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Adoption literature now speaks with many voices. Federal and state agencies and local advocacy groups are enthusiastic supporters of adoptions, the basic belief being kids need homes. The bottleneck is the most conservative sector, the local agency. These are the agencies one deals with if planning to adopt a child. This brief essay attempts to give some perspective to the recent literature on adoption trends and practices. The numbers in parentheses refer to the entry numbers of titles in the bibliographic listing at the end of the article.

It is customary these days to denounce our society for its unconscionable neglect of the elderly, while we look back romantically to some indeterminate past when the elderly were respected and well cared for. Contrary to this popular view, old people historically have enjoyed neither respect nor security. As Simone de Beauvoir so effectively demonstrates in The Coming of Age (New York: Putnam, 1972), the elderly have been almost universally ill‐treated by societies throughout the world. Even the Hebrew patriarchs admonished their children to remember them as they grew older: “Cast me not off in time of old age; when my strength fails, forsake me not” (Psalms 71:1). Primitive agrarian cultures, whose very existence depended upon the knowledge gleaned from experience, valued their elders, but even they were often moved by the harsh conditions of subsistence living to eliminate by ritual killing those who were no longer productive members of society. There was a softening of societal attitudes toward the elderly during the period of nineteenth century industrial capitalism, which again valued experience and entrepreneurial skills. Modern technocratic society, however, discredits the idea that knowledge accumulates with age and prefers to think that it grows out‐of‐date. “The vast majority of mankind,” writes de Beauvoir, “look upon the coming of old age with sorrow and rebellion. It fills them with more aversion than death itself.” That the United States in the twentieth century is not alone in its poor treatment of the aged does not excuse or explain this neglect. Rather, the pervasiveness of prejudice against the old makes it even more imperative that we now develop programs to end age discrimination and its vicious effects.

Discusses the importance of the alternative press and what libraries can do to ensure a healthy alternative press. Argues that libraries must counter the illusion that the current media offers more choice. They need to: prioritize the acquisition and cataloguing of alternative press publications; encourage professional associations to promote the alternative press more actively; and “adopt” alternative publishers. Concludes that libraries can offer sanctuaries for alternative voices and should ensure that they have diverse collections that truly represent the full spectrum of published opinion.

This article has been written to acquaint librarians and others interested in finding information about adoption with the services of the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.

This index accompanies the index that appeared in Reference Services Review 16:4 (1988). As noted in the introduction to that index, the articles in RSR that deal with specific reference titles can be grouped into two categories: those that review specific titles (to a maximum of three) and those that review titles pertinent to a specific subject or discipline. The index in RSR 16:4 covered the first category; it indexed, by title, all titles that had been reviewed in the “Reference Serials” and the “Landmarks of Reference” columns, as well as selected titles from the “Indexes and Indexers,” “Government Publications,” and “Special Feature” columns of the journal.

The purpose of this case study is to document the process of building a collection of works around transgender life-writing, following the identification of a significant gap in the existing collections.

This case study describes and evaluates a collection development project undertaken at Senate House Library, University of London. After evaluating four comparable case studies, guidelines were developed for acquisitions to the collection, based on subject, conservation needs and financial expense.

Twenty items were selected for the collection, dating from 1933 to 2015, including books and magazines in multiple languages. The items acquired for the collection push back against the genre’s traditional preoccupation with transition. Writers describe their experiences as a racing driver and fighter pilot (Roberta Cowell), an NGO director (A. Revathi), a Buddhist monk (Michael Dillon), a professional tennis player and ophthalmologist (Renée Richards), and a travel writer, journalist and mountaineer (Jan Morris).

Challenges included setting the scope of the collection, and questions around the cataloguing and arrangement of materials.

Items acquired for the collection entered the library separately and were processed individually by the library’s cataloguing team as they arrived. Several issues arose during this stage of the project.

To serve the needs of library users effectively, it is necessary to analyse the imbalances in collections as a routine practice.

The case study is original in focusing on a comparably small project with larger implications for the user experience and inclusivity of a library and its collections.

This paper aims to provide concrete best practices to frontlines young adult and teen librarians for building positive, effective and welcoming relationships with young adults with disabilities at the library. The scope of this paper will include customer service strategies for working with young adults with disabilities. It will also feature strategies for making existing teen programming more accessible to young adults with disabilities.

By using the author’s professional library experience and citing other published works, this paper will present customer service strategies for librarians and library staff. It will share strategies for leading programs for and with teens with disabilities and will also address working with parents and caregivers of teens with disabilities.

This paper recommends specific strategies, so teen librarians are better equipped to provide inclusive customer service to teens with disabilities in libraries. These strategies are as follows: speak directly to the teen, consider communication and language, develop a rapport, respect their privacy, respect and encourage independence, think person-centered, invite their input, invite them to programs, be their advocate and give them permission to be teens. In addition, this paper shares various techniques for working with parents and caregivers, as developing positive relationships with parents is integral to cultivating positive relationships with teens.

Because of teen’s unique developmental, social and emotional needs, librarians require a specific set of competencies for positive engagement. Unless librarians have a background in accessibility or experience with someone with disabilities, they are inadequately prepared to address the needs of this population, specifically regarding customer service to teens with disabilities. This paper aims to build capacity of librarians by expanding knowledge and skills for working with teens with disabilities. As a result, librarians will be able to increase their competency and be equipped with concrete customer service tools. Librarians will be motivated to improve the accessibility of their libraries.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and research and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the fifteenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1988. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the seventeenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items, in English published in 1990. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

The paper provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.