March 2012

Off-Season @ Your Library

Is your library in a winter or summer vacation destination? Here’s how the librarians in Martha’s Vineyard MA have dealt this situation.

While the library landscape has adjusted to the technology age, one of the most important ways that the local institutions serve the public, according to representatives from five of the Island’s six libraries, is as a social setting and a center for a wide range of activities. And this is especially true in the winter when Islanders may be isolated and bored.

Beth Kramer, director of the West Tisbury Free Public library said, “Off season was once a quiet time for Island libraries, but we are really busy now — helping people write resumes and search for jobs, helping students with their school projects and providing a safe place to come after school and work on homework, providing material for upcoming trips, working with the public to learn how to use the Internet and computers, and planning our upcoming programs in response to community requests.”

The Strike is Over for 2300 Librarians in Toronto

Toronto librarians return to work;
after a ten-day walk-out, an agreement has been reached.

Members of CUPE Local 4948 had been on strike since March 19 and libraries were closed during that time. Members voted Thursday night to accept an offer from the city.

CUPE Local 4948 representatives said they were able to fight back all concessions on benefits, noting this is particularly important for the library’s many part-time workers.

Video and story here.

Copyright Stagnation

Copyright stagnation
Paul Heald demonstrated the effect of the stagnant US copyright wall in seminar at Canterbury last week.

Recall that books published through 1922 are in the public domain in the US; those published since then are covered by copyright.

Heald dug through some Amazon stats to see what happens to books as they come out of copyright. Here’s the rather stunning graph.

Bringing Up an E-Reader

NYT article on kids and reading.

Excerpt: But is it better than a book? It may take a generation to ever know for sure, and even 10 or 20 years from now it will be debated as the effects of television or video games are still discussed today.

Julianna’s teacher, Kourtney Denning, sees e-books as essential. “Old books don’t really cut it anymore,” she said. “We have to transform our learning as we know it.”

Full article

Copyright and Open Access: Reconsidering University Ownership of Faculty Research

This Article makes a more controversial suggestion. Universities should exercise their legal right to claim ownership of copyright in the research publications produced by their faculty. Only universities can wield sufficient leverage to compel fundamental change in scholarly publishing. Although traditionally an anathema to faculty, university ownership of copyright in research can be implemented without undermining academic freedom or the economic and reputational interests of university faculty.

Full abstract – You can also download full text of article

Library as Incubator Project

More on a project first mentioned in a January LISNews story.

From Poets & Writers Magazine, an article by Melissa Faliveno. Last winter in Madison, WI as political protests in the state capital were escalating, three graduate students were thinking not only about collective-bargaining rights, but also about libraries, the arts, and the future of both. Erinn Batykefer, Laura Damon-Moore, and Christina Endres, first-year students in the LIS program at the University of Wisconsin, started talking about the ways in which writers and other artists use libraries as creative spaces, how libraries can help foster their work, and how both parties might work together to support and sustain each other. The students’ answer is the Library as Incubator Project, a website for writers, artists, and librarians to share their creations and ideas in one collaborative space.

More on a project first mentioned in a January LISNews story.

From Poets & Writers Magazine, an article by Melissa Faliveno. Last winter in Madison, WI as political protests in the state capital were escalating, three graduate students were thinking not only about collective-bargaining rights, but also about libraries, the arts, and the future of both. Erinn Batykefer, Laura Damon-Moore, and Christina Endres, first-year students in the LIS program at the University of Wisconsin, started talking about the ways in which writers and other artists use libraries as creative spaces, how libraries can help foster their work, and how both parties might work together to support and sustain each other. The students’ answer is the Library as Incubator Project, a website for writers, artists, and librarians to share their creations and ideas in one collaborative space.

During class one day, the aspiring librarians listened as their professor discussed the importance of creative outreach for library programs, particularly at a precarious time for arts funding. Damon-Moore and Endres wanted to figure out a way to help connect libraries with visual and performing artists. Batykefer, having just finished her MFA in poetry, wanted to do the same for writers. Meanwhile, just down the street at the capitol, the challenge was mounting for these sorts of ambitions, as massive budget cuts squelched resources for the arts: The Wisconsin Arts Board was gutted, school arts programs were cut, and funding for the state’s poet laureate program was eliminated. Suddenly the trio’s endeavor seemed much more urgent.

“We’d been excited about the project and believed in it,” says Batykefer, who has worked in libraries since she was fifteen, “but it moved from being a cool idea to a necessary one.”

Want to follow them on twitter? @IArtLibraries

Pinterest for Libraries

The only way you’ve not heard about Pinterest yet is if you have been totally living under a rock. Allow me to enlighten you. Pinterest is a social photo sharing website, styled like a pin-board, that lets you create and manage theme based photo collection. Not only has it become a rage with home users, it is also being used by businesses and non profits to gather visibility and let people know about them.

Interestingly, libraries too are jumping on to the Pinterest band wagon as well, to encourage visitors to use their services as well to facilitate the library experience of existing users. Here are 20 creative ways libraries around the world are using this new social platform to communicate with the common reader; twenty categories are suggested.

1. Pinning book covers
2. Reading lists
3. Attracting children and teenagers
4. Displaying archives
5. Letting people know about new acquisitions
6. Helping out in research
7. Showing off your library
8. Sharing infographics related to learning
9. Promoting library activities
10. Sharing digital collection
11. Managing reading programs
12. Sharing ideas with parents
13. Bringing focus on library staff
14. Getting new ideas for library displays
15. Collecting ideas for programs
16. Drawing attention to the local community
17. Sharing craft projects
18. Connecting to other libraries
19. Encouraging book clubs
20. Interacting with patrons

The only way you’ve not heard about Pinterest yet is if you have been totally living under a rock. Allow me to enlighten you. Pinterest is a social photo sharing website, styled like a pin-board, that lets you create and manage theme based photo collection. Not only has it become a rage with home users, it is also being used by businesses and non profits to gather visibility and let people know about them.

Interestingly, libraries too are jumping on to the Pinterest band wagon as well, to encourage visitors to use their services as well to facilitate the library experience of existing users. Here are 20 creative ways libraries around the world are using this new social platform to communicate with the common reader; twenty categories are suggested.

1. Pinning book covers
2. Reading lists
3. Attracting children and teenagers
4. Displaying archives
5. Letting people know about new acquisitions
6. Helping out in research
7. Showing off your library
8. Sharing infographics related to learning
9. Promoting library activities
10. Sharing digital collection
11. Managing reading programs
12. Sharing ideas with parents
13. Bringing focus on library staff
14. Getting new ideas for library displays
15. Collecting ideas for programs
16. Drawing attention to the local community
17. Sharing craft projects
18. Connecting to other libraries
19. Encouraging book clubs
20. Interacting with patrons

A library cannot be successful unless it has a mutually interactive relationship with its patrons. Pinterest helps libraries achieve that, by giving publicity to books, reading challenges, contest, and fun events where they can participate online.

Does your library have pinterest boards?

Public v. Private; The Discussion Continues

From The Atlantic Cities:

“press two for costumer service”

I’ll admit, to me, the idea of a privatized public library has a certain dystopian ring to it, the ultimate public space corrupted for a profit. That image was not much aided by my first (and second and third) call to Library System and Services Inc., the only library privatization company in the United States. LSSI now runs at least 15 library systems in California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas. This means it is, effectively, the fifth largest library system in the country.

Time and again, I ran through an automated response system without finding a real person. A week’s worth of emails went unanswered. And then, there’s the message at one of LSSI’s libraries, which directs you press two for “costumer service.”

Is this the future of the reference desk, I wondered? Not exactly the library system of my childhood, where each call about books on hold was answered by the same librarian I had known since I started attending kid’s corner book readings.

But then, there’s the example of Santa Clarita, California. …More.