Adventuretime in the library

Warmer... warrrrrmer... cold. Coldish?

Carl Sagan on the power of books

I found this quote yesterday and I love it. Maybe books aren't necessarily 'an assemblage of flat, flexible parts', but the rest of it is still applicable.

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts, still called “leaves”, imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and your hear the voice of another person–perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millenia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.

Some of the earliest authors wrote on clay. Cuneiform writing, the remote ancestor of the Western alphabet, was invented in the Near East about 5,000 years ago. Its purpose was to keep records: the purchase of grain, the sale of land, the triumphs of the king, the statutes of the priests, the positions of the stars, the prayers to the gods. For thousands of years, writing was chiseled into clay and stone, scratched onto wax or bark or leather; painted on bamboo or papyrus or silk–but always one copy at a time and, except for the inscriptions on monuments, always for a tiny readership. Then in China, between the second and sixth centuries, paper, ink and printing with carved wooden blocks were all invented, permitting many copies of a work to be made and distributed. It took a thousands years for the idea to catch on in remote and backward Europe. Then, suddenly, books were being printed all over the world. Just before the invention of movable type, around 1450, there were no more than a few tens of thousands of books in all of Europe, all handwritten; about as many as China in 100 B.C., and a tenth as many as in the Great Library of Alexandria. Fifty years later, around 1500, there were ten million printed books. Learning had become available to anyone who could read. Magic was everywhere.

More recently, books, especially paperbacks, have been printed in massive and inexpensive editions. For the price of a modest meal you can ponder the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the origin of species, the interpretation of dreams, the nature of things. Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.

The great libraries of the world contain millions of volumes, the equivalent of about [10 to the 14th] bits of information in words, perhaps [10 to the 15th] bits in pictures. This is ten thousand times more information than in our genes, and about ten times more than in our brains. If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read. The information in books is not preprogrammed at birth but constantly changed, amended by events, adapted to the world. It is now twenty-three centuries since the founding of the Alexandrian Library. If there were no books, no written records, think how prodigious a time twenty-three centuries would be. With four generations per century, twenty-three centuries occupies almost a hundred generations of human beings.

If information could be passed on merely by word of mouth, how little we should know of our past, how slow would be our progress! Everything would depend on what ancient feelings we had accidentally been told about, and how accurate the account was. Past information might be revered, but in successive retellings it would become progressively more muddled and eventually lost. Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.

Awesome.

10 of the coolest librarians alive

10 of the coolest librarians alive (at least according to flavorwire). I've been a fan of #4 for years now; 6, 7, and 8 have great ideas. Alex, sounds like you and Audrey Barbakoff would get along famously. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.

Marketing and elevator speeches

Another useful link from one of the groups I follow on LinkedIn - On men, elevator speeches, and market segments.

"But who uses a library nowadays, anyway?" 

"I can get books somewhere else."

I hear those two phrases much more often than I'd like. The blog post linked above suggests having two or three ideas prepared for people who will ask you "what's the benefit of a library?" In particular, the post concentrates on men, but keeping some suggestions on hand is a great idea.

Usually I counter 'what's a library good for' by listing the features of my local library system:

1. You can get books from all 33 branches and, given a bit of time, they will be sent to the branch of your choosing, which makes it easier to pick them up. You can't do it last minute, since it could take a few days to cross the city. Still - 33 branches is a lot of books. Not being limited to one branch is amazing.
1. You can order books from home. You don't even have to go into a library if you don't want to. Sometimes this is where I throw in something like 'you don't even need to get out of your pajama pants', depending on who I'm talking to.
2. 'You can return your books at any branch' is great for selling this feature, too. 
2. The library doesn't just have books - they also have DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, ebooks, and video games. Usually this garners a look of disbelief - DVDs? Video games? WHY? To make them available to everyone, as long as they have a library card... which is free.
3. Databases! I love databases so much. And I always forget...
4. Book recommendations. Reader's advisory. I am hesitant to offer it out, because reader's advisory is difficult (in my opinion) and hard to do if you haven't read books in the genre the patron's looking for. I fear someone approaching a librarian looking for science fiction only to be told they 'don't know the genre' and 'can't be any help'. 

Snow White and the seven formats: a digital preservation fairy tale

Meanwhile (or I suppose a while ago), at the Library of Congress...

"In a recent meeting, some colleagues and I discussed the age in which individuals should start understanding the basics of digital preservation. I suggested that, with children creating digital files earlier and earlier, it should be taught as early as possible. The question, of course, is how to get youngsters interested in preserving their data. Fortunately, while doing some research I was able to find a digital preservation fairy tale in the digital archives of the Brothers Grimm. Here is the never-before published tale of Snow Byte and the Seven Formats (movie rights pending). I promise it will make a great bedtime story – they’ll fall right to sleep.  (I would like to thank my wonderful classmate Sara Allen for her invaluable contribution and illustrations)."

I laughed. Also I've been wanting to use that 'Post-It Note' picture on the left for ages now. I actually still have a stack of these in a desk drawer.

I like digitization - especially searchable text content - but constantly updating the file formats is maybe not so awesome.

Actually, while we're at it... I really like this table, too. Did anyone else absently thumb slide the metal bits on these disks back and forth like I did?

Open cover letters

I recently had to write a cover letter. I don't particularly enjoy writing them; I don't like to toot my own horn. Despite that, apparently they were impressed by the cover letter and it may have been what got me an interview. Anyway, here is a site with cover letters from anonymous cover letters from hired librarians and archivists. I may have snagged this from Only connect a while ago.

Vancouver Public Library plans to add rooftop garden

Snagged via a LinkedIn group, Vancouver Public Library Rooftop Garden Planned in New Strategic Vision. What an interesting idea.

Made with the British Library

The British Library has a Pinterest page showcasing the many things it 'helped' create, whether by supplying research material, programming, or other resources. What a great idea! ...Well that was a short post.

Crowdfunding and Libraries

Via LISNews, Library Journal's Crowdfunding the Library.

What's crowdfunding, you might ask. Well! I have fished up a useful definition from Freebase (or really, Mashable fished it up and I liked it enough to use it, too).

Crowd funding or crowdfunding describes the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding, motion picture promotion, free software development, inventions development, scientific research, and civic projects.

Kickstarter is a pretty well known crowd funding site. Recently, the cast and creator of a TV show I liked started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a movie. They got it, and they broke a few records along the way. (That was the first time I donated to a Kickstarter project. I just signed up without even watching the promo video. I really loved that show.)

But does it work for libraries? In short: depends! It works best for 'short-term and new' projects, which is good. Also, it takes work; apparently you don't just put up a post and watch money come rolling in. It helps if you have a video or other marketing strategy like the folks in Shutesbury, Maine, who used a site called Indiegogo. It really really helps if that video goes viral.

So what's a small enough project? I'm not sure. Maybe:

• Funding for a library collection - 'donate to improve our kids section' would probably work better than 'donate to improve our non-fiction section'
• Funding for a very small library - really really small
• Funding for equipment - new projector? New furniture? (Maybe a funny video featuring people sitting on old crates would be good - someone on an old chair that's rigged to fall apart, that kind of thing)
• Funding for very very specific things, like 'replace our crummy old sign'

What do you think you could use crowdfunding for?

Michael Geist on why the digital divide in Canada is going to get worse

Mr. Geist, a professor of law at Ottawa University, talks about the digital divide:

The state of Internet access in Canada has been the subject of considerable debate in recent years as consumers and businesses alike assess whether Canadians have universal access to fast, affordable broadband that compares favourably with other countries. A new House of Commons study currently being conducted by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology offers the chance to gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Canadian high-speed networks and what role the government might play in addressing any shortcomings.

Many of these communities are described as "uneconomic", since the costs associated with building broadband networks are viewed as too expensive given the expected return on investment. The government has funded some programs to foster improved access, however more may be needed to finish the job. This could include direct subsidies funded from revenues obtained through the forthcoming spectrum auction or tax relief for community-based broadband initiatives. Many of these communities are described as "uneconomic", since the costs associated with building broadband networks are viewed as too expensive given the expected return on investment. The government has funded some programs to foster improved access, however more may be needed to finish the job. This could include direct subsidies funded from revenues obtained through the forthcoming spectrum auction or tax relief for community-based broadband initiatives. The access issue is no surprise as there are still hundreds of thousands of Canadians without access to broadband services from local providers. While this is often painted as an urban vs. rural issue (with universal access in urban areas vs. sparse access or reliance on pricey satellite services in rural communities), the reality is that there are still pockets within major cities in Canada without access to either cable or DSL broadband service.

This is why libraries need computers. Lots of computers that give people access.

Reader's Advisory: Westerns bookmark

Over the course of my schoolin', I've pretty much taken three adult readership advisory courses; I've only completed two of them. One was a Gen Ed and the latest is online through my college. The last assignment was due today; I passed it in on Friday 'cause I was eager to finish.

Anyway, boring back story aside, this time through adult reader's advisory I decided to focus on genres I have very little experience with. One of the assignments (actually two, but a different genre each time) was to design a bookmark. Not of the 'this is the library' bookmark, but one with recommendations along the lines of 'if you like crime thrillers, try these authors'. The Iowa Library has some examples on their site; they are .doc files and require you to download them to view them.

I decided to work on Westerns, which I had zero experience with. Almost. My experience with Westerns is essentially limited to the short-lived sci-fi series Firefly and a passing interest in Wyatt Earp. Better than nothing.

At first I thought I might link it to Firefly by choosing a book appropriate to each character, but that didn't stick. Then I thought about the appeal of Firefly itself and how it was a cross-genre show. I ordinarily have no interest in Westerns, but Westerns with spaceships? Those I'm okay with. So then I thought, 'why not lure people to Westerns via genres they already like?' and instead chose five of the genres covered in the course - fantasy, mystery, horror, historical, and science fiction - to choose cross-genre books from. That turned out to be much easier, though the thing where I was determined to find books I'd read myself added an extra layer of difficulty. I did okay on that front, though. I don't think I'd read the romance, but if there was nothing else to read... Anyway. Here are the results:

Bull, Emma. Territory. New York: Tor, 2007. Print.

Hockensmith, Steve. Holmes on the Range. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2006. Print.

Lovelace, Merline. A Savage Beauty. Don Mills, Ont: MIRA, 2003. Print.

Matheson, Richard. Shadow on the Sun. New York: M. Evans and Co, 1994. Print.

Parry, Richard. The Winter Wolf: Wyatt Earp in Alaska. New York: Forge, 1996. Print.

Resnick, Michael D. Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future. New York, N.Y: Tom Doherty Associates, 1986. Print.

Related junk:

TV Tropes' "Badass preacher"

Goodreads: "Book recommendations: Weird West"

RPGnet Forum: "Fantasy Western in fiction"

Slap Bookleather: "Fistful of credits - Mike Resnick’s Inner Frontier" and "Here comes the space cavalry: Seeking the link between Westerns and MilitarySci-Fi"

Matt Molgaar's Horror Review: "Richard Matheson 'Shadow On The Sun' review". 

Base image for bookmark: "Old western silhouette" by mollygrue @ DeviantArt

HistoricalNovels.info: "Old West novels: Historical novels of the American Old West"

Western Writers of America: Literature of the West for the world

Publishers Weekly: "The winter wolf: Wyatt Earp in Alaska"

Library Journal review by Kristin Ramsdell: "A savage beauty". (EBSCO link)

Library Journal review by Ken St. Andre: "Holmes on the range" (EBSCO link)

Wikipedia (I know, I know): "Weird west". 

Templeton Gate: "Santiago: A myth from the far future"

I didn't have time to find this book, but it looks liked it'd been helpful: 

Green, Paul. Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns: Supernatural and Science Fiction Elements in Novels, Pulps, Comics, Films, Television, and Games. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co., Publishers, 2009. Print.

If you end up using this, if you could credit scarletinthelibrary.blogspot.com and mollygrue at DeviantArt, that'd be nifty.

High School Reference and Canadian Street Lit

My current field placement has me in a high school library. I do quite a bit of circulation; mostly iPads, because the school has eighteen iPads for use in the library. And they go like hotcakes. I have assumed a sort of stewardship of them: I make sure they're all turned off, I check their battery levels and put them on chargers when they're below 50% (or just really low, since there were a lot of low batteries the first time I checked them all), I run their software updates when they're charging; I also check for photos taken and delete them, because wow, that could go so wrong. Sometimes I even check out books!

I find I'm doing a lot more reference work, which is good practice. And difficult! Trying to get to the bottom of what a student actually wants/needs is a bit tricky; I have to ask a lot of questions to try to get different answers. Usually I get the same answers, but every once in a while I manage to find more details about whatever project they're doing, which helps. Some topics I've encountered:

• Fish: ...any particular kind of fish? Is this for a project? Taking care of fish? Well, let's check the catalogue. Okay, books about fish are here. Tropical fish will do? Sure. I hope that's what you were looking for!
• Saint Nick: Which Saint Nick? We have these encyclopedias of Saints, but nothing specifically for a Saint Nick. Bonus: I remember doing this project, I think, and taking an obscure Saint just to do something different. And then regretting it when I couldn't find anything.
  • Trivia: My favourite Saint is Saint Sebastian, because his thing is having arrows sticking out of him. Or arrows in general, and apparently sometimes swords, but when I found that out I just pictured him in group shots hangin' out in the back with Saint Francis and his bird and Saint Christopher with the kid on his shoulder - you know, much nicer iconography, still okay at parties and social engagements. And there's this dude next to them with arrows sticking out of him, chilling out. I don't even know if there's a painting like this at all, but that's how it lodged itself in my mind. Where was I?
• Biography of Julius Caesar: Specifically Julius Caesar. We had to settle for entries in books about Roman leaders and such. I suggested the public library and told her how to get a card.
• Burj Khalifa: World's tallest building. Only completed in 2009 (and opened in 2010), it wasn't something we could really find in the high school library. The girls didn't need info so much as another resource to list - they had online sources and wanted an actual book. I looked at the Guinness Book of World Records, but we didn't have the most current version or it didn't have an entry on the tallest building or something. I suggested they look for articles and they seemed to like that idea.
• And then, by far the most difficult: Canadian Urban fiction. I'd heard about street lit before - I think probably via working on this blog and I'm pretty sure it was mentioned in my teen readership advisory class - but I didn't know much. I still don't. But! I was pleased that I at least eventually grokked what she was looking for. I even found a book in our library - Push, by Sapphire. Except that wasn't Canadian.

  I left the school's catalogue and did some searches; there was Concrete Voices, a collection of short stories that might have fit the bill, but the school library didn't have it. A challenge.

  What is urban fiction? A genre featuring black writers and black characters, often criticized for being 'low brow' - too much sex and violence - but also credited with making teens readers and being more accessible, more true to life. This article in the New York Times ("From the Streets to the Libraries", Anne Barnard, October 22, 2008) seems to explain the concept pretty well:

  As a teenager in Far Rockaway, Queens, where she still lives, Ms. Miller read gritty novels set in urban black neighborhoods of the 1960s and ’70s, by Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim. Then there was a dry spell. She made do with Jackie Collins until a new generation of urban fiction sprang up in the late 1990s.

  “I read what I can relate to,” she said. “They’re writing about what I’ve experienced. It’s easier than reading about Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.”

  Which is not to say Ms. Miller, a mother of four, has ever murdered anyone, worked as a prostitute or been draped in diamonds by a drug-dealing boyfriend. (Her husband of 19 years, an ex-Army man, is a garbage collector.) What she recognizes are the characters’ fashions and pleasures (door-knocker earrings, clubbing), their problems (few jobs, drug dealers offering your children fast cash, people you know getting shot or stabbed) and their aspirations (striving for a better life).

  So she has made it her mission to bring more urban fiction into the Queens libraries, which she visits as many as five times a week, checking out books she reads on her subway rides to Manhattan to visit her son Tad, 17, who has been hospitalized for four years with brain damage from a near-drowning.

  Her oldest, Raishon, 19, reads his favorite urban titles aloud to Tad. Some nurses blush at the profanity and sex; others ask to borrow the books.

  “A lot of people ask me, ‘How can you let him read that?’ ” she said. “He lives it every day. This is cotton candy compared to what they hear out there. And it shows him there are consequences to living such a fast life.”

  So, uh. New York, sure. Canada? Maybe Toronto? What's out there? Some possibilities that might qualify (I don't know, I haven't read them):

  • Out of My Skin, Tessa McWatt

  Maaaybe not. Urf.

  Next thing I tried: checking the public library catalogue. Also not super helpful; I wish I could cross-check categories. Or maybe I can and I've forgotten how. Will look again later. Might ask reference librarian or teen librarian from first field placement.

Central Public Library in Ottawa

A news story in the paper today - Not closing the book on new library: Retiring chief librarian Barbara Clubb says the city needs a new central facility more than ever. Yes, it's true. It's very, very true. Our main branch should be a lot better than it currently is.

Also, shelves on wheels that can be moved for large gatherings: brilliant.

Also also: Happy Winterthing!

Mysterious Paper Sculptures Appear In Libraries

There's been a rash of mysterious paper sculptures showing up in libraries and other such places in Scotland. They seem to be little gifts of love to places where books and literature live, quite fond of words. Cute, cool, anonymous, and very talented!

Thing 7 - Face to Face Networks and Associations

I actually belong to a library association! I decided to be on the ball and joined one headed by one of my teachers during my second semester. It's already come in handy. I'm pretty sure I've already discussed it here, but I'm too lazy and sore right now to dig up links. I continually try to sell the idea to classmates mostly for the first reason on the CPD23 post's list: opportunities for networking. Mostly I'm trying to get them to join for the benefits, but I'll also admit I'm not precisely sad if they don't join, because I am mercenary in nature and like to get a leg up on potential competition while enjoying social aspects of associations.

CPD23's post gives other good reasons to join associations. Organizations and networks:

• Provide opportunities for training and professional development
• Provide structured professional development and qualifications
• Have formal publications
  

Do check out the CPD23 blog post. Of particular interest to me is Hack Library School, what with their emphasis on schoolin' and students.

Library Facebook Pages

From David Lee King, good tips for humanizing your institution's Facebook pages. The key is apparently updates, updates, updates. And pictures.

Followups: Keith and Orchid, Threatening Library Budget Postcards

Good news!

• Keith Richards did NOT kill an orchid in the New York Public Library. (News story: 'Keith Richards killed my orchid', as posted December 2010)
• A library was not closed and now a little girl doesn't have to follow through on vague threats. (Story from Screwy Decimal, as posted June 2011)

Let's all take a moment to feel good.

MOMENT OVER.

Libraries as Art Galleries

For studio artists of all kinds, finding opportunities to exhibit their work can sometimes seem like a lifelong quest. The popular and well-trafficked exhibit spaces in local libraries are one way that artists can catch a break and have their worked viewed by the public.

...From an article about an art display over in a Boston library.

I really like this idea. It appeals to me because it aids a sense of community in the library, adds visual appeal, and increases foot traffic. This idea works best in a library that's not essentially a dim concrete bunker, though. It's a little more difficult to search up images of the library I'm more used to on the internet; apparently nobody takes pictures in the bunkers. I think the library's space, its appearance and how jam-packed it is, has a lot to do with the success of programs like this.

Library Science Terms That Sound Dirty

From McSweeney's, Library Science Jargon That Sounds Dirty. I am pleased to report I know what most of these terms refer to, though clearly the second year in my program is necessary because I do not know all of them.

Favourites:

1. Technical service
2. Information package
3. Full entry

I do not know what the flip a Warwick framework is and am actually too lazy to Google it.

I am also sad I didn't keep a record of random strange Library of Congress headings we ran across while searching up answers for our classification class. They were classy. Someone always found something good in those, at least in my immediate area, and we would promptly share with others. Or at least the lovely young woman to my immediate right and the dude behind us.

Tales from the Library

Essentially a bookmark - Tales from the Library, a site dedicated to your wacky library stories. Your wacky anonymous library stories, even. There isn't so much there, so please contribute! I know some of you out there must have things to share. Things I need to know.