Well, not really. There are lots of things in the works right now. For one, we are finishing up getting quotes for remodeling the reading room. I think it will be nice to restore what was the Rayl Reading Room to its original use. One of our staff members had a great idea for some wall coverings, the paneling from the old Civic Center building will look nice, and the furnishings chosen by the team are both sturdy and attractive.
Right now the Bru Crue coffee bar is closed for a much-deserved break (and year-end paperwork) but will open up again the first week of January to celebrate 1 year in business! Changes will be coming once again to our library food and drink policy in conjunction with some new possibilities for the coffee bar.
Oh, and then there is the little matter of re-aligning our people-power to be more in line with our long range goals of greater outreach, becoming more of a community meeting place, and greater continuing education.
Maybe I should take tomorrow off...
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Quiet Room - FINALLY!
As we near the end of 2010, we also near the end of the 2010 budget. The 2011 budget is slightly better and more importantly, the Friends of the Hutchinson Public Library have made a significant donation toward finally realizing the dream of a "quiet" reading space. For the past few days, I have been ushering through a series of our fine local builders describing the project. I am confident that we will have a new reading room early next year.
This room will occupy space that was originally (circa 1950) the "Rayl Reading Room". We'll have some comfortable chairs, some study tables and some peace and quiet for those who come here seeking a place to study undisturbed.
This room will occupy space that was originally (circa 1950) the "Rayl Reading Room". We'll have some comfortable chairs, some study tables and some peace and quiet for those who come here seeking a place to study undisturbed.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Holiday Cheer!
As we roll along through the hectic Christmas season, with shopping, cooking and preparing for visiting family and friends, it is important to remember to occasionally pause and recharge. Regardless of religious alignment or political persuasion, it is easy to find some cheer and joy this time of year. For example, I spent part of Monday evening walking around the neighborhood with a baker's dozen of cub scouts and their adult partners looking at Christmas decorations and generally having a good (but cold) time. This activity cost nothing, was relaxing, and helped clear the mental clutter of the day. Plus a simple mug of cocoa afterward erased the chill.
Likewise, Monday I received several books I had placed on hold here at the library. Wowbrary, my favorite "what's new" tool rarely fails me. It's a weekly email newsletter that provides links to the library's catalog for all the new acquisitions from the previous week. It's like an insider's guide to all the cool new stuff HPL has added. If you participate, you can get your name near the head of the line and read / listen / watch the new stuff first!
My point though, was that I took those books home and as a break from holiday preparations, spent an hour reading. Cost me nothing (go public libraries!), I enjoyed the relaxation and learning, and helped me reset my priorities and slow down.
Which brings me to my final thought. If you are still working on holiday buying, the public library can even help you with that. We have been studying ebook readers here quite intensively and I can safely say that if you have the cash, the Sony Touch is a good choice. I haven't played with the Nook Color yet, but if it is like the B&W Nook, it would be a good one as well with the bonus that color allows for children's books and illustration-heavy (like graphic novels) books. If you are not in the financial position to buy just yet, or you haven't studied it thoroughly enough, come by and our staff can provide you with guidance. The bottom line for me is that I want people to read. I don't care the format, I don't care about the content. I firmly believe that reading only expands our experience and knowledge and increases our collective curiosity, creativity and ultimately our productivity.
Likewise, Monday I received several books I had placed on hold here at the library. Wowbrary, my favorite "what's new" tool rarely fails me. It's a weekly email newsletter that provides links to the library's catalog for all the new acquisitions from the previous week. It's like an insider's guide to all the cool new stuff HPL has added. If you participate, you can get your name near the head of the line and read / listen / watch the new stuff first!
My point though, was that I took those books home and as a break from holiday preparations, spent an hour reading. Cost me nothing (go public libraries!), I enjoyed the relaxation and learning, and helped me reset my priorities and slow down.
Which brings me to my final thought. If you are still working on holiday buying, the public library can even help you with that. We have been studying ebook readers here quite intensively and I can safely say that if you have the cash, the Sony Touch is a good choice. I haven't played with the Nook Color yet, but if it is like the B&W Nook, it would be a good one as well with the bonus that color allows for children's books and illustration-heavy (like graphic novels) books. If you are not in the financial position to buy just yet, or you haven't studied it thoroughly enough, come by and our staff can provide you with guidance. The bottom line for me is that I want people to read. I don't care the format, I don't care about the content. I firmly believe that reading only expands our experience and knowledge and increases our collective curiosity, creativity and ultimately our productivity.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
EBook Update
Here is some interesting news about getting borrowed (OverDrive) ebooks on to your Apple device. I think this sort of work-around style solution will be the norm until some level of standard acceptance comes about for ebooks. Here is an article providing some food for thought if you are in the market for a reader currently. The which-do-I-buy article deals with only a small number of the readers available, leaving out for example, interesting new color readers like the Pandigital Novel.
Another good resource page about ereaders produced by the North East Kansas Library System, a regional library support organization.
Another good resource page about ereaders produced by the North East Kansas Library System, a regional library support organization.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
EBook Survey Done
[EDIT: 4:00PM] 5 responses fell - literally - through the cracks and have now been added to the responses bringing to 116 the total number of surveys filled out.
The results are in from the month-long survey. Granted, the survey reached only people who already use the library. There were both paper and electronic versions collected, 116 responses in all. Here are the results:
Second, we will explore the options (which are surprisingly few) for download / borrowing services for ebooks so that patrons who already own readers can start borrowing their books from us. Frankly, the decision has been made for us at HPL, at least for the moment. Our service for downloadable audiobooks, OverDrive, seems to have their hooks in us. They offer (according to their website) about 100k audiobook, music, video and ebook titles. We can begin purchasing ebook titles immediately from them.
We may also look into Netlibrary which offers (again, according to their website) 146k PDF format downloadable books in a variety of genres.
The results are in from the month-long survey. Granted, the survey reached only people who already use the library. There were both paper and electronic versions collected, 116 responses in all. Here are the results:
- 28% of HPL patrons already own an ebook reader of some type.
- 62% of patrons responding "No" (do not own a reader) plan to purchase one in the near future.
- 81% of respondents indicated they would borrow ebooks from HPL if a collection were available.
- 85% of respondents stated that they would read high-demand titles in ebook format if that was what they received.
Second, we will explore the options (which are surprisingly few) for download / borrowing services for ebooks so that patrons who already own readers can start borrowing their books from us. Frankly, the decision has been made for us at HPL, at least for the moment. Our service for downloadable audiobooks, OverDrive, seems to have their hooks in us. They offer (according to their website) about 100k audiobook, music, video and ebook titles. We can begin purchasing ebook titles immediately from them.
We may also look into Netlibrary which offers (again, according to their website) 146k PDF format downloadable books in a variety of genres.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Bad decisions
There are bad decisions, and then there are bad decisions. And then...there are decisions that make you stop and scratch your head. Here's one of the latter: Stealing from the public library.
I realize that we are experiencing hard times in our country and in our community. And these are exactly the times when the public library's considerable collection of information and entertainment are most needed. What I can't understand is why, when we are set up expressly to let people - for free - take our stuff home with them, would they choose to try and steal it instead.
Unfortunately, this is a real problem. Occasionally, as was the case today, we catch the person in the act and are able to recover our materials. As it turns out, the person trying to steal was a patron whose record was blocked due to non-payment of a fairly large number of fines. As I told the police officer, I think what people don't know is that we are really friendly, empathetic people who will do everything we can to help a person pay off their fines and get back to using the library.
The bottom line for us is (as is almost always the case) a financial one. We will have to continue to invest more in security and technology in order to keep the materials we have available for our citizens to use. We will continue to beef up our monitoring of certain collections and areas of the library instead of simply buying more materials to loan. A real shame. The poor decisions of a few always end up punishing the rest of us.
I realize that we are experiencing hard times in our country and in our community. And these are exactly the times when the public library's considerable collection of information and entertainment are most needed. What I can't understand is why, when we are set up expressly to let people - for free - take our stuff home with them, would they choose to try and steal it instead.
Unfortunately, this is a real problem. Occasionally, as was the case today, we catch the person in the act and are able to recover our materials. As it turns out, the person trying to steal was a patron whose record was blocked due to non-payment of a fairly large number of fines. As I told the police officer, I think what people don't know is that we are really friendly, empathetic people who will do everything we can to help a person pay off their fines and get back to using the library.
The bottom line for us is (as is almost always the case) a financial one. We will have to continue to invest more in security and technology in order to keep the materials we have available for our citizens to use. We will continue to beef up our monitoring of certain collections and areas of the library instead of simply buying more materials to loan. A real shame. The poor decisions of a few always end up punishing the rest of us.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Ebook survey preliminary responses
So far, there have been over 100 responses to our survey about the possibilities for ebooks at the Hutchinson Public Library. As far as surveys go, that's quite a large number for us without even working to drum up responses.
Here's a summary of the responses so far:
What does this information mean for us? The raw numbers indicate that the opinion of the HPL users is we should move forward with the experiment. However, I am worried about some of the comments in the "tell us your opinion about ebooks" area at the end of the survey. Not because they are negative. On the contrary, the comments are quite positive. But there is a lot of misunderstanding about how ebook checkout will work here. Chief among these is that it is clear people do not understand that buying a Kindle ties them to purchase books from Amazon. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but people will be disappointed when they are unable to checkout ebooks from the library because of the reader they have chosen.
Here is a quick comparison of "major" name ebook readers and their abilities (detailed comparison here):
Sony Pocket Edition - .epub, .html, .pdf, .txt files, plus compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
B&N nook - .epub, .pdb, .pdf, .mp3, plus compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Pandigital Novel - .epub support, plus compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Amazon Kindle - .azw support NOT compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Apple iPad - .... .epub, .pdf support NOT compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Interesting to note, the Pandigital and Apple devices have color screens which would be ideally suited to viewing things like children's picture books. With the variety of formats, proprietary systems battles, and the enormous number of devices just on the horizon, this roiling sea of choices is what we must navigate.
Here's a summary of the responses so far:
- 29% of the respondents already own an ebook reader of some sort, while 71% do not.
- 55% of respondents indicated they will be buying a reader this year or next, while 27% indicated they had no plans to buy one.
- 83% of respondents indicating they already owned or would be buying an ebook reader stated that they would borrow ebooks from HPL were they available.
- 86% of respondents indicated they didn't care what format they received (paper or ebook) as long as it helped shorten holds lists.
- 6% of respondents did not want to use an ebook reader at all.
What does this information mean for us? The raw numbers indicate that the opinion of the HPL users is we should move forward with the experiment. However, I am worried about some of the comments in the "tell us your opinion about ebooks" area at the end of the survey. Not because they are negative. On the contrary, the comments are quite positive. But there is a lot of misunderstanding about how ebook checkout will work here. Chief among these is that it is clear people do not understand that buying a Kindle ties them to purchase books from Amazon. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but people will be disappointed when they are unable to checkout ebooks from the library because of the reader they have chosen.
Here is a quick comparison of "major" name ebook readers and their abilities (detailed comparison here):
Sony Pocket Edition - .epub, .html, .pdf, .txt files, plus compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
B&N nook - .epub, .pdb, .pdf, .mp3, plus compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Pandigital Novel - .epub support, plus compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Amazon Kindle - .azw support NOT compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Apple iPad - .... .epub, .pdf support NOT compatible with the Library's OverDrive service.
Interesting to note, the Pandigital and Apple devices have color screens which would be ideally suited to viewing things like children's picture books. With the variety of formats, proprietary systems battles, and the enormous number of devices just on the horizon, this roiling sea of choices is what we must navigate.
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