DOPA dies on the vine

Posted on by jessamyn

With the shift in power in Congress, DOPA looks like it’s done.

the final nail in DOPA’s coffin came with the switch of Congress from Republican to Democrat. Legislation that doesn’t get signed into law by the end of a congressional term has to start from scratch during the next term. In January, the Democrats will be in charge of both houses of Congress, and there’s no sign that they’re going to rush and re-introduce DOPA. Key DOPA critics in the House and Senate, including Reps Ed Markey, John Dingell and Sen. Patrick Leahy, will soon be in leadership positions. With the Republican losses in November, it will be harder for their caucus members to re-introduce DOPA, especially since Fitzpatrick is gone and they lacked Democrat co-sponsors in the first place.

[libinblack]

library too popular with teens? close it after school. brilliant!

Posted on by jessamyn

In the article Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over one New Jersey library claims it has to resort to closing the library during after school hours because the library is being overrrun by unruly teenagers who are fighting, peeing on the bathroom floor and, apparently “talk[ing] back to librarians.” Here’s the library’s announcement on their website. Looks like the library will be available via phone, IM and email after school, just not in person. [thanks kelly!]

2006 reading list, a year end summary

Posted on by jessamyn

I liked doing this last year. I think I’ll do it again this year. Slow year for reading for me. I was busy, busier maybe than I’ve been lately.

number of books read in 2006: 60
number of books read in 2005: 86
number of books read in 2004: 103
number of books read in 2003: 75
number of books read in 2002: 91
number of books read in 2001: 78
average read per month: 5
average read per week: 1.25
number read in worst month: 0 (December)
number read in best month: 8 (November, August)
percentage by male authors: 59
percentage by female authors: 41
fiction as percentage of total: 60
non-fiction as percentage of total: 40
percentage of total liked: 77
percentage of total ambivalent: 23
percentage of total disliked: 0

I made a little spreadsheet of all the books. There was only one that I couldn’t remember off the top of my head. There were two that followed me through the entire year: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and And Their Children After Them, both terribly haunting depictions of the short and long term effects of rural poverty. I think of them every day when I’m at work, trying to help.

Looking for something to read? Check out this compilation of “best of 2006” reading lists that the Seldovia Public Library has assembled on their delightfully bloggy library website.

mergers and aquisitions – SirsiDynix + Vista

Posted on by jessamyn

You know, if you want to bury some news, make sure to announce it between Xmas and New Years. So SirsiDynix says “investment partnership” in the article headline (their pdf) but “acquisition” in the article. Vista hasn’t announced it at all as of this typing. Press releases are usually vapid and devoid of content and this one is no different. The letter from Sirsi-Dynix CEO is also not really forthcoming. “The partnership validates the contributions libraries and SirsiDynix make to our communities.” What? Dan Scott has some analysis on his blog, Coffee|Code and makes a few predictions.

You heard it here first: expect lots of news from SirsiDynix in 2007. I’m predicting more service fees (100% confidence), increased annual support fees (100% confidence), and the beginning of the end of Unicorn with an announcement that Horizon is the strategic product for new development efforts going forward (75% confidence). I’ll go out on a limb and say that a merger or acquisition of SirsiDynix in 2007 is unlikely (33% confidence), but after proving their new business strategy and the nice spikes on their revenue and profit charts, I’ll say that it’s quite likely in 2008 (80% confidence).

I’m not into the industry enough to make any predictions or even any observations, but it seems to me that if a non-library company sees fit to buy a library services company it’s probably because that company is making money hand over fist. And if Sirsi-Dynix is making money hand over fist, it’s because libraries are paying them boatloads of money. Sirsi-Dynix says they expect no staffing changes. A little more over at Library Journal.

Don’t miss this amazing graphic showing “the history of mergers and acquisitions in the library automation industry” over at Library Technology Guides.

Slow Library, a 2.0 idea

Posted on by jessamyn

I missed Ryan Deschamps discussing a talk by Mark Leggott about the Slow Library Movement. As someone suspicious about the Slow Food Movement, I was curious about this. Go here to listen to Mark’s lecture and peek here to see if the Slow Library blog is up and running. In Mark’s words “The idea behind the Slow Library site is to propose, promote and discuss the concepts of a new movement called Slow Library. Slow Library applies the philosophies and concepts of the Slow Food and Open Source movements to the development of library services and resources.” In Ryan’s notes from Mark’s talk he says

Mark is saying “ubiquity is not an end in and of itself. Here are some thoughts that may or may not apply to the Slow Library Movement:

  • Let’s focus on realistic, local solutions and build community first.
  • Let’s forget about Web 2.0 for a second, understand our customers needs and then apply or give access to resources that help them satisfy those needs.
  • Let’s play.
  • Let’s Let’s shun pressure to “keep up” with Ann Arbor (sorry John Blyberg), Hennepin County (sorry Glenn Peterson via Tame the Web) and etc. and apply our own strengths to come up with our own creative ideas.
  • Let’s focus on what we can do right now to make the community a better place.
  • Let’s notice the beauty of things right before our eyes, and let supporting that be our Return on Investment.

Good comments by Jenny on Ryan’s blog. [anarchivist]