LISNews: Librarian News

The Greatest Threat to Amazon May Just Be Libraries
Instead of turning the members of its community away for an eBook that is already borrowed, the library is ideally situated to sell them the eBook they wished to read, right when they wished to read it. There is nothing stopping a library from becoming an eBookseller. This capability is available from all of the major library solution suppliers who are equally well versed in eBook technologies and the publisher-required DRM necessary for them to be sold directly to consumers.

A Home for Sketchbooks of the World
For $25, any doodler, student, parent, graphic designer, architect (like Ms. Sumayang) or would-be artist with an idea can fill a 32-page sketchbook and add it to the collection. Some, like Ms. Sumayang, drop in; others sign up online. “I thought, ‘Why not?’ ” Ms. Sumayang said on a recent visit. “It’s down the road.”

For six years, the Sketchbook Project has been offering intimate glimpses into the imaginations of its worldwide contributors. Steven Peterman, a printmaker, and Shane Zucker, a Web developer, founded the project in Atlanta in 2006. They moved it to Brooklyn in 2009: first to Red Hook, then to Williamsburg in late 2010.

The "Pop-Up" Library: A Mini-Movement of Knowledge
Margaret, an unemployed librarian, and Adam, an architect looking for work, decided to create the "pop-up" library. The idea is simple. Gather as many donated books as possible (they got their original books from the Occupy Wall Street library), collect furniture from the street to paint in nice bright colors, get mugs of coffee and put it all out in urban locations throughout the community. They had carefully selected areas of the community that looked as though they could benefit from some brightening up ... not only with paint and bright colors but also with knowledge. There you have the "pop-up" library.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The Philadelphia Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, the nation's oldest book collection serving the visually impaired and one of only two in the commonwealth, is slated to be dramatically diminished this week, as services and the collection are slashed.

The plan calls for moving most reading materials to the smaller, less-used Pittsburgh branch; foolishly dumping half a million recorded cassettes; and halving the caring, veteran staff that helps disabled patrons in 29 counties. [ed: I heard about this plan while at PLA in Philadelphia in March; word has it that its the plan of Governor Tom Corbett, a native of Pittsburgh].

The merger makes absolutely no sense and will not save the commonwealth a cent, while providing slower, less efficient service to an already underserved population. Indeed, critics believe the merger will cost more money in unanticipated operating costs.