1. In a recent feature on core values in American Libraries, Betsy Baker emphasized that "the library needs to communicate its services through its words, and its environment." List the core values which form the foundation of librarianship. (For example, those identified by ALA's Core Values task Force.) Then discuss how these values can be reflected in a library's services, words, and environment. If you wish, you may select a type of library, not a specific library, as the context for your discussion.
   
2. Modern information systems do not operate in isolation. Information can be, and often is, shared on a global scale. Librarians and information users routinely access information from systems that are geographically remote. Discuss the role of standards and protocols in this process.
   
3. Advances in electronic information technologies, such as web technologies, telecommunications, digital technology, and interactive multimedia, have presented opportunities to libraries as well as challenges. Describe how libraries and librarians have responded to new information technologies and discuss what future libraries will be like and what functions future libraries will perform.
   
4. Discuss why end-user instruction in library and information skills is becoming increasingly important. Discuss how the need for end-user instruction is impacting libraries and the methods that libraries are using to instruct end-users.
   
5. Define metadata in terms of their types and functions, and describe four metadata standards that have important implications for library information services.
   
6. A number of schools of library & information science have dropped "library" from their name. Discuss the pros and cons of such a change and its implications for academic programs (including curriculum, faculty, and students) and for the profession.
   
7. Identify and discuss three (3) current developments in the area of reference services. How do these developments impact information professionals and users of information?
   
8. Evaluating the performance of systems in libraries is essential. Select an information system of your choice, and discuss how you would go about evaluating the performance of this system from both a user and system perspective.
   
9. When librarians first began to talk about "access not ownership", they meant giving users access to materials owned and housed in other libraries. Such access usually involved either interlibrary loan or cooperative usage agreements in which libraries allowed each other's users to enter each other's buildings and make direct use of their collections. Now much such "access" is electronic. A library offers its users connections to electronic databases owned by commercial enterprises rather than by other libraries, connections governed by licensing agreements that specify permitted uses and users.

   All forms of "access not ownership" expand the range of materials available to the user, but create problems for users as well. Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of each, remembering to emphasize the user's point of view (and NOT the impact on the library budget or staff workload).

10. Libraries often use one or more of the following in their fundraising efforts: library foundations, friends of the library, and corporate partnerships. Define and/or describe each of these. The discuss: (a) the unique contribution of library foundations to funding for libraries; (b) how friends of the library organizations have supported libraries; and (c) how libraries can work effectively with business partners, meanwhile avoiding ethical conflicts and the problem of "micromanagement of the library by the donor".

    
    

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