Archive for July, 2006

Computers of last resort

Monday, July 31st, 2006

Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen an increasing number of patrons coming into the library because their home computers aren’t working. Lots more PIN requests for old cards, expired cards, and new registrations. It occured to me when a friend asked about a slow computer that there might be something going around. Is it due to legacy issues, old OS software, lack of updates, viruses, spyware or adware gone unchecked? I can’t be sure, but patrons seem genually very appreciate and willing to put up with a lot when they don’t have the internet or their home computers. The largest stumbling blocks seem to be lack of USB flash drive support (lost files) and problems accessing home email through the web. For example, locally there are a number of SBCglobal.net customers who actually get their dial-up or DSL through Yahoo. Since their email domains are …@sbcglobal.net they assume that’s how they get their webmail. www.sbcglobal.net sends you to prodigy and usernames and passwords don’t work there. Go to Yahoo and your in.

I’m certain I’ll be hosting a program on simple general computer security in this fall, but every library needs to be hosting classes on the basics.

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It’s hard out here for a … libriaran

Saturday, July 29th, 2006

Gizmo asked me today what it was like to be a librarian. “It’s ‘all good” didn’t seem to cut it, just too general even though the sentiment captures perfectly both the optimism and acceptance of implied adversity.

I pulled a typical librarian move. I launched into a full-frontal reference interview. Answering questions with more questions seems so absurd, like bad improv without having to pretend to ring the doorbell. It really came down to what do I do as a librarian?

It got me thinking about the cool things and the lame things i’ve done over the past week.

  • Found the order for the Andrew Greeley mystery series of Nuala Anne McGrail novels. Irish Gold is first.

  • Introduced an ESL high school teacher to LearningExpress for help with English skills, test taking and even some basic job skills.

  • Apologized to a patron after our @#$!&*%$ system deleted all the files on her USB drive.

  • Recommended Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz to a mother who’s twelve year old son needed a book to read over the summer.

  • Asked DOZENS of people to turn down their ringer on the cell phone or to take their call outside.
  • Looked for fake barbed wire for Banned Books Week events and displays this September.
  • Made an online calendar for the library events using PHP.
  • Demonstrated how to find full text articles for specific titles using Serials Solutions.
  • Uploaded pictures of Children’s Summer Reading Club events to the photo gallery.
  • Drew the name of the lucky Teen Reader/Reviewer from the Teen Summer Reading raffle. She won a gift basket of Japanese snack foods from Mitsuwa.
  • Didn’t find copies of Pride and Prejudice, Shop Girl, Book of the Dead, Candy Girl, Suite Francaise, and dozens of other titles on the shelf. Placed requests on them though.

do I like being a librarian? It’s all good.

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Rumors of eBooks on iPods

Sunday, July 23rd, 2006

Engadget speculates (with good reason) that Apple’s next iPod and iTunes release might feature eBooks. An iPod with a larger screen seems to be in the works and it would make a lot of sense to read the next Meg Cabot book on an iPod, while listening to Art Brut or the Lovemakers. Will consumers get the ebook bug? More importantly, will libraries miss the off-ramp again on another avenue toward digitial convergance?

Hopefully libraries can offer at the least open source classics for download that will work on the ipod. Oh yeah, I forgot we’ll need MARC records for them, and a third party vendor that doesn’t work with the next-gen iPod. Just fire me now!

Currently listening to: Bang Bang Rock & Roll by Art Brut
What I’m reading: King Dork by Frank Portman

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A tipping point for blogging at the library?

Thursday, July 13th, 2006

Maybe just a pivot point. I was asked to created internal blogs for two of our core service groups, children’s and teen librarians. The teen librarians have started using theirs for book reviews primarily and while it’s just a few people who make the majority of the posts, it is being read by more than just teen librarians. The children’s librarians really haven’t started using theirs, they are being very thoughtful about how they want to use it, the structure, categories, etc. but from what I can tell many of them are excited, some are scared, but most are open to improved communication. The best part is that all librarians will soon have accounts and those who really enjoy it and see the benefit will be communicating better not just about books they’ve read but what is going on at their libraries, program ideas, meeting minutes, and more.

This has been a long time coming. I think the trick is not to push it, but to demonstrate its ease, its benefits, and its power. Hopefully next year at this time the internal communication framework will move away from email to an open web-based dialogue that crosses over to our communication with our patrons and our communities.

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Catching up on the Blogosphere

Wednesday, July 5th, 2006

In between analyzing FRBR, MARC, indicators, and authority records, I finally got back to reading what’s going on in the world of library OPACS. Wow, what I have been missing. From Jessamyn to Blyberg, I love it. There is some real interesting debate going on and it sounds like everyone has an opinion and the vendors are as freaked and frustrated as the end users. I’m not going to rehash all of it but I think it’s going to be a fun year. It’s just a matter of time before the ILS as we know it is replaced by a coal powered difference engine that incorporates sophisticated algorithms and rankings based on user preference, search trends and click throughs.

In other curiosities, I wonder how popular my favorite book, The Master & Margarita is? Is livejournal still talked about compared to facebook, or myspace?

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