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Libraries are increasingly trying to communicate the library's contributions and telling the library stories. Stories can be a component of impact assessment and thus add nuance to an assessment. Evaluations of libraries can include collecting and presenting stories of change, which can serve as evidence in impact assessments. The narrative field allows for many different approaches to a narrative perspective in the study of libraries, but the existing literature provides little overview of these studies. The purpose of this study is to introduce the narrative field and present a systematic review of the existing studies of libraries that use narrative approaches.

The methods in this study comprise of a systematic review of publications reporting narrative approaches to studying libraries. To retrieve the relevant studies, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Scopus, Web of Science and Proquest Dissertation were searched. Furthermore, the authors examined reference lists and performed citation searches. Study selection was performed by two reviewers independently. Using designed templates, data from the included studies were extracted by one author and confirmed by another.

The database searches retrieved 2,096 records across the four databases which were screened in two steps, resulting in 35 included studies. The authors identify studies that introduce narrative enquiries in library studies as well as studies using narrative approaches to the study of libraries.

Exploring narratives and stories for understanding and evaluating the library's worth is a promising field. More work is needed, though, to develop theoretical and methodological frameworks. Several of the included studies can serve as examples of the potential of a narrative perspective in the study of libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible purposes of digital storytelling and discuss practical implementation in a community-based digital storytelling project.

This case study investigates the function of digital storytelling for archiving local history, specifically by journaling experiences during a digital storytelling grant project at a public library in Southern California.

This case study details a specific example of the impact digital storytelling can have on a community, both to foster community building and also to encourage documentation of local history. The main goal of the project was to present and archive filmed stories from local community members; however, the project also led to increased awareness of digital storytelling and the associated technology both within the library and the greater community.

This article should provide best practice guidelines for administering a community-based digital storytelling project including suggestions for outreach to the larger community, dealing with technical issues, and tackling operational issues.

Digital storytelling has had a profound impact on the way that society communicates and can be used effectively for purposes of outreach and activism, to educate using technology, or to document micro-histories. This case study provides an assessment of the current uses of digital storytelling and presents a successful implementation of a local history digital storytelling project at a public library.

Managing through crises, especially economic ones, represents both peril and opportunity. Libraries of all types, whether academic, special or public, would benefit from an infusion of marketing activity in the current economic climate. Such marketing need not be resource‐intensive but must be relevant to specific user populations. In order to reap the greatest rewards while expending the least effort or resources, adopting a narrative or story‐based marketing message that develops and reinforces a consistent value proposition can improve patron experience by speaking in a language that resonates with them regarding services and resources that may be unclear or altogether unknown. This paper aims to discuss current trends in developing narrative or story‐based marketing that focuses on customer needs and applies it to library marketing specifically.

The paper discusses of current trends informed by current marketing scholarship and draws upon the author's prior experience in sales and marketing as a vendor for LexisNexis.

Adopting a narrative‐based marketing plan for libraries of all kinds, one that is based upon a specific user population's needs and expectations, can promote a notion of increased value as well as an overall sense of being indispensable and critical to those patrons. The ultimate goal is a demonstrable strengthening of support from user populations that will translate into avoidance of deeper or ongoing cuts during the current economic climate. Further benefits also include the ability to identify and target users and groups for fundraising opportunities while improving library personnel morale based upon the increased, generalized perception of the library's value within the broader organization or community.

Based upon years of sales and marketing experience, the author takes a practical and seasoned approach to creating a marketing plan that draws upon little to no resources but is compelling in its tailored and targeted approach that uses identifiable language to reinforce and describe specific user‐driven needs.

The paper provides recommendations for developing, creating and executing a narrative or story‐based marketing plan that speaks to users in the language and needs most critical to them while highlighting resources and services that may not be currently valued or even known.

This column aims to explore the technologies that are enabling libraries, and the communities they serve, to easily tell their own stories.

Point of view.

Libraries can facilitate the acquisition of technology and literacies necessary to make recording, sharing and preserving stories of all kinds easy for library patrons.

Libraries collect, preserve and help distribute information to serve their communities.

By facilitating access to these emerging mediums, libraries can both empower their communities and play an active role in preserving their communities’ histories.

The necessary disadvantages contingent upon a time of war grow in emphasis, and one of these is undoubtedly the infrequency of the gatherings of the Library Association. As a result there has been so far no means of ventilating the question of a Library Association Conference for 1918. We have turned in vain to the pages of the official journal for any record of the intentions of the Council in this direction; and the complaints which were justly made last year as to the delay in making arrangements or at least preliminary announcements seem to have been without effect. This is a state of affairs which the profession should not endure calmly. No conference held in September or thereabouts can be expected to succeed unless it is announced before June. It may be that the Council works in spasmodic fashion, and is under the comfortable delusion that everybody else does. It should be disabused of this notion speedily. Many librarians have already made their arrangements for the summer, and will not be turned from them by the tardy decisions of Caxton Hall. As for the general question of whether a conference should be held or not, it must be clear to most of us that all the arguments that weighed for a conference in 1917 are equally weighty in 1918.

The purpose of this study is to look at organizational stories shared among academic librarians who work at the reference desk, and create a typology of the stories based on the knowledge transferred in these. Previous research suggests that stories are the main way in which organizations communicate common values, organizational rules and promote organizational learning. The main question researched here will be: what kind of knowledge is transferred through the stories shared among librarians? This is an important consideration since the meaning carried through the story can shape the employee’s perception of the organization.

This research employed long interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire based on the works of Yiannis Gabriel (2000) as a guide. A total of 20 reference librarians working at four different academic institutions in the southern USA participated in this study.

The analysis of the data reveals a typology of organizational stories shared. The main topics covered by the stories all deal with cultural knowledge exchanges, while also serve as coping mechanisms and present important organizational culture aspects. The stories shared also reflect negative aspects related to the lack of proper communication within the organizations, with the presence of rumors among the narratives shared.

These findings can serve as a first step for the development of healthier organizational cultures in libraries and may have implications for training and development, change management, motivation and collective memory.

WITH eloquence which we cannot imitate, or repeat, the national loss has been sufficiently expressed by others. It is true, Kipling and William Watson being dead, and Alfred Noyes silent, the poets have not risen to the height of a great occasion, but that is by the way. Our own tribute to the late King must be based on his work for libraries, since any other tribute is general to a whole Empire. Kings can have few hours in which to read and yet some of the stories, true or apocryphal, of King George V. touch upon his reading. He showed, however, a closer interest of late years in libraries than any other of our monarchs has done, and at the opening ceremonies of the National Central Library and the Manchester Public Library he uttered words which are the best slogans that libraries have received. Even if he did not write them—a matter which we have no right to affirm or deny—his utterance of them gave them the royal superscription. We repeat them, as they cannot be too often repeated:—

ALL the auguries for the Bournemouth Conference appear to be good. Our local secretary, Mr. Charles Riddle, seems to have spared neither energy nor ability to render our second visit to the town, whose libraries he initiated and has controlled for thirty‐seven years, useful and enjoyable. There will not be quite so many social events as usual, but that is appropriate in the national circumstances. There will be enough of all sorts of meetings to supply what the President of the A.L.A. describes as “the calling which collects and organizes books and other printed matter for the use and benefit of mankind and which brings together the reader and the printed word in a vital relationship.” We hope the discussions will be thorough, but without those long auto‐biographical speeches which are meant for home newspapers, that readers will make time for seeing the exhibitions, and that Bournemouth will be a source of health and pleasure to all our readers who can be there.

Wallace, ALA's own director of the Public Relations Office, cites some of the thousands of testimonials ALA has received about the fact that libraries — especially services to children and youth — change lives and often impact the nation's bottom line. Quotable celebrities, politicos, and common people add their voices to this piece on the benefits of children's library services.