librarian.net

There’s an ongoing theme in library programming: trying to find stuff that isn’t the stuff that’s already been done. While there are aspects of “Just play the hits, man” in a lot of the work we do, that doesn’t mean we can’t find new, original and/or interesting things to do with the huge amount of local cultural content that we have at our fingertips but that might not be common knowledge in our larger communities. The Library as Incubator Project is a site full of great ideas, lovely photographs, sharp writing by three UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies (and guest bloggers) outlining ways that libraries and artists can work together. Good ideas, well-presented.

I’ve been reading articles for the past few days talking about the ongoing debate between LibLime/PTFS and the Koha community working on a different version of the same software. Here is an article from Linux Weekly from last year describing the forking issue, the point at which LibLime/PTFS started independently developing their own version of the open source ILS Koha. Recently LibLime was granted the use of the trademark Koha in and around New Zealand according to their press release though it’s not entirely clear if a Maori word can even be trademarked. The Koha community centered around the original code at the Horowhenua Library Trust is concerned that PTFS will not make a good faith effort to do what it says it’s interested in doing: transferring the rights to the trademark back to the community. They are concerned that there will be a legal fight and are requesting donations and other support. Meanwhile LibLime appears to have lost significant ground to other versions of Koha according to the Library Technology Guide’s ILS turnover chart for last year. Seems like a good point in time for the libraries who are using LibLime/PTFS’s version of Koha to step up and make sure that their own vision of the open source community and their products is being respected and upheld by the companies who they are paying. Further reading on this topic is available at this Zotero group.

As you know, Vermont was hit hard by Hurricane Irene and a lot of resultant flooding. I am fine and my house is fine. I’m not sure what the library damage assessment is at this point but I’ve been hanging close to the Vermont Flooding facebook page and doing some “on the fly” reference with some of the local information I have access to. I came across this post on the Roxbury Free Library’s facebook page and smiled. I hope she gets a ride.

“Today, the marriage rate among librarians is the highest it has ever been with 62 percent of librarians married in 2009.”

There is a lot of data in the world. Librarians are good at using census data to help people find families, get local information and just learn something about the way the world used to be. Here’s a neat post about using hte census data from the last 120 years to learn something about librarianship as a profession. Did you know that the number of self-reported librarians peaked in 1990 and has declined almost 30% since then? I am somewhat curious if this is just because people with library and information science backgrounds are calling themselves all manner of things now [Is a taxonomist a librarian? How about a metadata specialist?]. You can read the full post, with graphs, over at Oxford University Press’s Social explorer.

NJLA issues strong statement on NJ State Library/QandANJ, for more information read Peter Bromberg’s backgrounder post on what happened to this service and who made the decisions and why. Official statement by the NJ State Library is here.

SXSW 2011 was the year of the librarian and I was glad to be a part of it. I’m still slowly heading homeward but you might enjoy this short Atlantic article.

I wrote 5000 words about writing 100,000 words. Here’s my essay on In the Library with the Lead Pipe about thoughts I had on writing for print in an era of digital content.

“Sarah is a librarian of INES-National Institute of Deaf Education. I’ma librarian at UFRJ. We married and decided to make the official photos in two libraries. The first, the Royal Portuguese Reading. The second, the Library Technology Center of UFRJ. Both in Rio de Janeiro.” [translated from Portuguese]

This is not anything you don’t know, but it’s a nice eloquent “why you should support your public libraries” essay in a place you wouldn’t maybe otherwise see it.

The local library near where I now live made five computers with an Internet connection available to the public around a decade ago, as well as wireless for those patrons who brought their own laptops.

I’m a recent resident of the area, but a deep family history means that there hasn’t been a season since the system went in when I haven’t spent a sizable chunk of time sitting and listening in the building, within 100 feet of those five computers. Except for a period when the wireless access was removed for a security overhaul, there hasn’t been season I haven’t used the wireless connection there.

This diary is a testimony to what I’ve witnessed in a single small own library.

David Lee King and I rarely cross paths, but it’s always great to get to see him speak. Over the past month he’s been creating a really good set of posts called 10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me. Each post has a headline and an explanation of why that thing is a good way to do presentations. Of course everyone has their own way of doing things, but it’s nice to see someone who has an effective and engaging presentation style really taking the time to outline just what they’re doing that’s working. It’s not magic, it’s hard work and some attention to detail.