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some library halloweens

Just a few links that I spotted from libraries doing Halloweeny stuff.

Alien Bowling at the library Halloween party
Not quite the library, but Statistics Canada does an annual creepy stats roundup about this time. Here’s Halloween b the numbers, found at the canuck librarian.
Come to the library… if you DARE, a photo set from the Manatee County Public Library in Florida
University of Iowa Libraries put up a Halloween Digital Collection of the spookiest bits from their stacks
a blog post discussing Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes. I mention this specifically because their blog gets to do what many library blogs can’t do and that is link directly to the item in the library’s catalog. Yay GA PINES!

I had fun noodling around making this list. One of the benefits of having been around the blog block a few times is that I can remember looking at libraries doing Halloween stuff, at least a little, back in 2000. There were almost no libraries with blogs, Flickr didn’t exist yet, and the whole idea of the read/write web was sort of a hazy shimmer on the horizon. While you’ll notice in that old post that Karen Schneider was already writing about our profession with her way with words (in the NY Times!) and Marylaine Block — who has a great recent column on party people in libraries creating community — was advising people to give books instead of candy for Halloween, it was still a small-seeming web. So, without turning this into another “blah blah library 2.0” cheer, let me just say that I think it’s gratifying to see this explosion on not just user-generated content, but library-generated content. I hope the next seven years are just as fruitful and fascinating.

in praise of small town libraries

Posted on 26Oct0726Oct07 by jessamyn

In New England, in Autumn, there is a lot that is beautiful. Here is a neat article about small town libraries in Western MA with an attractive slide show to go along with it. I’ve made a Flickr set of the libraries I’ve been to with one photo per library. They’re not all small town libraries, but they’re good for looking at as well. [thanks rob!]

weirdest library design EVAR

Posted on 11Sep0705Oct07 by jessamyn

Look at and read about the design for Prague’s new national library. I can only say OMG. Or, as Joe Alterio aptly titles his post about it “A slime draws near. Command?” [thanks josh!]

libraries help you save money/energy/the world

Posted on 08Sep07 by jessamyn

As we move more towards digital forms of information in libraries, I’m always interested in watching the “libraries as places that lend stuff” role evolve. We’ve seen tool libraries and toy libraries. Seattle Public Library used to lend reprints of paintings and, I think, sculpture. Now libraries in Arlington Virginia are lending out Kill-A-Watt electricity usage meters to help people figure out what’s sucking up all the energy in their houses.

All Arlington branch libraries now have Kill-A-Watt electricity usage meters available for check-out. You can check availability or reserve one through the normal online Library catalog. The meters are listed under â€œkill-a-wattâ€ and â€œelectricity usage meters.â€ The devices measure the amount of electricity used by home appliances. You simply plug the meter into the electrical outlet, plug the appliance into the meter, and take a reading after one hour.

[thanks jude!]

the poor and tech training and gaming

Posted on 14Aug07 by jessamyn

The Library Link of the Day today is an article in the Chicago Tribune called Training for the Poor Moves into the Computer Age. It’s an odd combination of two points

1. The digital divide is becoming more and more about technology literacy and not about technology access.
2. Gaming on computers is an important part of attaining that technology literacy.

I don’t know much about point #2. I like games generally but I am not a gamer (save online Scrabble which I suspect may not count). With a few exceptions most of the people I hang out with aren’t gamers so I’ve rarely been in a cultural area that is gaming-immersive. I’m curious, but it’s one of those things that falls outside the “things I have time for” circle. Jenny Levine has some good points in the article and I think the fact that ALA is mentioned in the same article as poor people needing technological literacy for finding better jobs and escaping the cycle of poverty is great PR for libraries.

That said, the article is confusing to me somewhat. It seems to be taking two disparate ideas and mashing them together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I get the points that gaming and teaching technology through gaming is a great way to help kids with critical thinking skills and problem solving. However I strongly do not think that the best way to help older people — perhaps my age and up — learn technology has anything to do with gaming at all. So, the people who are in dead-end jobs and need to gain some level of tech proficiency to move to better jobs, they’re not the gaming demographic. I think, however, that as more younger people engage with technology they will bring gaming with them as they become people in my age bracket and that’s going to be an interesting shift. So, kudos for even talking about poverty and technology literacy, and nice job with xplaining why gaming is important, but I still wish this had been two separate (longer) articles instead of this one.