"There's no such thing as a 'good source of information' or a 'good technology' - there are only sources of information and technologies that are good for certain things."

"...the library is a fundamentally socialist institution in a society and an economy that are fundamentally hostile toward socialist projects (except, of course, when it comes to government subsidizing of the oil industry and other corporate welfare), and we have to figure out ways to trick the system into supporting us anyway. Wifi in your library is one way to do that--it's pretty cheap to install and run; it makes the people with wireless devices think the library is a happening place and thus, one hopes, makes them more willing to support the library the next time a referendum comes around, thus making it possible for you to buy more books and computers and dedicate more staff to helping out the folks on the other side of the infamous (but in no way imaginary) digital divide."

"By making bookstores the equivalent of literary rumpus rooms, the bookselling giants have done much to obliterate the quiet, welcoming atmosphere in which people have space and peace to look over books...."

• In Florida, a city commissioner plans to fire a librarian after a patron is caught visiting a porn site on one of her library's workstations. (This news from the same state that won't let sex offenders use its hurricane shelters.)
  
  
• In Massachusetts, Boston's mayor expects local libraries to find room on their bulletin boards to post mug shots of sex offenders.

"How do we in the library world offer a service that's relevant where people could function without us? ...Many people have been living happy, fulfilled lives without libraries for many years. But it's easier than ever now.

...The optimists are saying that libraries will always have a role, that books and learning and the need for the information that hasn't been digitized yet will continue unabated. The pessimists point to declining reference statistics, the undertakings of Google and the other search engines, and draconian budget cuts and say the end is near.

We need to find a third way, one that builds on our traditional strengths, but recognizes that the playing field has changed. I keep mulling over Bruce Newell's insight, 'Convenience will always trump quality in this world. It's our job to make quality convenient.'

This requires a different level of commitment from libraries and other cultural heritage organizations in delivering quality. We have to stop thinking exclusively about 'our' patrons, even though we are frequently bound by institutional and governmental funding intended for a circumscribed audience. By considering a wider library audience as we make our decisions, we will serve everyone better. Less duplication means more resources for other services.

We need to focus on the services that we can offer that no one else can, and be willing to let go of the things that can be done elsewhere. We do this by bringing different offerings to the web than anyone else can. And we do it while protecting the public's interest in these materials….

Norma Desmond couldn't adapt to sound in the movies, and it drove her to obscurity and irrelevance. The movie industry has adapted to the home video revolution by making a ton of money exploiting the resources they already have more effectively. Which way are we going as a profession?"

"About 100 million different books have been published in history, Kahle said, citing estimates from professor Raj Reddy at Carnegie Mellon University. About 28 million sit in the Library of Congress. On average, a book can be condensed to a megabyte in Microsoft Word. Thus, the books in the Library of Congress could fit into a 28-terabyte storage system. 'For the cost of a house, you could have the Library of Congress, Reddy said, adding that mass book-scanning projects are currently under way in India and China."

“In introducing new technologies, the key is understanding that most technology will frustrate some of the people all of the time, that nothing is truly intuitive, and that people who are frustrated rarely speak up to say "I am having trouble learning this." Don't separate librarians into the quick and the dead: instead, practice triage. Some won't come along, ever; some are there before you even got started; but your treatment needs to focus on the walking wounded, your foot soldiers who will carry your new technology on their backs for many long miles to come.

Probably the easiest trap to fall into is to listen to the loudest voices. Don't just listen to the positive statements ("I learned this in twenty minutes!" "It looks really good!" "This is a big improvement!") or the negative statements ("I hate it." "The old system was fine." "This won't work at all"). More than anything else, listen to the silence. Who isn't saying anything? Find these people and talk to them. Offer them hands-on training. Tell them their concerns are valid and that you care. From this crowd, the great, struggling middle, you will learn more about what you need to be sharing about the new technology than anything else combined you have learned from the extremes of the technology adoption spectrum. Additionally, you will have preempted the refusenik's most potent propaganda by showing that yes, you care, and yes, this is everyone's technology.”

• A new weblog is created every second.
• The blogosphere doubles every 5.5 months.
• 55% of all blogs (over 14.2 million) are active.
• 13% are updated at least weekly.

"...a one-stop-shop for information about the community. There would be a page on restaurants with people writing their opinions of each place (good or bad). There would be a page where people could talk about who their favorite mechanics are. There would be a page for each community group where they could list the times and locations of their meetings for members. The local government could provide timely information on the wiki about school closings and whatnot. It would become whatever the community wanted it to become. And yes, there would probably be spam. And yes, there would be idiots who posted rude comments. But when you have enough people working on the wiki, they will enforce the community norms by removing those things from the wiki....It would be a great way to make the library more visible in the community, to change the public’s perceptions of what libraries are, and to develop a fantastic resource for the community."

"Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers - all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works."

"The electricity of participation nudges ordinary folks to invest huge hunks of energy and time into making free encyclopedias, creating public tutorials for changing a flat tire, or cataloging the votes in the Senate. More and more of the Web runs in this mode. One study found that only 40 percent of the Web is commercial. The rest runs on duty or passion."

"The [early] worry about the Internet being 100 percent male was entirely misplaced. Everyone missed the party celebrating the 2002 flip-point when women online first outnumbered men. Today, 52 percent of netizens are female. And, of course, the Internet is not and has never been a teenage realm. In 2005, the average user is a bone-creaking 41 years old."

• personal reactions to certain types of artistic images outweighing the freedom of artists to depict those images and/or the discretion of library officials to display them in libraries?
• how to make one patron happier by doing something that will annoy or enrage other patrons when they learn about it?
• the refusal to examine the legitimacy of a library patron's complaint before trying to accommodate the patron's demands to resolve it?
• the shape of things to come, if the demands of Puritanical individuals are allowed to prevail wherever tax dollars are involved?
• the kind of situation that decent people need to be constantly vigilant about lest our public libraries contaminate the purity of our children and/or potentially trigger their sometimes-inconvenient inquisitiveness?
• the futility of trying to shield children from images that might be puzzling to them or disturbing to their caregivers?
• using children as "human shields" for addressing the unresolved anxieties of their parents?
• a victory for the forces of righteousness over the forces of evil?
• the futility of trying to serve adults and children under the same roof?
• why art must never be displayed in buildings paid for with tax revenues?
• proof that library collections and library art exhibits must be governed by different (and preferably written) principles?
• the impossibility of pleasing everyone all of the time - but trying to anyway?