- News from "The Future of Libraries" Conference
Posted September 28, 2007
Sarah Houghton-Jan, aka The Librarian in Black, has blogged the
various parts of a recent conference she attended (and gave presentations
at) in California.
An excerpt from one day's worth of programs conducted by mostly public
library people:
Michele Mizejewski...talked
about how her library, the Redwood City Public Library,
engages the public using their online services. One goal was to add some interactivity to their web
presence, so they added blogs and a
Flikr account. They used Wordpress to set up
a Staff Picks blog with entries for books and movies, including a cover shot, title link,
description, and tags to identify the entry. The library also added an events blog, with each entry
advertising an upcoming event. The Staff Picks blog also features commenting, so users can add
their own thoughts about the title. RSS feeds are available for both blogs, allowing users to get
updates automatically. She also discussed how the library's Flickr account. The library does not get
release forms from the customers because they felt that they would not be able to get releases and
that the project would not be successful otherwise. They also took a small number of their historical
photos and digitized them and posted them on Flickr. She also discussed Flickr commenting, and
also the groups you can join in Flickr and how that connects you with a larger community. She
closed by saying how easy and cheap it was to create this presence--a total of $0.
You can read Sarah's descriptions of more conference programs by linking
to
Sarah's blog and scrolling down through all the entries dated
September 27th.
Great job, Sarah! Those of us at AFPL can only hope that AFPL will
somehow find the wherewithal (and administrative support) to make
AFPL part of "the future of libraries."
- What Role Should Suppliers Play in Selecting Library Materials?
Posted September 28, 2007
Public libraries are all over the map when it comes to how they've
answered this question, and they're constantly changing course with the
answer they've supposedly settled on.
An article
by Barbara Hoffert in the September 1st issue of Library Journal
examines this issue. In particular, the article addresses the question of
whether a set of selection profiles co-developed with an off-site vendor
can capture the needs of specific groups of library users as well as or
better than the judgments of on-site library selectors supposedly do.
Required reading for selectors, as AFPL's Powers That Be re-examine,
yet again, the pros and cons of different ways of stocking AFPL libraries.
High time, too, since the still-largely-in-place (and still rather muddled)
approach to selection at AFPL resulted from a series of decrees handed
down from on high from a clueless AFPL library board chairman.
- Prague's New Library: The Aliens Have Landed
Posted September 26, 2007
It hasn't been built yet, but you can look at
more photos here of yet another award-winning design for a library.
And you thought the new Seattle library was hideous?
Found via
Librarian.net.
- Back to the Future: It's a Great Time for Libraries
to Creatively Market Telephone Reference Service
Posted September 26, 2007
Library Garden blogger Marie Radford believes the sudden ubiquity of
cell phones is a great opportunity for libraries to promote the
existence of their telephone reference services. She notes that some
potential users will, however, prefer (however impractically) to text-message
their interactions with the library rather than actually talk
to a Real Live Librarian over the phone.
We especially like Marie's suggestion that libraries consider putting
signs on tables inside libraries where patrons are using their laptops.
The signs would display the library's telephone reference number for
patrons who choose not to go looking for the nearest reference desk if
they suddenly have a reference question that they need an answer to.
Of course, better marketing of a library's telephone reference service
shouldn't be attempted until the service is adequately staffed. There's
nothing worse than punishing a would-be telephone reference user by their
getting a busy signal - unless it's the phone just ringing and ringing with
nobody ever answering. (Alas, that happens often enough when people call a
library's main switchboard. The library's telephone reference line must
be even more reliable than the switchboard, or people will abandon
the service in droves, no matter how excellent the service might otherwise
be.
Read Marie's blogpost.
- Memo to Library Webmasters and Public Relations Honchos:
Most People Don't Discover the Library by Accessing Its Website
Posted September 26, 2007
As most librarians have heard by now, the New York Times recently
announced it would no longer charge computer users a fee to search and
read its online archives.
OCLC resident genius Lorcan Dempsey cites the Times' rationale
for its decision as proof that yet another content-provider has realized
that most computer owners get their information not from particular
proprietary websites, but from...well, elsewhere.
Read Lorcan's blogpost.
Dempsey's insight has huge consequences for any library interested in
maximizing public awareness of its services and collections. AFPL's
webmaster, public relations officer, and technology administrator should
take note.
Oh, wait. AFPL doesn't have on its payroll a full-time webmaster, PR person,
or techno-honcho. Never mind....
- Landmarks in the Internet's 25-Year-Old Life
Posted September 25, 2007
USA Today is celebrating its 25th anniversary by publishing a series of
lists, and
this is one of them.
It would be interesting to match up the 25 components of USA Today's
list with the specific consequences each of them has had on how public
libraries operate.
Found via
LISNews.
- D.C. Newspaper Discovers "Computer Squatters" in Public Library
Posted September 24, 2007
What took them so long, we wonder?
Read the (familiar, infuritating) story from the Washington City Paper.
Found via
LISNews.
- Another Day at the Library, Another Public Masturbator Arrested
Posted September 24, 2007
It's somehow reassuring to learn that it's not only guys who live in
Georgia who regularly trot down to their local public library to fondle
themselves.
Details.
Found via
LISNews.
- New Internet Site Available for Venting about Obnoxious Library Behavior
Posted September 24, 2007
Check out The
Society for Librarians Who Say Motherfucker. We've included a link to
it in the WATCH's ever-growing list of reliably-humorous
websites and blogs.
The incidents recounted on this site make us wish the Powers That Be
would stop requiring Customer Service classes of the people who work
library service desks until they've started offering sabbaticals to those
who are expected to put up with this sort of crap throughout their entire
library careers. No wonder library workers with zero administrative talent
or zero administrative ambitions end up trying to land administrative jobs:
library administrators have to deal with merely a fraction of the nonsense
that line-workers cope with every day.
Found via the
Library Underground.
- How Confidentially Should Libraries Treat Materials Being Held for Patrons?
Posted September 24, 2007
We've heard that at least one AFPL branch shelves in a public area the
materials waiting for patron pick-up after labeling those materials with
patrons' names. And we've seen this done in other library systems.
Although more convenient for both patrons and for staff, this practice does
compromise the confidentiality that (some) library patrons expect, and that
library workers, in other respects, strive to protect.
A recent Washington Post
story highlights the different points of view on this issue. As far as
we know, there is no written AFPL policy governing this aspect of library
service, but perhaps there should be.
Found via
LISNews.
- Library Techie Alert: What Every Techno-Honcho Needs to Know About
Posted September 24, 2007
Canada-based librarian and biblioblogger Ryan Deschamps (aka The Other Librarian)
makes a stab at briefly explaining the
Top Ten Concepts Library Programmers Should Be Familiar With.
We don't pretend to understand all the concepts Deschamps alludes to, but
this is easily the most comprehensible-to-the-nontechie summary we've seen
thus far about the actual computer programming skills needed by someone
who's been hired to maximize the user-friendliness of any library system's
web-based technologies.
Found via the
latest installment of the
Carnival of the InfoSciences.
- Maine Patron Refuses to Return Sex Ed Books,
Sends Letters (with Checks) Explaining Why
Posted September 21, 2007
Details.
Found via LISNews.
- Two Twelve-Year-Old Kids Start a Fire in a Canada Library
Posted September 21, 2007
No wonder some libraries opt for locating their book return devices outside
their buildings instead of installing the more conveniently-emptied kind
that allows mischievious kids (or deranged or vindictive adults) to drop
flaming paper cups into the facility.
Details.
Found via
LISNews.
- Urban Librarian Remembers Strange Patrons He Has Served - Or Was Abused By
Posted September 21, 2007
A former librarian who worked at the Los Angeles Public Library describes
his encounters with some of LAPL's "regulars" (or are they "irregulars"?)
in a new book published
by an outfit called the Booklyn Artists Alliance.
From the book's intro:
"…there are thousands of people in the streets, limping through the doors
of the Central Library, beating on the pay phones, not begging for help
but demanding to pull the rest of us down into their dark hole. The
library is their refuge, four stories up, four stories down into a dark
hole. This is the Downtown Los Angeles I knew."
Found at
Book by Its Cover via Fade Theory.
- Controversy at Charlotte-Mecklenberg County Library Spawns WATCH-like Blog
Posted September 20, 2007
AFPL administrators have long compared Charlotte's public library system
to Atlanta's, and their comments about it have usually been admiring ones.
Last year, either the PLCMC administrators or its trustees (or both)
embarked on an elaborate, far-reaching project - complete with the usual
justified-by-a-consultant's expensive, jargon-laden study - to reorganize
the library system's operations, job descriptions, and OMP (official
management philosophy).
Whatever the merits of the plan, which the consultants dubbed "Project 2010,"
neither the way it was developed nor the way it's being implemented have
garnered universal staff support.
Some of the staff's objections, misgivings, and suspicions are profound
enough - and the fears of retribution for refusing to "drink the Koolaid"
strong enough - that an anonymously-sponsored blog surfaced approximately
a week ago for (anonymously) posting staff comments.
Project 2010 PLCMC is
interesting, mostly intelligent and thoughtful - and heartbreaking - reading.
- Why a Good Website Isn't the Alpha and Omega of a Tech-Savvy Library
Posted September 17, 2007
Biblioblogger and Texas-based librarian Karen Coombs explains why, even
from a technology point of view, designing an appealing website is only a
baby step on the long road to making the local library integral to the
information-seeking behavior of its potential users.
Read Karen's blogpost.
In a similar vein, OCLC biblioblogger/visionary Lorcan Dempsey reflects on the
consequences of the undeniable fact that "no single website [including any
library's website] is the sole focus of a [computer] user's attention."
Read Lorcan's blogpost.
Karen's and Lorcan's thoughts got us thinking again about the importance of every
library having on board a full-time Technology Honcho - which,
mysteriously, AFPL still doesn't have.
These blogposts also reminded us of the importance of the Tech Honcho's
possessing a broad rather than a narrow vision of his/her job: as part of a
(handsomely paid) team of people working together to maximize the usefulness and awareness of the
institution's resources.
Of course, the same broad, behavior-dictating quality should be expected of
every member of a library director's administrative team. Unfortunately
for AFPL's patrons and non-administrative staff, behavior-linked "big-picture"
vision is a characteristic glaringly lacking among certain members of
AFPL's - handsomely paid - administrative team.
- The Desirable Shape of Library Catalog Records to Come?
Posted September 15, 2007
Biblioblogger Lorcan Dempsey pointed out recently
by way of an example displayed in a screen shot that WorldCat allows
searchers not only to read a catalog record, but to do any of the following
things with it:
- request the item from a local library
- buy the item from Amazon.com
- save the record to a list
- write and post a review of the item
- bookmark the record
- cite the item in a bibliography
- print the record
We see no reason why AFPL's catalog records - or any public library's
catalog records - can't be made more useful to the library users
brave enough to consult the catalog in the first place. Why not add all
these tabs to every AFPL catalog record, and throw in an "email this record"
and a "display additional records for items similar to this one" tabs as
well?
- Service Desk Alert: An Example of Google vs. Ask.com
Posted September 14, 2007
California-based librarian and biblioblogger Sarah Houghton-Ja, aka
The Librarian in Black,
explains, with an example, why she prefers using Ask.com's Internet
search engine over Google's.
- Dept. of Super-Duper Public Library Websites
Posted September 14, 2007
One of these days, some organization is going to sponsor an
annual award for Best Public Library Website in the Galaxy. (It might
be equally useful for someone to regularly publish a list of The Galaxy's
Most Unappealing Public Library Websites, so other public libraries can
steer theirs away from emulating mediocre examples.)
Until then, alerts about extraordinary public library websites will
continue to surface from time to time in various library lit articles and
biblioblogosphere blogposts.
The latest cheerleading we've seen for a public library website is the
one maintained by the Lakewood (Ohio) Public Library, and the person who's
highlighting that website is library commentator-at-large Marylaine Block,
who's posted her comments on Lakewood's site at her excellent e-newsletter
Ex Libris. Definitely worth a look-see (both the
Lakewood site itself and
Marylaine's analysis).
AFPLWATCH would like to continue doing its part in bringing LibraryLand's attention
to better-than-average (or at least intriguing-feature-containing) public
library websites, so if you have your own fave or happen to stumble across
one later on, feel free to
email the WATCH's webmaster so the WATCH can share your admiration with
your WATCH-reading colleagues.
- Memo to Local Politicians: Internet Access is not "Free"
Posted September 13, 2007
"The average number of public Internet terminals largely unchanged since 2002, yet only 1 in 5
libraries say they have enough computers to meet demand at all times."
Find out why by reading
this Associated Press news story.
Found via
LISNews.
- Detroit Newspaper: Homeless People Have Colonized the Public Library
Posted September 13, 2007
"Hypodermic needles found in restrooms. Drug buys exchanged through ceiling
tiles. Hangovers slept off in broad daylight. Sound like an average night
at a drug house or sleazy nightclub? Try your local library."
More...
Yeah, well, this ain't exactly news, but maybe it's A Good Thing whenever
a reporter, anywhere, reminds a newspaper's readers about a problem that library
workers have been complaining about for approximately thirty years now.
In our opinion, the fault lies not with the homeless and/or mentally
unbalanced people themselves, but with municipal officials - including the
ones who govern Fulton County. By ignoring the special needs of homeless
citizens - and by refusing to acknowledge the disruptive behavior problems inevitably
resulting from chronic alcoholism and/or mental illness) - elected officials
force public library employees to operate libraries as
de facto homeless shelters - without funding any additional
training, resources, or compensation for doing so.
Which hardly seems fair to, among others, non-homeless citizens
who would like to patronize the public libraries their taxes are paying
for without having to risk any unpleasant or annoying consequences for
doing that.
[The Detroit News article found via
LISNews.]
- Alas, They Just Don't Make Them Like This Any More...
Posted September 12, 2007
There are several mostly-depressing
things one could conclude from the fact that most library buildings being
built these days won't inspire the library-lovers of the future like some
of the still-existing older libraries on the planet inspire their lucky
contemporary visitors.
But leaving aside any social commentary for the moment, just treat yourself
to the visual feast of Gorgeous Old-Fashioned Libraries recently posted to
Curious Expeditions. This photo-tour, including the photos provided by
some of the more than 80 grateful visitors to this blogpost, might provoke
you to starting a list of which of these temple-like libraries you'd like
to visit on your own future travels - including your travels to some of the
relatively few cities in the USA that feature one (or, in the case of
Boston and New York City, more than one) of these amazing spaces.
Found via
LISNews.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- Urban Librarians Who've Seen It All...
Posted October 1, 2007
- Death Penalty Reinstated for Murderer of California Librarian
Posted September 12, 2007
Links to stories in two different newspapers about the horrific details of
this 1978 [!] murder in Los Angeles are available at
LISNews.
- The Cost of Conducting Bidness-as-Usual in Public Libraries?
Posted September 11, 2007
Thus sayeth librarian blogger Michael McGrorty:
"...When the generation of people who have always gotten their reading
material and their news and their information from the Internet are old
enough to have children, they aren’t going to take those kids to the
library as toddlers, as I was taken. They’re going to plunk the kid down
in front of a computer and let her choose. If the library has no presence
on that screen, if it can’t or won’t go with the technology and the flow
of progress, then we will see quite a few more library bond issues go down
to defeat, and the fate of the big box with books inside will have been
sealed. Right now I can chat with people halfway around the world about
anything I want-any product, any service, any book, for that matter. The
library needs to figure out if they want to be part of that conversation,
or die a slow death in the shadow of city hall.
...The problem is less hardware than librarians who belong to the
come-get-it school. Note to them, and for the record: you may have built
it, but they aren’t gonna come. We can write all the articles we want
about wooing patrons, but the truth is, we’ve got to go where they
already are. And that, I feel obliged to mention, is not in the physical
library, nor will it be again soon.
In a world where retailing has moved to the Internet, where most people
read their news and shop online, where people correspond via the
computer, you still have to go downtown to find a librarian. Even if
she will respond to your email request, if you want to experience the
relationship, you’ll have to go visit in person. She won’t, for the
most part, come to you.
It is the fate of new ideas to have to carry the old ones out before
them, like workers pushing wheelbarrows out of a dim and cluttered
basement. Right now I see a small but growing cadre of progressives
shoveling away at a mountain of indifference, stale tradition and
inertia. I hope they can make a dent in the pile before it doesn’t
matter anymore."
Read McGrorty's
entire rant - which, incidentally, was triggered by
the attitudes and reactions displayed by some people at a public
library where McGrorty recently interviewed for a job. We especially
like his vision of a thriving public library circa 2025.
- Required Reading for Library Builders and Renovators?
Posted September 11, 2007
As AFPL administrators begin embark on their series of public forums about
the library system's ambitious Facility Master Plan, they might want to
assign themselves a little background reading before signing any contracts
with architects. In May 2007, Library Journal published the upshot
of a day-long library design confab last December dicussing Ye Library of
The Future.
The now-online version of
Library By Design might contain a few nuggets of information or advice that could avoid at least a headache
or two, once the construction and renovations actually get underway
a few years from now (assuming the voters approve next fall's bond referendum
that's supposed to pay for it all).
- Inevitably Ubiquitous Wi-Fi Mostly a Fantasy?
Posted September 10, 2007
Fulton County government's plan to install wireless internet connections in
Fulton County libraries may or may not be
proceeding as planned, and we haven't heard much lately about Atlanta
mayor Shirley Franklin's earlier-announced plan to plant numerous wi-fi
nodes around the city.
Meanwhile, news reports
about various broad-based, municipally-funded wi-fi access attempts in
other U.S. cities aren't very encouraging.
Found at OPLIN 4Cast.
- Booklover's Alert: Another Look at BookSwim
Posted September 10, 2007
BookSwim, the commercially-operated,
NetFlix-like membership club for book-borrowers that - for a monthly fee -
gives computer-owning library patrons a time- and energy-saving alternative to using public
libraries - has been getting increasingly more comments in the blogosphere, and
OPLIN 4Cast has posted links to some of them [see item number two in
the post, "Time is the New Currency," for these links].
We think public libraries themselves shold be seriously investigating
implementing some version of this convenience-focused, mail-based,
overdue-fine-eliminating method of book borrowing.
Shouldn't some AFPL library administrator at least commission a cost/benefit
study to compare the cost of mailing a book to some AFPL patron wants to
read it and the cost of paying for return postage vs. the costs associated
with transferring a book from one branch to another for patron pickup?
And when we say "associated costs," we mean things like the cost of staff
time invested in handling and labeling the needed item, the gasoline spent
in transporting that item from one branch to another, how much of a courier's
salary is involved in transporting a single item to its pickup destination -
and returning it to the owning library once the patron brings the item back.
It's certainly conceivable that it would be cheaper to mail the item to
the patron and have the patron mail it back when they're finished - and for
the library to absorb the mailing costs. It's even more plausible that
some patrons would be willing to pay for mail-based borrowing from their
public libraries, although we think it should be a free option for every
library cardholder - and certainly free for disabled patrons.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- Author Madeleine L'Engle Dies
Posted September 8, 2007
Details from the New York Times.
Found via
LISNews.
- Parts of USA PATRIOT Act Ruled Unconstitutional
Posted September 7, 2007
Library people (including library users) are affected by this encouraging
ruling because federal investigators had used the Act to (among other things)
require library officials to hand over library borrowing records and
prevented library officials for complaining about it, or even mentioning
it.
Details from the New York Times.
Found via LISNews.
- Pigeon Infestations Temporarily Close Scottish Library
Posted September 6, 2007
More than two dozen birds got inside the building through the roof and made
quite a mess of things. Twice.
Details.
Found via
LISNews.
- Arkansas Library Considers Proposed Installation of a Cell Phone Tower
Posted September 6, 2007
The tower could be disguised atop (inside?) a flagpole or a parking lot
light fixture, according to the phone company's proposal the library's
board is considering. If accepted, the contract could net the library $900
or more per month in revenue.
Details.
Found via LISNews.
- Booklover Alert: Read a Book, Plant a Tree
Posted September 6, 2007
A mostly-not-thought-about cost of book production is the cutting down of
trees to make the paper used in books. Because so many books are produced,
book-production is no negligible use of a natural resource.
Eco-Libris provides a convenient
way for environmentally-conscious readers to make book-producing and
book-consuming more of a an environmentally responsible activity.
Paying, on top of whatever one's paid for a book one has bought (assuming
one hasn't borrowed said book from a library) a "surcharge" to replace the
tree(s) killed for that book seems a better alternative than, say, cutting
back on one's reading habits out of guilt for thereby depleting the planet's
forests.
And, speaking of libraries, maybe library Friends' groups could consider
making regular donations to this tree-replenishing fund on behalf of
library users?
If nothing else, you might want to click on the link above to discover how
many trees Eco-Libris claims are felled just to provide the books
marketed each year in the United States alone. And that figure doesn't
include the newspapers and magazines us book-lovers also habitually consume
without a thought to the environmental costs of our reading pleasures/habits.
Found via
LISNews.
Click here to read all "Booklover
Alerts" posted to AFPLWATCH
- Who Are the Bibliobloggers?
Posted September 5, 2007
Or, rather, what demographic facts characterize the 835 library-concerned
bloggers who responded to a set of survey questions recently posted by
biblioblogger Meredith Farkas? The
results are intriguing.
Found via LISNews.
Meanwhile, Online Education Database has posted the results of its search
for the biblioblogosphere's
Top 25 Librarian Bloggers.
It was gratifying to see that some of these often-read and/or cited
biblioblogs are among AFPLWATCH's list of
frequently-used sources for "LibraryLand Bulletin Board" or the WATCH's
list of reliably-amusing library humor sites.
Found via
The Librarian in Black.
- The Inevitable Next Step for Library-Sponsored Book Sales?
Posted September 5, 2007
One day some computer-savvy volunteer with some extra time on his/her hands
is going to suggest to the AFPL Powers That Be that a link be added to
the library's website through which library patrons can purchase library
discards online - with the proceeds, of course, being plowed back into improving
the library (presumably the library's collection in particular).
The public library in Fayetteville, Arkansas is
already doing this.
Found via
The Iconoclast via LISNews.
Continue reading previously-posted LibraryLand Bulletins
|
.com