Month: June 2009

Igeek open standards

Posted on by jessamyn

From LISNews: “Geek the Library is a community-based public awareness campaign designed to highlight the vital role of public libraries for individuals and communities, and raise awareness about the critical funding issues they (we) face.” What do you think about it?

my librarian friend : i’m waiting for you to weigh in on the new OCLC thing that looks pretty but i don’t get.
me : which? OCLC is so barely relevant to me
my librarian friend : ha! http://geekthelibrary.org/
me : did you know that George from Flickr [who was doing the commons stuff] is now running Open Library?
my librarian friend : i did not know that
me : if OCLC has so much money why aren’t they giving grants or donations to smaller libraries so they can truly be a union catalog?
me : that’s how I’d like them to show their support for the library community
my librarian friend : yeah but then they couldn’t sell things to those libraries in the future, silly.
me : “Igeekopen standards”
me : wow, I did not know about this though
my librarian friend : make a badge for your site.
me : is the Igeek thing supposed to be evocative of like iPod?
me : do they know they’re doin it wrong?
my librarian friend : dunno why they decidedtoerasespaces
me : man this is annoying. Slick site, very functional and still this is where BMGF decides to put their cash?
my librarian friend : yeah, i want to like it just because a library “org” actually put out a nice site, but…
my librarian friend : plus? lou reed
me : and geek isn’t a verb, I mean I know that’s pedantic but this is totally advocacy from the outside
my librarian friend : is lou reed the only famous face?
my librarian friend : if so, odd.
me : I assume he’s someone’s friend
me : and where are, you know the ACTUAL LIBRARIES on that site
me : srsly
me : it’s all about bypassing the institutions to get at the readers/users, sort of? awareness capaign of the future libraries while ignoring the current ones?
me : I mean it’s easy to poke fun at
my librarian friend : what i don’t understand is how people declaring their interests on this site will lead to support for libraries.
me : there’s a page that tells you to call your mayor
my librarian friend : yeah
me : I see some more famous people
me : and a survery which is more data for them
my librarian friend : for the next report!
me : yep
me : it’s really graphically appealing

a contentious summer reading list

Posted on by jessamyn

This is in the “still sorting it out” status at the moment, but perhaps other readers have more information. School Library Journal reports that the DC Public Schools Summer Reading list has been amended to remove the GLBT titles that were on it. Apparently this was first reported on the Yahoo Groups LEZBRIAN list and then posted to the ALA-glbrtr list (little tough to navigate, but click “I am not a spammer” then reload that URL) where it got some attention. The “final” lists are supposed to be out on the 26th, it will be interesting to see if there’s any resolution to this in the meantime.

can you loan out a kindle?

Posted on by jessamyn

Library Journal announced last week that Brigham Young University had received a verbal okay from Amazon to start lending Kindles in their library. This week it appears that they’ve suspended the program until they can get written permission. While I totally understand the concerns on both sides here, I’d really like it if libraries sometimes erred on the side of continuing to do whatever it was that they were doing, in good faith, and let the vendors let them know if they’re not doing something correctly. It’s a little weird to me that Amazon has invested all this time and money into an ebook reader and has no policy about what the legal/copyright concerns are with using it in a library. Can someone please force this issue?

update: There is an interesting story making the blog rounds about just how much of the Kindle’s policies and DRM weirdnesses remain mysterious, even to the people who work at Amazon.

libraries in These Tough Times

Posted on by jessamyn

So if you read the papers at all, you know that even though things are tough, people use libraries like crazy. That said, libraries are getting funding cuts, despite, in many cases, increased use. This sucks. One of the things about living in Vermont is that there’s not that much to even trim from our budgets, but the state library (and the newish state librarian whose job I do not envy at all) closed one of Vermont’s very few regional libraries to the public and libraries who want to borrow materials now have to make appointments. This is at a time when library circulation in the state is up almost six percent and local tax support is up five percent. In other state library news


some weekend and summer reading

Posted on by jessamyn

Summer starts this weekend which means some people decide it’s time to read books. The main impetus is kids out of school, but there are also teachers who have summer “free” to read books as well. Many media outlets make their summer reading lists and other bloggers collect them. Here are a few links that I find worthwhile about summer reading, but when I make my list, I’m just going to look at the towering stack of both unfinished and not-yet-started books that always graces the table by my kitchen table.

I was going to include links to state libraries’ summer reading programs but it looks like a lot of state libraries either don’t have statewide summer reading programs or don’t advertise them well. If you have a library summer reading program you’re fond of, please put it in the comments.

And a special “Hey nice job” to a colleague of longtime reader/contributor Eoin Kelly whose coworker Rosemary Hetherington was awarded the Children’s Books Ireland award which recognizes “outstanding contribution to the world of children’s books.” There’s a nice writeup on the CBI page. Congrats Rosemary!