Charles Forrest

Eye-Popping Show-Stopping Libraries starts out by recounting the beginning of the relationship between the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Library Association (ALA) to establish the Library Building awards and traces the development of the program over the following five decades. In the next seven chapters the authors have grouped selected award-winning libraries by big themes, to explore the evolution of service innovations and design trends; most of the selected case studies include exterior and interior photographs, as well as floor plans. The final chapter offers some thoughts on what a half-century of award-winning architecture can tell us about the future of library service and library design. In the afterword the authors review the initial round of seventeen award-winning libraries from 1963, to assess how the designs have held up over time, and to describe the current disposition of the building. Three appendixes offer a chronological list of award recipients, an alphabetical list of awardees by library, and an alphabetical list by architect. The fourth and final appendix is a chronological list of jury members.This full-color, beautifully illustrated with 141 images book presents these exemplary libraries as an exploration of the evolution of library service and design. It examines the award-winning libraries by big themes to explore how service trends and design trends have evolved. Documentation of featured library buildings (including photographs and plans) is an important element.

Finally, a book to explain how our faith actually works. Reality Check is the result of an almost forty-year journey to discover real answers beyond platitudes. A book with answers that pass my Reality Checks. Answers you can understand. Answers that provide guidance to a richer, fuller, more rewarding life.Discover answers to basic questions like: What does God expect from me?What can I expect from God?What do I do as a Christian?Why doesn't God answer my prayers?Exactly what is Jesus's role in my life?What is missing from my understanding of "fairness"?Is God really a loving God?

Our sources of information, and the practices we use to find it, are in a period of rapid flux. Libraries must respond by selecting, acquiring, and making accessible a host of new information resources, developing innovative services, and building different types of spaces to support changing user behaviors and patterns of learning. A Field Guide to the Information Commons describes an emerging library service model that embodies all three spheres of response: new information resources, collaborative service programs, and redesigned staff and user spaces. Technology has enabled new forms of information-seeking behavior and scholarship, causing a renovation of libraries that revisits the idea of the "commons"—a public place that is free to be used by everyone. A Field Guide to the Information Commons describes the emergence, growth, and adoption of the concept of the information commons in libraries. This book includes a variety of contributed articles, and descriptive, structured entries for various information commons in libraries across the country and around the world.