Published by rwatstein November 23rd, 2008
in web 2.0, libraries and library services.
This issue’s theme is Web 2.0. Articles include: Science Experiments: Reaching Out to Our Users, Web 2.0 as Catalyst: Virtually Reaching Out to Users and Connecting Them to Library Resources and Services, An Undergraduate Science Information Literacy Tutorial in a Web 2.0 World, Making Research Guides More Useful and More Well Used.
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This year’s annual Reference supplement introduces a new resource that is every reference librarian’s dream: E-Reference Ratings, a master list of nearly 180 subscription-based electronic resources in 14 categories evaluated by scope, writing, design, bells & whistles, ease of use, and linking. To be updated quarterly; you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
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Published by rwatstein November 23rd, 2008
in library services, politics and career.
As a reminder that local libraries offer extensive job-search resources, here’s how Barack Obama found his community-organizing job in Chicago after he graduated from Columbia University. In 2005, he told American Libraries magazine: “I probably would not be in Chicago were it not for the Manhattan public library, because I was looking for an organizing job and was having great trouble finding a job as a community organizer in New York.”
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Published by rwatstein November 23rd, 2008
in libraries, library services and patrons.
Pulitzer prize-winning author Junot Díaz recounts how the library helped him discover a world he wouldn’t have known otherwise and how for him, as an immigrant child, the library was a place—and a concept—he never could have imagined. Some Hispanics, like Díaz, who was newly arrived from the Dominican Republic, will dig right in and take advantage of everything the library has to offer. But many others remain strangers to the library, perhaps because they are never made aware of helpful library services because of a lack of library outreach efforts or bilingual staff, or a darker reality for some Hispanics, because they fear being identified as illegal immigrants.
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Published by rwatstein November 23rd, 2008
in libraries, library services and digital.
In a demand-driven solution to what to scan first, a patron request to digitize any public domain book on the shelves of Boston Public Library can be submitted via Open Library’s site.
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As the comic art bibliographer at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Randy Scott is responsible for growing and maintaining the largest library comic book collection in the world. With about 240,000 comics and books about comics, the collection is larger than that of the Library of Congress. If Scott could have his way, he would have a $5,000 monthly budget. However, like most publicly funded entities these days, he doesn’t quite have his dream budget. Scott has just more than $1,000 a month to work with.
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Published by rwatstein November 15th, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
Peter Thuvander and Martin Hedenström of the design group Muungano have won the Swedish Library Bus of the Year award for creating a bookmobile for the town of Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost city. The award is sponsored by the Swedish Library Association. Because of the lack of sunlight during most of the year in the area it serves, the bus is well-lit when dark to attract users. It offers books, multimedia, computer games, and internet access.
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Published by rwatstein November 15th, 2008
in libraries, library services and economics.
public library budgets in the wake of revenue shortfalls and dire economic news. In a grim November 6 speech in which he called for sweeping job cuts and service reductions in many city departments, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter announced the permanent closing of 11 out of 54 library branches and the elimination of Sunday hours at the three regional branches. “Make no mistake,” Nutter said. “This will be a mid-year revision of epic proportions.”
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David Lee King writes: “I’m noticing that when a library decides to start a Flickr account, a Twitter feed, or create a Facebook page, they naturally want to start ‘making friends.’ So what do they do? They friend me. Or you. Or they friend other libraries. This is bad. Why? Who are you trying to connect with? Me? I don’t live in your neighborhood. Another library on the other side of the world? They’re not going to use your services.”
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Modern games aren’t trivial, and librarians who dismiss them as such do their patrons a disservice, presenters told some 215 attendees of the second annual ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium. Held November 2–4 in Oak Brook, Illinois, the event was replete with examples of how the complexity of modern games prepare young people for their futures. The oft-mocked Pokémon series, for example, has more than 500 characters, each falling into one of 17 types that may be particularly strong or weak against other types.”
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Published by rwatstein November 9th, 2008
in libraries, education and library services.
As a way to reach out and serve area schools, many public libraries offer a service commonly termed Assignment Alert. The idea is to give teachers and school librarians an easy online way to get help from the public library in identifying resources such as booklists, Websites, movies and books to support curriculum - but how much are assignment alert services used?
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Published by rwatstein November 2nd, 2008
in libraries, library services and economics.
With the economy already anemic and the stock market crumbling, libraries will take their share of hits, but “despite the hard times, we must continue to tell the library story to our constituents and our funders so that libraries remain a priority.”
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Published by rwatstein November 2nd, 2008
in libraries, video, library services and gaming.
During the summer and autumn this year, Oak Park (Ill.) Public Library has held monthly teen gaming tournaments. This is a video (3:15) of sights and sounds from the September tourney, as well as an interview with Young Adult Librarian Monica Harris, who explains why and how the library got into gaming and the benefits it offers the library and the community.
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The Scotch Plains (N.J.) Public Library and the Fanwood (N.J.) Memorial Library have produced a customer-service training video for library staff to help them serve individuals with autism and their families more effectively. The video focuses on what you need to know about autism and suggests specific techniques to offer more inclusive service to this growing and underserved population. Their Libraries and Autism site also has links to other useful resources.
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Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter have expanded the grapevine, so use it to your advantage. Here are some guidelines for your libraries’ marketing 2.0 program.
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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
Surprisingly, it’s often the upper-middle classes that libraries are failing to serve, which cascades down to poorer service for the underprivileged. To compete in the information race, librarians must adopt market- or demand-based service models and more business-oriented decision-making
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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008
in libraries, library services and economics.
A Midwood movie buff, Miguel Salazar spent $50 last month on movie rentals - cash he really didn’t want to lay out these days with the city’s economy in turmoil. Salazar, a construction worker with fewer jobs, has decided to bypass Blockbuster or Netflix and head straight for the public library for his flick fix. “I come to save some money,” said Salazar, as he took out a copy of the drama “Broken Wings” from the Midwood branch last week.
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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
Legislators were told October 8 that bookmobile service throughout the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus (N.Y.) Library System will be reduced in the first six months of 2009 and will cease in June due to escalating costs. Members of the system’s Board of Trustees said the decision was necessary due to an anticipated decrease in state funding, rising fuel costs, and the fact that the aging bookmobile will cost an estimated $250,000 to replace.
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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008
in libraries, innovation and library services.
You know those people you can read just like a book? Well, on Saturday, Santa Monicans will be able to borrow one of them when this city turns its main library into a “Living Library.” Fourteen “living books” will be on hand in this trendy, liberal city, representing an encyclopedia of knowledge on such subjects as nudism, Buddhism and foodism. That’s because one of them is a real, live nudist, two are Buddhists and another is a vegan.
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Every year, libraries answer more than 374 million reference questions, according to the American Library Association. Mosio, the award-winning mobile Q&A community, today announced the launch of Text a Librarian (www.textalibrarian.com), a new service that helps libraries set up mobile Q&A systems so they may answer students and patrons’ questions instantly via text message to any mobile phone. Now, with Text a Librarian, any library or school can create their own secure, live mobile Q&A SMS reference service in just minutes, with packages starting at just $99/month + set up fees per library/branch. Text a Librarian works across all major carriers, mobile phones and devices, and works seamlessly with existing email and IM systems. Students and users simply text (or email) their question and it shows up live on the library or school’s own private and secure Web dashboard for them to answer back instantly.
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Published by rwatstein October 12th, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
This project started with two U.S. librarians, Dana Lubow and Rhonda Neugebauer, who had organized librarian delegations to Cuba and who wanted to support Cuban librarians. They learned from Cuban librarians that a bookmobile would be very appreciated in the rural province of Granma to provide outreach services, so they purchased one on eBay. Soon they determined that the best way to get the bookmobile to Cuba was to join the Pastors for Peace Caravan travel challenge. This travel blog tells their story.
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As Teen Read Week 2008 approaches, YALSA offers several tools aimed at helping librarians, booksellers, educators, and others promote events in their libraries, stores, schools, and communities. Teen Read Week will be celebrated October 12–18. Anyone planning an event in honor of Teen Read Week should visit the YALSA wiki and list their own events. Registration is required to edit the wiki, but it only takes a few minutes.
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Published by rwatstein October 5th, 2008
in libraries, library services and design.
How do you figure out what make teens use your library? Ask them. The Queens Library did just that to create a branch specifically for teens, providing them a welcomed space to do homework, use the Internet, and just hang out and be themselves.
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A potential citywide budget deficit of as much as $28 million has led the Trenton (N.J.) Public Library to develop plans to close all four of its neighborhood branches. Library Director Kimberly Bray announced the library board’s decision, which followed an across-the-board 10% cut in funding to all city departments, in an email to staff September 10. Some 60 residents attended a September 23 city council meeting devoted to the closings—the third such meeting held over eight days—at which Bray described three options, all requiring staff layoffs.
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Published by rwatstein September 27th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
With so much budget money spent on DVDs, CDs, and now games, are public libraries helping foster a nation of nonreaders? Librarian James Grosso offers a solution.
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Published by rwatstein September 21st, 2008
in libraries, library services and reference.
New York Public’s Best of Reference committee member Lauren Lampasone looks back on the changes in the reference resource world since the pre-Google days of 1996. Anyone remember AltaVista?
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Published by rwatstein September 21st, 2008
in libraries and library services.
John Berry of Library Journal confesses to never having been a bibliophile, often preferring electronic means to receive entertainment and information, and claims that offering these multimedia options to users should be part of every library’s mission.
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Published by rwatstein September 21st, 2008
in library services, books and publishing.
Library users at the University of Michigan will soon be able to order print-on-demand copies of books from the university’s collection, and get them in about the time it takes for a barista to whip up a latte.
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Published by rwatstein September 14th, 2008
in libraries, literacy and library services.
Those who need help with basic reading and writing in their daily lives may be out of luck or, worse, forced to seek costly private tutoring if a state budget proposal by Republican senators goes unchecked during the ongoing and stalemated budget talks in Sacramento. “I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Solano County (Calif.) Library Services Assistant Director Bonnie Katz said of the proposal, the elimination of state matching funds for the California Library Literacy Service—money that supports 103 literacy programs in public libraries statewide.
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To pump up its web presence, the Darien Library is now offering SOPAC 2.0, a new open source social catalog created by staffer John Blyberg, which not only features faceted browsing, tag clouds, and total integration of patron-added content like ratings, comments, and reviews but is tailored to be a repository of community data from many libraries.
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Findings of the American Library Association’s report, “Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study 2007–2008,” show that while Internet access is increasing in public libraries, the demand still outpaces the supply of net-connected workstations and bandwidth. A second report, “Florida Libraries and E-Government,” reinforces the ALA study, focusing on the increased role of libraries and librarians in providing connections to online-only government services.
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Read the Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study 2007–2008 report here
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With the nation facing tough economic times, Americans are visiting their local public libraries more often and checking out items with greater frequency. Libraries across the United States report that more people are turning to libraries in record numbers to take advantage of the free resources available there. According to the ALA’s 2008 State of America’s Libraries Report, Americans visited their libraries nearly 1.3 billion times and checked out more than 2 billion items in the past year, an increase of more than 10% since 2001
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Read the State of America’s Libraries Executive Summary here
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in future, libraries and library services.
Library Journal tapped its Movers & Shakers for their insights on what libraries can do to better themselves and fortify against future threats. They talk marketing, flexibility, service, expertise, design thinking, openness, public trust, and far more. Their responses may be surprising—but also enlightening and motivating.
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As libraries across the country try to reach out to people more at ease using search engines than hunting along bookshelves, some institutions are choosing to stock some unconventional material. The Greater Victoria Public Library has turned to video games. “Literacy has more than one meaning,” says Kirsten Andersen, who works at the Victoria library. When one 16-year-old boy wrote to the library to complain about its decision to add video games to its inventory of books and DVDs, “I told him what we tell people who challenge our material: That everyone has the right to choose what they want themselves, and we provide a variety of materials and everyone makes their own decisions.”
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Adam Holland feels stuck in the hamster wheel of annual/monthly reports based on user and other stats. Gathering and applying statistics in general has become the bane of many librarians, and he ponders “Is this the nature of the beast, or is there any alternative that would allow librarians to care a little less about statistics while still providing high-quality services in a fiscally responsible manner?”
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
Wheatland, CA library officials say they are introducing the nation’s first “robotic rural librarian,” an automated dispenser that will make books available anytime.The GoLibrary equipment will be unveiled at 10 a.m. today in the park next to Wheatland Community Center, 101 C St. The event will include music, refreshments and a drawing for book-related gift baskets.The book dispenser holds about 500 books. Users will be able to swipe their library cards and use the touch-screen to check out books.
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in libraries, library services and teens.
Imagine a library designed by teens: Rather than stern warnings to be quiet, there would be cheers in a Nintendo Wii video game competition. The room would feature a few colorful beanbags and funky chairs, thousands of bestsellers, and no time limit on the computers.Thanks to new federal funding, that teen dream is coming true in eight communities across Massachusetts, including at the Marlborough Public Library and Dover Town Library. Awarded last month, the grants will help those facilities - as well as libraries in Braintree, Everett, Ipswich, North Reading, Palmer, and Williamsburg - create or improve facilities and services for, and designed by, teenagers.
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in libraries and library services.
Not surprisingly, Queens Library had the highest circulation last year of any public library system in the country. It loaned 21,033,861 items in the 2006-2007 fiscal year — almost 1.5 million more items than the Multnomah County Public Library in Oregon, which had the second highest circulation.The national ranking system, called the Public Library Data Service Statistical Report, is issued annually by the American Library Association. Last week, it released preliminary numbers for the 2008 fiscal year, which ended June 30, naming Queens Library as No. 1. Circulation of more than 22.8 million broke the U.S. record.
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Published by rwatstein July 26th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
“Egos complicate procedures and keep good people down. Egos squash good ideas and can take the best of an organization and turn it on itself,” say the Michaels (Casey and Stephens), who advise losing yours if you want to successfully lead a project, department, or other staff, and give tips on fostering other workers’ talents that will benefit you and the library in the long run while keeping everyone happy and feeling connected.
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Published by rwatstein July 26th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
There are roughly 3.8 million men and women nationwide between the ages of 18 and 24 who are neither in school nor employed but regularly use libraries for the Internet, email, and related activities. Queens Library’s Kathy Degyansky (also appearing in a web-exclusive video) says PLs are positioned to “touch the lives of these adults” and that “librarians have a role to play in providing services that can help the disconnected” with securing jobs, furthering education, and even emotional support. Find advice on how to spot dropouts and those with low literacy skills, as well.
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Published by rwatstein July 26th, 2008
in libraries, library services and Canada.
Business is booming at Canada’s major public libraries, which credit everything from the high price of buying books to social networking, vampires, and a new social acceptance for frothy bestsellers. In Edmonton, Alberta, 385 people are on the waiting list for Fearless Fourteen, the newest offering from romance-turned-crime writer Janet Evanovich. In Surrey, B.C., Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn (right), a vampire novel written for young adults that is still on order, has 220 members on its waiting list.
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Published by rwatstein July 19th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
It’s a hot, humid summer afternoon, a time when local libraries used to be languid sanctuaries of quiet and solitude. But no more. Today’s local libraries in the summer are more like accountants’ offices at tax time. Elementary schoolchildren are coming in by the droves to record the books they’ve just finished for the summer-reading program. Teenagers are working on the computers or signing up for video-game tournaments. And parents, already looking as if the summer has gone on too long, are finding respite in comfy chairs, looking through stacks for a good read or taking a moment to plan the next activity in their never-ending summer challenge to entertain the children.“It’s truly amazing the number of people coming in,” said Alice Knapp, director of public services for the Ferguson Library here. “It used to be back 20 years ago, circulation in the hot, hazy days was slow. We’d circulate 2,000 books a day. Now, systemwide we are circulating between 3,500 and 4,000. We are getting complaints that the library is too loud, which we love because it means we are well used.”
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Reference librarian Shannon Bohle says that with the constant bombardment of new twists on technology, “we need to take a step back and consider how librarians in the last decade have found themselves on the fast track from the sequestered content villas of subscription databases to the sprawling information architecture of our new socially networked digital environment.” Moreover she conflates digital awareness with social awareness, even pointing to the digital divide “among us as librarians and among our own institutions.”
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Economist Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions keynoted the June 30 President’s Program of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. His address, while not specifically geared to libraries, engaged the audience and stimulated some thoughtful responses from a panel of librarians, some of whom said they’d go back and streamline their lists of databases so they don’t overwhelm users. Here’s another account, from ACRLog.
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The Fort Collins, Colorado Bike Library plans to quadruple the number of bikes available to loan by next spring, after finding itself dramatically and happily oversubscribed. The library permits anyone with an ID and an e-mail address to borrow a bike for a week at a time. The library started with 50 bright red bikes this spring, and is now down by two, officials said. “We are a victim of our own success,” said Jeff Morrell, president of Bike Fort Collins. “There’s a waiting list every week.”That’s sort of an understatement: The manager of the Old Town Square branch said people have actually darted away from half-eaten meals in the plaza to snag a newly returned bike. Another woman was so reluctant to return it that the police were nearly called, he said.
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Published by rwatstein July 5th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
Several years ago the American Library Association had a clever poster to encourage reading and patronage of libraries. The poster read “Free Information: Bring Your Own Container.” The container, of course, would be your brain. Your public library has mountains of free information to offer - books on just about every subject, both fiction and nonfiction, magazines, videos and often computers. What a great place to feed the mind, have fun and grow. Children grow quickly, and their tastes and interests change just as rapidly. The public library can accommodate their changing interests and expand on that by offering information on new subjects and ideas.
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Published by rwatstein July 5th, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
When vacations, families, and the great outdoors call, book groups can quickly take a back seat. Here are 10 ideas to help your group avoid doldrums and dog days.
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NetLibrary, OCLC’s platform for eContent and the leading provider of eBooks for the institutional library market, has announced agreements with 19 publishers that will add thousands of new eBooks and eAudiobooks to NetLibrary’s growing catalog of more than 170,000 titles.With increasing worldwide demand for electronic content, NetLibrary continues to enhance and expand its catalog by partnering with preeminent publishers of scholarly, trade, STM and reference content. New publisher partners adding eContent to NetLibrary include:
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