It may seem like this is a self-serving message designed to solicit “good job” replies, but that isn’t my intent. I started the list because I personally wanted help, and that’s exactly what I got. I’ve had 15 years worth of other people solving my problems and giving me useful advice. If there is a balance somewhere keeping track, I’d expect it to be sinking on the side of what I owe you all, not the other way around. Thanks for being here,
Roy

I’ve been to one library this year so far, the all-new Sargent Memorial Library in Boxborough MA. The library was way the heck up a hill and in a teeny building when I was growing up and we went there all the time. The librarians were always encouraging me to read whatever I wanted and my Mom stopped in often to get the new Ed McBain mysteries. The library outgrew its space and an all-new library was built and opened in 2005. I went there with my Mom yesterday and said hi to the library director who said she reads my blog (hi Maureen!). The last time I went to the old library as a patron I was probably in my late teens and I don’t think they even had computers yet. The new library is huge and lovely and has wifi. It’s also walking distance from the elementary school which is good news all around. It was fun to pop in there and get a real eyeful of how things have changed.

So here are a few things I thought you might be interested in, and my apologies for the brevity.

• A few books about libraries. The LA Times has an article about Don Borchert’s book Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library and Scott Douglas reminds us that he has a book about working in a California library as well, Quiet Please.
• Lichen Rancourt is going like gangbusters at her new job at Manchester Public and she has a great post about how she’s creating and importing events lists into their library website despite being locked inside a city-wide CMS that they can’t control. Some good back and forth between her and Brian in the comments too.
• Speaking of back and forth the most recent Pew Report has some interesting stats about how people go looking for information. I haven’t read it yet, but there is some discussion over at web4lib both about how their conclusions seem a little strange relative to the data but also discussion about a study about user satisfaction, sort of an exit survey. The formatting on that page is terrible but it has links to more information.
• This seems like it will be a fun party or set of parties at ALA, and c’mon bring a gently used book and get a FREE DRINK? Almost worth the train ride to Philly.

It all started, I think, with a lita-l mailing list topic that I didn’t see concerning the “ultimate debate” happening at ALA. The event was blogged on the LITA blog and debated a lot on web4lib though the thread is sort of all over the place. And then the topic was picked up by other blogs, which someone on web4lib graciously added to the mailing list as a list of links.

I wonder about the topic myself. The libraries I work with around here are very innovative, but mostly in stretching a super-small [usually five-figure] budget and rarely in technological ways. However, when you’re the only free internet in town, taking a step like offering free wifi when the library is closed, or having a way that people can use your computers to download ebooks checked out from other libraries in other states seems pretty innovative indeed.

Howard County Library is a pioneer in Maryland in using Open Source software on public and staff machines. Because Open Source software is available free or at a very modest cost, the Library can provide public computers at a fraction of the cost using comparable commercially-available software.

Sounds neat, doesn’t it? I’ve often though, and said in my talks, that a lot of software problems are management issues disguised as money issues. We say we can’t afford to change, when what we mean is that we don’t know how. FLOSS-curious? Check out this Wikipedia Free Software portal. Yeah I said Wikipedia, for all of its flaws, at least they’re not trying to sell you anything.