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LibraryLand Bulletins Posted in April 2005

“Lipstick on a Pig” Posted April 29, 2005
In the April 15th issue of Library Journal, columnist Roy Tennant articulately and accurately describes how most library systems end up forcing their hapless users (staff and public alike) to contend with crummy OPACs because changing software vendors and learning a new (and often equally flawed) system is so traumatic. We wholeheartedly agree with Tennant’s yardstick of a user-friendly OPAC: is it as effective and easy as Amazon.com? Read Tennant’s excellent rant.
Dept. of Deja Vu All Over Again Posted April 27, 2005
Does this sound like any library system you're familiar with?
- Clerical workers answering reference questions.
- Librarians with expertise in a particular field forbidden to order books in that area.
- More money for nonbook materials and bestsellers, less money for non-bestselling books.
- Removing from the library's collection any item that doesn't circulate often.
- Expecting users to serve themselves with minimal assistance from library staff.
These are among the changes - spawned, of course, by a consultant's $15,000 study commissioned by a so-called budget-strapped municipality - that are coming to the public library system in Indianapolis, much to the consternation of a local newspaper columnist.

The most intense deja vu moment when we read this story: the recent elimination of overtime pay for library staff, followed immediately by the library administration's announcement that more libraries would be open on Sundays.
New Regulations Proposed for Users of Houston's Libraries Posted April 27, 2005
The Houston City Council is set to vote today on new rules for local public libraries that would forbid smelling bad, sleeping on tables, and bathing in library restrooms. Read the Houston Chronicle story.
Good News for Library Workers Who Hate Leaving Work After Dark?" Posted April 27, 2005
The U.S. Congress is apparently eager to extend Daylight Savings Time for an extra two months each year, according to this report in the St. Petersburg Times.
Librarians: They're Not What You Think They Are Posted April 27, 2005
John Hubbard, a librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, wrote this hyperlink-rich essay three years ago, but finds he needs to frequently update it. Here's the March 2005 version.
Dept. of Information Overload Posted April 27, 2005
According to CNN.com (and subsequently posted at Library Stuff by Stephen Cohen, who read it on Michael Stephens' Tame the Web), British researchers recently found that "workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana."

Although legions of library workers regularly wail about their fruitless attempts to manage the "information overload" spawned by the Internet in general and the blogging phenomenon in particular, other librarians are more annoyed by all the whining about "IO" than they are by the time- and energy-drains of Internet technologies. Here's what one librarian in the latter group, Rochelle Mazar, wrote recently about "IO" (with our thanks, once again, to Stephen Cohen, for linking to Rochelle's commentary from his Library Stuff blog):
"If you find you are too distracted by media to get any thinking done, unplug yourself and stop blaming technology for your inactivity. You always have that option. But please don't presume that those of us who prefer to remain plugged in are somehow less capable of contemplation than you are. Some of us are built by the sum of our communications, pushed to further and deeper thought by interaction with others. The 'smog of data' for some is the sweet smell of inspiration to others."
Read Rochelle's full screed - which, incidentally, was her reaction to a Chronicle of Higher Education story that AFPLWATCH's "LibraryLand" (among countless others) linked to earlier this month - here.
Fulton County Politicians vs. Sandy Springs: The Update Posted April 26, 2005
According to a press releases citizens can link to from the "News & Events" section of Fulton County's web page Fulton County Commissioners Emma Darnell and Bill Edwards have scheduled separate public meetings to discuss the consequences for, among other things, the county’s libraries if Sandy Springs residents vote to incorporate their city and prevent their taxes from being used in other parts of the county. Darnell's meeting is May 1st; Edwards' is April 28th.
Should Librarians Be Required to Obtain a Second Masters-in Social Work? Posted April 26, 2005
“Working for crustly old bitches with no souls” is how ex-employee of the Palm Springs Public Library describes his two years on its payroll. His litany of complaints about PSPL is interesting and articulate; some of his points have been voiced by public library staff elsewhere, including AFPL in recent years.
What Makes a Library “Vibrant”? Posted April 26, 2005
Librarian blogger Alane Wilson describes several of the points made in a new book entitled Last One Out Turn Off The Lights: Is This the Future of American and Canadian Libraries? (Scarecrow, 2005).

Specialty License Plates Benefit Libraries (Elsewhere) Posted April 25, 2005; revised April 26, 2005

Several other States have been selling library- or reading-themed specialty license plates to raise funds for public library services.

This is one of the many ideas AFPLWATCH has asked AFPL's new director to consider pursuing.

Considering the perennial temptation of Georgia's legislators to trim the budgets of GALILEO and the Office of Public Library Services, we hope Georgia won't be the very last State to get around to adopting this no-brainer fund-raising device.

"Do Libraries Still Matter? Posted April 25, 2005
Seems like everybody with a soapbox has weighed in on this question. Recently the library-championing Carnegie Corporation published its opinion, which is more long-winded than most, and more informative than some. Certainly worth a read.
Do U.S. Government Depositories Still Matter? Posted April 25, 2005
Remember when Mary Kaye Hooker threatened to terminate AFPL's status as one of the country's oldest federal government depository libraries? Now some of the curators of these collections around the country are questioning the benefits of depositories, given the trend of the feds to abandon paper-based documentation of U.S. government activity. Read this report from Federal Computer Week.
Longtime Virginia Library User Leaves $2 Million to Public Library Posted April 25, 2005
The Newport News Daily Press reported earlier this month that a doctor left in his will a heap o' money to his local public library.

We suspect AFPL has a long way to go before any of its customers names the library system as a major beneficiary in his/her will. Thanks once again to Mary Kaye, the library no longer has anyone on the staff to remind the wealthier members of Fulton County that they might consider such a gesture.
Keeping Up...and the Trees vs. Forest Paradox Posted April 20, 2005
Although this thoughtful article from the Chronicle of Higher Education was written for academics, it’s just as relevant to exhausted librarians valiantly trying to cope with a daily avalanche of email while simultaneously monitoring multiple blogs. The article extensively quotes ALA-president elect Michael “Attack of the Blog People” Gorman.
Soaring Gasoline Prices Pose New Problem for U.S. Bookmobiles Posted April 19, 2005
If we ever do get AFPL's bookmobiles on the roads again, we'll probably need more money to operate them, as this news report from Wyoming predicts.

True, Fulton County isn't as large as Wyoming, but it's still pretty big....
Trial Begins of Indicted Ex-Director of Georgia Library Posted April 19, 2005
Here's an update to the story AFPLWATCH reported earlier about the former director of a middle-Georgia public library accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of library grant funds and equipment. He's pleading not guilty; if convicted, he could be fined and imprisoned for up to 10 years.
Dept. of Ironic Library Publicity Posted April 15, 2005

The poster produced by the American Library Association's graphic division for this year's National Library Week, which has been posted to thousands of library system web sites, including AFPL's, provoked this wry comment from a contributor to LISNews.com:

I couldn't help but notice that the theme of ALA's NLW graphics seems to be: "It's too damn beautiful outside to be in the library!"
$111 Million Cut from U.S. Library Budgets in Past Two Years
Posted April 15, 2005
Several Internet news sites and newspapers, like this one from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, are publishing the Associated Press story about the nationwide trend of shrinking library budgets despite an overall rise in library use.

Sounds to us like another good reason for libraries to energetically encourage their most avid library users to organize themselves into Friends Groups. Besides conducting book sales for new library materials, Friends could add their passionate voices to the many others clamoring for the attention of local, state, and federal politicians for ever-scarcer tax dollars.
Book Lovers' Alert: Bargain-Hunting for Books Gets Easier Posted April 15, 2005
Next time you have to tell a library patron that AFPL doesn't own the book that patron was hoping to find, you might steer them toward the Internet if they'd prefer to buy the thing instead of waiting for AFPL to obtain it for them via Interlibrary Loan. BookPrice.com compares book prices at almost three dozen (!) online book vendors in a single chart. Some of the prices quoted are amazingly cheap.

Wouldn't it be nice if AFPL's Powers That Be figured out a way to authorize its Interlibrary Loan people to purchase books from this site - and figured out how to get these purchases quickly cataloged and processed? Or is that sort of thing just too "21st-century" for AFPL?
Some Library Systems Celebrating the Centennial of the Bookmobile... Posted April 13, 2005
...while other library systems, like AFPL, are not.

Due to one of those spectacularly ill-advised decisions by AFPL's former board of trustees (the one that the Georgia legislature dismantled last June), AFPL's two bookmobiles remain mothballed until their mission can be re-examined. The 50,000-item bookmobile collection - larger than half of AFPL's non-mobile library branch collections - remains likewise mothballed, thereby becoming rapidly obsolete as well as being inaccessible to library users. (So much for "responsibile stewardship of county tax dollars.")

Meanwhile, approximately 800 bookmobiles are currently serving citizens in parts of the United States whose library systems enjoy better management than AFPL has in recent years. Here's an interesting story from the Baltimore Sun (warning: onerous registration required) about a Maryland librarian's invention of the first bookmobile a hundred years ago, and why so many library systems, unlike AFPL, continue to acknowledge the effectiveness of bookmobiles for providing library materials to sparsely-populated portions of their service areas.
Dept of Micromanagement (Florida Division):
Public Library System in Florida Forbidden to Buy Movies on DVD Posted April 13, 2005
Tampa-area county commissioners are coping with insufficient tax revenue for funding its public libraries by telling their librarians not to stock any more "non-educational" DVDs.

We agree that publicly-funded libraries can't afford to advertise themselves as All Things To All People. And we deplore the trend among public libraries of spending an ever-burgeoning proportion of their tiny budgets on materials other than books. But putting an entire media category off-limits? This seems a poor solution to the problem of libraries spending (or allegedly spending) too many tax dollars trying to compete with Blockbuster. The most disturbing aspect of this story from the Tampa Tribune, though, is that politicians rather than librarians are making a far-reaching decision about what will and won't be included in Tampa's public libraries because of what those politicians have decreed is "educational."

Tampa's commissioners have decided that no one can learn anything valuable from watching a feature film. That Tampa's library-using citizens may borrow a copy of the book To Kill a Mockingbird but may not glean what Harper Lee's story teaches us about our species by borrowing from the library the (excellent) movie based on that book.

Sorry, but that is every bit as poor stewardship of taxpayers' dollars as a library system stocking, say, six copies of Die Hard 3.

Decisions about what particular titles and what particular formats should be included in a public library collection require more time and skill than is available to politicans (or to library trustees). The micromanaging of library collections should remain delegated to the people who can weigh the numerous relevant (and often subtle) factors that go into making any collection-related decision: trained and seasoned library selectors.
Dept. of Ironic Public Pronouncements Posted April 12, 2005
Here's the latest profound - and, considering the source, profoundly ironic - statement from our favorite Fulton County Commissioner, Emma Darnell:

"Public trust is integral to effective governance."
According to the county press release containing this little gem, Darnell not only said this, but "stressed" it.

Yeah, right, Emma. We're sure the folks up in Sandy Springs (among others) are relieved to learn you feel this way.
Dept. of Ever-Scarcer Resources Posted April 12, 2005
And speaking of Fulton County commissioners (and of Darnell in particular), another recent county press release reveals that Darnell and her colleagues are considering charging a fee for nonresidents to use the county’s senior centers.

How come the commissioners have shown zero interest in instituting a fee for the zillions of nonresidents routinely using the insufficient numbers of Internet workstations in Fulton County's libraries - thereby interfering with the use of those workstations by people who do live in the county?
Judge Blocks Library Layoffs and Downsizing in Philadelphia Posted April 12, 2005
Library Journal summarizes the latest development in a story posted earlier to "LibraryLand Listening Post."
Resistors of U.S.PATRIOT Act Becoming a New Breed of Library Heroes? Posted April 12, 2005
Here's a press release about a Washington (State) librarian who’s getting an award for resisting an FBI attempt to find out who had read a biography of Osama bin Laden.
Ranganathan Lives! Posted April 12, 2005
Library Journal recently published an article on how Ranganathan’s “Five Laws of Librarianship” might be applied to digital resources in today’s libraries. Included for the convenience of those who don't have time to read the whole article is a chart containing a summary of the author's extrapolations.

While we don't agree with every detail of this author's theory, we wholeheartedly agree with Ranganathan's Laws themselves. In fact, we wish someone would create a screensaver with the Laws inscribed in big bold lettering as a constant reminder for those of us who find them so useful in making decisions about a huge range of thorny library issues, or would market a poster that librarians could post on our office/cubicle walls.

For readers who've forgotten the Laws (or, God forbid, never heard of them), here they are again in all their breathtakingly comprehensive simplicity:
Ranganathan's Five Laws of Librarianship

Books are for use.

Every reader, his book.

Every book, its reader.

Save the time of the reader.

A library is a growing organism.
County Commissioners Spend $3 Million a Year for Personal Assistants
Posted April 11, 2005
Next time the commissioners start talking about another county-wide hiring freeze, guess who probably won't be affected? Read the story as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (onerous registration required unless you've already signed up).
County Commissioners vote to spend $100,000 in Legal Fees
to Stop Sandy Springs from Incorporating Posted April 11, 2005
And speaking of highly questionable uses of taxpayer dollars, remember how Fulton County's commissioners refused to settle the library discrimination lawsuit for so long that, when the county finally did settle, its legal bill had reached $18 million?

Now, after decades of Sandy Springs residents threatening to incorporate to stop the relentless drain of taxpayers dollars away from the northern end of the county, the commissioners realize they need to study the legal ramifications of the law passed earlier this year that authorizes a referendum on establishing Sandy Springs as a city, plus a last-minute amendment to that law that mandates spending county taxes in the area those taxes are collected from.

The commissioners' horse-already-out-of-the-barn response? They've authorized the county attorney to spend up to $100,000 to pay outside lawyers to figure out whether the county has grounds to bring a lawsuit aimed at overturning the new law.

Read the most recent story on this development published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Wow, what a great gig county attorney O.V. Brantley's got! Whenever the county needs some legal work done, Brantley's allowed to hire others to do her work, despite the handsome salaries the taxpayers - including the ones who live in Sandy Springs - are already paying her and her staff.

In this instance, you'd think Brantley and the commissioners would realize that there are probably dozens of lawyers in Sandy Springs who have long ago offered to donate their own services to make sure that the county's $100,000 worth of "legal research" becomes yet another in a long series of the county commissioners squandering tax dollars on futile "studies."
Bush May Support Civil Liberty Safeguards for PATRIOT Act Renewal Posted April 11, 2005
Read the story.
Internet DVD-Swapping Service Now Available Posted April 11, 2005
This nifty new service, which charges 99 cents per swap, is called "Peerflix."

If DVD-swapping become widespread, our question is: will that diminish the current insatiable demand for libraries to stock DVDs, at least for the most popular films? Or will the ease of swapping merely create a new spike in the already-epidemic theft rate for library-owned DVDs?
Dept. of Self-Referential Bibliography Posted April 8, 2005
The good folks at The Marginal Librarian have compiled several lists of librarian-centric books and movies, for those of us who get a kick out of seeing how writers portray our profession in their works of fiction.
Portland's Public Library Institutes Voluntary Internet Filtering for Adults Posted April 6, 2005
Oregon's Multnomah County Public Library has found a way for the adult users of its Internet terminals to choose filtered or unfiltered Internet access at each session they log into, and for parents to decide whether their own teenagers under 17 will be using filtered or unfiltered library workstations. Read the story as reported by Library Journal, which includes a link to the text of the library's Internet Use Policy.

If Portland can do this, Atlanta could too. It's heartening to see what a library staff loyal to the principles of intellectual freedom can do with the available imperfect technology and the reluctance or inability of Internet filter vendors to improve their lucrative products. Perhaps Mr. Szabo could investigate how Portland accomplished its admirably user-friendly and fairer-to-everyone Internet practices and insist that AFPL replace its current unfair (and probably illegal) ones with a version of Portland's?
Harvard Librarian Loses Discrimination Lawsuit Posted April 5, 2005
Here's the upshot (as reported by CNN.com) of the bulletin posted March 23rd to LibraryLand about the librarian who claimed her employer had discriminated against her because she was "too pretty."
Amazon.com Publicizing Its Role as Book Vendor to Libraries Posted April 5, 2005
The galaxy's largest online bookseller has created a new page on its web site to highlight Amazon's ability to provide books to libraries. Called "The Librarians' Store," the page describes how to set up a corporate account, how to receive publication alerts according to customer-created profiles, Amazon's selctor-useful "Listmania" feature, and how library webmasters can link Amazon content to library catalogs.

Urgent Memo to AFPL Business Office: How about routinely setting up a purchase order with Amazon, so AFPL selectors can use it to buy materials our other vendors don't supply? Apparently 7,000 other libraries are already doing this. True, we'd have to process the things we obtain from Amazon, but at least AFPL's libraries wouldn't be lacking certain items AFPL's customers would like to be able to borrow.
Court Blocks Philadelphia's Plan to Operate 20 "McLibraries" (Libraries Without Librarians)
Posted April 5, 2005
A lawsuit filed by unions representing library workers at the Free Library of Philadelphia have sucessfully obtained a court order barring the library from implementing its latest cost-cutting plan. Library Journal has the details of this update of this AFPLWATCH LibraryLand bulletin posted February 19th.
Dept. of Library Employees Who Steal from Libraries (Michigan Division) Posted April 5, 2005
Library Journal also reports the nabbing of yet another thief of library funds, this one the office manager of a public library in Michigan who stole over $58,000 over her 25-year career. LJ's story also updates the AFPLWATCH LibraryLand item posted March 24th about the manager of a library branch in Texas who was caught stealing from the branch's change machine.

Continue reading earlier LibraryLand postings.

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