May 2003

Same Shinola, Different Day the library edition

frank r. hewitt writes
Generally, mornings are pretty quiet. Especially on days like today when the weather is nasty, it’s quite pleasant to enjoy the library’s tranquil ambience undisturbed by patrons. But, like all good things, it usually comes to an end as noon approaches.


Our first patron of the day was Mrs. P, one the many senior hypochondriacs that keep the medical publishers’ bottom line in the black.

frank r. hewitt writes
Generally, mornings are pretty quiet. Especially on days like today when the weather is nasty, it’s quite pleasant to enjoy the library’s tranquil ambience undisturbed by patrons. But, like all good things, it usually comes to an end as noon approaches.


Our first patron of the day was Mrs. P, one the many senior hypochondriacs that keep the medical publishers’ bottom line in the black.Wearing some hideous flowered thing, she totters through the front door, a (barely) walking advertisement for calcium supplements. She should know the medical section by heart as much as she uses it, but, my luck, she’s heading for the reference desk. Fortunately, the unsteady progress of Mrs. P’s doddering gait gives me plenty of time to buzz the clerk at the circ desk and ask her to buzz me back with a fake phone call should Mrs. P start rambling on too long. The fake phone ruse proves unnecessary today, though. She just wants to know if we have any new books on arthritis. I scribble the call number on a piece of scrap paper and point her to the 610s. I’d recently shifted the arthritis books to the bottom shelf in the hope of discouraging some of the geezers and geezettes, but so far it doesn’t seem to have helped much.


Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t dislike all old people – just the ones that come into the library and pester me instead of doing something productive, like working at Wal-Mart or McDonalds. In fact, one of my assistants is a senior citizen, and I don’t know how I’d get through the day without him. His name is Old Grand-Dad, and his office is in the bottom drawer of my desk. Old Grand-Dad has an even more helpful colleague named Panama Red, but I’ve had to cut back since I can’t afford Panama’s services much anymore. The local kids are charging so much for an ounce nowadays that even forgiving library fines or distracting the security guard so they can steal a few DVDs doesn’t knock much off the price. Not to mention that the union completely caved in on drug testing, so the prospect of enjoying a mellow workday is getting riskier.


By this time I’m ready for a break, so I tell our new MLS librarian that I have a doctor’s appointment (actually, just a leisurely lunch and postprandial visit with Old Grand-Dad), and she eagerly agrees to come out and cover the reference desk so I can go to lunch early. Although her enthusiasm can be annoying, Susie Sunshine (our new grad) is so eager to please (and easy to take advantage of) that I’d rather have her around than a more experienced (i.e. jaded) colleague who’d be tougher to get over on.


After lunch, I have some off-desk time. I quickly discard a memo from the administration reminding us that “work should be fun,” that we “choose our own attitude,” and suchlike crapola. Our management fad-loving director is most recently enamored of something called the “FISH philosophy.” Apparently, corporate America (along with the irritatingly influential “library should be run like a business” crowd) is now taking management cues from some fishmonger whose book was moronic enough to get it on the best-seller list. The “innovation” behind this latest fad is that the mindless, minimum-wage dronework of fishmonging was made more enjoyable (and more importantly, more profitable) if you let the workers throw fish at each other. Any fad that suggests that cheesy slogans (rather than decent pay and benefits) can make your company more profitable and reduce turnover will understandably be popular with the few US employers who haven’t yet moved their operations to third-world sweatshops. An example of the FISH philosopy in action: instead of providing health insurance, when one of your workers has a heart attack you throw a salmon at him (salmon being rich in some sort of heart-healthy fatty acids).


Anyway, despite my natural distaste for the piscine ideology, I suppose there might be some merit to the “work should be fun” idea. In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I decide to test the theory by spending the rest of my off-desk time nursing an Old Grand-Dad and shooting pool on Yahoo Games. Buzz-enhanced online eight-ball does turn out to be more fun than tediously poring over book reviews, so I guess there’s something to be said for being open to new ideas.


Returning to the reference desk, the library’s a lot noisier than I left it this morning. School’s out for the day, and I have to dispatch a crew of annoying little twerps down to the children’s department (fate worse than death = job as a children’s librarian). I’ve barely settled down to enjoy the newly kid-free environment, when I see Mrs. K coming towards the desk. Her husband’s a city alderman, something she’ll be sure to let you know within five minutes of meeting her. I usually try to avoid her, but I don’t have time to escape and the fake phone call won’t do because no telephone reference question could possibly be as important as serving Her Majesty.


Mrs. K wants a copy of “Seabiscuit,” a biography of a racehorse. She says that she’s fascinated by horse racing and drops a few names by way of intimating that she travels in some pretty stratospheric social circles. Her husband owns a wholesale meat business, so I’m doubtful of her claims to that social set, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he has some *commercial* relationships with the racing industry.


Frankly, I find the notion of a racehorse’s biography pretty absurd. Racehorses eat, sleep, and run around in circles. If they run fast, they’re put out to stud; if they run slow, then they’re glue. How the hell do you get a 400-page book out of that material? Of course, given today’s debased cultural climate, padding the page count with a lurid account of Seabiscuit’s love life might enhance marketability to the (Jerry) Springer-philic segment of the reading public, but I haven’t seen that mentioned in any reviews. Guess we’ll have to wait for the unauthorized biography to get that angle.


But then, I have a hard time understanding the appeal of many best-selling books. For example, folks seem to have an insatiable appetite for diet books and get-rich-quick real estate books. How many of these do they have to read before they figure out that it ain’t gonna happen?? I recently saw one of those rah-rah articles on lisnews.com that described libraries as “Temples of Wisdom.” or some such boosterish nonsense. Sometimes I think “Warehouses of Folly” would be a better description, but hey, whatever keeps the paychecks coming is OK with me.

frh

[Originally posted to newlib-l, where Michael McGrorty’s musings have inspired me to try my hand at a little “life at the library” narrative.]

Hidden Mysteries online bookstore has alternative titles

I noticed an item at Linkfilter this morning about Hidden Mysteries, an online bookstore specializing in hard-to-find books on a number of interesting topics. A quick scan of their book list reveals items such as Noam Chomsky’s 9-11, The Last Days of the Romanovs by Robert Wilton, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, they also carry such Loompanics Catalog fodder as America’s Secret Establishment, Teleportation: A How-to Guide, and Anti-Gravity and the World Grid.

Why am I posting it here? Because of this introductory statement:

We strive to gather and stock some of the books which are on the ‘unofficial’ suppressed books lists by many governments in the world. While we may not agree with all the topics, theories, and authors, we do maintain it is your right to have access to these materials, and have the freedom to read what you choose, without interference from any hidden hands and shadow governments.

Home Schooling in Cyberspace

Jen Young spotted a look at Home Schooling From The NYTimes.

They say online education is only just beginning to spread to the lower grades. There are fewer than two dozen virtual elementary and middle schools nationwide, in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and a few other states. Some are run by for-profit companies like K12, which has 7,000 students nationwide, or Sylvan Ventures, based in Baltimore, which teaches 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grade through its Connections Academy subsidiary. Others are operated by state education officials themselves.

A City’s Hard Choice: New Tax or No Libraries

SomeOne writes “Voters in New Rochelle, NY, are being asked to approve a new tax to pay for a library system that the city had previously financed. If it is not approved, the city’s two libraries will have to close July 1, and residents will not be able to borrow books in nearby communities, which extend that privilege only to towns that reciprocate. The story is in
the New York Times (free registration required). “

eBooks Corporation partners with the home of the www

k paulson writes “eBooks Corporation partners with the home of the world wide web to develop eBook Library

eBooks Corporation moves a step closer to achieving its goal of “Any book, anywhere”

Los Angeles, May 29th 2003

At Book Expo America today, eBooks Corporation announced that it is collaborating with leading international university and research libraries to develop an ebook lending platform. Ebook Library or ‘EBL’ is scheduled for release in select university and research libraries in September 2003 and will be officially launched in January 2004.

k paulson writes “eBooks Corporation partners with the home of the world wide web to develop eBook Library

eBooks Corporation moves a step closer to achieving its goal of “Any book, anywhere”

Los Angeles, May 29th 2003

At Book Expo America today, eBooks Corporation announced that it is collaborating with leading international university and research libraries to develop an ebook lending platform. Ebook Library or ‘EBL’ is scheduled for release in select university and research libraries in September 2003 and will be officially launched in January 2004.
EBL will feature Non-linear Lending™, a multiple-concurrent lending model which allows a single title to be checked out simultaneously by multiple patrons. Other features of EBL include digital interlibrary lending, unique ebook reserve functionality and lending by the chapter. eBook titles can be browsed online and then downloaded to a desktop, laptop, or hand-held device for use offline. The system will allow patrons to perform full text searches across their library’s entire ebook collection.

The impetus to develop EBL was client driven. Unable to find an existing ebook library solution that was suitable for his specialized research environment, Jens Vigen, Scientific Information Officer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva approached eBooks Corporation. CERN’s Education and Technology Transfer Division is now working closely with eBooks Corporation to shape an ebook lending product that meets the special needs of research and academic libraries.

Vigen says, “CERN gave the world the Word Wide Web in the early 1990’s. It is appropriate that we should continue to work on projects that promote innovation in the transfer of information and technology.” He explains, “CERN Library has been involved in electronic publishing since the Web began. With the development of electronic journals we realized too late that we should have put in a foot earlier, as it has taken great effort to convince publishers to redesign their products after they had been released. With this in mind, we are now actively doing something for the electronic book so that the industry will come up with products that correspond to the needs of scientific libraries.”

eBooks Corporation has specialized in the production and distribution of digital books since 1997, and launched one of the world’s first ebook stores (www.ebooks.com)“>http://www.ebooks.com”>(www.ebooks.com) in 2000.

Stephen Cole, Founder and Managing Director of eBooks Corporation says, “We have refined the distribution of ebooks in our retail channel and are now expanding our distribution to academic libraries. We come to the library arena with a deep understanding of ebook technology and its uses. Building on our experience we’re creating a lending platform which will bring tremendous flexibility to library patrons and deliver real efficiencies and cost savings to academic and research libraries.
“We’re very conscious of the many commercial and ideological sensitivities surrounding digital libraries, and are determined that EBL will live up to the expectations of patrons, libraries, publishers and authors. EBL will do what everyone thought digital libraries were supposed to do.

EBL will offer an extensive academic catalogue with a particular focus on scientific, technical and medical titles.

###

About eBooks Corporation

eBooks Corporation is a global provider of digital books. It has distribution agreements with publishers in the US, UK and Australia. The company has long-standing, close working relationships with Adobe, Microsoft, Palm and other stakeholders in the ebook industry. Ebooks Corporation develops, hosts, and securely distributes eBooks through its retail site (www.ebooks.com).”>http://www.ebooks.com”>(www.ebooks.com). eBooks Corporation will soon be expanding distribution to wholesale (www.ebookengine.com)“>http://www.ebookengine.com”>(www.ebookengine.com) and library (www.ebl.ebooks.com)“>http://www.ebl.ebooks.com”>(www.ebl.ebooks.com) channels.

About CERN
CERN (www.cern.ch) is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world’s largest particle physics center. Founded in 1954, the laboratory was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and includes now 20 Member States. Physicists come to CERN to explore what matter is made of and the forces that hold it together. Founded in 1954, the laboratory was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and includes now 20 Member States.
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All we need to digitize

Gary Deane sent over An interesting Article on A Swiss company called 4DigitalBooks. They make a high-quality, high-speed scanning system with a cradle that handles page turning and protects the book being scanned. The pages are displayed on a nearby screen, where they can be processed in all sorts of elegant ways, from enhancing their images or photographs to smoothing out the curvature caused by the book’s shape.