Briefly Noted

Library Ethics, Jean Preer. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. 255p. $45 (ISBN 978-1-5915-8636-4)

Winner of the 2009 Greenwood Publishing Group Award for Best Book in Library Literature, this masterful overview of professional ethics as seen through the prism of library history should appeal to students and new librarians as well as experienced library practitioners and administrators. Jean Preer structures the book around the four core principles of service, access, avoidance of conflicts of interest, and confidentiality. In her hands, ethics is not a matter of rigid rules and laws but the attempt to resolve the constantly evolving tension between conflicting values. (J.A.)

Managing Library Employees: A How-To-Do-It Manual, Mary J. Stanley. New York, NY: Neal-Schuman, 2008. 247p. $59.95 (ISBN 978-1-5557-0628-9)

Several books on library supervision and management have been published recently. This manual is addressed primarily to those responsible for human resources functions in libraries, especially those who may not have formal training or experience in this specialized realm. It provides an overview of technical and legal aspects of personnel management such as hiring, record keeping, and compensation. The author, associate dean and director of human resources at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, also offers practical advice on components of the job such as training, motivation, and communication. Stanley's sure touch falters slightly in the final two chapters, dealing with the topics of technology and managing change, which are somewhat fragmented and lack clear focus. The line between human resource management and general library management is not always easy to define. Nevertheless, this is a solid and useful book to have on hand. (J.A.)

Marketing Today's Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students, Brian Mathews. Chicago: American Library Association, 2009. 171p. $48 (ISBN 978-0-8389-0984-3)

Brian Mathews is the user experience librarian at Georgia Tech and the author of the Ubiquitous Librarian blog. In Marketing Today's Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students, he provides a structured approach to creating a library that becomes integral to student lifestyles. Mathews describes how he immersed himself in student and marketing culture during the writing of this book. The idea was to get out of the librarian mindset and to see the library from the student point of view. He goes on to analyze user needs and the library from a marketing perspective and then details the market research, relationship, brand, and promotional strategies necessary for drawing students in. In the final chapter, he gives four hypothetical examples of campaigns that illustrate his strategies. Marketing Today's Academic Library provides important insights and suggestions for developing a closer relationship with student users. (F.R.)

Using Technology to Teach Information Literacy, ed. Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2008. 240p. 75$ (978-1-55570-637-1)

In Using Technology to Teach Information Literacy, Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson bring together an interdisciplinary mix of librarians and faculty to share carefully crafted information literacy collaborations using a wide range of current technologies. This follows a previous book they co-edited, Information Literacy Collaborations that Work (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2007), which was reviewed in the July 2007 issue of this journal. Divided into three sections, The Collaborative Web, Course Management Systems, and Online Assessment, their new work includes course-integrated initiatives in psychology, history, nursing, business, German language, and other areas. In addition to a detailed description of each initiative...