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.

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.

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.

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.

“Show me a town that denies funding to a library, and I’ll show you a librarian who stays in the office. Show me a town that funds its library, and I’ll show you a librarian who takes donuts down to the fire department. Who goes down to the city hall and goes into offices asking if they need anything. You have to be proactive. It might come as a shock to some of you, but a large part of the success of that library is your personality and the way you treat people.”

[O]ne could look on WorldCat as a shared community resource, not the property of OCLC. In fact, OCLC uses this kind of argument in its record use policy, but somehow leads to the conclusion that WorldCat should not be used to foster non-OCLC library services. It seems easy to make the opposite argument, which would be that WorldCat could be the basis for a wide range of services that would benefit libraries, even if they do not come from OCLC.

• Ronald McNair was one of the astronuauts killed in the Challenger explosion 25 years ago. There was a piece on NPR about his brother reminiscing about how McNair was adamant about using his public library in South Carolina despite the fact that it was supposedly for “whites only”
• Wil Wheaton, actor and blogger shared a short bit he wrote for a literacy project explaining why he thinks librarians are awesome.
• In the comments of that post is a link to this poem published in Library Journal: Why I Am In Love With Librarians.
• Another booster site that I forgot to mention earlier is the Library History Buff site. Larry Nix is a retired librarian and library history enthusiast. I’ve linked to his library history page many times over the years, but I’m not sure if I’ve linked to his blog. He recently did a post wrapping up the work he did in 2010 and pointing to the page he created for it. Good stuff, worth reading.

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• Lenny Likes Libraries – full of photos of books and shelves and library buildings. The Dead Libraries post is especially poignant.
• Libraries and Transliteracy – not that new, but consistently great with a stable of terrific writers. Learn about all kinds of literacies.
• Koha: One Library’s Experience is a great blog about the ins and outs of really getting started with Koha, by the Arcadia Public Library in California.
• Aaron Tay’s Musings About Librarianship has been a favorite for a while. I get great ideas from it but I haven’t just said “hey go read the whole thing.” Last weekend’s post about library social media campaigns that work is a great summary of some good news.
• Not a blog but a neat project, VLA is doing a 2012 Public Libraries calendar. One lovely library from every county (they hope), professionally designed and full of neat library facts.