Florida Governor Cuts Library Budget for Sixth Consecutive Year
Posted May 31, 2006
"Education Governor," indeed.
Details from a Tallahassee Democrat editorial.
Turnover Rate for Bestsellers Getting Shorter and Shorter
Posted May 31, 2006
A recent study of how long bestsellers remain bestsellers shows that, if
present trends continue, the New York Times may be forced to begin
publishing a daily bestsellers list instead of a weekly one.
Read the details
as reported last month by Lulu (and linked to earlier this week at
LISNews).
We wonder what this data means in terms of libraries, including AFPL,
putting so much effort (and pumping so much money) into obtaining bestsellers
for their bestseller-reading library patrons?
Will the refusal of so many American readers to read anything except a
bestseller finally be impossible for libraries to accommodate because of
the ever-more-gnatlike attention span of those readers?
Even though there's been recent progress at AFPL in promptly or
semi-promptly obtaining more bestsellers from the library's vendors, when
bestsellerdom begins lasting merely a mere week or two, the county's
finance people will need to give the county's library staff a lot more
leeway than they do now for the ways the library is allowed to requisitions
those titles. The current mechanisms just won't be fast enough. Stay tuned...
PATRIOT Act's Secrecy Provisions Ruled Unconstitutional
Posted May 27, 2006
Federal court decisions handed down yesterday in New York declared
as unconstitutional certain provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. The rulings
mean that librarians can publicly comment on having received "National
Security Letters" from government investigators demanding patrons' library
records.
(The "Keep Silent While We Rifle Through Your Personal
Records" poster comes from the ACLU, too; our thanks to "Free Range
Librarian" Karen Schneider for bringing our attention to it,
and to Jessamyn West, for bringing Karen's attention to it.)
Union Announces No-Confidence Vote for Seattle-Area Library Director
Posted May 27, 2006
Ninety-two percent of union-represented employees of Washington's King
County Public Library returned a vote of "No Confidence" in the library
system's long-time director.
Here's why, according to the Seattle Times.
Overdue Fines: Advantages vs. Disadvantages
Posted May 26, 2006
Have you heard about the director of a small public library in Texas who's
decided to file
criminal charges against patrons with delinquent accounts?
Most library systems haven't yet gotten to that point, but the almost
universal practice of charging late fees for library materials is
definitely breaking down, at least among public library systems.
Do overdue charges Send an Important Signal about Civic Responsibility or
are they An Outdated Nuisance that Just Annoy People?
Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor published an article that
succinctly presents the various rationales some U.S. public libraries are
using to completely eliminate late fees, as well as the
reasoning behind more and more libraries hiring collection agencies to
increase the likelihood of actually obtaining the fines
they've assessed patrons who haven't returned borrowed materials on time.
The CSM article (brought to AFPLWATCH's attention, as so many
"LibraryLand" bulletins are, by LISNews)
contains some startling facts and figures along with the usual arguments,
plus a few perspectives we hadn't heard before.
U.S. House Committee Votes for "Net Neutrality" (Sort Of)
Posted May 26, 2006
Yesterday the House Juciciary Committee approved federal legislation
that would slow down attempts by phone companies to "privatize" the
Internet by charging higher fees for accessing certain types of Internet
content or giving discounts to favored Internet content providers.
Partly because the committee's 20-13 vote was apparently the result of a
turf-war over committee jurisdiction of anti-trust bills instead of a clear
signal that legislators favor the unfettered flow of information, yesterday's
House committee vote could be undermined later on by the phone companies
and their Congressional allies as various versions of "net neutrality"
legislation snake their way through Congress.
LISNews provides links to the transcript of the reporter's story (and his
video clips)
here and
here. The reporter's blog and over 50 reader/viewer comments are
here.
"Print is where words go to die."
Posted May 25, 2006
Over the past few years we've read dozens of spirited defenses of The Book
and Its Enduring Fabulosity, but by far the most articulate explanation
we've ever seen of why, despite its advantageous features, the book may
indeed be On Its Way Out is
this one written by Jeff Jarvis and "published" by BuzzMachine.
Jeff's essay is isn't short, but it's compelling, as are many of the
passionate comments posted by Jeff's readers.
Bestsellers: Should Libraries Promote Them or Not?
Posted May 24, 2006
…and, if so, how much or how little?
An interesting blogpost, with even more interesting comments. You decide.
Sucky Library Catalogs, Part 3
Posted May 24, 2006
Posted by "Free Range Librarian" Karen Schneider to the "ALA TechSource" blog,
Part 3 is even more interesting than
Part 1 or
Part 2.
Search Engine Wars Status Report
Posted May 24, 2006
Courtesy "Internet News," a
status report on the ongoing battle for search engine market share.
Showing Due Diligence Toward Library Users’ Needs
Posted May 24, 2006
Nice quote from
a recent posting at the collaboratively-written “Blog about Libraries”:
"…We are not presuming that [libraries] need to mimic a retail operation,
but rather we recognize there is a real need for us to do the best we can
to make the experience of our patrons the best possible. They are the
reason we are here and anything we can do to make them leave happy and
return again is worth exploring. Does that mean we will soon install
greeters, or that we will fire staff for not pursuing our patrons through
every corner of the building? Highly doubtful. On the other hand, does it
mean we [should] analyze whether we make patrons feel welcome, or how well
we follow up with them, or whether patrons feel like they got the best
service we could offer? Absolutely! That's not adopting a "business model"
- that's just being responsible about treating your patrons, without
whom you do not exist, with the respect and the diligence they are due."
"There is a subtle but important difference between thinking of
libraries as being in competition with businesses and thinking of libraries
as having the potential to own a particular set of niches within their
community. This means making libraries as indispensible to their
communities as possible, while at the same time fitting in well with the
surroundings as a service provider, as a community partner and as a
community builder. Libraries should do this by defining their uniqueness
and by selling it to the public tirelessly. That is different than the
adversarial perspective of being in competition with businesses and other
organizations."
Yikes Dept.: ProQuest in Serious Financial Trouble?
Posted May 24, 2006
Interent Filters Result in "Substantial Overblocking"
Posted May 23, 2006
Library Journal
reports that yet another
study of Internet filtering software shows what AFPL staff and patrons
have long complained about: that these clumsily-designed software packages
block access to legitimate websites.
Instead of waiting for the filters to get smarter, AFPL administrators
should insist that staff be provided a way to quickly "unblock" any
"filter-forbidden" site a filter-thwarted adult library patron wants to
look at.
Minneapolis Opens New Central Library
Posted May 22, 2006
Here's one way to warm up a modern library building: install gigantic
fireplaces in the middle of every floor.
Photo gallery.
Tips for Library Directors from "The Library 2.0 Manifesto"
Posted May 22, 2006
Another "manifesto" has emerged from the ongoing struggle of web-savvy
librarians trying to get library administrators to fully exploit the
interactive features available to Web-using libraries and library patrons.
We think this latest set of assumptions, formulated by Peter Blomberg,
contains many points that apply to healthy library governance - or, for
that matter, to civilized and productive discourse - in general.
Conversations are organic. They go where they go. They grow where they
grow.
The further a conversation goes the better. The wider it grows the
better.
Go where the conversation goes or you will cease to be a part of it.
No one controls the conversation.
If you try to control the conversation, it will affect how others
perceive you in spite of anything or everything else you are doing.
If you try to control the conversation, you will lose credibility
(at best).
Anyone can participate in the conversation.
We add value by participating in the conversation.
It is the quality of our participation, not the quantity, that
determines how much value we bring to the conversation.
We extract value by listening to the conversation.
The best listeners extract the most value.
The organization that listens best extracts the most value.
Organizations can’t just listen... They must participate.
ALL feedback is good.
Conversations flourish when ALL feedback is seen as good.
All feedback is useful. Conversations flourish when ALL feedback is
seen as useful.
The appropriate response to feedback is to say thank you.
Find another way to say thank you.
Repeat.
Now offer a thoughtful response to feedback.
Congratulations, we are now having a conversation.
"Yes, The Internet Has Replaced Libraries..."
Posted May 22, 2006
Blake Carver of LISNews.org has
posted this
response to a 2001 American Libraries article by Mark Herring
entitled "Why the Internet is No Substitute for Libraries" that made a
circuit around the biblioblogosphere
recently.
Starbucks as Cultural Trendsetter?
Posted May 22, 2006
Starbucks, whose stock value has increased over 5,775% since 1992 and which
aims to have as many outlets, worldwide, as McDonalds (i.e., more stores
than there are public libraries) intends to start selling books, now that
they’ve succeeded in selling their loyal (addicted?) customers music as
well as high-priced caffeinated beverages.
Details.
Our favorite figure from this news report: “24% of Starbucks' customers
visit 16 times per month.” Unless you're counting homeless persons, that’s
a lot more visits than one-fourth of public library patrons make to their
libraries per month.
[Our thanks to Virginia Commonwealth University librarian blogger Jill
Stover for bringing her
“Thinking Outside the Book” readers’ attention to this story.]
2006 SOLINET Meeting Redux
Posted May 22, 2006
If you weren’t one of the relatively few AFPL employees allowed to attend
this year’s annual SOLINET meeting earlier this month, you can read some
of the PowerPoint presentations of the various speakers
here.
[The posting of these SOLINET PowerPoints was another thing we learned
from
Jill Stover’s blog. But isn’t it too bad that AFPL employees had to
read about this here at AFPLWATCH instead of on an AFPL-sponsored blog
devoted to staff development?]
Chicago Public Publishes Its Strategic Plan
Posted May 22, 2006
God knows how much money it cost to produce this document, but it
seems a lot more realistic (and less self-congratulatory) than similar
plans we've read.
Hennepin County Library Sponsoring "Readers Online"
Posted May 22, 2006
This well-known institution has joined the ranks of U.S. public libraries
whose websites feature public discussions of patrons' opinions of the
books they're reading, and offers to alert patrons via email of new
arrivals in Hennepin's collections. Details.
Another library that's finally posted a "Books and Reading" tab on the
main page of its website. How revolutionary (and user-responsive) is that?
It will be a glad day when AFPL finally joins the ever-increasing ranks of
progressive libraries using Internet-based interaction software to
cultivate the support of public libraries' most natural constituency:
adults who love to read books.
When Will They Ever Learn…?
Posted May 17, 2006; updated May 22, 2006
…if not to abandon racism in government employment practices, to at least
turn off their damn tape recorders???
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution
editorial yesterday compares the alleged racism in DeKalb County that
to the expensive racist remarks former AFPL library board chair William
McClure made that landed him and library director Mary Kaye Hooker in
federal court - and ended up costing Fulton County taxpayers $18,000,000.
The editorial then goes on to quote part of another tape-recorded message
that DeKalb taxpayers will probably hear played back in some other federal
courtroom one day.
We always knew the library lawsuit
was important not only to the individuals whose careers were derailed by
race-obsessed library managers, but also as a warning to other local
governments whose managers might be tempted into illegal, race-based
decision-making. Who knew there would be so many deaf ears in the county
just next door?
Incidentally, the AJC also printed DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones'
response to its editorial. A few days later, the newspaper printed this
letter from Jones:
As the old saying goes: "You don't get into a fight with someone who buys
ink by the barrel and paper by the ton."
I want to apologize for aggravating The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
by saying DeKalb County government's hiring practices are better than the
AJC's and Cox Enterprises' hiring practices.
I want to plead with the AJC, "I'se tired. Please don't whup me no
mo!" I don't know how many ways I can say it: I have not, will not and
shall not condone racism in DeKalb County's hiring practices.
In the words of a great American, Forrest Gump, "That's all I gotta say
about that!"
"Post-Literate" Kids and the Decline of Reading
Posted May 17, 2006
Speaking of AJC editorials, earlier this week, the newspaper
featured a guest editorial from a Louisiana mom concerned about a generation
of college kids who think "why don't you go read a book" is about as quaint
a parental suggestion as "would you like me to teach you the Charleston?"
"Library of Burned Books to Recall Nazi Barbarism"
Posted May 17, 2006
The planned "library" is actually a collection of books which
will go on tour throughout Germany.
Wonder how long it'll take for the "Banned Books Week"-sponsoring
American Library Association or some other anti-censorship organization
here in the United States to do something like this? After all, the Nazis
weren't the only ones who've publicly burned the books of their opponents.
Building "The Universal Library" One Electron at a Time
Posted May 16, 2006
Librarians of all stripes should probably read Kevin Kelley's impressive
overview in the New York Times Magazine of various efforts afoot
to Digitize All The Information in The World. (Kelly is Wired Magazine's
"senior maverick.")
Warning: you must register with the Times before you can read
Kelly's article on your computer screen. Does that fact support our
suspicion that capitalists will find a way to install a paymaster at the
door of the Universal Library that the digitizers envision?
Next Print Format Challenge for Public Libraries?
Posted May 16, 2006
At first we thought this was another one of those
some-people-just-have-too-much-time-on-their-hands
elaborate Web-spoofs, but apparently you can actually buy
these things.
And how long before our patrons start asking us to stock them? And why
shouldn't we? (It probably took awhile for Large Print books to catch on,
too; now almost every public library offers at least a small selection of
them. Just when everyone had resigned themselves to eBooks being The Next Big Thing,
here comes this! Stay tuned!)
Beloved Voted Most Beloved Book Since 1980
Posted May 15, 2006
According to Editor & Publisher, a New York Times survey of
authors and critics resulted in Toni Morrison's Beloved being named
as the best work of fiction by an American author published in the past
25 years. Runners-up included Philip Roth's Roth’s American Pastoral,
Don DeLillo's Underworld, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian,
and the collection of John Updike's four Rabbit novels.
The full results of the survey will be published in the May 21st Time
Book Review, but you can read the full Editor & Publisher story
here.
What's a Librarian For?
Posted May 15, 2006
You may or may not agree with him, but librarian blogger (and passionate reader and excellent writer)
Michael McGrorty has some interesting and not-often-encountered reflections on (among other
things) why various types of machines are, in the long run, less essential to libraries than most of us
think they are. Read Michael's essay.
Last Year's U.S. Book Output Down by 18,000 Titles
Posted May 15, 2006
With library budgets being cut all over the county, and more and more of
every library's budget being invested in nonbook materials, maybe this isn't
such bad news?Read the details.
Book Blogs Replacing Vanishing Book Review Sections in Newspapers?
Posted May 15, 2006
ForeWord, a publication that reviews books published by smaller,
independently-owned publishers, recently surveyed the growing universe of
blogs for book-lovers.
Among the blogs mentioned in the ForeWord essay: Patricia Storms'
BookLust, Jessica Stockton's
The Written Nerd, "Susan's"
Pages Turned, George
Murray's Bookninja. Book selectors
at AFPL might want to consider bookmarking a few of these blogs to help
them identify those undermarketed titles that go on to become cult favorites
with the reading public.
Read ForeWord's interesting
essay, which AFPLWATCH heard about via the excellent - and also highly
recommended for AFPL selectors - "book culture" blog entitled
FadeOut.
Gwinnett School Libraries Will Continue to Stock Harry Potter
Posted May 12, 2006
Responding to a parent's request
last month to remove J.K. Rowland's Harry Potter books from Gwinnett
County's school libraries, the Gwinnett school board voted last night to continue
stocking Harry in Gwinnett. Details about the vote were reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Fulton Taxpayers Group Publishes "Fixing Fulton County"
Posted May 12, 2006
Website Conventions Honchos Vote Against Creating an .xxx Domain
Posted May 12, 2006
The nonprofit group in charge of creating new suffixes to Internet addresses
(beyond the familiar .com, .gov, .edu, .org, etc.) has voted down a proposal
to authorize a new suffix (.xxx) to designate pornographic websites.
Details.
Congress Considering Manadatory Filtering of Chatroom Websites
Posted May 12, 2006
Legislation proposed and endorsed by numerous U.S. congressmen would
mandate filtering in schools and public libraries accepting federal funds
websites like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Friendster, and Orkut that
encourage the posting of user profiles. These "social networking" chat sites,
popular with millions of teenagers and kids, are sometimes used by sexual
predators, which is why legislators want to prevent underage kids from
using these websites in publicly-accessible Internet workstations.
Details.
Earlier this week,
LISNews.org reminded its readers of an article published five years ago
last month in American Libraries entitled "Why the Internet is No
Substitute for Libraries," and invited librarians to re-read the article to
see if the points made by its author, Mark Herring, are still valid.
You decide.
Another Ownership Change at Baker & Taylor
One of AFPL's current primary book vendors has changed hands again, this
time at almost twice the cost its previous owners paid for it.
Details were reported by Library Journal.
Children's Book Selector Alert: The Ten Best Books to Read Aloud
Posted May 12, 2006
At least, the best ten as chosen by a British author of books for children.
Does your library own
these ten titles, and have you ever read them aloud to kids at your
library?
Reporter Recalls Schrenko Antics
Posted May 11, 2006
AFPL employees who've been following the Schrenko trial in the local
newspaper may remember how some of us used to amuse ourselves with
comparisons between Shrenko's antics when she headed up Georgia's education
department with the modus operandi of former AFPL director Mary Kaye Hooker.
If you are among those with these unpleasant memories, you might get a
chuckle out of these
random recollections of Shrenko by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
reporter who covered Shrenko's tenure as a state official.
If MKH were ever to stand trial for anything, no doubt there'd be similar
recollections that some of us could dredge up.
U.S. Justice Department Proposes Mandatory Rating System for Websites
Posted May 10, 2006
Reviving a discarded idea from the Clinton presidency, Bush's Attorney
General wants Congress to impose a mandatory labeling scheme that warns
Internet surfers, including adults, that a website contains sexual imagery.
Library Journal
summarizes the story reported by
News.com.
We suppose this notion of mandatory ratings for websites will be welcomed
by the same group of citizens and politicians who believe the Motion
Picture Association's ratings on (American) movies are both meaningful and
helpful in minimizing the amount of exposure to sexual imagery Americans
are haplessly exposed to - outside of television and billboards and
magazine ads, that is.
And will the next step will be forcing librarians to monitor the ages
and Internet surfing activity of patrons strolling into a libraries
to do their surfing there, instead of at home or on their cell-phones? And
threatening librarians who refuse with fines or jail terms?
Management Hypocrisy 101
Posted May 10, 2006
Kathy Sierra, at the "Creating Passionate Users" blog, explains
why employees in some workplaces ignore 80% of what their managers say to
them, and why employees lucky enough to work for a manager with integrity
will sometimes pass up a promotion rather than take on a job managed by
an incompetent and/or insecure and/or lazy supervisor. Kathy's "Top
Managers' Lies" is worth a
look-see, as are the numerous (and mostly rueful) reader comments.
A conservative legal action group’s
blog reports that a federal district court has ruled in favor of a
librarian whose employer fired her for insubordination when she refused to
work on Sundays because of her religious beliefs. The jury awarded the
plaintiff almost $54,000 in back pay.
(In a good example of the serendipity that abounds in the biblioblogosphere,
AFPLWATCH stumbled upon this story while investigating a
blogpost written by Washington, DC “Reflective Librarian” Steve Leary,
which SIRSI blogger
Stephen Abrams had linked to recently for a completely different reason.)
so a younger, theoretically more energetic generation of
librarians can take their turn at turning “librarian-centric” libraries
into patron-centered institutions.
Leary’s lament puts AFPLWATCH in mind of all the Guilty As Charged
employees at AFPL. You know the ones: the accountability-evading,
retirement-postponing place-holders who - either out of personal exhaustion
or because they've never been properly supervised - dropped customer
service from their workplace priorities a long, long time ago.
Unfortunately, much of AFPL's dead wood consists of highly-paid managers
who refuse to shoulder their share of the work to be done (when they bother
to show up at all) and are breathtakingly indifferent to the natural aspirations of
their underlings. They skilfully sabotage proposals or instructions from
any quarter that threaten the self-serving aspects of the status quo.
Somewhere along the line in their way-too-long careers, these people got
it into their heads that their management positions somehow entitle them
to fewer and fewer - rather than ever-increasing - responsibilities.
Whatever happened to them or whatever rationalizations they use to justify
their stubborn indifference to their customers' and colleagues' needs,
these employees seem to have no qualms about parking their handsome
paychecks into their respective bank accounts...month after month, year
in and year out.
Living Paycheck to Paycheck...at the Library
Posted May 9, 2006
And speaking of library paychecks, "Library Dust" blogger Michael McGrorty
comments on a story from the Los Angeles Times that compares the
financial plight of a library assistant to the similar situation faced by
one of that library worker’s patrons, a homeless person who lives in her
car.
Read Michael's comments.
Denver Public Now Alerting Its Patrons about Library News
Posted May 9, 2006
Denver
Public Library is among the most recent systems using Internet
technology to alert its Internet-using patrons about, among other things,
library news and recent (and recommended) additions to its collections.
How long will it take AFPL to take the plunge into the library-sponsored-blog
biz, we wonder?
Update on Law-Breaking Librarians (Australian Division)
Posted May 9, 2006
Back in 1999, a Russian-born librarian working in Australia hijacked a
helicopter, airlifted her lover from a maximum security prison, and then
carjacked a taxi to evade her pursuers. Eventually captured, she (though
not the aforementioned lover) was released this week from a Sydney prison.
Details.
Book Selector Alert: Blogger Recommends “NonAnon” Reviews
Posted May 9, 2006
Illinois librarian blogger Rick Roche
recently brought his readers’ attention to a website that offers
plentiful reviews of new and not-so-new nonfiction titles. The recommended
site is called “Nonfiction Readers
Anonymous” and is written by an anonymous female blogger in Wisconsin.
May 15th Update:An alert reader has kindly passed
along the identity of the "anonymous" blogger who writes "Nonfiction
Readers Anonymous." According to a web page created by the publisher
Libraries Unlimited:
"Sarah Statz Cords is a librarian who works at both the reference and
circulation desks of the Alicia Ashman branch of the Madison Public Library;
and she teaches "Reading Interests of Adults" at the School of Library and
Information Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is also the
author of the forthcoming
The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests(Libraries
Unlimited, March 2006) as well as the blog
Nonfiction Readers Anonymous. She is a consulting editor for the
Reader's Advisor Online, forthcoming from Libraries Unlimited in Spring 2006."
Library Worker Offers Tip for Dealing with Obnoxious Library Patrons
Posted May 9, 2006
Library Garden blogger Marie Radford, reflecting on an inservice program
she recently attended, explains the interesting psychology behind the way
we react differently when someone we know (a friend, say) vs. someone we
don’t know (a library patron, for example) is Acting Badly. It may be
difficult to remember this the next time a patron Misbehaves at the
service desk, but Marie’s
blogpostis definitely worth a read.
Friends Groups + Library Blog = Big Benefits
Posted May 9, 2006
Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba are co-authors of the book Creating Customer Evangelists). In their "Church of the Customer"
blog, McConnell and Huba constantly trumpet the advantages enjoyed by
companies and organizations who use blogs and other interaction-encouraging
mechanisms to tap into the considerable energies of their most enthusiastic
supporters.
Recently, these marketing experts recently posted a mini-essay entitled
"Zen and the Art of Fan Clubs." Plug in "Library Friends Groups" for "fan
clubs" and their
blogpost should give library administrators and managers plenty to
think about.
Fulton County's Jail Still in Violation of Judge's Orders
Posted May 8, 2006
The county's libraries are underfunded partly because of all the money it
takes to operate the county's jail. Apparently the county isn't doing a
very good job at that, either, despite the huge portion of the budget it
absorbs every year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports
today on how Fulton officials aren't operating the jail with anything
near "efficiency and competence."
Surprise, surprise. We wonder how much of what might have been next year's
budgets for other Fulton departments will be siphoned off to bring the
county jail into compliance with the judge's order, or to pay for additional
lawsuits like the one that resulted in the one the county is currently
violating.
Booklover's Alert: "The Pleasure and Pain of Owning Books"
Posted May 5, 2006
The anonymous writer of the excellent literary blog "Fade Theory"
posted a link yesterday to an
article by Montana writer Allen M. Jones at New West Books & Writers
("The Voice of the Rocky Mountains"). Jones begins with this rhetorical
question:
Why do I have all these goddamned books? Why does anybody? They're
expensive, they weigh you down, they're cumbersome. Writing them, reading
them, treasuring them. This day and age, it feels antiquated. Quaint.
Especially now, with all the information in the world a click and a
digital beep-boop-bop away, why all these ponderous rows of bound paper?
What's the illness, and what's the cure?
Jones answers part of that question by quoting C.S. Lewis:
"Good reading can be described either as an enlargement or as a temporary
annihilation of the self. But that is an old paradox; ‘he that loseth his
life shall save it.' We therefore delight to enter into other men's
beliefs....even though we think them untrue. And into their passions,
though we think them depraved...Literary experience heals the wound,
without undermining the privilege, of individuality...In reading great
literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself...Here, as in
worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself,
and am never more myself than when I do."
Tools for Libraries Who Care About Internet-Savvy Patrons
Posted May 5, 2006
Some genius named John Diep has created a
one-stop tool shed for, among others, library webmasters whose library
administrations and funders are interested in exploiting the latest
wave of Internet technologies. Diep's comprehensive website contains links
to explanations and instructions for the entire range of interaction-enabling
"Web 2.0" software that we've seen (other) public libraries installing on
their websites over the past few years - blogs, community event calendars,
document sharing utilities, podcasting, RSS, social networking, audio and
video streaming, wikis, and on and on.
Scrolling down through Diep's long list of Web-based customer services
will give you a rough idea of just how many exciting, useful library-promoting ideas
the hapless patrons of the webmaster-less AFPL continue to do without.
Two Already-Humongous Library Nonprofits Announce Merger
Posted May 4, 2006
The mostly-U.S. based 150-member Research Library Group and OCLC (with
54,000 library members worldwide) are merging into a single organization.
Read the press
release.
The merger will most directly affect the bibliographic resources
available to academic librarians, but public librarians who rely on the
OCLC-operated WorldCat should eventually see some changes there.
Dept. of Extremely Cool Library Interior Architecture
Posted May 4, 2006
None of the reports
we've heard from visitors to Seattle Public Library's unusual new central
library mentioned that the store there operated by the Friends of the
Library slides shut when it's not opened for business! OCLC blogger
Alice Sneary did mention this architectural feature
recently, and her blogpost provides a link to a nifty animated photo
demo.
Many of us at AFPL would be thrilled with the establishment of even a
stationary Friends Store - one that sells book-related merchandise
as well as discarded books - at our Central Library. One day, perhaps....
Making Teenagers Feel More Welcome in Libraries
Posted May 4, 2006
Commercial Books-by-Mail Service Launched
Posted May 3, 2006
There's a new U.S. Internet-based business venture called "America's
Bookshelf" that, for $3.50 per book, will deliver "any book" to your door
and let you borrow it for as long as you want. Like the wildly successful
home-delivery company for DVDs, NetFlix, the postage is free for America's
Bookshelf items, there is no sales tax, and the product arrives in a
return mailer. Unlike NetFlix, it takes 7-12 (instead of 1-2 days) for the
product to arrive after you order it, and the service involves a rather
complicated-sounding "credit" system (each credit worth $3.50).
Details.
It's too early to calibrate the threat of this new service to
mega-outfits like Amazon.com (which sell rather than "rent" books), or to
government-operated public libraries (which lend books for free, but don't
offer home delivery or let you borrow their books indefinitely). The
advent of Internet-based services like "America's Bookshelf" will, we hope,
force public libraries to offer better service to their patrons,
lest a large segment of those patrons decide to abandon public libraries
for fee-based services that offer more convenient mechanisms of linking
readers and books.
Recycling Books Into Art
Posted May 3, 2006
The New York Times recently published an article about a project
sponsored by the Portland Public Library that commissioned artists to
convert discarded books into art objects, including wearable ones.
Read the article.[Warning: tedious registration is required to read
the NYT's online edition.]
"The Endangered Joy of Serendipity"
Posted May 3, 2006
Another
well-written lament about what's being sacrificed by the growing
preference to search computerized databases (like library catalogs) for
specific titles instead of devoting a few minutes (or hours) roaming
the non-virtual aisles of a library's collections and discovering titles
that we hadn't realized we wanted to read.
Dept. of Lawbreaking Library Directors (Wisconsin Division)
Posted May 2, 2006
The former director of a Wisconsin public library has been charged with
spending at least $2,700 of taxpayers' funds on library-unrelated items
like groceries, oil changes for her car, and haircuts. The library's
trustees found out about it long before the police did, but decided to
(a) handle the matter "privately" and (b) to let the director keep her
job despite the fraudulent use of the library's credit card. Now the
former library director faces a possible $10,000 fine and/or prison
sentence.
Details.
.com
The 
None of the reports
we've heard from visitors to Seattle Public Library's unusual new central
library mentioned that the store there operated by the Friends of the
Library slides shut when it's not opened for business! OCLC blogger
Alice Sneary did mention this architectural feature