holidays

Banned Books Week 2011, a web content rundown

It’s time for my semi-regular round up of Banned Books Week websites. You can look at past posts on this topic by checking out the bannedbooksweek tag here or here is a list of the annual posts More on the Chicago Defender.
Here are my old Banned Books Weeks posts: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. I skipped 2005.

As usual, you get a neat real-time look at what’s going on by following the Twitter hashtag. As usual there are two “main” sites the ALA site at ala.org/bbooks and the bannedbooksweek.org site. ALA has their usual site, links to shopping, links to the main site (which is a 404, oops), links to advocacy materials. They decided to do a virtual read-out instead of an in-person event and I’ve been clicking through some of the YouTube videos on the BBW channel. All the stuff I’ve seen so far seems like it would be what we call SFW [safe for work] and I’m vaguely curious if there could be something so racy that you’d get one of those “You have to be 14 to see this video” warnings up because, hey, that’s its own form of limiting speech. But I think that stuff is only for photos of people in their underwear, or maybe self-reported. The Banned Books Week main site has been up and down today and seems to mostly be pointing to the same stuff. They have a Twitter account but have never used it. The design gets better every year.

Here is the list of organizations who are co-sponsors. Let’s look at their websites.

American Booksellers Association – hasn’t mentioned Banned Books Week on their site since 2009 if the search is to be believed. BBW does not show up under “advocacy” or “news” however a link to their blog does have news about their ongoing auction for BBW which appears to be a project of ABFFE. There are other BBW posts but no tag to find them all, though this listing is close.
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression – has a wordy page with information about the Read-out and the auction and a link to their Twitter feed which is mostly about the auction.
American Library Association – has that clicky slide show on their home page, in which #4 is a link to the Banned Books site on ALA.org. None of their “news” links to banned books news.
American Society of Journalists and Authors – linked to their Banned Books Page which has a nice little summary of the things their organization did in 1982 to raise visibility of Banned Books. Their Twitter has a link to a place where you can buy buttons.
Association of American Publishers – they’ve been really busy with Kindle lending announcements and meeting with ALA. Their website has a news story about BBW highlighting the read-out and linking to some of the things their publishers are doing.
National Association of College Stores – nothing, as usual.

There is also the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress who endorses Banned Books Week (though no link on their site?) as well as a few organizations who have signed on as sponsors

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund – has this post on their site, as well as this chilling case about someone getting in trouble at the Canadian border for having explicit comics on his laptop.
National Coalition Against Censorship – has a lot of good information on its website and their blog is always a good read.
National Council of Teachers of English – has a front page link to the BBW site and a little more activity on its Facebook page, nothing on Twitter.
PEN American Center – has a neat podcast between children’s book Robie H. Harris and Susan Patron. You can see a few more posts from their blog under the banned books week tag.

So I’d cautiously call this an improvement over last year. More coordinated programming, better talking between sites. I’m still looking for a good Banned Books Week Twitter list [i.e. with the sponsors] and if I don’t see one I guess I’ll make one. I’ve been enjoying the YouTube videos. My own tastes this year go to ebooks and thinking about, with the additional layer of middlemen in the ebook world of buying, licensing and lending, what it really means to be banned or censored an an ebook universe. Look for a post about pirates later in the week.

Happy Valentine’s Day to librarians everywhere

Posted on 14Feb1014Feb10 by jessamyn

I like Valentine’s Day. I always have, whether I’m in a relationship or not. It’s one of those holidays that I try to temper my enthusiasm for because it seems so… dopey or something. My local library just started a “why I love the library” campaign with the paper hearts, just in time for town meeting day which is in a few weeks. Here are a few more library/valentine cross-over links.

Photo is from NYPL’s selection of Victorian Valentines. There are many more images to look at in their Digital Gallery.
It is Library Lovers Day in Australia. While the website is terrifically underwhelming [links to pdfs, really? no title in the HTML?] there are some neat things going on: a free sausage sizzle [last weekend, actually], a song from a few years ago, a special morning tea
The Valentine Public Library is surprisingly not taking advatage of this opportunity.
Some more promotional tie-ins: How to Love Your Library, Library Lover’s Month in Wisconsin (proclaimed by the governor in 2005), specifics about how to do a valentine-themed fundraiser and more from the Library Support website.
The Lilly Library at Indiana University lets you send an e-valentine from their Victorian Valentine collection.
The Peabody Library at Vanderbilt University did a Valentine workshop this week.
The planned library anti-Valentine’s Day party, however, didn’t go so well.
Etsy seller simplesongdesigns has a neat valentine for your favorite librarian.
Wikimedia Commons has many valentines that can be used copyright-free.
Amusing ephemera from the LoC collection, a valentine bank note form the Bank of True Love.
And, continuing my search from another LoC item claiming to be from “The Oldest Valentine Manufactory in America“, the I have come across Charles Dickens’ visit to Cupid’s Manufactory available to you in full text via Google Books and truly wonderful.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

world usability day is tomorrow

Posted on 12Nov08 by jessamyn

If you’re into the whole usability idea — and more and more our interfaces to technology are all we have when interacting wiht the goods, services and government in our lives — then you might like to know that World Usability Day is tomorrow. I’ll noodle around a bit looking at my own websites and I suggest that you and your libraries do the same.

Technology should enhance our lives, not add to our stress or cause danger through poor design or poor quality. It is our duty to ensure that this technology is effective, efficient, satisfying and reliable, and that it is usable by all people. This is particularly important for people with disabilities, because technology can enhance their lives, letting them fully participate in work, social and civic experiences. Human error is a misnomer. Technology should be developed knowing that human beings have certain limitations. Human error will occur if technology is not both easy-to-use and easy-to-understand. We need to reduce human error that results from bad design.

do you make stuff? library stuff?

Posted on 10Nov0810Nov08 by jessamyn

Since my bank receipt today came with holly berries on it, I figure it’s time to start the holiday sidebar.

I’m not much of a shopper, but I’m aware that I am not particularly normal in this regard. So, similar to last year I’ll have a sidebar on librarian.net illustrating particularly excellent things that mike make good gifts for librarians. Feel free to add your own in the comments. Last year I got both of my parents woodblock prints from David Bull — a guy I know from MetaFilter — and am particpating in his affiliate program this year. I also have a pair of miniature book earrings from ShoeString press that are pretty nifty. Every year at MetaFilter we do a listing of shops run by MeFites, if there are librarian.net readers that have wares to hock, please feel free to drop me a note or put a comment below.

work like a patron day – october 15

Posted on 13Oct0813Oct08 by jessamyn

I’m at work today, not at the library but at the pool. The pool always goes through a lot of soul searching deciding whether to be open on minor holidays like US Columbus Day. The big rift is this: it’s a holiday so lifeguards and building managers would like a holiday. It’s also a holiday so the people who would be swimming have the day off and might want to use the pool. It’s pretty hard to make the right choice. If you’re closed, people will say they wanted to be there. If you’re open and no one shows up, your staff gets bored and annoyed.

The same thing happens with libraries, in a big way. Here in Vermont pretty much every library is closed on Sundays. This is nice for the librarian who wants to work mostly M-F but bad for the patron with regular work hours who would like to get to the library. I do admit that I applied for a library job in Vermont at one point and balked at the mandatory Sunday evening hours.

This is all my way of leading up to Brian Herzog’s Work Like a Patron Day which you may recognize seems similar to a few of Ryan Deschamps’ zero-tech 2.0 no brainers. The basic idea is to try to take your librarian hat off and see how your library feels to someone who uses all the public services and utilities — bathroom, computers, web interface, etc — and see if you get the same vibe off of it as you do as a staff member. Brian has demarcated October 15 — six months after National Library Week — as WLAP day and has some more information on the Library Success wiki. Try it out and see what you think.