- Update on Gwinnett County Library Budget Crisis
Posted September 30, 2009
Library Journal recently posted an update to the
plans to close down several libraries in metro-Atlanta's Gwinnett County.
- Budget Cuts at DC Library System
Posted September 29, 2009
The Washington Post has some details.
Found via LISNews.
- Service Desk Alert: Website Explains Origins of Popular Product Names
Posted September 29, 2009
Eventually some library patron somewhere is going to call a library and ask how eBay or Volkwagen got its name. Voila
Ask for It by Name, a website devoted to popular product name origins. Some of this information may be on Wikipedia or
elsewhere, but so much of it being in one place - and so nicely organized and searchable - makes this an Internet Favorites-worthy site for most library reference desks.
Found via LISNews.
- Another Online Resource for Library Program and Library Publication Ideas
Posted September 17, 2009
AFPL program-planning or publication-coordinating staffers will find some nifty ideas posted at
Good Ideas from Vermont Public Libraries, a blog maintained by that state's Department of Libraries that's been
sharing ideas from around Vermont since 1988.
Found via Librarian.net.
- Dept. of Quickie Online Training: Cataloging 101
Posted September 17, 2009
If you always wanted to know what catalogers do,
here's your chance to find out. Got 5 minutes?
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse.
- Search Engine Smackdown: Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo
Posted September 17, 2009
Are you one of the LibraryLand denizens who are re-training themselves to use Bing instead of Google as their default
Internet search engine? Are you someone who hasn't even tried Bing yet - or someone who's never even heard of Bing?
Blogger Stephen Abrams recently posted
a bunch o' links to online articles that compare the results of the major ad-driven search engines. You might want to
read a couple of them and give Bing a whirl.
As we reported earlier, we think Bing's image search is, hands down, superior to
Google's.
- Free Library of Philadelphia Threatened with Closure Due to Budget Crisis
Posted September 14, 2009
Read the letter posted by the library's director on the library's website warning library users of what
will happen next month if the politicians don't change their minds.
Found via LISNews, Library Journal,
and BoingBoing.
- Alabama Library Bans Paid Tutors from Branch Libraries
Posted September 14, 2009
Library Journal posted the details.
Although AFPLS has a (largely unenforced?) policy against entrepreneurs using its meeting rooms, it has no policies
in place specifically forbidding entrepreneurs to use non-meeting room library space to enrich themselves. We think
it would be a great idea, in fairness to everyone (especially Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer) to add to the library system's
Code of Conduct a statement about this misuse of county property.
- Court to Hear Lawsuit on Cost Overruns for Indianapolis' New Central Library
Posted September 11, 2009
Next week the Illinois Supreme Court will review lower court decisions on a suit brought by the library against
subcontractors whose work resulted in $50 million worth of cost overruns in the library's construction.
The Chicago Tribune has a few details.
Building fancy new Central Libraries is can be a real money pit: as this case shows, when things go wrong the associated
legal fees alone can run into millions more than the original cost estimates. Are you listening, O Fulton County commissioners?
Found at LISNews.
- Service Desk Idea: Online Resources for Hard Times
Posted September 8, 2009
Staff at the State Library of Washington have put their heads and the results of their
Internet-surfing eyeballs together to create
a big ol' list of Internet sites offering advice on minimizing the stress of navigting
difficult economic times. Then they helpfully grouped these links into broad subjects
like Money Management, Job-Seeking, Housing, Leisure, and Seniors.
Many of these sites would be useful only to residents of the state of Washington, but the
idea behind the resource guide is a great idea that every public library (are you listening,
AFPLS staffers?) to adapt for its own area, and to post to its website - without waiting for
their State Library to do this.
Found via LISNews.
- Startling Statistical Factoids, Many of Them with Ramifications for Libraries
Posted September 8, 2009
Trend-prober and bibliosphere blogger Stephen Abrams has alerted his readers to the
Top Trends, a blog maintained by author/consultant Richard
Watson that library workers could do worse than to read every now and then.
Then, even more helpfully, Abrams posted to his own blog, Stephen's Lighthouse,
a bunch of especially-relevant-to-libraries factoids from several recent Top Trends postings.
- What Happens When You Hire Consultants to Trim a Library's Budget
Posted September 4, 2009
What the users of this town library in England will be getting is fifteen fewer people, everybody on the staff not laid off
forced to re-apply for their jobs, and a raft of new job titles. The Camden New Journal has the
dreary details.
Found via LISNews.
- Houston Libraries Offering Curbside Book Pickup Option
Posted September 2, 2009
 Inadequate parking space at several Houston public libraries has prompted staff to figure out a way for patrons picking up
Holds to do that without having to get out of their cars. The Houston Chronicle reports the
details.
Most library users would probably welcome this service, as it would doubtless save them considerable time, energy, and
parking-related frustration. And, for staff - even for staff who wouldn't object to yet another example of their work
routines further resembling the routines of working in a curbside service restaurant - such a service might be less
labor-intensive - and possibly cheaper - than mailing library materials to patrons' homes, the Holy Grail of ultra-convenient
public library service.
But this potential service innovation - or, looked at from another perspective, this expensive band-aid on some bad design
decisions - raises a host of issues for any public library pondering such a service - although, Lord knows, there are plenty
of AFPL libraries with woefully inadequate parking.
Some things that immediately occur to us:
- Is it feasible to add any further labor-intensive task, no matter how temptingly user-friendly, to the daily routines
of what are, in most cases, already chronically short-staffed facilities?
- Are short-staffed libraries really capable of operating such a service with consistently high effectiveness? A curbside
pickup service would have to function very efficiently to prevent opening up a whole new frontier of potential customer
complaints.
- Wouldn't a permanently-staffed drive-up window be easier to manage - and more convenient for the library user -
than curbside delivery?
- Isn't the decidedly low-tech curbside pickup service a rather ironic "solution" to the ubiquity of cell phones and
space-hogging automobiles?
- Does a curbside pickup service address reasonable customer expectations of convenient library service, or is it
an unwise collusion with the growing preference for urban, car-owning Americans to minimize the amount of walking they must
do? Is there anything libraries shouldn't do to maximize their number of users?
- How does curbside delivery service work in the rain?
We'll be very interested to learn how this experiment pans out. In the meantime, we beg The Powers That Be not to neglect
parking issues when they design (or redesign) AFPL's new and renovated libraries.
Found via LISNews.
- Low-Cost Advertising for Your Library
Posted September 1, 2009
Ah, simplicity!
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse,
via The Bookshop Blog.
- Welcome, O Ye Recent Library School Students...
Posted September 1, 2009
...who, as noted by Minnesota-based blogger Doug Johnson at
The Blue Skunk Blog:
- Have never had to type a catalog card.
- Have never looked something up in the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature.
- Have never maintained a vertical file.
- Have never attended a F2F graduate school library class.
- Have never puchased (or rented) a 16mm film, VHS tape or LaserDisc. (Let alone a filmloop or filmstrip.)
- Have never NOT had the Internet as a resource.
- Have never checked out 5 1/4 floppy disks of MECC games.
- Have never arranged for interlibrary loan of a physical book.
- Have ever worked in a library without student workstations or a computer lab.
- Have never sent overdue notices to parents by postal mail.
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse.
- Dept. of Library-Related Images We Like
Posted September 1, 2009
This might be a useful image for your library's next Banned Books Week display/bookmark/blogpost...or maybe you could print
it out and display it year-round?
Found via The Blue Skunk Blog.
- Something Presenters at AFPL's Upcoming Staff Development Day Might Keep in Mind
Posted September 1, 2009
The Golden Rule is often the best guide, n'est-ce-pas?
Image created by Doug Johnson at
The Blue Skunk Blog.
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