librarian.net : libraries category

28Feb05 . . . . baffling spam

Spam is weird, we all know that. I got what I think is a truly bizarre piece of spam in the postmaster@ box at my library today.
Effective immediately, your local library hours are changing to 9-5 Monday-Saturday.
If you are not currently using the library, please disregard this message.
Please do not respond as responses to this mailbox are not checked.

Notification for:
[my director's name]
Rutland Free Library
[variant of my director's email address]@rutlandfree.org

Thanks!
--Research Team

17Feb05 . . . . cell phones in the library

I'm not sure if I would call Dear Abby "the best opinions in the universe" but she's right on when she says that the reference librarian has no obligation to assist a patron who wouldn't get off his cell phone to talk with her. We have many patrons with cell phones in our library and a fairly loose policy that states that if your cell phone is disturbing other patrons you may be asked to take it outside into the lobby. I'm becoming the master of saying "Hi, if you're going to be a while, would you mind taking your conversation out to the lobby? Thank you!" and it's worked fine for me, but I know other staffers are more timid about approaching patrons who are being noisy on their phones. In our library, it's just an extension of the "please don't be noisy" policy which we have most places except the children's area and upstairs in the classroom. LISNews folks discuss the issue a bit more.

15Feb05 . . . . the noble tradition of libraries

A long but worthwhile article on where libraries are going with some reflections on where they've been.

Although the computer terminals tend to be the busiest area in the library these days—and remain the only place where people who do not have internet access at home, which includes half of all households in Brey-Casiano's district, can use the internet for free—librarians maintain that the internet should supplement, not supplant, traditional sources. [thanks robert]

14Feb05 . . . . basement discovery at Bethel Library

Hey it's one of those great weird library basement discoveries, but it's in the basement of my own local library! Not quite the Declaration of Independence, but a fascinating look into my town's past.

The volumes are replete with priceless gems regarding Bethel in years past. There are not only comments and thoughts regarding Sylvester Parker’s sermons, but numerous mundane yet interesting vignettes containing such matters as Mary’s cooking, Sylvester’s need for a new coat, an incident when he was run over by a horse, his travels, a record of the daily weather, Mary’s purchase of poorly-fitting false teeth, and many daily events in the town.

13Feb05 . . . . patron privacy

While it would be a more cut-and-dried case of patron privacy to deny wholesale snooping in your patron databases, what about when the police come to your library with a patron's wallet? If you're in Johnson County, giving the police that patron's phone number might get you fired. I know the police have shown up at our library more than once looking for patron information supposedly in the interests of returning a wallet or a PDA. I believe our policy is to offer to call the patron, but not give out that patron's personal information [without a warrant] in accordance with our privacy policy. Of course, any privacy policy is only as strong as the weakest link who has database access, right?

There's a good article in Library Juice this week about the Alternative Press Center Library in Baltimore MD.

One of the great benefits to living in a rural community is that going to a foreign country is a big deal. I have done a slide show of pictures from my trip to Australia twice now, once at a senior center and once yesterday at my library. Thirteen people showed up and we had a good time. Here are a few photos from the slide show along with some things I learned about doing slide shows at a library.

11Feb05 . . . . rudy's library, monowi nebraska

I'm a sucker for heartwarming stories like the town with a population of one and a library with 5,000 volumes. [thanks tj]

1Feb05 . . . . teen things to do @ your library

Teens are a tough crowd at the library. Libraries have been having some successes in bringing kids in to the library and keeping them there. Here's a few ideas culled from recent emails: Shannon is compiling tips for starting a teen knitting group, the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg has a Dance Dance revolution session on Friday afternoons, find some more suggestions on YALSA's programming for teens pages

27Jan05 . . . . why show movies @ your library?

Why showing movies at libraries can be a good thing, as if you didn't already know this.

The great thing about some public libraries, like this one, is the link the library sets up between the community, the library staff and the resources of the building and its contents. In this case, John Ciurrin from the Library introduced the film by referring to the Albany Public Library’s strong commitment to freedom of speech and how their large auditorium was dedicated to use by the community for a wide range of purposes. Dennis Mosley runs the Independent Film Forum at the Library, which has a loyal group of regulars. Venues like this are some of the most vital forums for public discussion in the country. [thanks dj]

26Jan05 . . . . who do you serve?

I missed this from the PLA Blog before I left ALA. but there's a pretty interesting statistic here: 80% of libraries serve populations of less than 10,000. Even a rural-ish library like mine serves a population of almost 30,000.

23Jan05 . . . . coach carter and the values of libraries

An interview with the real Coach Carter where he discusses the value of libraries.

So did the good students end up tutoring the struggling ones?
Carter: Yes. And you know what? We made the library a cool place to be. That was a miracle within itself. [thanks robert]

20Jan05 . . . . the interstitial library

While I am busy fixing the broken world of my here and now, please amuse yourselves exploring the arty and mystifying Interstitial Library. [thanks robert]

5Jan05 . . . . tsunami info in libraries

Edmonton Public Library has a great page of resources for the tsunami disaster including a premade link to a catalog search for tsunami in the OPAC. [thanks kerry]

3Jan05 . . . . yes, public libraries are designed. Yes I know it sometimes doesn't look like it

When citizens enter a library, they want to see librarians and books. and 26 other rules for good library design. [thanks blake]

2Jan05 . . . . a few tsunami links

People sent me links for a few libraries that have tsunami relief information: the Waterboro Library blog got something up the day after Christmas (not on the main page, but on the RSS feed for sure) and the University of Texas maps library. This huge disaster happening over the holiday season drives the point home that we're still offering much more in the way of services and up to date information during the hours we're open, than when we're closed. Check the statistics on your library web site. When are people coming to visit it? Our library page views go down when the library is closed, but they don't drop to zero. If your library home page doesn't change in response to massive world-changing events, doesn't that sent a message, however inadvertent, about the responsiveness and plugged-in-edness of the library itself? [thanks marylaine & elyssa]

Andrea puts together some thoughts about libraries and success. It seems that public institutions sometimes have a difficult time promoting services without going all in for the "your library is a business. the customer is always right." idea. I like my outreach job because I can do a lot of marketing and at the end of the day, not take peoples' money, just offer good service and a good [and improving] product. Do you think your patrons recommend your library?

Somewhat off-topic, I picked up a hitchhiker on Friday (I work near a ski area with very little public transportation, this is a fairly normal thing to do) and met a 20-something guy from the town I work in who worked at a local restaurant. I asked him if he'd been to the library lately and he confessed that he didn't have a card. I told him all about the library's fairly large DVD collection ("I just saw Bourne Supremacy last week...") and the usefulness of the internet access during power failures, and I'd be suprised if he didn't drop by and get a card if for no other reason than he can save money by doing what he normally does @ the library instead of @ Blockbuster. It doesn't take a french fry stand to make a library a success, you just need to figure out how to make the library worthwhile for people in the lives they are already living.

31Dec04 . . . . searching for tsunami info @ your library

It's been interesting putting together a list of links for my library news page about the recent disaster. I went to the home pages of BPL, NYPL, MPL, SFPL, LAPL, ALA, ALIA, IFLA and a few others, to see if anyone had put up links on their home pages to disaster relief news and information that I could borrow, the way Yahoo, Amazon, IMDB, Apple and a few others did. Milwaukee Public had a link to a list of charities on another site, the other libraries didn't have home page links, or didn't as of this morning. Personally, I got most of my links either directly from blogs I read, Google, or through collaborative community sites like Metafilter and Technorati.

This is not a criticism, just an observation about responsiveness, and possibly scale. In our small library, staff can add a link to the library home page just by going into the blog software we use and editing it. I'm sure at larger libraries with site design either outsourced or done only by specialized staff [who likely have time off this week] home page changes can be slower in coming. I think as librarians we all sort of assume that people read the news someplace other than the library home page. What is our responsibility to be responsive to current events with our online presence as well as in person? If anyone has seen good library web pages about the current situation in Southeast Asia, please send them along and I'll link them here.

29Dec04 . . . . mid-course corrections, library-style

My friend Matt went to the new Seattle Public Library and took photos of all the temporary signage that has had to be put in place to clearly state some directional/usage guidelines that were perhaps intended to be obvious. [update: apparently many of these "temporary" signs have been up since May]

the library was a great space filled with interesting things to look at and useful spaces, but far too subtle for an obvious funtional space like a public library.

16Dec04 . . . . wonder what those 300 pamphlets were about?

A different kind of Iraqi library story. [thanks ken]

15Dec04 . . . . "We wish that our library will help educate people. "

Small private libraries in Iraq.

Fadl Abid Oda, 30 years old, has taken it upon himself to do something that western companies in Iraq have failed to do. In a tiny room off a busy street in the Orfali district of Baghdad, Fadl stands in his small library. [thanks tamarack]

19Nov04 . . . . ranganathan's laws, updated

My pal Fred from ibiblio said he met Lennart Björneborn this week. I checked out his site and he's adapted Ranganathan's five principles of library science to the web world. Even though they are copyrighted [?], I'll include them here:

Links are for use – the very essence of hypertext
Every surfer his or her link – the rich diversity of links across topics and genres
Every link its surfer – ditto
Save the time of the surfer – visualizing web clusters and small-world shortcuts
The Web is a growing organism

18Nov04 . . . . Clinton Library opens, umbrellas confiscated

Some photos of the new Clinton Library.

17Nov04 . . . . old california library photos

It's just an eye-candy sort of day. Here are some old photos of libraries from the San Joaquin Valley sent in by Michael Farrelly. [technocratic]

13Nov04 . . . . my dream library

Sometimes, on the weekends, when the sun is shining in and I've had a lot of coffee and all is right with the world, I think about what kind of library I'd have, if I had my own library. This is, of course, crazy talk. Libraries exist in communities, they're not started or maintained by egomaniacal librarians who need a new project. So, this is a thought exercise. I honor and respect the traditions that libraries are steeped in, I'm just curious about what elements of our new technological reality could be useful to the sorts of institutions libraries are. Here are some things I've been thinking about, in that regard.

What if our catalogs were an overgrown version of really good personal library software instead of some sort of awkwardly-scaled version of very powerful all-in-one ordering/circulating/cataloging enterprise software? Check out Delicious Library, from that link, and tell me your patrons wouldn't love it. [see also: usability & assessment]
What if you could use the collective experience of your patrons to add to the library's knowledge base? Have patrons add reviews, suggest their own supplementary "subject headings", use the library web site for interactivity not just passive reception of library content.
What if the items in your library catalog had fixed URLs so patrons could link to library records from their web sites when discussing items the library has, sort of like IMDB has short, linkable human-friendly URLs? What's the book equivalent for IMDB, and don't say Amazon because you know it's not true.
We'd be open when people wanted to use the library, not just when librarians wanted to work. How would we know? We'd ask them. [some surveys: here, here, here and here]
In my library, we'd fix your computer for you. We'd work the information booth at your event. We'd answer your questions any time and any place, not just when you come to us and wait at the reference desk for us to be free. We'd save your time, even if it sometimes meant sacrificing our own.

Obviously changes in the economic reality of libraries or shifts in the work/home paradigm would need to occur before we could really do some of these things, but others just require a change in mindset, or a shift in priorities. A girl can dream, can't she?

10Nov04 . . . . nominate your favorite small/rural library

My library serves a patron base of roughly 30,000 so we're not eligible for the Library Journal award for the Best Small or Rural Library in America but perhaps you know one that is?

25Oct04 . . . . christ @ your library

The Association of Christian Librarians is having their annual conference in June. Meanwhile... look who came to visit my library today.

13Oct04 . . . . gross out book drop stories

Bad things that happen to book drops. Does the person asking this question seem like anyone in your library?

8Oct04 . . . . ooooh insurance library

Who is up for an insurance library visit during ALA in Boston this January? For now, you can just peek at their web site.

5Oct04 . . . . you lost HOW much money?!

This article asks more questions than it answers... how the heck did this library lose so much money in one year that it now has to sell its Normal Rockwell paintings to stay solvent? [thanks michael]

4Oct04 . . . . food for fines, simple program great results

Another Food for Fines program from last year at the Metropolitan Library System in Oklahoma County. [thanks emily]

1Oct04 . . . . food for fines in the UK

Another library's take on the food for fines idea. [thanks ann]

27Sep04 . . . . library in life imitates art

The [real] Brautigan Library may be moving close to the site of the [fictional] library in Brautigan's The Abortion. [thanks mom]

24Sep04 . . . . libraries in the movies

Q. Is it true that parts of the movie Debbie Does Dallas were filmed in the Pratt library?
A. Yes! [thanks orion]

21Sep04 . . . . patrons remember the sixties by sharing their memories in the library

Johnson County Library involves patrons in their six-week Sixties film series and programming by having them write memory cards about that era. The cards are then displayed in the library and also online.

I was cleaning off my desktop and came across this little helpful list from an old ALA program How to Become the Nordstrom of Public Libraries [word doc] by Robert Spector. You'll notice most of these items don't even cost anything.

1. Provide Your Customer With Choices
2. Create An Inviting Place for Your Customers
3. Hire Nice, Motivated People; (Hire the Smile, Train The Skill)
4. Sell The Relationship: Service Your Customers Through The Products And Services You Sell
5. Empower Employees To Take Ownership
6. Dump The Rules: Tear Down The Barriers To Customer Service
7. Promote Teamwork
8. Commit 100% To Customer Service

18Sep04 . . . . still national library card sign up month

It's still National Library Card Sign Up Month. Here is a somewhat weird article about, in general, what your library might do for you. I am a bit creeped out by numbers 14, 17 and 19. [lisnews]

9Sep04 . . . . library lawn mower makes more than librarian

Bizarre little story about the cost of grass mowing at the Auburn Branch of the Bay County [MI] library system. [thanks tom]

31Aug04 . . . . weekend event - special library visit

When I made my plans to get out of town for my birthday this coming weekend, my only thought was to be somewhere in the Northeast Kingdom, on a lake, someplace that served breakfast. I didn't know that the place I chose was near The Haskell Free Library one of the more unusual libraries in the US [and in Canada]

20Aug04 . . . . are the shelves half full or half empty?

Kapolei [HI] Library opens four years after the groundbreaking ceremony. [thanks brandon]

Another beautiful essay by Michael McGrorty on this whole library vs Google thing.

[T]he earth has only the one moon. While the Internet will confirm that fact, it does a lousy job of explaining why that is, either in literal or figurative terms. The Internet does a lousy job of explaining anything, but that isn’t surprising since it hasn’t any responsibility, no code, no direction and is bound to no constituency.

15Aug04 . . . . can you see our culture by looking at our libraries?

For anyone who has ever contemplated the "cheeseburger in the library" dilemma [summed up thusly "If we're just going to be everything the patrons want, why not serve cheeseburgers with our books and DVDs?"] you will enjoy
Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library: How Postmodern Consumer Capitalism Threatens Democracy, Civil Education and the Public Good. I'm about on Chapter 5.

Soon after I had begun working for a large, urban public library in 1992 I was invited to talk with an elderly administrator who was about to retire after a long career which she began as a children’s librarian. She was aware of my previous teaching experience and in the privacy of her office she explained to me that education was not the mission of the library. “I consider myself an entertainer,” she said, “not an educator.” But in fact she taught me a great deal, because she instigated a process of reflection lasting many years in which I have tried to understand the meaning of her words. What is the difference between education and entertainment? Did entertainment replace education as the mission of the library and if so, why? [lisnews]

11Aug04 . . . . touch your toes and pray, who knows where that book is....

Okay let's just say it straight. Having our OPACs say "Check shelves" when a book is supposed to be checked in is not much better than saying "Dream On" right? An amusing post by Karen on Web4Lib. [crafty]

7Aug04 . . . . more on the Boston Public Library

I guess my DNC blog was enough of a paean to the Boston Public Library but I found a link to this BPL tribute page from Larry Nix who runs an interesting postal librariana page in addition to his regular librariana pages.

2Aug04 . . . . nudes!

The American Nudist Research Library turns 25 this year. See also the Toni Egbert Naturist Law Library.

Live nudes would seem to provide more reliably strong effects than photographs of nudes. The American Nudist Research Library has nudes of both varieties, a bounty that should be of interest to scientists. And it may be instructive to librarians elsewhere who lament that people don't visit libraries the way they used to.

Incidentally, one of the things I took away from the DNC was the importance of stressing the importance of voting, especially local voting. While I'm pretty critical of the ALA's register to vote @ your library campaign -- which should be called the "print out and mail this form at your own expense but only if you have an email address, otherwise you're completely SOL @ your library" campaign -- there are local elections where voting makes a huge difference and apathy can cost you money, no two ways about it. Pop Goes the Library has some good program ideas for mixing pop culture and democracy at your library.

Election years have unlimited potential for library programming ideas. From displays of books on the electoral & campaign process to town hall meetings to voter registration drives, libraries have the opportunity every few years to play an active role in being a go-to informational clearinghouse for voters.

This directory of state prison librarians [and libraries] is an essential resource for anyone concerned with library service in correctional institutions.

21Jul04 . . . . canadian library jobs resource list

The smartie library students at McGill have created a Library Jobs and Internships page for people seeking library work in Canada. LISJobs also has a good list of links to try looking for non-US library jobs.

11Jul04 . . . . back to the porn grind

So, back to one of my favorite kind of stories: Adult web site run by University of Washington students apparently uses UW rooms and buildings for backdrops, specifically the Suzzallo library which used to house the library school back when I was there. I can't find any actual shots that seem to be in the library though. If you can, drop me a line. [lisnews]

8Jul04 . . . . the fine art of stapling

Who among us has not removed a staple from our thumb at one point or another. Only me...?

7Jul04 . . . . requests for patron info under FOIA?

Law student requests patron information at over 85 Michigan libraries under FOIA. Libraries say no, and are supported by Michigan's privacy laws. Law student/clerk may sue. Interestingly, the head of the firm the law student is clerking at is the Chairman of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans. And I'm not sure if the law student, Caleb Marker, is the same Michigan Caleb Marker as this one, or maybe this one, but I bet he's this one.

24Jun04 . . . . how to help your library not look stupid

PUBLIB librarians have compiled a final list of "things making libraries look stupid" which should be read by anyone involved in library policy, as well as library staffers. We just call a lot of these things "good customer service" where I work, when we get it right, that is. [shifty]

21Jun04 . . . . why all the crap CDs?

Apparently, it was just a computer programming glitch that caused libraries to get weird assortments of CDs [such as 148 copies of “Entertainment Weekly’s Greatest Hits of 1971.”] as part of their settlement from the major record labels. [thanks tammi]

17Jun04 . . . . caveat emptor

Six year old renovated British library already in need of 4mil repairs. [thanks owen]

16Jun04 . . . . this needs no more snappy intro than the one it has already

quoted verbatim: The New [Seattle] Central Library Offers Civic Validation, a Huge Collection of Material, and a Staggering Number of Startling New Ways to Die

12Jun04 . . . . patron confidentiality put to the test

Not a USAPA story but close to it, a real world example of cops coming to a library to try to obtain patron information and the library saying "no." [thanks jonathan]

Vatican library says that if they keep cataloging at this rate, they'll be done in 350 years or so, maybe "only" 40 to get just an outline of the collection. Read about some of the hassles involved in cataloging for the Vatican Library.

Proverbio pulls out a small, notebook-sized Turkish manuscript containing economic data about the Ottoman Empire in the mid 1600s.It's missing the first eight pages and the last few pages. There's no author listed, date or index. Yet it's full of nuggets of information that might be of interest to scholars - so much so that Proverbio has produced 10 pages of catalogue information and he's only halfway through. How long has it taken? "Two months, I'm ashamed to say," he says. [thanks jude]

Free Comic Book Day is coming up on July 3rd this year. [catalogablog]

10Jun04 . . . . swear at librarian, leave the library

"Self described library activist" says F-word to a librarian, gets banned from the library. Interestingly, I know that guy, he used to do his library activism in Seattle and would chat me up when I was teaching computer classes. [thanks tom]

My boyfriend started his summer internship for Senator Jeffords on Monday and gets a day off on Friday thanks to the Ronald Reagan hoopla. Here is an at-a-glance portrait of the Reagan library where Reagan will be buried tomorrow. [lisnews]

8Jun04 . . . . LoC class action suit follow previous LoC class action suit

The Library of Congress has had a class action lawsuit filed against it by 45 black employees. You may recall that the LoC settled a class action lawsuit with its black employees in 1994.

7Jun04 . . . . AFPL watch, now out of a job?

Now that Atlanta-Fulton Public Library system is getting a new director and a significantly smaller board will the AFPL Watch site shut down? The AFPL site, if you haven't read it, is a scathing and sometimes amusing indictment of one clearly dysfunctional library system, board and director written by "concerned citizens" and anonymous AFPL staff. How much of your own library do you see in it?

Other pages where the phrase "library watch" features prominently: China Library Watch, bloggish library watch entry, Library Watch name for a library news page, Library Watch newsletter, Library Watch safety program at UofT, Library Watch the joke Fox series and, of course, the Library Watch Cat

6Jun04 . . . . another visited library

While I was on a trip to Northern Vermont this weekend I visited the H. F. Brigham Free Library an adorable little one-room library with a budget of 14K, two Internet-enabled computers and a new hyper librarian who was determined to get the place hopping.

4Jun04 . . . . hawai'i's libraries

The Moon Book Club gets foreign language books to Hawai'i's libraries. Meanwhile, the Hawai'ian library system has 108 staff vacancies.

The library, beset by a critical staffing shortage and other needs, has an annual budget of only $35,000 for buying books in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Filipino and Vietnamese.... the principal difficulty in expanding the collection is cataloging, especially the Asian titles written in characters that must be romanized for the database. They also must be categorized correctly, and it's sometimes hard to find resources to help librarians do that. [thanks brandon]

Whiel I am sad that Bloodhag lives too far away to come to my library, I am happy that other libraries are jumping on the loud music band bandwagon. [thanks mac]

31May04 . . . . something to offend everyone @ your library

Illinois library won't remove childrens' book with a picture of an armed burglar in it.

"A good library collection should have something to offend everyone," said [children''s librarian] Jan Bojda, "If they don't, they are not doing their job." [chitrib, thanks jemmy]

A little thread on LISNews about "library envy" The latest library that I have been to that I was envious of was the library at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum which I had the pleasure of getting a tour of when I was in DC. Ample funding, technology + books, multi-language collection, multi-lingual librarians, lovely space, good web site. It's open to the public, so put it on your dance card if you are in the area along with LoC and the spectacle that is the decline of the DC public library system. I know the librarian there, so drop me an email if you'd like an introduction.

Speaking of library envy... Seattle Public Library is open and getting lots and lots of pictures taken of it. I'm sort of smitten with the weird crazy colors in it; they were one of the things I was going to miss about the interim location they had been in. This has also got to be one of the smartest ideas for placement of Dewey numbers that I've seen. SPL was really the first library system I worked for [as a VISTA volunteer] after getting out of library school, so despite all my kvetching about them I have always sort of been rooting for them to get it together.

26May04 . . . . Seattle Public not for everyone

The new Seattle Public library which just opened seems to have pretty widespread appeal but not everyone adores it. At some level, I'd be worried if they did.

the interior takes its design cues from shopping malls rather than from successful older libraries. Circulation patterns inside the building are far from readily apparent, just like the most up-to-date shopping malls where the design goal is to keep the customer a prisoner of commerce. Indeed the building is likely to be a nightmarish place for anyone with even the slightest touch of agoraphobia.

18May04 . . . . late nights in the Hamilton library

University of Hawai'i library experiments with 24 hour access. [thanks brandon]

The Library That Puts on Fishnets and Hits the Disco. Look at it. Read about it. I find myself almost stupidly hopeful for this building and this library. maybe we can learn a lesson about the perpetual perfunctoriness of many of our spaces and learn that just because it's uberfunctional, it doesn't need to be staid. [nyt, thanks bookofjoe]

14May04 . . . . more public library data

Librarybug is just a fancy front end to this dataset circa 2001 from the National Center for Education Statistics. Check out the number of ways you can search it. Looks like there's just over a thousand public libraries that have a service population of 1,000 or less. Interesting. [thanks rteeter]

12May04 . . . . librarybug.org - free public library info

Incidentally, when I was looking for a link for the Wallingford library, I found this new source of US public library demographic data: librarybug.org. The entry for our library is a little out of date, but mostly correct, and they even have our micro-library that I use here in town. Oddly, doing a whois search for the domain turns up nothing. It's registered to some company that prefers to remain anonymous, but also owns collegebug.org

11May04 . . . . big and beautiful, take a gander at Seattle's new library

Seattle Public Library is opening May 23rd and sneak peek pictures are showing up everywhere: Arcspace, technobiblio, reluct & Pac NW Magazine [thanks all]

I'll have to pay more attention to the news stories, does the new Seattle Public Library have free wireless? Boston Public does, in all their branches. Here are some pictures of that lovely library. [thanks rebecca]

30Apr04 . . . . check the headline of this article compared to the content

Gay pride exhibits bug people in Anchorage again.

Municipal Librarian Art Weeks said he fielded at least a dozen phone calls from people who thought the material was inappropriate for the public library. But he disagrees. "This is a social issue of our day on which we don't all agree," he said. "A library is a forum for the exchange of ideas, and it's appropriate in that context." Weeks said the exhibit complies with the city's policy on library displays.

28Apr04 . . . . would you rather have a less lovely library that was open more? I would.

Let's just say it: the more money you spend building your Big Beautiful Library, the less you have to pay for staffing, and open hours.

When Seattle voters agreed overwhelmingly in 1998 to foot the $196.4 million bill for new and improved libraries all around town, I'm pretty sure they didn't expect they'd have fewer hours a week to enjoy the fruits of their investment. But that's exactly what has happened.... When voters approved [the downtown library], the library was open 70 hours a week.... Now, the downtown library is open 58 hours a week. [lisnews]

27Apr04 . . . . a guy after my own heart

Guy lives in NYU library to save money on insanely costly housing costs, gets caught, gets popular, gets a dorm room for rest of the semester. [thanks all]

25Apr04 . . . . library cards in text and image

One of these days I'm going to take a picture of all my library cards. For now, you'll just have to enjoy Jeremy's.

21Apr04 . . . . how to keep patrons at bay

Why you can't use poison gas to keep patrons from getting behind the reference desk. [lisnews]

This link has been making the rounds. San Francisco Public had been having a problem with vandalism. Over 600 gay and lesbian themed books were defaced and left inthe library with slips of paper advertising a bible radio station. The man who did the damage was finally caught, but the library was having a hard time deciding what to do with all the remains of the vandalized books. "Reversing Vandalism" was their solution and is available online and in selected SFO branch libraries. [thanks all]

8Apr04 . . . . quiet, it's a library?! what century is this?

I'm not sure I like how the National Chemical Society is celebrating National Library Week. [thanks dawn]

6Apr04 . . . . bookboats and more

The Prince Rupert Library has a web site devoted to their plans to design and build a new waterfront library. My favorite part? The unusual libraries section: book bikes, book boats, book trains, you name it. [thanks thomas]

31Mar04 . . . . 25,000 library cards about Napoleon

Stanley Kubrick's freaky library and card files.

26Mar04 . . . . strings attached -- keep this building for 20+ years

Library that got expansion grant 17 years ago cannot move to larger quarters and shut the [expanded] library down completely until 20 years have passed. This happened in my town too, just recently. The town owns the building and due to some law or another, needs to use the building for town purposes. Thi sis usually how historical societies get such great digs, I reckon. [thanks jeanette]

23Mar04 . . . . libraries you never knew existed

The QE2 has the largest library at sea and the only full-time at sea librarian. There are other job opportunities for at-sea librarians as well.[thanks hanan]

Other superlative libraries include the Denver Zine Library with one of the largest library zine collections in the world. [thanks tammi]

21Mar04 . . . . something newish to say about library cats

With the exception of the "push to shush" action figure, my most received link would have to be ones about library cats, often to the same library cat page. I love the page, but try not to relink unless something really new is going on. Well, there's a new article out about library cats, and it's adorable. [thanks carolyn]

18Mar04 . . . . the library visit/review thing

I expect to be able to use the MT blog categories to bring back my library reviews one of these days, but not yet. So, here is a list of the libraries I went to on this trip:

NYPL: Morningside Heights branch [busy and confusing, good booksale]
Yale's Sterling Library [Jen and Tom's place of business]
Columbia's Watson Library [fancy reception, food in the library!]
Brooklyn Public's Central Library [got a card]
Bank Street College Library [Carol works there]
Barnard Library [Jenna works there]

I also went to The Strand which, while not a library, is one hell of a bookstore.

17Mar04 . . . . tell a library story

I had a friend who had a tattoo that was a hobo sign for "tell pitiful story" Today I found a site that shows you how to tell a library story [I was looking for library-themed computer wallapaper and settled on this]. Here's hoping your library stories aren't pitiful.

8Mar04 . . . . "Your Public Library: Just Another Defenseless Victim Zone "?

In response to Toledo Ohio's new concealed carry law, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library will be posting signs letting patrons know that the library is exempt from the concealed carry law. [thanks chris]

3Mar04 . . . . Stealthy RFID

San Francisco Public Library tells voters it will hold a public forum to discuss RFID technology before it goes on the budget and then ... doesn't.

"City Librarian Susan Hildreth ... downplayed the decision to include RFID funding in the library budget, because the action can be reversed at a later Library Commission meeting."

29Feb04 . . . . what if Ben Franklin & Co had never existed?

An interesting way of indicating support for an upcoming levy. Asking: Can Public Libraries Ever Work?

I got my CD refund check in the mail yesterday. California's libraries will be getting 665,000 CDs as their share of the 5.6 million CDs being given to libraries and schools across the country. Jenny is donating hers to the EFF to help prevent further abuses like this in the future.

26Feb04 . . . . not your usual dumb library headline

Squirrels in the library.

Our library's motto: If you cannot read while nuts are being cracked, help crack nuts.[thanks lis]

19Feb04 . . . . trip update - bpl

I'm in Boston now coming to you wirelessly from Boston Public Library, after paying my respects to Mother Goose. Anyone with Mass residency [or who is willing to fudge it] can get a library card and a PIN that will get you on their wireless network more easily than when Jenny was here in June. The delight in this network is that you can pick filtered or unfiltered access, right up front when you enter your card number and PIN. And unfiltered, as near as I can tell is still really unfiltered. The big bummer, besides the guy who said "wait ten minutes til your number is activated" then left my application on a pile and went home, is the lack of Mac instructions on the configuration web pages, and no print instructions anywhere in the library that I could find. It seems to me that the more we treat technology like some sort of appliance that people should know how to use just like plugging in a toaster, the less it deserves a place next to the encyclopedias in the reference section. The more we treat new technologies like an extra reference source and place to go to get answers, the more we should have people available to assist our patrons in learning to use it, and use it well.

18Feb04 . . . . weeding is such sweet sorrow

An oddly sweet story about... weeding.

14Feb04 . . . . rare books a-go-go

So all this rare book reading and an impending trip to Yale has gotten me on a rare book kick of my own. First, Yale's Beineke has not only a lovely library but an impressive online photonegative database.

10Feb04 . . . . child assaulted in philly library bathroom

Of course, when you get peeved at the Seattle Public branch for closing its bathrooms, remember that truly awful things do sometimes happen in library restrooms. [thanks sophie]

9Feb04 . . . . Seattle Public toilets

Seattle Public Library opened their new renovated Capitol Hill branch but no one is allowed to use the toilets because of excessive drug activity. Do you think you would be more outraged to find a needle in the bathroom, or to not be able to use the bathroom in the first place? [thanks hannah]

3Feb04 . . . . holy freaking CRAP! good news about public domain futures

This is great news, says Ryan [and me]. Though come on, how secret is it if it's in the Times?

Google has embarked on an ambitious secret effort known as Project Ocean, according to a person involved with the operation. With the cooperation of Stanford University, the company now plans to digitize the entire collection of the vast Stanford Library published before 1923, which is no longer limited by copyright restrictions.

Stanford, you might recall, made the press a few days back for withdrawing from ARL.

I like kids. They are some of my favorite patrons. However, on school days, when the library is full of them, I like them less. Moreso when I feel like they've been dumped there and don't want to be there any more than I'd like them to be wandering bored in front of the refdesk. Apparently [and I pretty much knew this] this is not a phenomenon singular to our library. It's a social problem, and a bad one. [thanks all]

27Jan04 . . . . I date a lawyer

I don't often think of law libraries as having really fancy virtual collections, but the Tarlton Law Library [at UT Austin] has a great set of pages about The Law in Popular Culture.

26Jan04 . . . . what goes on inside the library is constantly changing

If you have realaudio and you haven't already heard it, Chicago Public Radio did a neat little bit on the library in American life featuring Louise Robbins and Matthew Battles. [thanks raizel]

20Jan04 . . . . reviews of the Library of Congress

Did you know that epinions allows you to review locations, as long as they are nominally travel desitinations? See what vistors to the Library of Congress or the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library had to say about them. Maybe even add your own library...?

30Dec03 . . . . want fries with that?

How far should libraries go to accomodate patrons who are "leaving text behind" Should we be spending 20% of our acquisitions budget on DVDs? Some very interesting numbers at the end of this article. [thanks tammi]

15Dec03 . . . . cat vs dog library cage match

In another somewhat strange library altercation, man with assistance dog is allowed to proceed with his lawsuit against the library because the library cat [now deceased] scratched his dog. You remember the lawsuit right? Well it's going ahead as scheduled. [thanks eric]

One of the nicest online collections I've seen, and seasonlly appropriate: the photographs of Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley at the Schwerdtfeger Library at UW. [thanks rebecca]

7Dec03 . . . . vermont libraries consider their role

One Vermont library is considering their role in the community and asking residents how they see the library fitting in. The VT Department of Libraries [just look at that web site, will you] is playing a shrinking role as a provider of regional library services, yet many towns in Vermont [including mine] still have no library. When there is a library it is generally funded by foundations and town allotments, which can make funding erratic at best and non-existent at worst.

4Dec03 . . . . not naked and yet oddly appealing

I'm sort of happy I don't really understand what is going on in these pictures. Just a bunch of girls in a library, fully dressed. Perfectly normal, right? [thanks edlef]

2Dec03 . . . . community analyses using census data

Short article about using the census data to help plan services for your library. I was really sort of astounded when I did our community analysis that there were almost no people in our service area who don't speak English. I sort of assumed that as a default, you should pay attetnion to diferent cultural and language groups when plannign services. The sad fact about Vermont, or at least where I live, is that it can be pretty ethnically homogenous, even if there are still wide cultural and class differences. [thanks mac]

14Nov03 . . . . tv in the library, are cheeseburgers next?

In the "do you want fries with that?" model, a library with a TV on in the lobby for the Internet users who "don't like to read." I have mixed feelings about this, the columnist seems to think that using the Internet is the same as [or similar to] reading, this is not always the case. Of course, if you are someone waiting for your 'net fix at the public library, I would think you could perhaps pretend to be interested in books, or maybe the newspaper, just to humor us. I have seen people shuffle in place and stare off into space for upwards of half an hour because they couldn't find anything else to do in the library until it was their turn. One of the Sisyphean tasks I have given myself is to try to find something else that these peope are interested in. [thanks dsdlc]

12Nov03 . . . . vagina collage -- and SAFE FOR WORK, i swear it

You can probably tell whose blogs I am reading by the order my links are in, so I'm mixing it up just to cover my tracks. You know, there's a really fine line between just dishing on patrons and making dishing on patrons a sublime comedy experience. The well-dressed librarian has it going on, in this respect. Please see Vagina Collage and Serving the Masses.

The public library is fabulous. Don't get me wrong.... Even if a homeless guy is repairing small electronic devices with a sottering gun plugged into a study cubicle, it would still be great. Even if a crazy volunteer we had to fire comes into the library everyday 4 minutes before close to check her email, it would still be great.