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.

Paging Becky...

It's LIKE content, only not quite.
Graduation is right around the corner. See you soon?

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.

Many Lives

I miss blogging. Here, have a picture.