August 2016

What probably won’t change that much are librarians and the physical spaces they watch over. Pescovitz suspects that humans will always need some sort of guide to make a foreign landscape more familiar. Whether humanity turns that job into one for artificial intelligence is another matter, he says.

From What libraries of the future will look like – Business Insider

What’s different about Milwaukee is that the city is being asked to buy back something it already had—and, in the case of the library’s digital scans, had even helped build.

“Our archives should be available again soon,” Journal-Sentinel president Chris Stegman wrote to Urban Milwaukee. “As we switch over to our new parent company’s systems we are also switching our archiving system from Google to Newsbank. There is a delay in the process but we hope to have them available again shortly. I apologize for the inconvenience and hope our solution is up and running soon.”

From Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel archive vanishes from Google’s news archive

An article in Voice of America discusses changes to campus library design.

Here for example is the Rain Garden Reading Lounge inside the Hunt Library at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC: Light & airy with a coupla books.

Little video inspired by the completion of the Olympics.

As she spends her days surrounded by more than 300,000 original cartoons, 45,000 books and 2.5 million comic strip clippings and tear sheets, Caitlin McGurk is living her dream.
McGurk, 30, serves as visiting curator for Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum – she’s also an assistant professor – a result of her lifelong passion for comics, coupled with hard work and perseverance.
BTN.com recently spoke with McGurk about her role, the museum itself, and her thoughts on the future of the comics industry.

From Ohio State professor reflects on her passion for comic books: BTN LiveBIG « Big Ten Network

The decision to pull books from a summer reading list in Chesterfield County after parents complained that they were laden with sexually explicit language and violence has drawn the attention of a state senator and criticism from national free-speech advocacy groups.

From Committee reviewing books pulled from summer reading list in Chesterfield – Richmond Times-Dispatch: Chesterfield County News

More than a decade ago, the earliest era of blogging provided a set of separate but related technologies that helped the nascent form thrive. Today, most have faded away and been forgotten, but new incarnations of these features could still be valuable.

From The lost infrastructure of social media. — Medium

Richardson’s system actually works: they’re using it in NYPL and many affiliated libraries. It makes reading ebooks from the library one trillion times better, and it lets anyone improve it, at anywhere in the stack — it lets commercial suppliers play, too, but prevents them from locking libraries, publishers or readers in. It is a model of how mission-driven public agencies and nonprofits can be truly game-changing in online ecosystems that have been dominated by a single, monolithic corporation.

From How the New York Public Library made ebooks open, and thus one trillion times better / Boing Boing

Some Good Customer service “precepts” by Paula Laurita via Pub-Lib

Okay, my number one rule is no blood in the library. But aside from that I
have a few general rules:

2. We don’t work at the “no” factory. The first response isn’t “we can’t do
that”. Try and find the “yes” if possible without infringing on another
patron. Some staff took this at first that we never say no. That’s not a
blanket yes to more computer time if someone else is waiting. It’s not a
blanket yes to extending a summer reading book when there is a holds list.
But, is there really a reason why someone cannot have a special check-out
period for Huck Finn while they are sailing on the Mississippi?

3. Take the money. Cousin Fred checked out a book using Cousin Beatrice’s
card. Fred racked-up the late fines, but doesn’t have Beatrice’s card. He
wants to pay the fines. Take the money. Give Fred the cash register
receipt. Save the account receipt for Beatrice. Don’t inconvenience them
both.

4. This isn’t the cosmetics counter at the local department store. Don’t
chase people to make the sale. “May I help you find anything?” “No, I’m
just browsing.” “Okay, if I can help please let me know.” Give people
privacy and the gift of time to look.

5. No weltschmerz. Well thought out complaints are fine. General whining is
not.