December 2007

There’s a growing nationwide library ministry that has changed since the days of a few donated volumes stacked on dusty shelves in fellowship halls. Wedgwood Baptist Church’s 10,000-volume library has recently been enlarged and remodeled, with a new children’s section decorated with a sea-creature theme.

Publishers have found a niche — a big one — for stylized Bibles inspired by pop culture. Almost anything goes. How do you sell a really old book that 91% of households already have? You can’t update the content, or get the author on Oprah. But you can make the look sizzle. If pink and shiny sells a purse, why not a psalm?

“A lot of people read the Bible because it’s obligatory, something to keep God off their backs,” says Paul J. Caminiti, a vice president. “We’re looking to turn them into Bible lovers . . . so it becomes part of the warp and woof of their being.”

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein has announced the retirement of Lewis Bellardo, Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff at the National Archives and Records Administration since 1995, effective December 31, 2007. At the same time, he announced that Adrienne C. Thomas, who has worked at NARA for 37 years, would succeed Dr. Bellardo as Deputy Archivist. PR Newswire release.

Will the new year will bring other job openings at NARA? Check out the National Archives employment pages.

As has happened in other states, cash-strapped schools in Washington state are dropping librarians to save money: This year, Federal Way cut 20 librarian positions. Spokane reduced 10 librarians to half-time. Darrington cut two librarians. A school in Marysville eliminated its half-time librarian.

Libraries are open fewer hours, programs minimized, jobs combined. In many cases, part-timers with little formal library training are replacing skilled veterans. In rural Pomeroy, a school now employs a combination custodian-librarian — she opens the library after cleaning the locker rooms.

That is the question…do library patrons want their fiction choices to be categorized by genre? Carol Petrowski, a reference librarian at the Onalaska Public Library (a part of the LaCrosse County Library) asks readers their preferences and points out that although all fiction is shelved alphabetically by author, “Genre labeling is only an additional tool to help you identify the type of material you might want.”

Of course, on the other hand, “it is not necessary, it is not infallible and it may cause consternation or outrage to patrons who disagree with the genre assigned.” Egad.

defectivebydesign.org: Amazon Kindle (Swindle), Sony Reader (Sh-reader), and others are all competing to control how, what, and when we can read with their competing Digital Restrictions Management technologies. Let’s let them know that we won’t buy their ebook readers until they get rid of the DRM!

LiveScience furnishes the list of the most well-read urbanites in the U.S. this year, and two cities continue to lead the pack, Minneapolis and Seattle.

The survey focused on 69 U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or above. Jack Miller, President of Central Connecticut State University chose six key indicators to rank literacy. These included newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.

‘Tis The Season to put together our list of “must read” library blogs for 2008. Like our 10 Blogs To Read in 2006 & 2007, the goal is to create a list that will reflect a wide a range of opinions in our profession.

What blogs do you read every day? What blogs help you learn? What blogs keep you informed? What blogs make you laugh? Who’s the best writer out there? Think of it this way: “I read many others, but these are the LIS blogs that read even when time is short.”

Your list need not be complete, fair, or even have more than one blog listed. I’m looking for input from everyone so the final list is full of new faces. My goal again this year, 10 blogs that paint picture of what’s going on in our little world.

Send me your ideas, or leave a comment below.

Anyone who made it to 10 Blogs To Read in 2006 & 2007 won’t be included this year. 10 Blogs To Read In 2007 and 10 Blogs To Read in 2006.

Leslie Johnston Wrote about what she had learned from the repository development project over the years. This is the first time that anyone has asked that so directly, as opposed to general discussions about assessment and process review and software optimization. So, what did we learn? This is what she come up with so far.
1. Have your media file standards in mind before you start.
2. Know what the functional requirements of your interface will be before you start.
3. Some aspect of your implementation technologies will change during the project.
4. Your project will never be “done.”

So you’ve managed to achieve a good flow of traffic, but you don’t have the revenue to back it up. What’s going on? It’s time to optimize for conversions and cast a critical eye on more than traffic numbers, but how your visitors behave when on your site. These resources will help you measure, understand, and covert your traffic into revenue-building users.