Category: libraries

work like a patron day – october 15

Posted on by jessamyn

I’m at work today, not at the library but at the pool. The pool always goes through a lot of soul searching deciding whether to be open on minor holidays like US Columbus Day. The big rift is this: it’s a holiday so lifeguards and building managers would like a holiday. It’s also a holiday so the people who would be swimming have the day off and might want to use the pool. It’s pretty hard to make the right choice. If you’re closed, people will say they wanted to be there. If you’re open and no one shows up, your staff gets bored and annoyed.

The same thing happens with libraries, in a big way. Here in Vermont pretty much every library is closed on Sundays. This is nice for the librarian who wants to work mostly M-F but bad for the patron with regular work hours who would like to get to the library. I do admit that I applied for a library job in Vermont at one point and balked at the mandatory Sunday evening hours.

This is all my way of leading up to Brian Herzog’s Work Like a Patron Day which you may recognize seems similar to a few of Ryan Deschamps’ zero-tech 2.0 no brainers. The basic idea is to try to take your librarian hat off and see how your library feels to someone who uses all the public services and utilities — bathroom, computers, web interface, etc — and see if you get the same vibe off of it as you do as a staff member. Brian has demarcated October 15 — six months after National Library Week — as WLAP day and has some more information on the Library Success wiki. Try it out and see what you think.

protecting privacy in libraries

Posted on by jessamyn

Judah Hamer, the current president of the Vermont Library Association, wrote a good opinion piece in the Burlington Free Press responding to a parent’s editorial concerned about Vermont’s new patron privacy laws. I think it’s always a good idea that official-type library people spend the time to outline just why we feel privacy is important and speaking up in order to dispell rumors that spread about what did and did not happen in a given library dispute.

UMich Library Photo and some reflection

Posted on by jessamyn

I’m using the Library of Congress version of this photo of the reading room at the University of Michigan library (which has not made its way to Flickr yet) but I found this image via Shorpy. It’s a nice non-Flickr illustration of how having a way to have users comment on your content can increase everyone’s level of knowledge. The first comment has a link to this web site which contains another photo of the same room, highlighting the statue, and the story of what happened to it.

A few New York City libraries

Posted on by jessamyn

music stand, jefferson market branch

Hi — I just got back from a short trip to New York City (real short, get in Wednesday and go home Friday) but I did manage to see five libraries. I know it’s been a while since I did a library recap but here’s a few links to photos and stories. NYPL has a lot going on lately in both good and bad ways. I’m always interested in the branch/main division personally and as I was on two long walks around Manhattan [1, 2] I tried to stop into as many libraries as I passed.

The first thing you notice when you’re walking is that the libraries have big blue banners hanging in front of them. This means you can see them from a block or two away and know you’re in the right place. So armed with that information and this library location mashup, I ventured in to the city. Here are the libraries I went to.

  • Jefferson Market Branch – this library is housed in a former women’s detention center and has a rich sense of history as well as an incredible building generally. Like many historic buildings that become libraries, the services are a little… smushed in there. There’s a big reference desk on the main floor that is empty and stacked with boxes and the reference librarian is actually in the basement with the reference collection. He seemed happy there. Outside there is an incredible set of gardens that were a joy to walk through.
  • Muhlenberg Branch – this library had just opened for the day and it was totally full of people. There was some confusion about how much of the library was open [see sign] and I just wanted to sit someplace cool and check my email using my laptop but couldn’t find an easy place to do that.
  • I kept walking and wound up at Bryant Park outside the big main NYPL research library. I ate lunch in the park and went inside to do a little work. The periodicals room has the best wifi, but no outlets, a way to I guess keep people’s visits to a reasonable time limit. I ran afoul of the wifi filters, not on purpose. You can see the page that was blocked. Graphic subject matter, NO graphic imagery.
  • The next day I went to the Tompkins Square Branch which is right near my friend Jenna’s place. It’s a lovely Carnegie building and was busy and full of folks. It had a really large Russian Language collection.
  • Then I wandered on to go by the Braille and Talking Book Library which had been closed the last time I walked by it. I was sort of interested whether there was any public information about the recent decision concerning the class action lawsuit that the National Federation for the Blind brought against Target concerning web site accessibility for businesses that sell things online. I enjoyed my time in the library. It’s brightly lit and has large easy to read signage and finding aids. It drove home the point that I tend to belabor which is that making things more usable really benefits everyone, not just whatever population happens to need accomodation. I liked having a bright library with wide low shelves and simple signage, who wouldn’t?

That wraps up my short tour of some Manhattan libraries in the NYPL system. Next time I’m in town I swear there will be meetups and beer drinking.