public library photos and reminiscences

New Canaan Public Library from LoC
Shorpy is a great source for old photographs. They often get them from sources like the Library of Congress which is where this photo of the New Cannan public library in 1953 came from. You can also see the original set of photos over at the Library of Congress [did not see this one over at their Flickr photostream]. The big add that Shorpy’s has, however, is the community. It’s not just a photo of a library, it’s also people commenting about their memories of the library including where else they’ve seen that certain floor tile [fun fact: it’s also the tile that’s in my bathroom as near as I can tell] [thanks mike]

Jessamine county has very little in common with me

You probably saw this on the tubes today. Library workers in Jessamine County Kentucky [a library system I’ve featured in talks before, though I can’t remember why] got fired when it was discovered they’d colluded to sort of permanently check out graphic novels to keep kids form being able to check them out Please feel free to read more

Amusingly, the graphic novel in question was Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. Yesterday was his birthday.

on 2.0 and the twitters

I gave a series of talks — well really one talk three times — for the Nassau Library System on Monday. It was talking about “the 2.0 thing” but mostly in a way that basically encouraged people to think about the content that they may be generating elsewere [via blog, twitter, facebook, whatever] and how to bring that back to their library’s website. We talked about Twitter, because it’s easy to explain, and talked about widgets. You can read the notes to my all new talk here: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About 2.0 But Were Afraid to Ask. I was pleased with it.

I hadn’t even left the library when I got email from one of the morning’s attendees saying “You are the first presenter I’ve seen who managed to convey enthusiasm for web 2.0 tools without also conveying the usual message that those of us behind the curve are a bunch of stodgy losers!” which made me very happy. I’m pretty much done for public speaking until the new year and I think that was a decent note to end on.

Posted in me!