s take on digital disruption
Jane Cowell on the challenges libraries face today and questions we need to be asking in order to adapt, including what might the library look like "if we could forget the legacy systems and more importantly legacy rules and policies and design our services for today’s users." Nov 2018

Books

Books

Check it out: issue systems for the primary school library
Tricia Adams and Kathy Lemaire, SLA, 2011. This bestselling SLA Mini Guideline has been fully updated to include more detailed information about increasingly popular computerised issue systems, but it also outlines essential details about alternative traditional manual systems too. Essential reading for everyone who runs a primary school library.
Digital consumers: reshaping the information professions
Facet, 2008. Key strategic areas covered in this book include: the digital consumer, the digital information marketplace, the growth of the informed purchaser, the library in the digital age, the psychology of the digital information consumer, the virtual scholar, the Google generation and trends in digital information consumption.
Digital information: order or anarchy?
Facet, 2009. Put together by an international, cross-sectoral team of contributors, each authored chapter provides a snapshot of where we are now and considers how the barriers to success might be overcome and what the digital information environment might look like.
E-books in libraries: a practical guide
Facet, 2011. Essential background reading for librarians wishing to develop an e-book collection from scratch or for those responsible for maintaining an existing e-book collection.
Information users and usability in the digital age
Facet, 2010. Information users and usability are the main building blocks of today's electronic information world. This book is the first to give a holistic overview of all of the issues relating to information users and the usability of information services in the digital world, including user-centred design, and the characteristics and behaviour of information users.
M-Libraries 5: From devices to people
An up-to-date showcase of the innovative and inspiring work that libraries are doing across the world to interact with their users and deliver resources via mobile devices.
Making the most of RFID in libraries
Martin Palmer, Facet, 2009. This practical and straightforward book is designed to help library managers decide whether RFID has anything to offer them and – if so – how to make the most of the benefits while coping with the challenges inherent in this rapidly developing technology field.
Technology training in libraries
Facet, 2010. This guide from Sarah Houghton-Jan presents practical, start-to-finish guidance for the successful implementation of a low-cost, comprehensive, and effective staff technology training program in the library.
Teenagers and technology
Routledge, 2013. Presents a balanced picture of the part played by technology in the lives of young people, and the importance of internet access to educational development. It goes some way to counter the extreme accounts of ‘digital youth’, and exaggerated anxieties created by the mass media.
Web 2.0 and libraries: impacts, technologies and trends
Woodhead, 2010. An analysis of a key topic. It explores how libraries can exploit the potential of emerging technologies and provides strategies and techniques for supporting learners in the virtual and physical environment.