Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Observations of a Librarian on Ebook Readers (some good news)

From: "B.G. Sloan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:15:06 -0700

After my earlier pessimistic statements about library closings (see the note below), I feel obliged to report that it's not all gloom and doom when it comes to public libraries in the U.S. Here's a blurb from the current issue of Library Journal:

"Despite the grim economic circumstances in 2009, voters delivered an overwhelming vote of confidence to their local libraries. In fact, 84 percent of all operating referenda passed nationwide...And while building referenda presented a tougher battle, nearly 54 percent passed, including a $17 million bond for the Snake River School District and Community Library in Blackfoot, ID, which topped the charts in size of winning appeals last year."
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6722506.html
 
Bernie Sloan

--- On Fri, 3/26/10, B.G. Sloan <[email-masked]> wrote:

From: B.G. Sloan <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Observations of a Librarian on Ebook Readers
To: [email-masked]
Date: Friday, March 26, 2010, 1:20 PM

Alexander Johannesen said:
 
"...by that rate you'll all be obsolete at the time politicians and patrons start questioning why we still build libraries and employ librarians."
 
Got news for you...that's already happening. School librarians are being laid off all over the country. School libraries are being converted to computer centers. Major public library systems are closing branches left and right (think Boston, LA, Charlotte NC, etc.).
 
When Google first started scanning books I set up a Google news alert for the terms "Google" and "libraries" so I could keep tabs on the project. Lately I've been getting a fair number of matches for articles, editorials, letters to the editor, etc., with the general theme of "if we have google, why do we need libraries". And interestingly, most of the articles about WHY we still need libraries are written by librarians, not by politicians or patrons.
 
Bernie Sloan

--- On Fri, 3/26/10, Alexander Johannesen <[email-masked]> wrote:

From: Alexander Johannesen <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Observations of a Librarian on Ebook Readers
To: [email-masked]
Date: Friday, March 26, 2010, 6:55 AM

Hiya,

Look, um, I know that this subject has been discussed to death, and
I'm sure I'm not adding anything to the discussion really as it's
getting old and boring, but again I must point out ;

   Unless you become kick-ass technologists, you will die out.

Now, that's not meant as a threat of any kind, it's just pointing out
the rather obvious fact that what traditionally has been called a
bibliographic world is, in fact, an information world, and that it is
moving towards a digital format at a tremendous speed, much faster
than what anyone could have predicted (well, there were always
someone, but who would believe those crazies, right?). And if *you*
guys don't take the role of kick-ass technologists of digital and
online content, someone else will. And again, Google is just a very
good example of that kind of someone. And I need not point out that
they're doing very well without any knowledge or use of traditional
meta data as you know it.

But being a technologist doesn't mean you have to be a programmer or
developer or project manager of sorts. It simply means that you know,
understand and use the latest technologies as part of your services.
It means that if you normally flip through paper and make records of
such, you need to - right now! - work out what a digital version of
your job is, and how that can be a better service to digital seekers.
Being "web 2.0" is not enough. Being savvy with HTML5 is not enough.
Putting up a Wiki is not enough. Making sites look good is not enough.
Heck, being traditional librarians in a digital space is counter to
the point ; the physical books (and CD's and DVD's and microfilms and
maps and pictures and sound and whatever else there is) *will* become
curiosa and items in storage, an archive of stuff only interesting to
special people. The information within them will get out into digital
form, probably faster than you can come to terms with that fact, and
by that rate you'll all be obsolete at the time politicians and
patrons start questioning why we still build libraries and employ
librarians.

You need to just jump in, bite hard and do kick-ass development. You
need to invent stuff. You need to come up with amazing ideas. You need
to merge the values you've already got with all that which is going on
in the digital, open and online space. Hold seminars about stuff, and
stream it live. Develop a new way digital photo extraction from
microfilm. Digitize more at a tremendous pace! (And pardon me for
saying this, but screw integration with stuff like Flickr, Facebook,
MySpace, YouTube and all that ... that's all nice, but it's not going
to make you relevant to what is coming) The best way to predict the
future, is to create it. The world is going online and digital, and
unless you kick ass in this space, you're not creating it, just riding
the way, on par with thousands of other opportunists out there who
probably can do a better job than you.

"But we don't have the money or the resources to do this."

Well, then I guess you're screwed.

Regards,

Alex
-- 
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
--- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ----------------------------------------------
------------------ http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---

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From: Ross Singer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:34:58 -0400

Completely anecdotal, I was in Jacksonville, FL last week, staying at
a hotel next door to their "Southeast regional branch":
http://jpl.coj.net/lib/branches/se.html

I don't know how the trends for the rest of the Jacksonville PL
branches are, but the entire week I was there, the (large) parking lot
of this branch was full of cars up until closing time (9 PM).  What
really struck me as amazing was that it didn't appear to be on the
"way to anywhere" (although it was somewhat close to what
Jacksonvillians seem to regard as a "place to go").

I have never, ever seen so much consistent traffic at a public library
branch before.

-Ross.