MIT watch out, the librarians are here!

Posted on by jessamyn

This is a non-library post just to say that I am in Boston for the weekend for the MIT Mystery Hunt. Myself and fellow non-traditional librarian J. Baumgart will be working with Codex Ixtlilxochitl, a giant team of brainiacs all over the world using wikis and IM and Google spreadsheets and all sorts of other high and low tech means to solve puzzles and have fun. The first time I really used a wiki was as part of a puzzle hunt team and I think it really helps with all of this social software stuff to see some of it in action — helping you solve problems — to see why people think some of this stuff is so great. In any case, emails and IMs may go unanswered for a little bit, but feel free to cheer us on from home. We’ve got (at least) two librarians on this team, how can we lose?

update: we came in second by about 90 minutes. The winning team, Doctor Awkward, had some of the famous puzzlers from Wordplay on it. This means that next year they get to make the puzzle and we get to play again. From what I can gather, this was the outcome that a good chunk of my team was hoping for anyhow.

I am not saying this is true, I am only saying you should read it

Posted on by jessamyn

If anyone with more of an understanding of the Montana ILL system would like to comment on this very odd post about a small library, the PATRIOT Act and an alleged “watch list” I would appreciate it. Update: story was not exactly true, the result of a misunderstanding, good to know.

a few things I have been reading

Posted on by jessamyn

Some of these have been mentioned to death other places, some I haven’t seen a lot of talk on. I’ve been fighting with Gates Computers this week and haven’t been reflecting much but I thought you might like to read them too.

but what are people really reading

Posted on by jessamyn

I’m fascinated by the Public Lending Right scheme wherein authors receive money from the government for the lending of their books in public libraries. Nothing like having a little money involved to get accurate statistics on who is reading what. One author reports on what people are actually reading at the library.

The truth is that public libraries have become a service for the very young – the place where you go to inspire the nippers with a love for literature. For better or worse (and I’d say worse), they are no longer where many adults go in search of information (what’s Google for, after all?).

If adults go at all, it seems that it’s hardback fiction that they are mainly after. Josephine Cox and Danielle Steel came in second and third place in PLR’s top twenty last year (with sales in Steel’s case totalling over 500 million, I’m not quite sure this is the kind of struggling writers that the Brophy’s had in mind). And so far as I can see, there were no authors of non-fiction for adults in the top hundred; though Terry Deary, who wrote the Rotten Romans etc for kids, non-fictin of a kind, does get there.