You can use the date operator to browse public domain books in Google Books. I’m not entirely sure why the covers of some of these books remain under copyright. Any ideas? I’ve also noticed a few scanning errors and some pretty neat finds like this one which gives the name of every librarian in the US and Canada working in a library holding over 1,000 volumes. Google Books clearly uses keyword indexing to make these books searchable. How great would it be to have this one in a database? You can see a few images that I particularly liked over at Flickr.
library graffito
the plural of manifesto is?
I’ve liked the idea of manifestos since I started rattling the idea of an OPAC Manifesto a ways back [it was a wiki before everyone had a wiki, and I didn’t like being a wiki-mom so now it just has a page]. Michael makes the link between the ILS Customer’s Bill of Rights and Jenny’s new proposal the Online Library User Manifesto. For anyone who considers the Cluetrain Manifesto essential reading — my copy is the only book in my boudoir currently — this is a logical extention. If, as they say, “markets are conversations” then libraries are big loud boisterous and lively conversations, and we’re all part of it. Jenny’s manifesto delightfully contains links to people who are getting it right, behind her no nonsense declarations like “I want to know how your library works.” I’d even bring this out further and change it to “I want to know how our library works.” Who wouldn’t?
blogging @ your library, now even simpler
Amanda Etches-Johnson has created another lovely presentation: Blogs and RSS what it’s all about & why you should care. She mentions as a follow-up that WordPress now has a hosting service similar to Blogspot. Go over and check out wordpress.com. I’ve got a test site, but there’s not much there yet.
Library 2.0 with Librarian 1.0?
Rochelle reflects a lot of my feelings about the Library 2.0 Future-is-Now vibe. I get it, I grok it, I want more of it. However, it’s a slow sell some places and a tough slow sell in other places. I spend a lot of time just trying to drop 2.0 words into conversations I have with the librarians on my route just so they’ll have some familiarity with them when they make their technology plans, or when the local wireless salesman knocks on their door. Even thinking about some of Michael’s great suggestions for an “easy” 2.0 upgrade requires paradigm shifts in the way many of the librarians I work with were trained to think. Does this mean it’s impossible? Surely not. Does it mean that baby steps may be in order, or more groundwork needs to be laid? Absolutely.
Folks who know me know I’m not a naysayer, but talking about sending a librarian to a Gaming Symposium when staff do not get time off, funding, or even dues reimbursement for ALA or even VLA is somewhat more optimistic and futuristic than it may seem from an urban or suburban library system perspective. When change happens, it will happen fast, no doubt about it, and it will be useful to have people alread “on the ground” to greet it when it arrives, but let’s work on the all boats part of the “rising tide lifts all boats” aphorism and make sure we’re not all heading to 2.0 when some of us are still in 0.98 beta.