hi – 27dec

Hi. Tom Robbins once dedicated a book “to all those whose letters I haven’t answered” and I am feeling the same way around here. I’ve been away for a few days doing holiday stuff with family and friends. I’ve been slackerly about posting some of the great links I’ve been getting from you all. I’ve been reading fewer of my feeds because my laptop is in the shop and I much prefer NetNewsWire to Feedster or Bloglines for my RSS fix. I’m focusing on getting my schedule straight for the upcoming ALA conference and getting some presentations together for some upcoming talks. I was so nervous about the talk I gave this month to the new librarians that I really prepared the heck out of the talk I gave, and I think the effort paid off well. Anyone who is going to be in Boston for ALA or who reads this and is just in Boston anyhow, please drop me a line.

Posted in hi

an honest job ad

A public library I think I’d enjoy working for: McArthur Public Library, Biddeford Maine. From the job ad:

Above all, he or she will burn with a near-messianic zeal to provide the best possible library service to the diverse members of the community of Biddeford, by whatever means necessary. The usual technological and organizational skills are required too….Other duties include program development, participation in professional meetings, staff training, continuing education, tent construction, and unplugging toilets.

An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians

Can’t believe I haven’t linked to this before, but it is very worth reading: Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians by Peter Suber. If you like this, you might also enjoy something I’m sure I haven’t posted “How and Why To Free All Refereed Research From Access- and Impact-Barriers Online, Now

“The serials pricing crisis is now in its fourth decade. We’re long past the point of damage control and into the era of damage. Prices limit access, and intolerable prices limit access intolerably. Every research institution in the world suffers from intolerable access limitations, no matter how wealthy. Not only must libraries cope by cancelling subscriptions and cutting into their book budgets, but researchers must do without access to some of the journals critical to their research.”

what is going on in ILS nowadays?

While this is just a series of slides, I think a narrative can be made that combines them in lieu of the actual talk that was given. Library Technology 2004: The Current State of Library Automation and Future Trends. Of particular note: bigger libraries, and more of them, are going with similar vendors so consolidation of large library resources becomes simpler and searching gets more federated. And, on the next to last slide, “Small, rural libraries continue to struggle with automation.” Too bad. [unalog]

extra staff hired to implement no pron policy

Add this to one of the hidden costs of filtering: additional staff to keep tabs on patrons. Phoenix AZ public library system has a “no pornography” policy and Internet users in the library have no option to have unfiltered access. Note the odd contruction in this sentence “The computers in Phoenix’s libraries now filter all Web sites that are classified as pornographic” Do you really think all porn web sites are filtered? Filtered by whom or what? And how? What about textual pornography? What does “objectionable for minors” mean anyhow? While I’m always happy to see more jobs available for librarians, it’s sad that they need to come this way. As a side note, we found that porn viewing and printing went down when we switched to a self-serve print server that patrons interact with. Formerly, circulation staff had had to hand printed pages directly to patrons and take their money and there was some speculation that this interaction with staff was part of the reason for the problematic porn printing.