Typically around this time of year, HPL sponsors a huge number of programs. This surge in program offerings seems to come from two directions; our own surge in energy following the sometimes-exhausting holiday season, and an urge to try some new ideas.
The HPL 2010 Project is one of those new ideas. We are now past the mid-point in this experiment in self-paced technology training. Hundreds of patrons and dozens of HPL staff members have learned about RSS feeds, streaming music, online TV, online newspapers and book reviews, cool library tools, with much more to come.
The responses to this project have been so overwhelmingly positive that I think we will adapt the concept of The 2010 Project for future uses and maybe offer it as an ongoing self-paced teaching tool.
And now a word about ebooks (because I can't help myself). We receive a variety of questions about ebooks here at HPL. Most of them revolve around the basic, 'Do you have any?" the answer to that is, at this point, "precious few". We have access to more through the State Library's download site, but as is the case with all new formats, it takes awhile to build what one might consider a 'good" collection. That's not a cop-out, it is simply a function of having the money to do it or not. One of our considerations is what will become the "standard" so that we don't buy a bunch of titles that are incompatible with the majority of readers. I read lots about this, having set up a Google news custom section for this topic. Recently a great article came up that I would like to recommend. It sums up the current state format standards (or lack thereof) much better than I could do it.
OK, that's enough rambling. Back to worrying about roof leaks and budgets...sigh.
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