These days it’s more important than ever to communicate with people outside of the library world—“civilians,” as library consultant Joan Frye Williams calls them. Community publications offer endless opportunities to share stories of library resources, services, and needs with our users, potential users, and funders. Let’s look at how we can increase the visibility and … Continue reading Writing for Civilians
For the December ebook report, Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries looked at availability of books the top 10 New York Times Children’s Chapter Books list. The mix of fiction and nonfiction on the list reveals the problem of trying to force a move towards digital content. In this case, 40% of the books are simply not … Continue reading Children’s Ebooks Come up Missing: December Ebook Report from DCL
Specialized health care libraries have been taking it on the chin. The American Hospital Association library budget has been repeatedly cut over the past few years. The American Medical Association’s library quietly closed in March. In July, the American Dental Association’s library budget was slashed, and eight of 13 library staffers expect to lose their … Continue reading American Dental Association Library May Be Set to Close
I am a gamer. One of the games I spend quite a bit of time playing is World of Warcraft, which might best be described as a really pretty, 3D graphical user interface to a series of amazingly complicated spreadsheets. At the highest level of play, every step is theory-crafted using log files of past … Continue reading Min-Maxing Digital Library Lending
Half a dozen tweens are crowded around several large tables stacked with odds and ends in the windows of the Meekins Library in the center of the small town of Williamsburg, Massachusetts (population 2,500). Two girls kneeling on the floor are pulling things out from under an old oak table that has been part of … Continue reading Creating a New Tradition
Last-minute wrangling in the Florida legislature produced a deal to preserve state funding for libraries at the current-year level. At just before midnight on April 26 the House, which originally wanted to zero out all funding for the State Aid to Public Libraries program, accepted a Senate offer to restore it to the FY2009 appropriation … Continue reading In Midnight Deal, Florida Legislature Reprieves Public Library Funding
Voters showed their library love at the polls November 6 by supporting a series of millages and bond issues for operations and construction around the nation, although there were also some notable disappointments. What follows is a quick snapshot of library-related election results. Colorado: Thanks to the passage of Measure 2A in Denver, which enables … Continue reading Libraries Fare Well Overall at the Ballot Box
Remember back when we as a profession pretty much lost it over the decision by HarperCollins to have ebooks expire after 26 loans? Ah, we were so young, so naive. If we had any clue about the limitations yet to come, we would have been a lot more welcoming of what now seems like not … Continue reading Remember Back When . . . HarperCollins Edition (Brought to You by Penguin)
“Writing Women Back into History” is the theme for National Women’s History Month, March 2010, the annual celebration of women in the United States. For years women’s contributions were routinely underestimated or ignored even in the history of our own profession. While this still remains the case for much of history, the second wave of … Continue reading How to Celebrate Women’s History @ Your Library
Beyond temporary power outages and minor wind and water damage, libraries along the Atlantic coast weathered Superstorm Sandy fairly well, considering all the flooding and destruction inflicted on homes and businesses. Although some areas of central New Jersey were still without power six days after the storm, many public libraries in affected states were powered … Continue reading Libraries Weather the Superstorm
It was a rather rough month for library ebook access, at least if you are looking to pick up digital versions of the USA Today’s bestsellers. None of the top five books, and only six out of the 25 on the list, are available as ebooks to libraries according to the latest DCL pricing report … Continue reading A Bad Month for Library Ebooks: Oct. DCL Report
Librarians at Seattle Public Library are serving as an official fact-checking tool for the state’s Living Voters Guide (LVG), a free nonpartisan service that enables people in Washington State to discuss, research, and ask questions about any of the state’s eight ballot measures for 2012. Created in 2010 by the University of Washington, LVG works … Continue reading Seattle Librarians Elected to Fact-Check the Living Voters Guide
