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Lankes, R. (2011). The atlas of new librarianship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. R. David Lankes is Associate Professor in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, and Director of its Library and Information Science Program. His main theme throughout the book is a new mission for librarians – "The Mission of Librarians is to improve Society through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities."

One should rightly be impressed with Lankes' resources for this book. "The Atlas is the result of more than 100,000 miles of travel to 29 locations on three continents, input from hundreds of librarians and professors from 14 accredited library programs, 25 formal presentations to more than 50 conferences, and 14 publications." (pg. 2) In fact one should be so impressed as to not take exception with anything Lankes writes at all. I'm sure hundreds of students feel the same way. But, being the critical thinker that I am, I thought I'd take a chance, and raise some questions I hope will resonate with other library professionals.

Book Review at: 21st Century Library Blog

I’m a Baby-Boomer, and so is my wife who was my high school sweetheart. We were both raised in Middle America with traditional values which we adopted – get educated, work at a career, own a house and two cars, support your local school and church, enjoy the American Dream.

The American Dream is, according to our friends at Wikipedia (sorry to those of you who think it’s a site that makes kids dumb, but I find it very much a modern encyclopedia that is highly useful and mostly filled with very useful information):

In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

[BTW: Can you spell E-N-C-Y-C-L-O-P-E-D-I-A from memory? Did you learn to spell it from Jiminy Cricket too.] -- Read More