But is it a staff version of heaven? Read this editorial about the King County Library System in The Seattle Times and read about the 92% no confidence vote in the system’s director Bill Ptacek. Apparently one of his more unpopular decisions was the clustering of library branches, consolidating management and making all branch employees in any cluster potentially available for shifts in any library in the cluster. King County is the largest county in the state, by the way. Staff complain that this is destabilizing and against their union contract. The president of the union that represents the staff, Local 1857, gave this report to the KCLS board about clustering last year. (link goes to Google cache, the site seems to be down). Library Journal has a short follow up on what has been happening since the vote.
Month: June 2006
San Francisco Libraries, public and non
I’m heading home from San Francisco tomorrow. Here is a short list of the libraries I saw while I was here. Since this was a vacation in the true sense of the word, I was a little more lax in my library visiting than usual, but I did see some beauts. You may have read about my visit to the San Franscico Public library’s downtown branch which is a lovely building with some great art, but regrettably FULL of books. Full like there’s no more room. This isn’t news, but it’s sad nonetheless. Here are the other libraries I went to:
- The Western Addition Branch. When I hear that name out loud I always think Western Edition but that’s just me being weird. This is a tiny branch in a busy neighborhood with people from a lot of different backgrounds. The library is full of books in Russian and Japanese and other languages that I can’t read at all. For a tiny space, they manage to do a lot with it, there’s a large chidlren’s area, a YA section, a place for adult new readers and a few, very few, public access computers. I sat and read here for an hour while I was waiting for a friend and it was a nice calm place in the middle of a busy city. My photos of the Western Addition Branch are here.
- The Helen Crocker Russell Horticultural Library, which is part of the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Another incredible oasis. My friend Jane works there and took me on a tour of the grounds and I noodled around in the stacks some. The head librarian there (who just won an award) indexes the articles in a lot of the teeny periodicals they receive, making their catalog a very rich resource. My photos of the Helen Crocker Russell Horticultural Library are here but more interesting are my photos of the San Francisco Botanical Garden including a nesting hbummingbird and some random quail walking around.
- I had a rendezvous with friends at the Prelinger Library but didn’t do as much of a tour as I did last time. I’m still in awe of the sheer interestingness of their project as well as the general grace and charm of the Prelingers in person. Every librarian should make this collection a “must see” if you’re in the Bay Area. In the meantime, you can always read the Prelinger Library blog.
This Week on A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette
Confused as to how one stakes a claim on a given collection or service?
interested in nextgen OPACs?
You might be interested in the Next Generation Catalogs for Libraries list, newly created from some ideas batting around on the web4lib list.
libraries and librarians on video
A few different links.
- Do librarians really love Ask.com? Gary Price discusses the Ask.com television ad [mov file] where the founder of Ask.com says “If librarians love us, then I think the world should love us too.”
- WKYC’s news program “investigates” what they see as the growing scourge of porn in libraries. Here is the original newscast which includes [non-graphic] footage of them “catching” a man masturbating to porn in the library.
- Almost Live’s takeoff on COPS, featuring librarians
- bonus video: Conan the Librarian
- double plus bonus video: the filipino librarian’s I Am A Librarian video, a response to this