- Small Town Libraries, Like Large Urban Systems, Dealing with Homeless Patrons
Posted December 31, 2007
Those of us working in urban public library systems may have imagined that
there are public libraries somewhere in this country that are unfamiliar with
the challenges to libraries posed by homeless patrons, but even the tiny
town of Janesville, Wisconsin has homeless people, it seems.
Here is how the public library there tries to address these patrons'
non-library-related needs.
[Found via LISNews.]
We keep reading in the library press (and biblioblogosphere) that libraries
need to start hiring more techies with or without library backgrounds. We
think it's even more important for urban library administrators to hire at
least one social worker to help create and coordinate services for the
homeless patrons whose presence (and problems) are often so disruptive to
the primary function of public libraries. Maybe a grant applied
for jointly by both the library and the local municipal government(s) could
pay this social worker's salary?
- Atlanta the Nation's 8th Most Literate U.S. City?
Posted December 29, 2007
According to its composite score on a variety of literacy-related factors,
Atlanta made the Top 10 list. It tied (with Boston) for top place in
"Internet resources."
Details.
Found via LISNews.
- Book Selector Alert: Thirty Faves from Three Heavy Readers
Posted December 29, 2007
Each of three New York Times book reviewers
reveal the ten titles that most enthralled him/her this past year.
If these particular books captured the attention and affection of these
picky readers, perhaps AFPL selectors should consider ordering for their
library patrons whatever titles from this selection they haven't already
purchased?
Found via LISNews.
- Booklover's Alert: Look Ma, No Hands! (Nifty Tool Keeps Books Open)
Posted December 29, 2007
Yet another must-have for the avid book-reader - especially those who make
a habit of reading-while-eating.
Found via the
Librarian in Black via Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools.
Click here to read all Booklover Alerts
- Book Selector Alert: 2007's Fifty Best Translations
Posted December 27, 2007
AFPL selectors whose libraries try to stock samples of what contemporary
writers from the non-English speaking part of the planet are producing
might want to check this end-of-year
list posted by Three Percent, "a resource for international literature" based at the University of
Rochester.
Found via Fade Theory via
The Literary Saloon.
- Mammoth List of Free Online Audiobooks and Textbooks
Posted December 27, 2007
People working at library service desks may want to bookmark this
resource (posted by "Librarian Chick") for those times when some patron desperately needs some classic or textbook
that's not available in the library's collection the day that patron needs
it - with any luck, the full text may have been posted to the Internet.
The list would also be great for patrons who are gradually migrating to
listening to more and more audiobooks.
The list is searchable by title, too, which makes it handy for the ever-helpful
library worker trying to link desperate patrons with the materials they need.
Found via the
Librarian in Black via
Sites and Soundbites.
- Nonbook Selector Alert: NPR's Top Ten Movies of 2007
Posted December 27, 2007
Plenty of library patrons listent to their local public radio stations,
and library users in the Atlanta area are no different. AFPL selectors
who like to venture beyond the commercial blockbusters for adding to their
DVD collections might want to consider ordering some or all of the
highly-recommended titles this
list posted by National Public Radio's syndicated movie and culture critics.
Found via
Sights and Soundbites.
- Licking the Hand That Feeds You?
Posted December 18, 2007
Should library funds be used to praise the favorable decisions of
politicians responsible for determining the budgets of local libraries?
Yes! say the officials of New York's Queens Public Library.
No! say the spokespeople of a local government watchdog organization.
Library Journal provides
links to newspaper accounts of this controversy.
- Librarian Leaves $300,000 to Fund Children's Programs at Hometown Library
Posted December 17, 2007
Details about this good news for the youngest library users of Williamsburg,
Massachusetts.
Found via LISNews.
News stories like this always make us wonder how many former AFPL
librarians - or library users - will feel good enough about their local
branch library to leave money in their wills to carry on that library's
work with future generations.
- Selector Alert / Booklover's Alert: New Book Out about Book Blogs
Posted December 14, 2007
The book's entitled
The Bookaholic's Guide to Book Blogs, and booklovers willing to
fork over $14 to Amazon.com can get hold of it now.
When AFPL selectors are finally allowed to get hold of this book -
AFPL's library director hasn't obtained for the library system an exemption
from the Fulton County purchasing regulation that effectively prevents
selectors from routinely ordering library materials between August and
January every year! - selectors might want to scan this guide for potential
new Internet blogs to monitor to help them with their book selecting (and
hope to God that Baker & Taylor, the library system's current book vendor,
stocks the titles selectors find thereby).
Found via the
Librarian in Black via
Laurie the Librarian.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- DiscWorld Author Terry Pratchett Diagnosed with Alzheimer's
Posted December 14, 2007
Iris Murdoch may
have been one of the first beloved well-known authors to fall prey to this
terrible disease, but she's certainly
not the last.
This sad news is yet another reason for library selectors to try to get
hold of all of Pratchett's 30 DiscWorld books and whatever additional DiscWorld
titles this amazingly talented and prolific yarn-spinner (a mere 59 years
old) may yet be able to offer his ever-growing legions of fans.
Found via
Library Garden.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- Booklover's Alert: BookMooch Allows Internet Users to Swap Books
Posted December 14, 2007
If one of your New Year's Resolutions is to find good home for some of the
books that have accumulated in your abode that you know in your heart of
hearts you will never use again - and you're willing to pay the postage to
get those items to their new owners -
BookMooch may be something to consider.
Besides getting your no-longer-needed books to someone who does need them,
every book you send away earns you credits toward receiving (freee!) some
title via BookMooch that you don't own but would like to.
The latest review of BookMooch is at
InfoDoodles.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- Some Recent Reflections of the Internet's Inventor
Posted December 13, 2007
Most of us forget that the now-ubiquitous Internet, like every other
computer-based technology came into our lives, and the lives of millions
of others, via the brain of a single individual. That someone, Vincent Cerf,
happens to be very much alive and still thinking interesting thoughts.
 In early October, Cerf spoke
at Georgia Tech, and Tech-based blogger
Brian Mathews, aka The Ubiquitous Librarian, posted the notes
he scribbled down as he listened to Cerf's musings about how the Internet
was born and where Cerf thinks it's headed. Brian's
excellent blogpost makes us wish we'd been there in the audience with
him.
- Dept. of Library Job Envy
Posted December 12, 2007
Biblioblogger Extraordinaire, aka the
Free Range Librarian, recently described her place of employment thusly:
I work for, and among, very nice people, and I don’t mean “there are a few
decent people among the usual assortment of sharks, jackals, and dodos,” I
mean that by and large My Place of Work
is populated by exceptionally smart, nice people who know their jobs and
do them well.
Ah, to one day be able to say the same of AFPL. One can always dream....
- A New Creed for Library Workers?
Posted December 12, 2007
"I will remember that the person asking me for assistance has chosen the
library over many other resources. I will do everything I can to make them
happy about making that choice."
Perhaps library workers everywhere, including AFPL, need to type this up
and tape it to the top of their service desks?
[Found at the New Jersey-based blog
Library Garden.]
- Do Librarians Have a Hidden Agenda?
Posted December 12, 2007
Biblioblogger Daniel Chudnov's professional mission statement:
"Help people build their own libraries."
If this sounds surprising or even wrong-headed, read Chudnov's entire,
intriguing screed at his blog
One Big Library - and then read the equally-intriguing comments of his blogpost's readers.
Then think again about his unusual idea.
We also found intriguing Chudnov's suggestion that we add to
Ranganathan's Five
Laws of Librarianship...
- Libraries are for use.
- Every reader has his or her library.
- Every library has its reader.
- Save the time of the reader.
- Libraries are growing organisms.
...a six Law:
6. Libraries are social organisms.
Found via
Lorcan Demsey's Weblog.
- Something Fishy Going On at the Memphis Public Library?
Posted December 11, 2007
This
newspaper article merely reports that three senior administrators at
MPL are resigning simultaneously; the comments posted by the article's readers
seem to point to something more sinister.
Submitted by an alert WATCH reader.
- Librarian Donates Almost 2,000 African-American Titles to Local Library
Posted December 11, 2007
What can happen (at least in New Jersey) when two librarians - one with
a large, valuable personal library, and another who works in a special
collections department - start talking to each other.
Details.
Found via LISNews.
- Another Internet-Based Book Rental Service Launched
Posted December 10, 2007
BookSwim and
BooksFree have a new competitor called
Paperspine.
All three companies are online book rental companies operating on the NetFlix model (a
flat monthly rental charge for multiple titles of your choice, shipped to
your door with no shipping fees and and no overdue fines).
Whether or not these companies are substantial threats to ye public library
remains to be seen. More likely, services like this may merely prompt more
libraries to realize the growing importance of convenience to many
Americans, and speed up the reinstitution of a books-by-mail service sponsored by the
library systems (especially rural ones?) whose funding bodies
can afford to subsidize it for all library users, or whose patrons who prefer
this extra service are willing, and allowed, to pay for it directly.
Found via LISNews.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- Selector Alert: Children and YA Bloggers Choose Favorite Books
Posted December 10, 2007
There may be some AFPL children's and/or YA librarians who haven't yet
heard of the "Cybil Awards."
Here's the scoop.
Found at
Shelfspace, the blog sponsored by
ForeWord, via
Pop Goes the Library.
- U.S. House Approves Wi-Fi Censorship Legislation
Posted December 7, 2007
Librarians who fail to report to the feds anyone who's viewing lewd images
of children on his/her library-enabled wireless laptop could face steep
fines.
Great work, O Wise Ones. In your typical rush to Big Brotherdom, you've
created yet another obstacle to laptop-toting library users getting
wireless access to the Internet at AFPL.
Found at
Declan McCullagh's blog at CNET.com, via
LISNews.
- Starbucks, Libraries, and Homeless People
Posted December 7, 2007
From a Washington Post editorial
reprinted in this Wednesday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“Like librarians, Starbucks managers struggle to find legal and moral ways to distinguish between those who
are just hanging out and those who are disturbing others.”
- What’s Going On in Public Library Collection Building…Elsewhere
Posted December 7, 2007
If you'd like a glimpse at the sorts of important collection management and development issues other
library systems are addressing - but that are not being even tangentially addressed at AFPL - take a
look at in the September 15th issue of Library Journal.
At least nobody at AFPL is wandering around mouthing absurd phrases
about AFPL being (or even aspiring to be) a "world-class library system,"
as She Who Shall Not Be Named was in the infuriating habit of doing when
AFPL was even more dismally dysfunctional than it currently is.
Still, it's disheartening how prevalent mediocrity seem so acceptable in
the way things are done in so many spheres at AFPL. Unfortunately, the few
bright spots in the current library administration are too often eclipsed
by the continued tolerance of numerous pockets of administrative indifference
and/or ineptitude. AFPL's employees - and Atlanta's library-users - deserve
better than that, and always have.
- Copper Theft Shuts Down Houston Library
Posted December 5, 2007
The black market for copper metal is an ever-growing national and international
crime problem, and, more and more often these days, thieves are targeting
public library buildings to get at their non-secured copper tubing. Neither
the inconveniences nor the costs to taxpayers resulting from these
thefts are minor ones, as this
latest incident in Texas proves.
We've heard reports that this past year at least one AFPL branch had its
air conditioning unit destroyed by copper-grabbing thieves. Yet another
reason why security-related issues for public library facilities are never
going to go away, despite the fact that a lot of county administrators
wish they would. Security systems and security guards are expensive, but
not paying for them can be even more expensive.
Found via LISNews.
- Board Denies Pennsylvania Parents' Request to Remove Library Book
Posted December 4, 2007
Unfortunately, there's nothing new about the fact that some parents
want a say-so about what books the kids of other parents are allowed to
to borrow from their local public library.
Fortunately, there are apparently plenty of other people, including other
parents, who feel otherwise.
In other words, while this
newspaper story isn't all that enthralling, the comments
posted on the newspaper's blog by the newspapers' readers - over 700 of
them last time we looked! - make very interesting reading.
Found via LISNews.
- Back to the Future: Offering Personal Appointments with Librarians
Posted December 4, 2007
San Francisco Public Library launched this service this past April, and
it's proved to be wildly popular with SFPL patrons, according to this
recent posting at
InfoBlog.
We think a similar service offered by AFPL branches capable of handling it
would be a significant and much-appreciate addition to the array of services
offered to library users in Atlanta - and certainly as worthwhile
an experiment as, say, starting up a Virtual Reference service, enhancing
AFPL's website, or exploring some other computer-mediated service for
(computer-owning) library users.
Offering a "book-a-librarian" service might also productively tap into the
dormant reference service talents of some of AFPL's most experienced (and,
we hope, most personable) librarians, and instantly improve their
Google-battered morale.
- Best Way to Publicize a Library Construction Site?
Posted December 4, 2007
Hey, AFPL administrators: when y'all get around to building those new
liberries, howzabout considering this sort of way-cool advance publicity
for them?
Found at
Deputy Dog via LISNews.
- Dept. of Library Event Ideas: Celebrating Author Birthdays
Posted December 4, 2007
It's too late this year for some AFPL library branch to celebrate Mark
Twain's birthday, but we like the idea of libraries marking beloved
author birthdays by sponsoring readings or performances by author-impersonators,
like the Princeton Public Library did last week with a Twain-impersonator.
Surely there are plenty of storytellers/impersonators/actors out there
who some AFPL program-planner could pay to entertain an audience gathered
together to learn more about, say, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson,
Robert Frost, Viriginia Woolf, Kurt Vonnegut etc.? We bet such an event
might draw far more spectators than your typical library-sponsored book
talk/book signing by a living author.
Library staffers could use such events to feature in a book display the
library system's holdings of that authors' works, and/or the library's
website could be used to creatively remind the public that the sometimes-forgotten
classics written by these authors are available in their public libraries.
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