December 2008

How About a Daily Dose (of New Books)?

Via promotional emails from Powells.com (at least they haven’t gone under yet)…

How The Dose Works–Seven days a week, the Daily Dose brings a reader’s review to your Inbox — along with a chance to win free books!

Each day shortly after midnight we post the day’s featured item on our web site and in our email to Daily Dose subscribers. The reader whose comments we use has until day’s end (11:59 p.m. Pacific Time) to visit our special contest page and claim the prize. Each day we add $20 credit to the available total — until someone wins free books. Then the next day it all starts again.

To enter, write a short review of any item on Powells.com that you think we should tell Daily Dose subscribers about.

Click here to read the complete and official Daily Dose contest rules.

The First Lady’s Memoir is -Not- a Hot Ticket

The last story of 2008 on First Lady Laura Bush.

From The New Yorker: “According to Mrs. Bush’s spokeswoman, Sally McDonough, “She’s going to write a book about the people she met and her life in the White House. It’s not going to be an ‘I grew up in Midland’ type of book.”

The reception to Mrs. Bush’s pitch has been mixed so far. “She was not forthcoming about anything that I would consider controversial,” the [unnamed] publisher who met with her said. “We questioned her rigorously, but it was one-word answers. I considered it the worst, or the most frustrating, meeting of its sort that I’ve ever had.” He added, “But she really couldn’t have been nicer.”

“I chose not to meet with her,” a publisher at another [unnamed] company said. “I got the impression that everyone was totally underwhelmed by her. That’s why there’s so little buzz.”

Setting the record straight on libraries

Here are 10 myths about libraries and librarians, by Carol Petrowski is a La Crosse County Library System staff member at the Onalaska Public Library.

1. Librarians have lots of time to read on the job. FALSE. Our while-at-work reading is usually job related n publisher’s catalogs, professional journals, software manuals, work-related e-mails, etc. We do, however, have to know what’s going on in the world in order to provide better serve you, so I consider People magazine an essential tool for good reference service.

Found over at Stephen’s Lighthouse.

Ten Stories That Shaped 2008

It’s that time again! Read on for some highlights from this year’s library news.

10. OCLC Claims Ownership of Data In OPACs

As if charging libraries to provide it cataloging records wasn’t enough… what’s next? Suing a library-themed hotel?

9. Annoyed Librarian Joins Library Journal

Though some love to hate her, everyone’s favorite snarky semi-anonymous blogger continues to garner attention.

8. Censorship Roundup

Penguins continue to make intellectual freedom headlines, as does violence, homosexuality, and sex. Even Sarah Palin made some of the papers she reads with a story about her dealings with the city librarian while mayor of Wasilla.

7. Wikipedia Marches Ever On

Truthiness issues aside, Wikipedia and other user-generated sites continue to grow. If you haven’t already familiarized yourself with such sites as Wikipedia, Digg, and Facebook, turn in your library degree now.

6. Book Technology

Kindle, e-paper, and related gizmos made further inroads and advances this year, but mainstream adoption is perennially a few years away.

5. Lawsuits Aplenty

Notable publishing lawsuits this year involved Jerry Seinfeld, Harry Potter, and Electronic Reserve.

4. California Librarian Fired for Reporting Man Viewing Child Porn

Yes, sadly, you read it right. There’s more to the story than that, but it remains a reminder that some libraries are short of a full deck.

3. Google Books Settlement

This fall, a payment system was worked out between Google, authors, and publishers, including a subscription model that left some libraries feeling shorted.

2. Gaming Takes Off

Video games in libraries are nothing new, but this year saw incredible growth in the use of video games by libraries to meet patron demands.

1. Can You Spare A Dime?

Those “Recession Boosts Library Use” stories were common this year, but the real news is how hard hit libraries have been in this terribad economy, as typified by the Philadelphia Free Library closings.

What was your favorite story of the year?

Viewing Filtering From The Outside

When library professionals get together and talk internet filtering, we often forget something vitally important. Sure we talk about freedom of access, how filtering supposedly coincides with collection development policies, and how to protect our patrons and such like.

One thing that seldom gets brought up, at least in conversations I’ve been privy to is “So, what do our patrons actually think about our filtering?” And it’s kind of rare to see any input from the outside, you know, from the people we’re actually supposed to be serving.

Twanna Hines is not a librarian. She’s a Funky Brown Chick. She’s a writer, an occupation I think we can all say we know something about. She lives in New York City and writes about dating, sex, and relationships. And as a patron, she was appalled to find out that the New York Public Library filters her site.

I have to wonder, how many of us can access the above links at work? And does it say anything about filtering when some of us might have to go home to read about what people think about filtering?

Teen Librarian Goes the Distance for Young Adult Readers

“It was crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside,” she said. “They take the stinger out, because they’re poisonous.”

What’s that? A scorpion, encased in a lolipop, gladly eaten by Aubri Keleman, teen services and web coordinator for the Whatcom (WA) County Library System.

What led to the downing of the crunchy/chewy scorpion? Read all about it in the Bellingham Herald.

Hands-On Kids’ Museums Make Learning Fun

There was a story on NPR about hands-on children’s museums and how they use technology. The whole piece was interesting but there was a mention how some children’s museums are teaming with libraries.

A public library kiosk in Dinosphere lets kids from anywhere in Indiana check out library books and send them back through the state’s interlibrary loan system.