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This paper aims to provide an overview of current research on the use of e‐books and e‐book readers as they gain popularity in libraries.

The paper is a literature review and a case study of a public library which has a Kindle lending program. An e‐book case study is examined, highlighting a mid‐sized public library which implemented a Kindle e‐book lending program. The article includes a follow‐up discussion as to how libraries are including digital content in their collections, and changing the way they do business to accommodate the new technologies that people are increasingly asking for. The paper also gives tools for librarians looking to start their own e‐book lending program, and provide additional information on what resources are currently available.

One conclusion can be made. E‐books will not be going away any time soon. The Kindle lending program at the library has been extremely successful and well received by patrons

Because of this very small case study approach, the research results may not be generalizable.

This research trend is new, and has not had much study. It gives a wide variety of opportunity for pilot studies, and subsequent ones.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the main contents of the 20th BOBCATSSS Symposium held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in January 2012, with the theme of “Information in e‐motion”.

The report provides a concise viewpoint of the overall impact of the conference.

The conference focused on the e‐environment, and debated new challenges and roles for librarians and information professionals.

This symposium is one of the few conferences in the world where students are the main characters and participate as organisers, reviewers, and presenters of the contributions. Reports on such conferences are of interest to students, to teachers and to professionals.

This article presents an overview of the historical development of information security policies promulgated by a variety of governments and agencies. After a brief history of the development of government technology policy in the electronic age, and a review of the possible cyber‐security threats to today's military and civilian populations, policy documents from the organization for economic co‐operation and development, the European Union, and the USA are described and compared. Analysis of the policy documents shows some similarities in the manner by which national and supra‐national political agencies are reacting to the threat of cyber‐attack. The paper alerts the library community to possible compromise in the systems with which we work, and provides some understanding of the process by which the government is reacting to threats. It concludes by encouraging the librarian to become more actively involved and informed concerning the development of government policies in this area.

To provide a comparative review of the teaching of Readers' Advisory Services in schools of library and information science in selected schools in the USA, Canada and Europe.

After reviewing the literature, schools are selected based on their known activity in providing readers' advisory service courses or on their national ranking (in the case of US schools) to provide a snapshot of current level of readers' advisory instruction.

Instruction in readers' advisory services is a very small part of the total curriculum in schools examined. Librarians who wish to gain more insight to readers' advisory services must depend on continuing education opportunities, such as workshops and conference programs, not on courses in the curriculum of schools of library and information science.

This paper raises questions as to the relationship between library and information science curricula and the needs of practicing librarians to provide services to leisure readers. It finds that, despite an increased interest in providing readers' advisory services in libraries, library education is not responding to that need and continuing education and training programs are essential to providing librarians who are well prepared to serve leisure readers. For schools which are contemplating adding coursework in these areas, the case studies detail courses as they are offered at other institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an examination of emotional experiences, particularly how they are situated in the readers’ advisory (RA) literature and the literatures from a variety of outside disciplines in order to create taxonomies of affect from this context.

The approach of this study is twofold. First, this work reviews the literature on affect in Library and Information Science (LIS) and ancillary disciplines in order to understand the definition of affect. Second, using extant taxonomies and resources noted from the literature review, taxonomies are created for three aspects of affect: emotions, tones, and associations.

This paper contextualises and defines affect for the LIS discipline. Further, a result of the work is the creation of three taxonomies through an RA lens by which affective experiences can be classified. The resulting three taxonomies focus on emotion, tone, and associations.

The taxonomies of emotion, tone, and associations can be applied to the practical work of bibliographic description, helping to expand access and organisation through an affective lens. These taxonomies of affect could be used by readers’ advisors to help readers describe their desired reading experiences. As the taxonomies have been constructed from an RA perspective, and can be applied to the RA literature, they could expand the understanding of RA theory, especially that of appeal.

This study furthers the exploration of affect in LIS and provides tangible taxonomies of affect for the LIS discipline in an RA context, which have not been previously produced.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a number of issues related to both education for and the practice of reading and readers’ advisory in library and information science (LIS). Written from the standpoint of an LIS educator, the paper is addressed to LIS professors, future and current LIS students, and public services librarians working in all types of libraries, including academic and special, because the practice of reading is no longer limited to school and public libraries. Librarians’ expertise can also benefit a larger community outside of the library walls, which would take outreach and embeddedness to an entirely new level.

The paper analyzes the situation in LIS education and reading practices based on a vast array of published sources and the author’s personal experience as an LIS educator.

The following problematic points are raised: modeling reading work and education for reading after information services and information science education, respectively; outdated pedagogical approaches; insufficient user orientation and excessive focus on materials; limiting reading activities to one to two types of libraries; insufficient community outreach; and, in general, the prevalence of responsive rather than proactive practices.

The paper proposes some solutions for the identified problems, the implementation of which depends on the collective effort and the collective will. However, it does not offer a particularly optimistic or upbeat view on the possibility of swift and sweeping changes.

Addressed to the audience of LIS educators at all levels, from full-time and adjunct faculty teaching in LIS programs, to librarians and library consultants delivering professional development training, to practitioners who work with readers in all types of libraries, this article makes a case for replacing the term “readers' advisory” with the term “Reading Experience (RE) librarianship” as a designator of the current professional practice.

Using historical and discursive analysis based on the extensive literature review, this article argues that a number of factors call for the change in terminology: changes in the human factor (i.e., changes in readers and reading behavior; and changes in relationships between readers and librarians) and changes in the library environment (the rise of “experience” in libraries; a greater commitment to outreach and community engagement; and the fact that librarians are already practicing RE librarianship without recognizing it as such). It also examines the role of LIS educators in fostering and supporting RE librarianship.

On the one hand, the new terminology will be more reflective of the work that reader service librarians currently do, thus doing justice to a wide range of activities and expanded roles of librarians; on the other hand, it will serve as an imperative and a motivator to further transform reader services from in-house interactions with and programs for avid readers into a true community engagement, with much broader goals, scope and reach.

The article stands to coin a new professional term for the transformed library practice, thus recording a radical change in longstanding professional activities and encouraging new community-oriented thinking about the expanded role of librarians in promoting reading in diverse social environments.

This article is an extended version of an ‘experts’ briefing' commissioned to inform senior child welfare managers in English local authorities and voluntary agencies about the available evidence to inform the provision of effective services in complex child protection cases. It starts by noting how differences in the approach to service provision in different jurisdictions affect both the nature of research conducted and its transferability across national boundaries. It then summarises the characteristics both of parents who are likely to maltreat their children and also of the children most likely to be maltreated. The factors that make some families ‘hard to engage’ or ‘hard to help/change’ are then discussed, as are the essential elements of effective professional practice in child protection. Particular attention is paid to effective approaches to helping families and young people who are hard to identify or engage.