- Tips for Library Directors Who Want to Be Effective
Posted April 30, 2006
In a program at the recent New Jersey Library Association conference, four
library directors working in that State offered their secrets for
effectively (or at least efficiently) managing their time and energy.
The "Library Garden" blog posted a
summary of their advice.
- Anti-Immigrant Sentiments to Affect Colorado Library Services?
Posted April 28, 2006
Library Journal reports on a legislative initiative that would
forbid Colorado libraries to continue purchasing non-reference, non-instructional
materials in languages other than English.
Details.
- Item-Based Loan Periods vs. One-Loan-Period-Fits-All?
Posted April 27, 2006
One of those intriguing, thinking-outside-the-box
proposals from the always thoughtful and passionately user-friendly
librarian blogger Rick Roches.
- “Everybody's welcome but everybody has to behave."
Posted April 27, 2006
That’s the consensus of several Maryland librarians who answered the
following question put to them recently by a newspaper reporter: “Why are
homeless people attracted to the library?”
Details.
- Minnesota Webmaster Offering Free Interactive Web Services
to Smaller Public Libraries
Posted April 27, 2006
Excerpt from
a recent blogpost by Kansas City Public Library David Lee
King:
"Glenn Peterson, web dude at Hennepin County
Library, has started
EngagedPatrons.org as a way to 'provide website services connecting
public libraries and their patrons.' Right now, EngagedPatrons is offering
a variety of hosted services to libraries, including: Library events,
library blogs, contact your library forms, RSS feeds, and custom web-enabled
databases."
Unfortunately, AFPL is too wealthy (i.e., receives more than $1 million
in income) to qualify for Glenn's generous services. We're guessing that Glenn
assumes that larger library systems like AFPL have their own webmaster
on staff and wouldn't need his help engaging their patrons. Alas, this
remains untrue at AFPL, ever since Fulton County's Information Technology
Department hijacked the library system's webmaster position when Mary Kaye
Hooker was library director.
- Iowa Town Bans Sex Offenders from Its Public Library
Posted April 26, 2006
Advocates for the ordinance say their intention is to discourage (with the
threat of a $750 fine) individuals who've assaulted kids from loitering in
places where kids congregate. Opponents claim the ordinance will be
impossible to enforce.
Details.
- Advice for Combatting the Invasion of the Cell Phones
Posted April 26, 2006
A recent
blogpost suggests a "friendlier" sign for warning manners-deficient
library users that cell phone conversations are verboten in libraries.
- Library Exhibit Alert: Book-Centered Novels
Posted April 26, 2006
If you've ever pondered assembling a book display in your library featuring
novels about books, a recent blogpost contains a handy list
of items you could use in such a display.
- Selector Alert: Books That Males Claim "Helped" Them
Posted April 26, 2006
British males, anyway. This
list (and an analysis of the gender differences among the top-picked
titles) resulted from a survey conducted earlier this year compared to a
similar survey of female readers last year by England's Guardian.
Just as interesting is an anonymous bookloving blogger's response
to the Guardian article - interesting partly for the graphic at the
top of her blogpost, and partly for the description of her own "most influential"
book titles.
AFPL selectors might want to double-check their libraries' collections to
see if they contain all the titles (none of them terribly obscure)
mentioned in these two sources.
- "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and The Public Library
Posted April 26, 2006
Most library workers who've been happily splashing about in the
biblioblogosphere for awhile now are probably familiar with (or have at
least heard about) the now six-year-old bestseller entitled The
Cluetrain Manifesto, but we don't remember bringing it to the attention
of AFPLWATCH readers before.
The Manifesto's delightful website
contains, among other things, the Manifesto itself plus a link to the
book's entire text. (Does your library's collection have a printed copy of
the book in its collection?)
We think at least half of the individual precepts of the Manifesto -
originally targeted for corporate communication executives - have
particularly relevance to the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, or to any
public library. (We especially agree with precepts #51, #52, #53, and #89.)
After all, more and more AFPL users are people who visit the library
system's website more often than - or at least before - they enter one of
AFPL's buildings, and whose impressions of their public library is largely
shaped by the quality and usefulness (or defects therein) of the library's
website.
- Concerned Gwinnett County Parent vs. Harry Potter, Spawn of Satan
Posted April 25, 2006
Here we go again: an "Evangelical Christian" parent so frightened by
the unlikely prospect of her children becoming lifelong converts to witchcraft
after reading about the (fictional) exploits of Harry Potter that she wants
the County's Daddies to remove the Potter books from local school libraries,
lest other people's Precious Little Ones be contaminated.
Other local newspaper reports
here and here, and you can find
find plenty of pro and con commentary (as well as other news reports) via
a Google search.
- Library Learns to Keep Its E-Reference Form Simple
Posted April 25, 2006
According to a blogpost cited by LISNews.org, one New Jersey public library system's
"email reference stats went up after the form was simplified."
Details.
There's a lesson here for all library website designers, and not just about
e-mail reference question forms.
- Recorded Phone Messages a Bad Idea for Libraries?
Posted April 25, 2006
AFPL Library Express Manager James Taylor has a fine speaking voice, but
we hate, hate, hate being forced to listening to the phone menu recorded by
Mr. Taylor that one must endure whenever one calls AFPL's Central Library.
Former Library Journal editor John Berry explains why libraries' use
of recordings for its phone-in customers is so annoying in a recent
editorial entitled
"Humans Do a Better Job":
“When you telephone a library these days you rarely get a live person. Most often you get a recorded
menu that offers a litany of options, making your wait and listen to the whole list, and almost always the
referral to a live person is the last choice offered....Remember the importance of human contact to library
users. That is the factor that separates the library from the department of motor vehicles or other
government bureaucracies.”
- Used Bookstore Inside Georgia PL Celebrates Anniversary
Posted April 21, 2006
An article in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer explains how an ongoing
booksale, staffed by volunteers in this public library, garnered $20,000
for the library in its first year of operation.
Longtime employees at AFPL's Central Library will fondly remember the
tiny store of library-related merchandise that was run by volunteers in
the nook just inside Central's front door. That same high-traffic site was
used in many a Friends' used book sale after the store was abandoned. We
wish those two interesting money-generating ideas (a thoughtfully-stocked,
merchandise-selling store and an ongoing sale of the library system's
discarded books) could be brought back to Central and combined in a
larger space there. Most other large urban libraries operate such stores,
and one at Central would provide yet a satisfying, positive-memory-making
book-related option for the Central Library's casual and repeat visitors.
- It's A Chair! It's a Bookshelf! It's a Bibliochaise!
Posted April 21, 2006
Photo.
- County Official Cancels Modesto Public Library Bellydancing Program
Posted April 20, 2006
Details.
- Public Libraries Can Be Risky Places for Employees
Posted April 20, 2006
"Library Lovers LiveJournal" recently asked readers who work in public
libraries if (and how) they’d ever felt themselves in danger on their jobs.
Here are the readers' responses.
- Library-Tampering Legislation in Oklahoma Fails to Pass
Posted April 20, 2006
Library Journal reports the
upshot of the previously-posted LibraryLand bulletin about a bill in
the Oklahoma legislature this past session that would’ve prohibited
libraries from shelving gay-themed books in collections for children.
- More Details on Gwinnett Library Flap
Posted April 19, 2006
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported
today the background of the recent situation involving two Gwinnett
County library patrons, the library system's director, the library board,
and everyone's respective lawyers.
We know there's a lesson for the rest of us in this incident, but we're
just not sure what it is.
- Luring Library Users onto Library Websites
Posted April 19, 2006
In one of her recent newsletters,
library commentator Marylaine Block brought her readers' attention to an
essay by Stephen Abram entitled
"The Shop Window: Compelling and Dynamic Library Portals".
- Print Periodicals: An Enduring Format?
Posted April 19, 2006
An essay
in the Yale Daily News (and recently featured by John Hubbard's
Library Link of the Day)
explains why he's decided some things will never migrate completely from
print to screen.
- Minimum Requirements for an Excellent Library System?
Posted April 19, 2006
Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC's Vice President of Research, has written an
essay about "libraries in a networked age". Although he makes frequent
reference to information-providing services (like Amazon, Netflix, Google,
etc.) who seem to be doing a better job than most libraries are at linking
people to what they're looking for, Dempsey's thoughts are perhaps too
theoretical to capture the attention of most library workers
and administrators. But this paragraph should be branded into the memory
of anyone trying to get a handle on what an excellent library system would
look like:
"It is not enough for [useful] materials to be present within the
[library] system: they have to be readily accessible ('every reader his or
her book,' in Ranganathan's terms), potentially interested readers have to
be aware of them ('every book its reader'), and the system for matching
supply and demand has to be efficient ('save the time of the user')."
Alas, AFPL currently falls short in all three of these crucial criteria
for excellence:
- Many of the library system's selectors have never been properly trained
either to identify the most relevant materials available for purchase or
to identify and remove the least relevant. And even the library system's
most experienced selectors have little say in choosing which vendors they are
allowed to purchase materials from, and who cannot purchase materials for
their libraries throughout the year.
- Finding tools other than the horrifically flawed library catalog are
not available on the library system's website - a non-interactive website
whose webmaster is not a librarian nor even a library staff member who
isn't a librarian.
- The library's various "delivery" mechanisms are crippled by glaring
inefficiencies, such as an inadequately-staffed and ill-equipped telephone
reference service and the lack of Saturday and Sunday courier deliveries.
Adding Appropriate Smells to "The Library Experience"?
Posted April 19, 2006
We all know that there are plenty of unfortunate smells in our libraries
most days, but perhaps libraries could start piping in an “old book smell”
as part of an attempt to brand the library experience, like some hotels are
starting to do. Read the details at
David Lee King’s blog.
Gwinnett Trustees Decide Not to Punish Library Director
After Two Patrons Claim She Was Rude to Them
Posted April 18, 2006
A
story reported today by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
brings back unhappy memories of the Grand Inquisitor mentality of some of
AFPL's own former board members.
Talk about micromanagement! A library board finds the time, energy, and
motivation to conduct an official investigation about a claim that a
library patron was treated rudely?
We suspect there may be far more to this story than was - or ever will be -
reported. Meanwhile, we're relieved to hear that Gwinnett's board decided
that its longtime director need not be perfect to keep her job.
We wonder, though, whether Gwinnett's board would ever trouble itself to
"investigate" a claim that some library customer was rude to a library
employee.
The best news that could emerge from this tempest-in-a-teapot would be
the deepening of the Gwinnett director's empathy level for any underling
employed by the library whose behavior toward a library patron is
characterized as insufficiently polite. Our own vast experience with
library patrons has taught us that, although rudeness to patrons is seldom
justified, it is certainly often provoked.
Snappy Responses to "Why Do We Still Need Librarians?"
Posted April 18, 2006
M. Kraft, a hospital librarian in Cleveland, recently discussed
on her blog library users (and employers) occasionally
wondering aloud, "Hey, since All Information is now online, why should we
pay librarians to staff libraries?"
We liked the succinct response of one of Kraft's (anonymous) readers to
this question:
I always say:
- the same reason we still need lawyers, although legally you are
entitled to represent yourself.
- the same reason we still need accountants, although most people file
taxes themselves with one simple form anyway.
- the same reason we eat out at restaurants, even though most of us are
perfectly capable of fixing our own PB&J sandwich when hungry.
Even IF it is all online (which you and I know isn't true), that doesn't
mean users have time, energy or desire to search for themselves. I'll
gladly search the literature for you, at a fraction of the time, a
fraction of the cost and a fraction of the stress of you doing it yourself."
LC Report Recommends Scrapping LC Subject Headings
Posted April 17, 2006
A report commissioned by the Library of Congress recommends that the effort
invested in creating and revising LC Subject Headings be re-invested in a
faster turnaround for labeling new books.
Meanwhile, LC has decided to drop its subject heading "Vietnam Conflict,
1961-1975" and start using "Vietnam War, 1961-1965."
Details about both of these developments were reported recently by Rory
Litwin in his blog entitled
Library Juice.
Rhode Island Library Worker Who Criticized Administrators Wins Grievance
Posted April 16, 2006
Here’s LISNews.com’s
summary of the incident, plus a link to the original report of the
story.
Fulton Sheriff's Chief of Staff Resigns; Must Repay $537,000
Posted April 15, 2006
Read the
details, reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
about how a highly-placed "public servant" and his "subcontractor"
handled "their share" of a $1.2 million grant generated by state taxpayers'
dollars ten years ago.
Selector Alert: Sources Other Than Reviews for Selecting Books
Posted April 14, 2006
Illinois public librarian (and blogger) Rick Roche explains why he's now
using tools other than (or in addition to) review journals for book
selection, and thoughtfully lists the other tools he's currently using.
AFPL selectors might want to check out
Rick's ideas, and/or pass along to Rick some of their own
beyond-the-reviews selection sources.
Meanwhile, it sure would be useful if AFPL's Collection Management
Unit would resume its selection training sessions for the library system's
hundred-or-so materials selectors. Other than training conducted by
vendor representatives about how to use their companies' websites, there's
been no systematic selection training at AFPL for over five years now.
Rockdale County Expanding Its Only Public Library
Posted April 14, 2006
Details
were reported earlier this week by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mistakes in County’s Tax-Collection Methods Have Led to Expensive Lawsuits
Posted April 14, 2006
This Atlanta Journal-Constitution
story profiles a controversial lawyer who represents some of the citizens that Fulton County's tax office
tried to punish for supposedly not paying their taxes on time. It includes a horrific tale about one resident
who paid up, but whose check was never cashed…and what happened after that - including $35,000
worth of legal fees the hapless taxpayer had to come up with.
We think the County Commissioners should be forced to report to the taxpayers every year its
annual legal expenses - including the revenues recovered from all the lawsuits it generates (or that its
lienholders generate). That annual figure could provide voters with a good indicator of how effective the
county’s legal maneuverings are (or are not).
Cell Phones in Libraries: Proffered Solutions to a Growing Nuisance
Posted April 14, 2006
Librarians being pushed over the edge of their usual forebearance into
"cell phone rage" (or at least into vivid fantasies of same) isn't a new
phenomenon, but it seems more and more librarians are discussing their
fantasies in print. Here's
one recent well-written screed from an academic library librarian,
followed by comments from readers suggesting a range of alternatives to the
writer's call for cell phone users in libraries to be shot on sight by
certified markspersons.
Blogging Not Just a Teenage Thing?
Posted April 14, 2006
For those
librarians who know what a blog is, but mistakenly believed the blogosphere
was exclusively a preserve of the young, here’s
a blog written by an 81-year old that was recently featured in the
New York Times (and who "Rochelle," at
Tinfoil+Racoon, brought to AFPLWATCH’s attention).
Whenever AFPL finally, finally gets around to instituting a blog on its
website (and we're getting weary of holding our breath), perhaps more
people than just AFPL's youngest users will be reading and contributing to
it.
Amen, Brother
Posted April 14, 2006
Excerpt from a recent
Shifted Librarian blogpost, unsettling in its relevance to AFPL’s
notorious lack of staff development, lack of mentoring, and clear
opportunities for career advancement:
“Nothing is more important in any organization than its employees, and
right now most libraries are letting some truly invaluable people slip
right through the cracks."
Feds Drop Appeal of Ruling in Librarian PATRIOT Act Case
Posted April 13, 2006
Details were reported by the Associated Press.
Headline: "Japan Donates Five Fully-Loaded Bookmobiles to Syria
Posted April 13, 2006
This story, like so many others mentioned in AFPLWATCH's "LibraryLand"
bulletins, was reported by
LISNews.org.
Hmmm, we wonder if there's any chance the Japanese Consulate in Atlanta
could arrange for Japan to donate a few "full-loaded" bookmobiles to AFPL?
Actually, AFPL still owns two bookmobiles, but there ain't nothing in
either of them, the bookmobile collection having been mysteriously discarded
several years ago, and its staff having been farmed out to various branch
libraries.
Because certain segments of Fulton County are still without any nearby
libraries, we also wonder whether the trustees will be discussing
reinstituting bookmobile service as it tackles the much-awaited "facilities
plan" that's supposed to guide the library's building/expansion/closing
decisions over the Next While.
So Many Books...and Not Enough Titles!
Posted April 13, 2006
Yet another reason why
placing a Hold on a library book (or, for that matter, ordering a book for
a library, or checking a library's catalog for a particular title) isn't
the no-brainer most people imagine it is.
Selector Alert: Are "Comfort Books" Well-Represented in Your Library?
Posted April 13, 2006
Just as there are library users who refuse to read anything but mysteries,
and others who confine their reading to romance novels, there's a subset of
library readers who insist that their reading be reassuring (as opposed to,
say, provocative or unsettling).
Fortunately for library users with specific reading tastes and for the
librarians who'd like to help them find what they're looking for, the
Internet is full of websites offering reading recommendations for all
sorts of reading tastes. Here's one that lists "Books for a
Contemplative Life."
Some of this site's recommended titles seem a bit less than essential for
most library collections, but then there's no accounting for taste in
reading, and one of the challenges of book selection is taking into account
the amazing variety of what people like to read. What we found most
intriguing about this website was not its list of recommended titles, but
a section entitled
"Reading Crap and Spiritually Clever Books". The site's webmaster
has a decidedly unusual opinion about popular books like Hesse's
Siddhartha and Gibran's The Prophet.
County Administrators Examine Options for Dealing with Tax Mess
Posted April 12, 2006
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported
today on the choices confronting the county given the current impasse
with the county's tax digest.
Recent Internet Search Uncovers Yet Another Howler of Hooker's
Posted April 12, 2006
Periodically, AFPLWATCH "Googles" the name of AFPL's former library director
to see if anything interesting crops up. Our most recent trawl netted
a heretofore undiscovered nugget from a April 2004 document posted by a
task force in Kansas City. The task force was studying models of library
organization and included telephone interviews with several library
directors around the country. Appearing on page 69 of the
study, here's the spin MKH put on the interviewer's inquiry about the
"reorganization" that a federal jury had determined was a smokescreen for
enacting a racially discriminatory agenda:
[…]Hooker said that a strong board was needed in order to restructure,
reconnect with the community and better use the strengths of staff members.
“We’ve tried to move beyond stereotypical library organization models. In
doing so, you rattle some cages.”
As part of that effort, the Atlanta-Fulton library transferred 28 employees,
eight of whom were white. In many cases, the employees moved from what
were basically clerical jobs to more challenging work running branches,
developing special services, or doing literacy outreach. The eight white
employees alleged that racial discrimination caused them to be moved from
the prestigious main library to branches. Although they won their lawsuit,
some continue to work for the library. Hooker says those who stayed enjoy
their new positions.
"Those who stayed" may find that final sentence especially galling. On the
other hand, they can remind themselves that Hooker was (finally) fired one
month after this report was published.
A small sample of Hooker's numerous other hilarious/dubious/astonishing
pronouncements can be found here.
Another Audit Shatters the Credibility of the County's Tax Operations
Posted April 11, 2006
A study of Fulton County's day-to-day tax assessment operations undertaken
by the Georgia Department of Revenue at the request of the county's
commissioners reached conclusions more damning than the conclusions of an
earlier commissioner-authorized audit.
According to
a story in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the
audit's findings and recommendations will delay this year's tax notices.
Whether this long-smoldering, self-made problem in county governance
will affect the county's funding of its library services remains to be
seen. We hazard a guess that it's not going to be smooth sailing,
budget-wise, for any county department over the next few years as the
county's politicians scramble to get the county's revenue stream at lot
less muddled than it is at the moment. The probable expense to taxpayers
resulting from the inevitable lawsuits against the county generated by the
messes made by the county's tax assessor's office is, all by itself, rather
daunting.
As we've suggested before, it seems like it's way past time not only for
the commissioners to install a new staff in the tax assessor's office,
as this new audit recommends, but also for the voters to elect an entirely
new board of county commissioners.
Utah Library (Ab)User Gets Jail Term for Overdue Books
Posted April 7, 2006
Library
Journal, among others, reported this Associated Press story.
We've heard rumors that AFPL administrators, finally acknowledging the
scope of AFPL's theft problems - including the "thefts" of county property
resulting from the negligence and indifference of the library system's
most abusive so-called patrons - are considering hiring a
collection agency. We hope that project is on a fast track, as AFPL's
horrific loss rate, especially for DVDs, shows no signs of abating.
And like anyone else with brains in their heads, we still think Central
Library security guards should be inspecting visitors' backpacks and bags
whenever anyone leaves the building instead of (or in addition to) on
their way into it.
County Manager Responds to AJC Editorial
Posted April 6, 2006
County Manager Tom Andrews has written a
response to the recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Fulton
County Soap Opera"
editorial.
"How Library Catalogs Suck" (Part 2)
Posted April 5, 2006
Karen Schneider, the "Free Range Librarian" and a tireless advocate for
improving service to library users, continues her explanation of how
public access library catalogs must get better before they drive people
away from libraries in (totally avoidable) frustration and disgust.
Libraries (like, thanks to Ms. Mary Kaye Hooker, AFPL) whose employees are
forced to lamely defend, day in and day out, the horrors of the very
unGooglelike SIRSI to AFPL's Google-familiar users, will find much here to
agree with.
Read Karen's
"Checklist of Shame" (and the reader comments), hosted, like Part 1, by
ALA TechSource.
Influence of Fulton's County Commissioners Steadily Shrinking
Posted April 3, 2006
Two articles from today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
One of these articles mentions the prospect, in next year's legislative
session, of splitting Fulton into two counties - the first we'd heard of
that idea.
It's probably no coincidence that county employees received another copy
of the county's layoff procedures with last Friday's paychecks.
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