LibraryCity to help libraries cut costs, improve service

David Rothman writes “In John Steinbeck‘s hometown of Salinas, California, the cash-strapped library system has received at least $1,000 from San Quinten prisoners. Most Americans, murderers included, already love public libraries. But how can libraries use high-tech to deliver even more value to the taxpayers and stretch scarce tax dollars further? And just how can we bridge the gap between ill-funded libraries and the Google generation in an increasingly wired–and wireless–world?

Lori Watrous-deVersterre, executive director of the new LibraryCity, a nonprofit collaboration between creative librarians and innovative technical people, will speak on the above topic and more on July 28–at a virtual library conference session on “Book, Ebooks and Audiobooks.”

David Rothman writes “In John Steinbeck‘s hometown of Salinas, California, the cash-strapped library system has received at least $1,000 from San Quinten prisoners. Most Americans, murderers included, already love public libraries. But how can libraries use high-tech to deliver even more value to the taxpayers and stretch scarce tax dollars further? And just how can we bridge the gap between ill-funded libraries and the Google generation in an increasingly wired–and wireless–world?

Lori Watrous-deVersterre, executive director of the new LibraryCity, a nonprofit collaboration between creative librarians and innovative technical people, will speak on the above topic and more on July 28–at a virtual library conference session on “Book, Ebooks and Audiobooks.”It’s part of the Let’s Go Library Expo series held by PlanetLibrary. So far, more than 170 persons have signed up for the free conference, from as far off as Australia and New Zealand. Among the other speakers is Asra Nomani, author of the new book Standing Alone in Mecca. Click here for basic details of the conference. It starts at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, and Ms. Watrous-deVersterre herself will speak late in the morning.

“In this Amazon and Google era, libraries must be more than book warehouses,” says Ms. Watrous-deVersterre. “Librarians know they need to encourage young people to be enthusiastic readers and able researchers. Via our next-generation technology to be revealed later, we’ll help libraries be interactive in new ways that go far beyond present alternatives, and we’ll also strive to use the Net to simplify library staffers’ work. Also we’ll team up with existing suppliers of commercial and public domain books and other items and otherwise help libraries significantly expand their range of content.

“We’ll be working with Distributed Proofreaders, for example, the most prolific provider of high-quality public domain books. In fact, Juliet Sutherland, executive director of DP, will be among my fellow speakers at the conference. We’re also in negotiations with several other major content organizations in both the public domain and commercial areas, and the door is open for other content and technical organizations to approach us.

“Our human side will matter as much as the bits and bytes,” says Ms. Watrous-deVersterre. “Board members include public librarian Rochelle Hartman, an ALA councilor and well-known blogger for LISNews and her inimitable Tinfoil+Raccoon. Alev Akman, another seasoned MLIS on our board, comes with a powerful determination to help the public domain world better meet the needs of public libraries. We want our books and multimedia to blend in well with catalogs, for example, and Alev will be invaluable. Our consulting librarian is Tom Peters, a conference organizer, with whom we’ll work on many matters ranging from content selection to audio conferencing and services for people with disabilities.” I’m involved, too, in strategy and other areas, and will speak at the conference. LibraryCity is many ways will be a nongovernment version of the TeleRead proposal aimed at reducing the harm from economic inequalities among schools and library systems.

Meanwhile, whether you’re a Net-hip librarian or a civilian tech wizard with a skill in an area such as PHP or Drupal, LibraryCity invites you to send in your resume for consideration for possible volunteer work. You can reach LibraryCity at [email protected] if you like the LC vision and want to help.

Here’s a chance to team up with top-notch people. A long-time library booster with experience in image-management libraries, Lori comes with two decades of project management experience from the fast-moving semiconductor business where she ran industry-pacing projects that often included complex partnership arrangements. Her LibraryCity technical director, Jeff Fobbe, helped oversee millions of e-pub downloads, as well as e-commerce activities, while serving as the original technical director of the huge ERIC database established by the Department of Education. And board member Jon Noring, a speaker on July 28, is a leading e-book standards setter.

“Jon will be helping publishers and local libraries to use technical standards such as the OpenReader e-pub format from the OpenReader Consortium,” Lori says. “He moderates the eBook Community list with 2800 members and has spent years on e-book standards for the Open eBook Forum, an industry trade group. We invite vendors and nonprofits of all kind, including the OCLC, to work with Jon to develop long-overdue consumer and library standards to reduce the costs and complexity of e-books. Leading Internet e-bookstores such as Fictionwise and eBooks.com have endorsed the development of the OpenReader format, as has Victor McCrary, formerly the main e-book evangelist for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. We’re eager for participation from the library world as well.”

“Standards are not just a theoretical matter,” says Rochelle Hartman, recalling first-hand her struggles with the complexities of existing e-books. “Proprietary formats limit the choices of libraries and their patrons. That’s a key part of our goals–to make technology serve libraries and vendors alike and make certain that libraries can forever access already-purchased content. The present e-book world is severely lacking in that regard. And it’s a hair-puller for librarians and consumers. You don’t need to wear different glasses to read books from HarperCollins instead of those from Simon & Schuster. And you don’t need different CD players to play songs from different recording studios. So why should e-books be different? And if the libraries must use digital rights management schemes to ‘protect’ books, won’t it be easier if there are standards?” And more economical, too.

Certainly libraries can use the savings. In the San Francisco Chronicle, reporter Kelly St. John wrote that the San Quinten prisoners “say they raised the money in part because they wouldn’t have ended up in prison had they gone further in school. They say they could not imagine their own lives without San Quentin’s modest library, which is open to the general prison population six days a week. And some wanted to point out budget priorities that have governments cutting education programs and closing libraries while spending more money on prisons.” LibraryCity can’t replace shut-down public libraries, but through standards and otherwise, it can fine-tune the efficiencies of the new technology to help mitigate the damage from devastating budget cuts.

Organizers of the conference include the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center, the North Suburban Library System near Chicago, the Alliance Library System in Central Illinois, and TAP Information Services near Kansas City, Missouri. The main sponsor is OverDrive.”