- Time for More Public Libraries to Offer Facebook Sign-up Classes?
Posted June 22, 2009
Although public libraries - including AFPL - are already extremely busy trying to cope with library users' demands for free
training on how to set up email accounts, create resumes, etc., it may be time - which, in the AFPL area of LibraryLand,
often means way past time - to also begin offering - and heavily advertising - free training on how to sign up for
Facebook.
A recent New York Times article, pitched at potential volunteers rather than library staff,
makes a pretty cogent argument for this notion:
"We’re living in a time when more and more people need a helping hand...so they can start enjoying the richness of being
connected with others."
The article also offers this sometimes-difficult-to-remember advice to anyone conducting such training:
"Be kind and patient. Understand that it is natural for people to get ornery when they feel left out....[And the often-encountered]
rigid learning style[s]...[among our trainees, especially the older ones] must be countered with plenty of respect, personal coaching and small steps that involve success."
Despite Facebook's Google-like growth and popularity, Facebook sign-up training isn't among AFPL's still-horribly-named
Instructional Learning Center's
smorgasbord of classes.
We found the Times article via Jessamyn West's
librarian.net.
- Ohio Governor Plans to Cut $227,000,000 from Library Budget
Posted June 21, 2009
The state government, rather than local jurisdictions, is the primary funding source for most public libraries in Ohio,
which is why the proposed cut is so large and so potentially devastating. Library Journal has some
details.
Found via LISNews.
Update [via Jessamyn West's librarian.net]:
The Shuttered Library blog has been set up to track the struggle for library funding in Ohio.
- Detroit Using Revenues Earmarked for Local Library System for Other Government Expenses
Posted June 21, 2009
We're talking a year-long raid to the tune of $6.2 million in property taxes collected specifically to fund library operations.
The Detroit Free News has some
details.
The newspaper mentions a probable investigation, but we predict a very expensive lawsuit as well.
Found via LISNews.
- Obama Nominates Judge Who Presided Over "Library Lawsuit" to Appeals Bench
Posted June 21, 2009
This isn't technically news from LibraryLand, but AFPL employees involved in the harrowing federal lawsuit
ten years ago - an episode whose consequences profoundly affect the way AFPL operates today - will probably be gratified to
read this story reported in yesterday's edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- One Way Libraries Could Address the Burgeoning Rudeness-by-Cellphone Plague?
Posted June 21, 2009
Perhaps this simple - and, notably, silent - technique being used at an undergraduate library in Helsinki, Finland
be well worth a try in Atlanta's public libraries?
Surely, planting one of these inside every door of every facility would be far superior to the tiresome and time-consuming
announcing or barking out of indignant admonitions?
And perhaps bring an end to some rather unflattering fantasies among
more and more library workers of stashing a TASER underneath every service desk?
O ye beneficent Friends of the Library, could we some quick (i.e., non-Business Office-entangled) cash to pay for about 50
of these, please? Pretty please?
Found via Tame the Web.
- Police Arrest 10 Drug Dealers at Salt Lake City Public Library
Posted June 19, 2009
The Salt Lake Tribune has a few details.
Found via LISNews.
- San Francisco Public Library Using Corn-Based Library Cards
Posted June 19, 2009
With major urban public libraries like SFPL - and AFPL - dispensing hundreds of thousands of plastic cards to their borrowers,
perhaps this is an environmentally-friendly idea whose time has come?
Found via The Millions.
- Service Desk Alert: Resources for Librarians Trying to Help the Unemployed
Posted June 18, 2009
Texas-based librarian Rick Roche recently blogged
what he learned when 50 librarians convened to learn how to better serve library users looking for jobs.
- What Libraries Are Worth to Us
Posted June 18, 2009
What one library user - a member of the Cinncinnati Enquirer's editorial board - thinks about "the single busiest
library in the nation."
Read her editorial.
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse.
- Twitter Snapshots of One Librarian's Day
Posted June 13, 2009
OK, we now see what Twitter can do better than just about anything else we can think of: it efficiently captures the insane
variety (and just plain insanity) of a library worker's daily routine at a public library service desk.
Scott Douglas' collection of Twitterposts (or whatever they're called) at McSweeney's could serve several useful
purposes:
- It's the most honest answer we've seen to those somewhat annoying requests from applicants in job interviews to
"briefly describe for me a typical day at your library."
- It's a quick tutorial for customer-insulated library administrators, trustees, and politicans in the reality that
front-line staff deal with day in and day out.
- It's an explanation of why library workers might be expected to occasionally crack under the strain of their
aforementioned daily reality, and should perhaps be forgiven for blurting out a sarcastic remark every now and then.
- It's a consoling reminder that, despite the challenges library workers face with their often-clueless patrons, there are
plenty of colleagues (if not plenty of library administrators, trustees, and politicians) who Feel Our Pain.
Note: Scott's Twitter transcription is slightly more
understandable if you start at the bottom of it and (chronologically) read your way up the page.
Found via LISNews.
- Six Colorado Public Libraries to Abandon Dewey Decimal System
Posted June 12, 2009
A few details here;
more details here.
Found via LISNews and Gonzo Librarian.
- Dept. of Open Secrets
Posted June 11, 2009
Excerpt from an interesting - and accurate - observation blogged by the
Jurassic Librarian:
Staff in the branches may feel like stepchildren, since management and budget control usually stay downtown at the main
library. At best, managers will foster good communication with staff in branches; at worst, they will ignore branches,
paying attention only when, for example, they need to relocate a problem employee to the system’s equivalent of Siberia.
There is, however, a small, happy secret in branch work: You will have a piece of the library system’s budget, but you
won’t have a piece of the library director's close attention. It is easier in a branch to ride out management fads, whose
toxicity is reduced by distance, and to gently subvert the schemes that serve only to obstruct the service you are
attempting to provide your patrons.
“Out of sight, out of mind” has real advantages in public library land, especially so if you and your branch colleagues
find yourselves referring to the big building downtown as the Heart of Darkness, the Death Star, the Vatican, the Kremlin,
the Forbidden City or any other such term redolent of fondness and appreciation.
[We found the Jurassic Librarian while exploring the blogroll of Michael Golrick's Thoughts from a Library Administrator.]
- Should Public Libraries Start Charging Fees for Certain Services?
Posted June 10, 2009
Interesting discussion of this issue over at Library Garden. (Be sure to read
the comments as well as the blogpost itself.)
- Dept. of Creative Uses of Library Computers
Posted June 10, 2009
Eric Sheptock, who has been homeless for the past 15 years, uses the District of Columbia public library's free computers to
post updates to his blog, his FaceBook page, and
his Twitter account. National Public Radio aired a story about Sheptock
yesterday.
Library workers curious about what the world looks and feels like to a homeless person will find Sheptock's reports
very informative.
Found via LISNews.
- Library PR Alert: You're Going to Like Bing's Image-Finder
Posted June 9, 2009
Hear ye, hear ye, all library persons needing to quickly import a photo or illustration into their next bookmark, poster,
newsletter, flyer, sign, or book exhibit label: give MicroSoft's new search engine,
Bing, a whirl.
No, we're not on MicroSoft's payroll or the recipient of any of MS's $100 million advertising campaign for Bing, but we
definitely prefer the results of Bing's image search feature over Google's.
Not only do the sets of results from our trial Bing image searches seem more relevant than Google's, but Bing allows you to
limit your searches (to obtain only illustrations, say, instead of illustrations and photos) in ways that Google doesn't.
- Dept. of Quirky Library Public Service Announcements for Public Libraries
Posted June 9, 2009
Take a look at these two 30-second spots:
#1 and #2.
Oh, Canada!
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse.
- Seattle PL System to Shut Down for a Full Week Due to Budget Cuts
Posted June 6, 2009
The shut-down will save the city $655,000. Another $350,000 in cuts to the library system will be realized in other ways.
Consequences of the shut-down for library patrons are spelled out in SPL's
press release.
Nobody likes budget cuts, but we think it's great that a public library system is being up-front about the rationale
it used for how it will absorb the cuts, and that it isn't trying to insulate the library system's users from the
consequences of those cuts.
AFPL has been hit with a $1 million cut in this year's 2009 budget due to revenue shortfalls at the county's treasury,
and the library is dealing with that cut by slashing its materials purchasing by $500,000 and delaying hiring for vacant
positions until an additional $500,0000 is saved. This solution to the mandatory cut allows the system to remain
open and its employees to continue drawing their paychecks and benefits. True, the cuts are forcing AFPL to be understaffed
and understocked, but (coincidence?) the county's politicians will probably hear few complaints from the library's users
as long as the county's libraries remain open.
Both Atlanta's and Seattle's approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, but for some reason we admire Seattle's
direct you-can't-get-blood-out-of-a-turnip solution. Closing libraries or curtailing their hours of operation is by far the
clearest way to signal fiscal distress to citizens whose taxes pay for libraries, and citizens should probably have a larger
say in what (and when) government services should be cut during budget crises. Perhaps a week without public libraries will
have an interesting educational effect on the citizenry (and its politicians)?
Found via LISNews.
- Seattle Newspaper Editorializes on Public Library's New Behavior Rules
Posted June 2, 2009
The title of the Seattle Times' editorial:
Mind Your Manners at the Library.
Finally! A newspaper editorial that sympathizes with a local public library's efforts to wrest back control of the library's
space from individuals who, for whatever reason, can't seem to remember that everyone's right to use the library doesn't
mean the right to treat the library like it's a bus station, a hotel lobby, a bed and breakfast, a phone booth, or a private
living room.
Found via LISNews.
- One Consultant's Vision of Upcoming Changes in the "Book" Publishing Industry
Posted June 2, 2009
Recently the mainstream book publishing industry in the United States conducted its annual tradeshow.
One of the presentations at this year's show was an exercise in crystal-ballgazing that included some really interesting
reminders of how radically various media arenas had changed over the past twenty years - with the implication that the next
twenty years will bring equally radical changes in the status quo.
Since what goes on in publishing has rather major ramifications for libraries, you might want to take a gander at
Stay Ahead of the Shift: What Product-Centric Publishers Can Do to Flourish in a Community-Centric Web World.
Found via LISNews.
- They Don't Build Them Like This Any More...
Posted June 1, 2009
Several times over the past few years, we've posted to LibraryLand links to photos of gorgeous libraries around the world,
but this collection of eye-popping Old World library interiors at
Curious Expeditions has got to be the most comprehensive of them all.
We sure hope the people planning the interiors of AFPL's new libraries will take a look at these photos, and design at
least one new building that flouts the conventions to the drab, hyper-functional, yawn-inspiring, contemplation-annihilating
"modern" U.S. library - complete with a flat roof that starts leaking before it's ten years old).
Meanwhile, you might want to make some notes about which of these non-drab, not-totally-efficient, awe-inspiring, and
contemplation-enabling libraries you might add want to include in the itineraries of any out-of-Atlanta trips you might be
fantasizing about.
Found via an alert WATCH reader.
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