- Favorite Cubicle Photo du Jour
Posted March 31, 2009
Some people - including some library workers we know (and love) - don't seem to find it helpful to organize their work
with simple to-do lists and a set of file folders (either the actual kind or the digital kind). What works for some,
doesn't work for others, and here's what apparently works for a few:
Found via Library Garden.
- Dept. of Ways to Get More People to Use Your Library's Website: Replace the Websites with a Blog
Posted March 31, 2009
More libraries (especially public libraries) are doing just that, according to one of the presenters at this year's
Computers in Libraries conference. One of the conference attenders, Sarah Houghton, aka the Librarian in Black, has
helpfully summarized that presentation,
given by (among others) Aaron Schmidt, a librarian at the DC Public Library. Aaron mentions several specific blog-replaced
public library websites.
- And the Award for This Year's Oddest Book Title Goes to...
Posted March 31, 2009
...Philip M. Parker's The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais. Runners-up for
this annual prize (presented since 1978) are, among other places, here.
Found at LISNews.
- Today's Entry for The Amen Corner...
Posted March 31, 2009
Excerpt from
a librarian's recent blogpost:
"Negative marketing of the library can come in many forms: discouraged and negative staff, outdated or neglected software
or hardware, neglected MySpace pages or wikis, negative signage, and technology that doesn't work. No wonder people don't
want to come to the library!"
- Historian John Hope Franklin Dies at 94
Posted March 27, 2009
The accomplished and beloved African-American scholar died this past Wednesday in Durham, North Carolina.
Details from the New York Times.
- Should Patrons Have the Option of "Working Off" Their Overdue Fines?
Posted March 27, 2009
Most readers of this New York Times story would find it heart-warming, but we wonder if the notion
of allowing library patrons the option of becoming temporary shelvers wouldn't quickly become awkward, unwieldy, and
burdensome for a whole host of reasons, despite how much mileage a library system's PR person might hope to get out
of pubicizing such an arrangement.
Found via LISNews.
- Book Selector Alert: Of the Making of Cookbooks There Is No End...
Posted March 27, 2009
Purchasing only award-winning cookbooks is one way hapless library book selectors might limit cope with the never-ending,
expensive glut of cookbooks vying for ever-shrinking shelf-space in their libraries. One budget-conscious tactic is limiting
your selection to nominees for the James F. Beard Foundation's annual
cookbook awards. There are a gazillion different award categories - and three nominees for every one of them, so
you're still going to end up coping with that aforementioned glut. Maybe wait until May, then, when the list of potential
purchases will be cut by two-thirds?
Found via Sites and Soundbytes.
- What Can the U.S. Public Library Learn from the Popularity of Starbucks?
Posted March 27, 2009
We usually bristle at notions of the public library re-inventing itself according to other - and especially according to
retail - models. But we find this observation at Lorcan Dempsey's
Weblog intriguing:
Starbucks provides time-place alignment in busy, moving lives: in other words it provides 'on-demand place'. It provides a
place which is convenient at the time that it is required. This may be for downtime (a place to spend time relaxing),
connect-time (a place to spend time connecting to the network), rendezvous time (a place to spend time with others),
work-time (a place to spend time working). A colleague recently described Starbucks to me as his mobile office when he was
on the road. It is not unusual to see job interviews take place there.
What's provocative here is the idea of better aligning the services and environments of public libraries with the actual
patterns and habits of (potential) library users. (Starting with more user-friendly hours of operation, perhaps???)
- Another U.S. Public Library Adds Smelling Bad and Sleeping to Unacceptable Library "Behavior"
Posted March 26, 2009
Details from the website of a Chicago-area radio station.
Found via LISNews.
- Dept. of Free Clip Art for Computer-Users
Posted March 26, 2009
 The website of a Canada-based journal called The Devil's Artisan is
inviting anyone with Internet access to freely download a set of wonderful
dingbats that can be used to festoon various publications (bookmarks, flyers, newsletters, web pages, etc.) that library
workers often produce.
The set includes all sorts of copyright-free "headpiece" and "tailpiece" ornaments, boxed initial letters, and
line drawings of various flora and fauna.
Found via Bibliophile Bullpen.
- Dept. of Unusual Booklists: Recommended Titles about Homebrewing
Posted March 26, 2009
Karen Schneider, aka the Free Range Librarian, recently posted her favorite books and DVDs about how to brew your
own beer, and her readers chimed in with their own suggestions. As a smattering of home-brewing how-to materials is certainly
something a reasonable person would expect to find included in the stacks of his/her local public library, selectors might
want to take a gander at Karen & Friends' enthusiastic
recommendations.
- Library Apologizes for Interfering with Breastfeeding Mother
Posted March 25, 2009
Details at WNYC's website.
The breastfeeding-in-public issue is not mentioned in the library's code o' conduct. (Not that this is easy to determine:
branch managers were told some time ago to take down any publicly posted sets of rules.) Could someone check Georgia law on
this question, and then inform AFPL's staff and security guards before what happened in a Brooklyn public library happens in one of
Atlanta's? We feel bad for both the "victim" and the "perpetrator" of this incident: not only were a mother and her child
annoyed unnecessarily, but the guard who bothered her was transferred to another location. Both these things could have
been prevented with proper training.
Found via LISNews.
- Public Library System in Florida to Consider Outsourcing Its Operations
Posted March 25, 2009
County governments,
including this one near Tampa, are trying to cope with budget shortfalls, and county politicians, as usual, are tempted
by the notion that private companies can run anything, including public libraries, more cheaply than the government can.
Found via LISNews.
- Georgia Politics and State Appropriations for Libraries: Same Old Same Old
Posted March 25, 2009
Last week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted an
article about the State budget decisions that affect libraries, and how legislators mostly ignored the recommendations
of the Georgia State Library staff.
Not that this was anything new, according to the comments of readers responding to the article. (And if you thought that
race-based attitudes and rhetoric are a thing of the past in metro Atlanta, you need to read through these readers' comments.)
Found via LISNews.
- Friends-Operated Bookstore at L.A. Library Generates $400,000+ in Less Than 15 Years
Posted March 25, 2009
Details - including the fact that L.A. has bookstores selling used books in ten of its branches -
were published in the Los Angeles Daily News.
Found via LISNews.
- Yet Another Survey Finds that Females Read More than Males
Posted March 24, 2009
Details from the UK's Daily Telegraph.
Found via LISNews.
- Educause: An Online Resource for Non-Techie Librarians (And Others) Trying to Keep Up with Technology Trends
Posted March 20, 2009
There are several ways library workers who don't consider themselves on the cutting edge of the latest (or once the latest
and now well-established) Internet-based phenomena to find out more about what they keep seeing or hearing some of their
colleagues, friends, patrons - or, most likely, their younger relatives - making references to.
Do you know what YouTube and Flikr and FaceBook are, but still aren't exactly sure what a blog is? Never learned about
Instant Messaging? Wikis? Podcasting? RSS? Twitter? Skype?
Of course, you could probably find out what these things are by asking the nearest twelve year old. Or you might consult
Wikipedia for a quick mini-lesson.
Or you could turn to the
7 Things You Should Know About... series posted at Educause,
and browse through its growing collection of hyperlinked tech topics. Approximately once a month since May 2005, Educause
has been posting a link about a different tech topic, and archives them so you can learn a bit more about each of these
trends or tools any time you have a few moments to learn something new. Library workers could do worse than to decide they're
going to at least find out what each of these trends or tools is, how it works, and "why it's important to teaching and
learning."
If you want to keep your head above the ever-accelerating currents of Internet fads and doo-dads, it doesn't get any quicker,
more convenient, or less painless than this.
Found via LISNews via Stephen's Lighthouse.
- Librarian Forebears: Fun-Loving Rascals
Posted March 13, 2009
Among the tidbits recently posted to retired Wisconsin librarian Larry Nix's
Library History Buff Blog is this
description (based on an entry in the Dictionary of American Library Biography) of The Bibliosmiles, a spoof
organization founded over 100 years ago by one a former director of the Los Angeles Public Library, Charles F. Loomis, at a
"Rally of Librarians Who Are Nevertheless Human."
The Bibliosmiles came into being at the 1906 ALA conference and convened during four later conferences....The Bibliosmiles
had all the paraphernalia of a well-organized society. "The password was 'Cheer up, ALA,' the official dew was California
apricot brandy, the seal was an open book with the legend 'Homo Sum - and then Sum.' At their annual dinner, they joyously
sang 'My Dewey, 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Ex- of Albany,' 'On the Road to Carnegie, Where the Six Best Smellers Be,' and other
songs provided by Lummis. The motto for the Bibliosmiles was 'To Keep the Bookdust Off Our Own Topshelves'. "
Found via The Exile Bibliophile via
Bibliophile Bullpen.
- 'Lost' Shakespeare Portrait Rediscovered
Posted March 11, 2008
Details and a photo from the International Herald Tribune.
Found via an alert WATCH reader.
- Dept. of Cost-Overrun-Plagued New Central Libraries
Posted March 11, 2009
A cautionary tale from Indianapolis for
The Powers That Be who dream of building a new Central Library in Atlanta?
Found via LISNews.
- Dept. of Intriguing Statistics Relevant to Forward-Thinking Libraries
Posted March 11, 2009
Recently posted to Stephen's Lighthouse are statistics about four technology-related trends that should have
consequences for AFPL's Technical Services Manager - if AFPL would ever hire one.
- NPR Reference Librarians' Blog Chugging Right Along
Posted March 4, 2009
Although the WATCH found out about it only this morning, the reference librarians at National Public Radio began blogging
last November about their workday adventures (and musings). They call their blog
...as a matter of fact.
If, like a lot of library workers, you're a frequent listener to NPR, and if, like a lot of library
workers, you've wondered what it's like to be expected to check the zillions of facts that constitute a nationally-syndicated
and widely respected set of daily radio news programs, you'll probably find the NPR reference librarians' blog addictive. In the meantime,
you'll be gradually learning a lot more about the behind-the-scenes librarianly activities that go into the production of
your favorite NPR news (and quiz) programs.
During our initial glance at the blog, we were delighted to discover, among other things, that this outfit's blogroll
closely resembles "LibraryLand's"! Coincidence?
Found via LISNews.
- Dept. of Unusual Bookcases
Posted March 3, 2009
This one is made out of cardboard:
Found via BoingBoing.
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