some odds and ends from the mailbag

Posted on by jessamyn

As per usual I’ve returned from holiday travelling with a lot of cool links to share and the admission that I’m behind on my blog reading — and this is me who is never behind, this is all deeply distressing to me — and I bet you are too. Anyhow, some things I’ve enjoyed reading over the past few days. I’m putting a Computers in Libraries column to bed today and it’s talking about widgets. I like talking about widgets.

  • Phone box becomes mini-library – small community in Somerset turns old phone box into a lending library/free box for books.
  • Portsmouth (NH) public library is having a documentary showing of DIY Nation + artist get together this weekend which looks like fun and a nifty type of program to boot. Plus I sort of stupidly like that they can link right to the book in their catalog. It’s 2009, how many of us can do that yet?
  • One line update/coda to the Des Moines photography situation from the DMPL marketing manager “At this month’s meeting, our board voted to remove the requirement that permission be granted for photos to be taken in our library.” Woo!
  • Curious to know what’s going to happen at the Hayward (CA) libraries when they go to a Netflix model for lending [pay up front, then no overdue fees]. Looking forward to seeing the crunched numbers at the end of this.
  • In another neat model, ArchivesNext reports on the Amsterdam City Archives’ “you ask we scan” approach to digitization. There are some linked slideshows and further data. Interesting model.

public library photos and reminiscences

Posted on by jessamyn

New Canaan Public Library from LoC
Shorpy is a great source for old photographs. They often get them from sources like the Library of Congress which is where this photo of the New Cannan public library in 1953 came from. You can also see the original set of photos over at the Library of Congress [did not see this one over at their Flickr photostream]. The big add that Shorpy’s has, however, is the community. It’s not just a photo of a library, it’s also people commenting about their memories of the library including where else they’ve seen that certain floor tile [fun fact: it’s also the tile that’s in my bathroom as near as I can tell] [thanks mike]

Jessamine county has very little in common with me

Posted on by jessamyn

You probably saw this on the tubes today. Library workers in Jessamine County Kentucky [a library system I’ve featured in talks before, though I can’t remember why] got fired when it was discovered they’d colluded to sort of permanently check out graphic novels to keep kids form being able to check them out Please feel free to read more

Amusingly, the graphic novel in question was Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. Yesterday was his birthday.

on 2.0 and the twitters

Posted on by jessamyn

I gave a series of talks — well really one talk three times — for the Nassau Library System on Monday. It was talking about “the 2.0 thing” but mostly in a way that basically encouraged people to think about the content that they may be generating elsewere [via blog, twitter, facebook, whatever] and how to bring that back to their library’s website. We talked about Twitter, because it’s easy to explain, and talked about widgets. You can read the notes to my all new talk here: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About 2.0 But Were Afraid to Ask. I was pleased with it.

I hadn’t even left the library when I got email from one of the morning’s attendees saying “You are the first presenter I’ve seen who managed to convey enthusiasm for web 2.0 tools without also conveying the usual message that those of us behind the curve are a bunch of stodgy losers!” which made me very happy. I’m pretty much done for public speaking until the new year and I think that was a decent note to end on.

Posted in me!