Book Sales Abound

I was reading an article just now about surprisingly strong book sales around the country this holiday season.  The NY Times article quotes several book sellers expressing the wish that both print and ebook formats for books could coexist.  Personally, I think that they can, but only time will tell at this point.

Here at HPL we have 2 sales in December.  One, a Scholastic Book Fair which has just ended netted over $1,000 in credit with Scholastic for books for the Children's Department!  A second sale, which continues until December 23, is a special in-store sale in the Freindshop.  The Friends have 2 entire walls of their store at half-price.  Quite a bargain especially if you have a particularly voracious reader to buy for this year.

Success! Are You Prepared...for winter driving?

Saturday morning marked our first official "Are You Prepared...?" program with a winter preparedness car check provided by Midwest Superstore's service department.  Special thanks go to Clint and his crew from Midwest's service department for providing a pleasant, friendly and FREE experience for the patrons who signed up for the program.

Here's what happened:  We registered participants ahead of time for 12 time slots.  Patrons arrived in our NW parking area and checked in inside our garage area.  The folks from Midwest pulled the cars in by turns and provided the owner with a free visual inspection of the vehicle that included airing up the tires, wiper fluid fill and a check of filters, tire tread, and battery voltage.  The Midwest staff then explained their findings to the vehicle owners with recommendations regarding any issues they might want to address before winter arrives full-force.

We will continue our series of "Are You Prepared...for the END?  programs after the Christmas/New Year's holidays.  The programs are intended to be practical and fun and making light-hearted use of the fact that 2012 marks the end of the Meso-american long count calendar.  Look for upcoming programs on winter safety and preparedness, travel, gardening, financial and legal preparedness and more throughout 2012!

Wow!  We have a lot of junk in our garage!

Both stalls filled!

Who is that balding guy on the right?

Voltage test

The End of a State-wide Era

Today marks the end of the State of Kansas contract with the company OverDrive that supplied library patrons state-wide with access to downloadable eAudio and eBooks.  This change has only slightly affected us here at HPL since we have continued our own separate relationship with OverDrive (one that has existed since before the state-wide consortium).

The State Library is starting up a new service called Kansas EZ Library.  Right now patrons are only able to access eAudio provided by the State's new contractor, Recorded Books and their One-Click Digital service.  I hope that HPL patrons will try this new service and give us their thoughts about its value compared to OverDrive.  We have looked hard at alternatives to OverDrive and have yet to find one that we felt would serve our patrons best.  I am anxious for the State's eBook service to start later this winter.  The State will be using 3M's Cloud Library to loan eBooks to Kansas Library Card holders, which includes HPL patrons.  Again, once this service starts up, I hope to hear from our patrons regarding what the service is like from their perspective.  For our part, we will be evaluating both services.  Our process will continue to be driven by what is best for our patrons.

Website change

I admit that I am an inveterate tinkerer.  I have been working on creating a set of links for our patrons to sites that offer free ebooks for download.  Further, I have been looking at these sites and trying them out beforehand to see if they are easy to use and offer a good selection.  The list will likely grow over time.

In fact, thanks to the work our IT head, we have changed the main menu on our website to create a space for further future expansion into ebooks and more.  Here's what we've changed (inside the big red circle):

The heading that used to say "Audiobooks" is now the more general "Digital".  We will add links here to new state-wide resources as well as resources unique to the Hutchinson Public Library and it's patrons.

This is where you will find the link to the free ebook resources.  Just follow the "eBooks" link and it will lead you to this page:

I have divided the resources into two sometimes-overlapping categories.  There are sites that contain mainly public domain books and sites that provide free eBooks.  "Public domain" and "free" are not interchangeable terms in that most of the "free" titles found on sites listed on this new page are providing eBooks that are still under copyright, they just aren't charging you any money to download them.

The public domain books are no longer under copyright and so are free in terms of cost AND in terms of copyright limitations.

The list will undoubtedly change and expand as we move forward.  The DIGITAL section of the website will expand too as we add more resources, both local and otherwise, to enhance our physical collection.

Science Fiction Book Discussion

A new part of our programming for 2012 will be attempting to form a science fiction book discussion group.  We've had a long-standing mystery group, The Mystery Mavens, and we thought the time was right to expand our repertoire.

In order to fit in with our end-of-the-world "Are You Prepared..." theme for 2012, two of us here with an interest in SF picked the first two titles for consideration:

The first book is Forstchen's One Second After which explores the after effects of an EMP caused by a nuclear weapon.  We will meet on Feb  Here's Booklist's review:

In a Norman Rockwell town in North Carolina, where residents rarely lock homes, retired army colonel John Matherson teaches college, raises two daughters, and grieves the loss of his wife to cancer. When phones die and cars inexplicably stall, Grandma’s pre-computerized Edsel takes readers to a stunning scene on the car-littered interstate, on which 500 stranded strangers, some with guns, awaken John’s New Jersey street-smart instincts to get the family home and load the shotgun. Next morning, some townspeople realize that an electromagnetic pulse weapon has destroyed America’s power grid, and they proceed to set survival priorities. John’s list includes insulin for his type-one diabetic 12-year-old, candy bars, and sacks of ice. Deaths start with heart attacks and eventually escalate alarmingly. Food becomes scarce, and societal breakdown proceeds with inevitable violence; towns burn, and ex-servicemen recall “Korea in ’51” as military action by unlikely people becomes the norm in Forstchen’s sad, riveting cautionary tale, the premise of which Newt Gingrich’s foreword says is completely possible. --Whitney Scott --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Our second book is the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller which begins in a post-apocalyptic future 600 years after a nuclear holocaust:

Written at a time when the Fear of the Bomb was at full steam, the Hugo-winning A Canticle for Leibowitz stands head and shoulders above virtually every other post-apocalypse SF novel of its day, and it may be the most important SF novel ever written. It beggars the imagination to think that this was Miller's only novel; though in 1997, the year after Miller's death, a sequel titled Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was finished out by Terry Bisson and released. Contemplative, elegiac, and gut-wrenching in its best moments, the story allows Miller to view the human race through a glass darkly. Will our species ever learn from its mistakes and not repeat them? Miller hopes so, though he doesn't exactly appear to think so. This book is a lament for humanity.

Our plan is to work through 6 books in 2012.  We'll start as soon as possible with our first meeting scheduled for February 2nd.  After that, we'll meet bi-monthly.  We have the first two books ready, but we'll decide as a group the remaining four books to read.  Hopefully, we can then carry the group on through subsequent years on more-or-less the same quantity of books...unless the long count calendar cycle that ends in 2012 really IS the end.

Snapshot Day Success!

We had a great day this past Tuesday finding out the "who, what, when, and how" of the patrons who frequent our library.  HPL participated in this project which is sponsored by the Kansas State Library, the Kansas Library Association, and the Kansas Association of School Libraries.

The goal is to show just how important libraries are to their communities.  Sometimes, people take institutions such public libraries for granted, assuming that they will always be there.  However, funding for many libraries is being reduced in ways that will threaten their very existence.  It might be possible to absorb a reduction in State funding for a year, or one at the local level, or to do without a federal grant for one round.  But many of the reductions being made to library budgets will last longer and are combined in ways that will overwhelm already drastically-reduced operating budgets.  So, the idea of showing what libraries do for their communities in just one day out of the year, Snapshot Day was born.

Here's HPL's snapshot:

• 879 people came through the doors
• 204 questions were answered.  Of the questions recorded at the Reference Desk, 54% were 0-4 mins (ready reference-type) and 46% were 5-15+ mins (reference)
• 1,278 circulation transactions were made
• 150+ computer lab users came in
• 272 people filled out the questionnaire

From the questionnaire group, a sampling of answer totals:

• 136 checked out items,
• 44 were job hunting,
• 84 used research tools/services,
• 27 attended meetings,
• 26 were here for tutoring/homework,
• 150 for computer use,
• 23 for wireless use,
• 37 for online library resources,
• 17 to get a library card.

 That's a day in the life of a public library.  We have some pictures on the library's Facebook page.

All-in-all, I am amazed at all the good things that get done in just one day at a library.  The one thing that isn't mentioned here though, or that is hard to see through the numbers, is that all that good is done by a wonderful and hard-working group of people.  I am extremely thankful we have such a great staff here at HPL and if you use this library, you should be too!  Please give them a "thank you" next time you get the chance!

KGI blog strikes again!

The great librarians at the Kansas Government Information blog have an excellent post about the changes being proposed in Kansas for Medicaid.  It is, as usual, well worth a look.  This is a major consideration for the state going into the future.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - the KGI blog is an excellent tool.  Find out what's happening in State government!

Interesting Rumor...

...or not.

I heard a new rumor today, that the Hutchinson Public Library is closing.  First off, I want to say that this rumor is FALSE!  We've been here for 110 years and Melville Dewey willing, we will be here in another 110 years.

Second, I wonder if this has anything to do with our "Are you Prepared...?" program series for 2012?  It's going to be fun, and we're taking a light-hearted approach to the impending end of the "Mayan Long Count" calendar.  Of course, it never hurts to be prepared and we will have a variety of lunch-n-learn type activities and much more to help you get ready for what comes next.

Amazon library?

In another "re-invent the wheel for fun and profit" move, Amazon has launched a new initiative lending books to Kindle users.  Apparently, Amazon Prime customers can "borrow" one book per month from Amazon's vast sources.  There are a couple of catches with this plan though:

1. The Kindle owner must be an Amazon Prime member.
2. The Kindle owner must be just that - an owner of a physical Kindle device.  The loan service will not work with the Kindle app.

Is this a good deal?  I suppose it depends.  If you already have a Kindle and you want to shell out the annual $79 for Amazon Prime membership too, then yes.  Amazon Prime has all sorts of other advantages with shipping, etc.  However, it won't be long before public libraries everywhere have large collections of ebooks for patrons to borrow on practically any device they want, including Kindle and Kindle apps devices for free and at a higher rate than one per month.

The power of public libraries

BOO!

In a statement to Congress Danielle Milam, who is the Development Director for the LasVegas-Clark County Library District, very clearly articulated the value of public libraries to their communities.  Nevada as a whole and the Las Vegas metro area have been among the hardest hit areas after the 2009 recession.  Huge unemployment rates and a massive drop in tax revenue (she states a 30% reduction) cause the dual problems of an extremely tight budget and soaring use of the public library.

How did they help?  By doing what libraries have done all over the country with perhaps more effectiveness than any other public organization designed to help in an economic crisis - they provided information, entertainment, and that VITAL resource in the digital age, an Internet connection.

The LV-CC Library District's usage statistics are staggering.  You can read them in the link to her statement above, but two of her statements really stuck out for me:

Today’s public libraries are models for digital skill diffusion and workforce development. Every day over 300,000 Americans get job-seeking help in public libraries. The number of libraries with free public WiFi outnumbers and augments the access provided by private enterprises, like Starbucks.

We are reducing the digital divide. Our Library District is one of 5,400 libraries nationally that offer free technology classes for those who need to retool quickly with new digital skills.

The Hutchinson Public Library is one of those many public libraries offering the only Internet link many people have.  The LV-CC Library District has done an exemplary job in helping its constituents get back to work.  Setting a standard that we and many other libraries should strive toward.  But this statement is what our legislators, not only in Washington, but in Kansas should be looking at:

Today’s situation is urgent. It is time to consider new workforce development models that are scalable to the high levels of unemployment, that can quickly mobilize resources to those in need, where they are, fueled by their inspirations and inquiries.

The motto of many libraries today is “Start Here. Go Anywhere.” It reflects the free choice way people use library resources in times of transitions. We urge you to include public library roles and resources in the design of strategies to get many people to work, quickly, with relevant and current workforce skills.

Libraries help people.  Provide the resources and a public library can do amazing work.  Just like Ms. Milam says, public libraries are already built, staffed, and connected, ready to partner with their communities and get their economies growing again

KGI blog finds you a job

OK, so they didn't actually find you a job, but today's post is chock-full of great places to look for job training, re-training and assistance sources to help you if you are out of work.  KGI blog entries are always packed with useful information.  I have recommended it before, but I'll risk repeating myself - follow it for a while to give it a try.

[steps up on soapbox]
The KGI blog is another one of those great tools created by librarians.  Concise, full of useful information, and worth every penny of the tax dollars expended on it.  The old "penny wise, pound foolish" chestnut applies to the situation school, public, and indeed any library finds itself in these days.  As political leaders scramble to close enormous gaps in budgets, we librarians have been caught flat-footed at times in justifying our existences.  Excellent tools like the KGI blog are exactly the kinds of things librarians can create for you - the taxpayer.  We all need to remember to help our political leaders make wise decisions when times are tough.  Librarians and libraries are worth the expense.
[steps down from soapbox]

eBook workshops

I spent the better part of my day yesterday in Derby Kansas at the lovely new Derby Public Library.  The reason for this was the semi-annual meeting of our regional library system, SCKLS.  Also, because SCKLS provided two great programs following the business meeting.

The first was a presentation by Kevin Honeycutt, a guy as passionate about education as you would want every one of your child's teachers to be.  Really great stuff, and I highly recommend his free tools page - there is enough there to run your entire organization on free/shareware!

The afternoon was taken up by demos of ereaders of all sorts presented by SCKLS staff.  I think we learned a couple of tricks and answers to at least one key question that had been preventing us from circulating eReaders.

So, COMING SOON - an experiment with ebooks and filling holds for high-demand items!

Kansas and ebooks

[UPDATE added below]

There was a nice editorial in the Hutchinson News the other day about ebooks in libraries.  Specifically, the travails of the State Library of Kansas and their struggle with the digital media vendor OverDrive.

Here is an article that sums up the whole situation quite nicely.  That article summarizes the Kansas vs. OverDrive fight in a bit more detail and provides more information about what's coming.  Here at HPL, we have had our own separate contract with OverDrive for many, many years.  We signed on with them originally to provide downloadable audiobooks and we have amassed quite a "collection".  As we look for a more permanent, more elegant, and hopefully more economical method of collecting and distributing ebooks, we will, in the meantime add some ebook titles to our OverDrive collection.  Right now, the collection is rather tiny.

I think there will be other solutions, but as the "Librarian in Black" says, (and I paraphrase) the licensing (rather than purchase) of digital material destroys the cultural role of libraries in their communities.  With a license model, no longer will libraries preserve the cultural heritage of civilization.

[UPDATE]  It would appear that in the planned statewide 3M Cloud Library it will be possible to integrate a local library's catalog with the statewide ebook library.  This would mean that patrons would use his/her local library card (rather than the Kansas Library Card) to access the state ebook collection.  It looks like it might be a bit pricey, but it would definitely give us some statistical feedback regarding usage of the service by HPL patrons.

Marilyn June Coffey visit a success!

Thank you to everyone who came to the author visit last evening!  There were scores of people in attendance and plenty of good feedback about the program.  Ms. Coffey is currently touring in the area in support of her book.  Our Friends of the Library group has always been very supportive in helping us to bring authors to Hutchinson.

So, now who would you like to see here in Hutchinson?

Friends of the Library

HPL has been blessed with a wonderful and strong Friends of the Library group.  They have worked tirelessly for many years with one goal in mind - to get books into the hands of people.  And they have been incredibly successful!  They do this by selling donated books from their shop in the library.  Those $0.10 and $0.25 books have amounted to enough money to help us expand our collections, bring authors here from far-away places, make the summer reading program a success for children, and even build spaces such as this in our library:

These are all things that would not have happened without donated books.  If you have a stack of paperbacks you've read and no longer want, bring them in.  That blockbuster thriller you read once and is now gathering dust - bring it too!  Our Friends of the Library will take them and return the fruits to us all in the form of a better library.

Library as "Technology Center"

I have been preoccupied with ebooks of late as I look back over the postings here.  But that isn't all that we are working on here at HPL.  As a child of the Cold War era, a regular theme for me when thinking about modern library service is "proliferation".  Proliferation of formats, proliferation of technology, and proliferation of confusion and need for training in both areas.  Not only do the library staff need constant updates to skills and knowledge, but patrons come in with a huge variety of questions about technology.  How are we going to deal with the enormous variety of new "things"?  How will we as a public library remain relevant and not only relevant, but maybe even become indispensable?

Right now we do a ... fair job.  Our problem is that since the situation arose incrementally, it was addressed incrementally.  'Incremental" in this case means "haphazard".  So now we have one department checking out laptops, another dealing with public computers, another dealing with faxes and copies, and everyone dealing in their own fashion with tech gadget questions.  The result is that from the patron's side, one gets hit-or-miss service.  This is no one's fault, it is just how it has evolved.

I think one way that we can overcome this is that we could become not just an information place, but a technology center.  If you Google "library technology center" you get results from library websites talking mostly about public-use computers.  The computers you use at the library to check your email, your Facebook, or to play games or even sometimes do some research.  But that's not the only function needed.  In fact, it's probably not even the most important function needed any more, though it remains essential.

This is what "Technology Center" is to most libraries.

What is needed, I think, is a one-stop place where a patron can come and get any library-oriented tech-related issue addressed.  The whole gamut from faxing a document to downloading an ebook; from searching and applying for a job to whiling away an hour or two on a flash game.

The concept is much broader than just a "computer lab".  It would be a place in the library where the services and "things" the library offers could be matched with the  patron needs or with the "things" owned by the patrons who come here seeking whatever it is they seek.

It would be a place staffed with people expert in the use of electronic library services.  Not quite a public "help desk", but close.  Not a place to have your equipment repaired, rather a place to get answers for technical questions regarding your favorite technology tools as they relate to what the library offers, be it as simple as WiFi or as in-depth as a specialized research database.

Can it be done?  I see no reason why not.  Now is the time to plan.  We have the tools scattered all about.  We have the people and we have the need. 

eBook Puzzle

After listening in on another rah-rah session about 3M's Cloud Library, I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't an even better solution out there.  Don't get me wrong - I think 3M has a great plan and idea, I'm just not sure that they aren't going to be a stepping stone to other things in the world of ebooks.  I am tired of hearing about it rather than being able to at least see how it works in real life.

As my colleagues pointed out at the webinar I attended, there is not so much a lack of content out there (ebooks) but a lack of platforms to distribute the content.  After all, public libraries have been circulating content in the form of paper, tape, vinyl, polycarbonate disks, canvas, cardboard, downloadable files, etc. for over 100 years.  In all forms save the last, we've been able to devise systems on our own.  With electronic files, librarians are largely held back by lack of computer programming degrees.  It's hard to devise a system if you don't have the expertise to develop a robust, flexible tool.


The more I think about it though, something else that was mentioned after the webinar is really puzzling.  Why haven't the companies that provide libraries with automated circulation systems jumped into the ebook arena?  They have already created highly sophisticated systems that check in and out materials, keep inventory, track users and the material they have out, track purchasing and receiving, and a myriad other tasks.  Why can't a library purchase an ebook, store it on a server somewhere, and circulate it through these sophisticated systems?  In fact, every third party ebook lending system I've seen uses the library's automation system to authenticate users of the ebook borrowing system.

Why is this thing so hard to grapple with?

There are smart people out there in the library world and in the library automation world.  While I've largely given up on my flying-car-that-folds-into-a-briefcase, I want to know:  Where is my automated library system that can circulate ALL my library's materials?  (I'm looking at you, Polaris.)

Inscrutable Amazon

OK, maybe they aren't impossible to understand, but they do seem to be sending out a number of contradictory messages these days about Kindle and ebooks.  We all know that Amazon has a proprietary format for ebooks, making a Kindle or Kindle reader the only way to access material sold by them.  We know that they only allow a very limited sharing of Kindle books between readers.

Then, they struck a deal with OverDrive, a library ematerials lending service to allow Kindle users to download and borrow books through the service.  There seems to be, to put it delicately, "a number" of steps to actually get the book loaded on to your Kindle using OverDrive.  This article shows the process as seen at the Seattle Public Library which is currently testing the service.

We had been kicking around an idea here that was similar to this way back at the start of the year.  We were thinking about simply buying a number of Kindles and building collections of high demand titles on them (as those titles were "demanded") and checking the Kindles out to people.  I know this is not what Amazon intended, but maybe they will eventually come up with something similar.

On a final note, the State Library of Kansas has a set up a news page for disseminating information about state-wide initiatives they are working on.  It is worth a look and an occasional check-in to see how they are progressing.  Ultimately, this may be a service the Hutchinson Public Library participates in assuming it gets going in the near future.

What did you do this summer?

Here's what we did.  Our amazing staff here at the Hutchinson Public Library did the following June through August:

• 550+ - the number of children hosted at our Summer Celebration party.
• 109,569 - the number of items checked out (and back in again).
• 1,333 - the number of children attending summer story times
• 3,826 - the number of questions answered in our Reference Department
• 458 - the number of children who turned in their completed reading logs
• 4,580 - the MINIMUM number of books read by those 458 children!
• 1 - the number of new reading spaces we opened (come see the new Quiet Reading Room!)
• 1 - the number of new coffee bar proprietors in the library (visit Rita's Roast!)

What will we do next?  I don't know for sure, but we have some plans... (cue ominous music)

Storytime is back!

Every year our children's department takes a little extremely well-deserved rest after the completion of our Summer Reading Program.  This year is no different, but now it is time to get back in the swing of things!

This year the fall story times will have 2 sessions of Toddler Time programs on Tuesday mornings and 3 sessions of Preschool Story Times, 1 on Wednesday morning, 1 on Thursday morning and 1 on Thursday afternoon.

Check out our library's calendar here.  The children's programs are color-coded light blue.  Hover your mouse over the event for brief information or click on the event for full details.

All toddlers, preschoolers and their parents are welcome!  No registration is necessary and the programs are all free.  Our goal is to help parents build a good early literacy foundation with their children.  Early childhood literacy is perhaps the single most important advantage you can give a child to help her or him achieve and succeed in school.  It is a particular interest of mine and one that as a country, I think, we ignore at our peril.

Marilyn June Coffey visits HPL

Marilyn June Coffey will be at the Hutchinson Public Library on Thursday, October 13th at 7pm.  She will be talking about her new book titled, Mail Order Kid, a story of a child's experience with the orphan train movement.

Ms. Coffey will present a program about her book and be available for questions and autographs.  She will also have some copies of the book available for purchase.


HPL will provide refreshments for this event - more details on this to come!

Amazon's curious twist

I have heard the rumors about Amazon's supposed "tablet" device for a long time now.  A thing that would compete with the minimum $499 iPad and the around $250 Nook all at once.  Apparently, Amazon is about ready to release just this sort of device.  An article in TechCrunch sent to me by a friend and colleague seems to provide all the information on what sounds like a beta product that's about ready to leave that status and go to production.

From the author's description it sounds like a mixed bag of hardware and software pluses and minuses,  It will only be a 7" screen device, no camera, WiFi only initially, and some other things you can read about.  But the reason for the lack of some size and features is that it will be priced to compete with the Nook Color.  It will be interesting to see what this device does to the "tablet" market.  Will it make a dent in the iPad juggernaut?  Will it roll over Barnes & Noble's book-reader-with-bonuses Nook Color?  We are so far from seeing a "settling down" of the ebook reader / tablet computer / how-does-this-affect-libraries question it's almost funny.  Almost.

HPL website changes

A few months ago we rolled out a new website for HPL.  Since that time, we have received training for a number of our staff members in order to keep it updated.  You will begin to see changes to the site and the addition of fresh content with much greater frequency.

The calendar is one of our favorites so far, allowing us to provide easy-to-access information about everything that goes on here.  You can find the calendar from the "Find an Event" link at the bottom of the home page or by clicking "Programs & Services" on the navigation bar and then clicking "Calendar of Events".

Events on the calendar are color coded and the legend is located at the bottom.  If you only want to see certain types of events, click on the event type in the legend at the bottom and the calendar displays only that type.  Also, you can hover your cursor over an event and a small pop-up will give you more information about that event.  In the picture below, I was pointing at the first TALK book discussion for this fall.

As you can see from the picture, you can also check to see what non-library sponsored events are going on.  If you have a meeting coming up and you don't know when or where it is scheduled, just click "Meeting Rooms" and find all the details.

Another great feature is the search box in the upper right corner.  This can be toggled to search the website or to search the library's catalog.  You can also log in to your library account from here to check holds lists, or find other information.

As we continue to add more to the website, I will feature the changes here.  I am excited by the possibilities afforded us by this new tool and I think it will become a trove of information useful to all.

Sony and the Public Library

An interesting article came through one of our library mailing lists this morning.  It appears that Sony has stepped up their commitment to public library service and ebook borrowing.  Sony and OverDrive struck a deal about two years ago that paved the for this new Sony device, the PRS-T1.

The new Sony reader has a dedicated icon for accessing public library ebook services wirelessly.  The article here explains in more detail.  There's also information here in this article.  The idea is to support OverDrive's initiative with public libraries called the "Public Library Service".  It's a pretty plain-jane-looking site, but you put in your ZIP code, find the library near you for which you have a valid library card, and check out a book.

What an interesting time for libraries!  We may be hurting for money, but the opportunities are there to make some great leaps in service.

Kansas and Libraries

***WARNING - RANT AHEAD***

I attended a focus group last week, the purpose of which was to help form a list of what is essential in a database package for Kansas.  Sound pretty dry, right?

It was.  But there was an interesting side to it that really wasn't talked about until the very end.  The question on everyone's mind was, "How are we going to pay for this?"  And the answer was, "We don't know, the money has all gone."

So how did this happen?  Well, first off the economy went in the tank a couple of years ago.  So, cost cutting became even more of a mantra in the legislature.  And the cutting was done with a sword rather than a scalpel.  So far, from a library perspective everything REALLY useful has been cut to the bone.  Not only was state aid reduced (direct aid to libraries) for what I think was the 4th year in a row, several statewide programs were massacred.  So this year, Kan-Ed had its funding slashed.  This is basically because big telecoms don't want the downward price pressure on their services.  You see, Kan-Ed provides low- or no-cost T-1 connections to public entities like libraries that can't otherwise afford "high speed" Internet.  Now, I take issue with the definition of "high speed" Internet as our providers use it, but that's a rant for another day.  Unfortunately, by slashing Kan-Ed's funding, over 50% of the funds for statewide databases - these tools provided here - disappeared.  And in the next budget year, they are gone all together - nearly $1 million.

Now, bear in mind that all of the cutting, I was told directly, was to reduce the "government footprint".  And, that ,"We're not looking to increase your [the library's] costs or reduce access..."

So, can you guess what happened?  EXACTLY.  Our direct costs, because we lost the power of purchasing in a state-wide contract, have increased and our ability to provide access to information has already and will continue to be drastically reduced over this year and next.

Lest you think that nothing was done to enlighten our state government as to the results of these actions, librarians and others across the state wrote, emailed, talked directly to, and testified in the state house about these matters.  Only, instead of listening to feedback from knowledgeable sources, no provisions were made to transfer funds from Kan-Ed to the State Library to administer state-wide tools and services.  Instead, contracts will lapse, work will have to be repeated, and much more struggle for funds will have to be made in order to even BEGIN negotiating new contracts - and worst of all, library service and credibility will be damaged.

You may not know this, but the Kan-Ed funds I have mentioned so often are actually "Kansas Universal Service Fund" (KUSF) monies.  They are collected by the Kansas Corporation Commission and WILL CONTINUE to be collected at the same rate as before.  The legislature merely choose to not allocate them to Kan-Ed.  Taxes (or in this case service fees) are not any lower because of this action.

What can you do?  Contact your legislator and ask her or him to allocate to the State Library KUSF funds not given to Kan-Ed to provide for state-wide library services.  Kan-Ed funding went from $10 million per year to $6 million.  That means there are $4 million available - even a quarter of that amount would allow us to restore lost services and take pressure off the State Library so that they might be able to stave off further cuts to direct aid or other services.

[Wipes spittle from corner of mouth]

An insider's view of ebooks

The other day, information about a series of interviews conducted on the BBC came out across a library email list I belong to. The bits that caught my attention were from Victoria Barnsley who is the Chief Executive of HarperCollins UK.  Here are a few of the things she said:

• 50% of their fiction to be digital within 2 years,
  
• eBooks will replace paperbacks,
• hardbacks will improve in quality to be the books people keep.

 Hardbacks will improve in quality!  Wait...what?  You mean you think there will still be a market for ...(GASP)...paper books?  OK, while I might mean to sound a little sarcastic here, I would like to think that the opinion that I and many others have held for a while now, might also be a consideration in the publishing world.  Paper will not be going away any time soon. The ebook format lends itself well to replacement of paperbacks and fiction titles.  Paper copies will also be wanted and even preferred in some cases, and ebooks for lending will help libraries expand their collections, patrons discover new authors, and ultimately purchase more e- and regular books.

Of course, HarperCollins has also made the controversial decision to make their loanable ebooks to libraries "wear out" after 26 checkouts thereby requiring the library to purchase a "new" copy.  While I don't think it is unreasonable for publishers to make these sorts of requirements of libraries, I think 26 circulations is a pretty low number.  Apparently HarperCollins needs to improve their hardback quality now if all they think we can expect from their products is essentially a year's worth of checkouts!

Librarian / tech nerd nirvana

A colleague of mine (who also happens to be something of a tech nerd AND a great guy) sent me a link to this product  - Boopsie - today.  It's an app for libraries and library users that does a whole bunch of cool things in all-in-one fashion.  Feature description from their site:

• BookLook - Scan the barcode of that new best seller at the bookstore and instantly know whether your library has the book available.
• Publisher Reviews - Integration with book review providers such as Syndetics, Goodreads etc.
• Overdrive Access - search, view, download and read Overdrive titles right from mobile device.
• BookCheck - Mobile checkout from the palm of your hand!  Simply scan, click (check) and go!

They seem to have a reasonable subscription rate for us here in Small Town America!  We've talked about having a mobile app developed for us locally, but why reinvent the wheel?  These folks seem to have thought about how it might be used by patrons, so we'll give it a serious look to see how it would integrate with our systems and network.

Save the Libraries

chirp! chirp!

There is a tremendous lack of understanding these day of, well...of many things actually; but within the scope of this blog, the value of libraries.  I think the true value of public libraries is that they provide common ground.  This is reflected to me in two related ways.   I have a quote that I've collected recently from a UK article on libraries that articulates it one way:

"The libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide – between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence." - Bella Bathurst, writer for The Observer [newspaper]

Libraries facilitate an intellectual conversation, no matter the format of the conversation or the materials on the shelves, readers, or digital devices.  This largely has to do with the training, skill, and actual practice of the job known as "librarianship".  The people that work in a library make sure by their very work that the conversations listed in the quote above can flourish.

A second way that this thing called a "library" acts as a societal leveler, is as a place where people from all walks of life can experience a certain level of equality and equitable treatment.  The physical space makes it unique in the modern world in that anyone can use it for meeting and exchange of ideas, largely free of any out-of-pocket expense.

Public libraries continue to provide free access to information in the form of books, digital files, Internet access, and government publications, all the while being dismantled bit-by-bit in the name of "lowering taxes" and "trimming the fat".  I contend that libraries, especially public and school libraries, give the most bang for the tax dollar that you can get.  HPL will be here for a while, I think.  We have benefited from the gifts of many fine residents in our town.  But Kansas libraries as a whole are being picked apart.  From elimination of funding for cheap high-speed Internet connectivity (this has already happened - funding was slashed), to statewide accessible databases of information (this funding has also been eliminated), to school libraries at every level, our State Legislature and Governor seem to be doing their best to demolish educational support of any sort.

Lastly, I am not advocating support of this project - you can make your own decisions about it, but I think it is a great idea.  Photographer Robert Dawson is touring 22 states, photographing public libraries as a commons, one of "...the things that we share as a nation - our environment, our infrastructure, our culture - the things that keep our society civil and working."

Here's the link from the comments section below:  Karin Slaughter Writes Story to Help Save Libraries

What does a public library look like?

I was thinking about the future of libraries today while participating in the library board meeting.  We were talking about where we go at HPL with downloadable media of all types.  It is my current belief that libraries everywhere will be subscribing to more than one online content provider to get the broad scope of what is (and what will be) available for download.

Warehouse?

Center of the City?

Tiny kiosk?

Here's what I think will happen:  Despite all the talk about ebooks driving the future of reading / publishing, there is still an important demographic that prefers paper, or can't afford the technology, has no access to high speed Internet, or any number of other contributing factors.  The library will have another demographic to cater to - the ebook patron.  Just like before them came the downloadable audio patron, the DVD patron, the VHS patron, the tape audiobook patron, the CD music patron, the vinyl / 8-Track / microfilm / microfiche / plain-old-book patrons before them.

Ebook readers don't kill libraries.  Lack of good services for lending ebooks does.  When the publishers realize that libraries DO promote their authors and DO promote a love of reading and services like OverDrive realize loaning ematerial CAN be easy and seamless (look at 3M Cloud Library, hint, hint), libraries will integrate this new media and move on.  Afterall, libraries are so much more than the materials they loan out.  Libraries serve a function in their communities no other entity can fulfill - they cause the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to be injected into the real world.  Sound grandiose?  It isn't - public libraries provide space to assemble, access (at least for awhile) information to allow the existence of an informed electorate, defend the freedom of speech, and ensure at least some measure of equality to all this across the increasingly disparate ends of the socio-economic spectrum.

TALK books series

HPL is hosting another of the Kansas Humanities Council's book discussion series.  This time the theme is "food".  We have some very good discussion leaders lined up for this time, so I hope we have good attendance!

This discussion series is put together by the Kansas Humanities Council and our local library staff to provide a way to hold book discussions on a wide variety of subjects.  If you haven't tried one out - give it a shot!

Rita's Roast starts up!

HPL is excited to have a new coffee vendor open and ready for business!  Meredith Hulsey opened Rita's Roast about a week ago with a variety of refreshing beverages and some unbelievably good treats.  You may have purchased some of her awesome baked goods at the Reno County Farmers Market and now you can get them at the Library as well (at least some of the time).  Rita's Roast also features a great hand-made lunch deal that includes a sandwich and other tasty treats.

The Hutchinson News had a nice write-up about Rita's Roast last Friday or Saturday as well - thank you Hutchinson News!

Be sure to stop in on Monday, August 1st and help celebrate Rita's Roast at their Grand Opening!

eBook update for mid-July

The ebook landscape continues to change as HPL moves closer to deadlines for decisions regarding what tools to use to provide our patrons with the best reading / usability experience we can.  A recent article from Market Watch discussing 3M's new library ebook system shows just how rapidly things can change.  For what little it is worth, I can say with confidence that this is a system to watch.  OverDrive, the market leader in library-lending ebook systems should take heed.  Having seen a demonstration of the 3M system, OverDrive's way of doing things pales in comparison.

It remains to be seen if 3M can add the content, but I have no real doubt that they will.

Today is the Big Day!

After months of planning, work and now tidying up, the Quiet Reading Room is ready for its Grand Opening!  I extend my humble thanks and appreciation for all the hard work that contributed to bringing us to this day.

• Thank you to the Friends of the Hutchinson Public Library for funding the project!
• Thank you to the Staff and others who worked on the committee to design it:  Mary Lou Sunderland, Martha fee, Lisa Dethloff, Julie Magyar, Cheryl Canfield, Lou McConnaghy, Roni Boldt, Austin Smith, Tremaine Fernandez, and Charlene Childs.
• Thank you to the Library's Maintenance staff for making the space spic-and-span for today.
• Thank you to Annette Smith for the preparations for the Grand Opening celebration.

I hope that the patrons of the library see the space for what it is; a sanctuary to get away from the noises that accompany the modern public library, a little oasis of calm for quiet contemplation and study.  It is also a tip-of-the-hat to the history of this building.

From the fiction sorting area

Women's Civic Center information

Lighted study carrel

Mid-summer update

As we sit here baking in the hot July sun, I am thankful that I am able to sit here in the relative cool of the library.  It has been a somewhat tumultuous summer so far and I thought I'd write down all that has been going on.  In late May, we found out that the Bru Crue Coffee Bar was going to have to abruptly shut down.  I, and many others, were sad to hear about this.  However, we will soon have another coffee vendor up and running - Rita's Roast Coffee Co. will be open very soon.

Our new roof has been finished and at least in some parts of the building, the reflective quality of the white vinyl may actually be helping to lower the temperature!  I'm not sure that there's any helping the Computer Lab temperature, but other parts of the second floor seem cooler.

On the subject of the public computer lab, we are exploring the cost involved in redoing the HVAC for that part of the building.  As we have discussed what to do about the computer lab, we have revisited the arrangement of the whole area north of the mezzanine.  Who knows?  By the time all is said and done, we may have a whole new look on the 2nd floor!

Trekking through the wilderness

From time to time we all take journeys through the wilderness.  Sometimes these journeys are figurative, sometimes they are literal and sometimes they are both.  This past week I took a little time off and with parts of my family, I took a literal journey through the wilderness:

This is, of course, the Grand Canyon.  A place so massive it defies description; in places so remote you could walk off the trail and never be found again.  The trail shown in this picture is one of the most popular trails in the canyon, the Bright Angel.  Thousands of people use it every year to travel to or from the south rim and the Colorado river.  While we were hiking along through 30+ miles of this place, I did some thinking, not really about libraries but about choosing paths.  I found out that our trip - south rim to north rim and back again - is a rare occurrence, comparatively speaking.  Most people (90% of all visitors) descend and return at the south rim.  So, where will the library go on its journey?

What is my point with this entry?  The picture above is the sort of place that libraries and library services are negotiating in a figurative way.  As media have changed and services shift from the own-and-share to the buy- or pay-as-you-go, relevance for libraries has come into question.  The Hutchinson Public Library is on a hike through the wilderness right now and we need all the information we can get.  Soon we will begin purchasing ebook content in earnest.  The State Library is doing a pilot project with 3M, our contract is up for renewal with OverDrive.  The bottom line is that things WILL change here and ahead of that we will ask for your input.  Please help us by participating in any upcoming surveys.  Your input will influence our decisions.  You have the opportunity to hike with us through the wilderness and help keep the Hutchinson Public Library a relevant and USEFUL service in our community for years to come!

eBook News

EBook? eBook? Should one capitalize the "e" to start a sentence using "ebook"?  Maybe I'll just avoid that from now on and start ebook posts with something like, "Yes, yes, ANOTHER post about ebooks."

It seems the competition is finally heating up for OverDrive (thank goodness).  Honestly, healthy competition in the marketplace can be a very good thing.  Since there has been essentially no competition in ebook lending, OverDrive has felt no pressure to improve their interface or lower their access fees.

However, an unlikely company has jumped whole-hog into the fray - 3M.  Yes, good ol' Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing has launched an ebook lending service.  I say, "Bravo!"

The product/service was unveiled at the American Library Association annual meeting just a few days ago.  It appears to be mostly ready for use with a fairly good variety of publishers and titles.  Notably, it does not currently work with Amazon's Kindle as of yet, but does work with popular devices such as Apple's iPad.  If, like Recorded Books', they are negotiating with Amazon, however, this could prove to be a great alternative to or addition to an OverDrive account.

Now that I've thought about it, I am going to always use a lower case "e" even if it is at the start of a sentence when writing "ebook".  Then I can say I was influenced by Steve Jobs and the ubiquitous "i" used to start the names of all their popular electronic items.

Wow! That is loud!

We are in the process of having our roof replaced at HPL.  This is a much-needed maintenance project as we have been suffering through leak after leak for the past 18-24 months.  However, by delaying a re-roof and making do with patches over that time, we were able to set aside enough money to pay for the project out right.  I am not a big fan of borrowing money, in my personal finances or at the library.

The point of my mentioning it though is that the new roof is "mechanically fastened".  Intellectually, I understood what that meant - hammer-drilling fasteners into the concrete deck to hold down the new backing.  In practice though...yikes!  It sounds sort of like some one running a jack hammer in a culvert pipe.  My apologies if you come in over the next week to ten days hoping for peace and quiet!

However, when we are done, we'll have a PVC [edit: TPO] membrane roof that looks something like this:

This type of roof has some benefits (besides keeping the rain out).  It is supposed to reflect heat from the sun to reduce heat radiating into the building.  Supposedly we will save some money on our utility bills, which after seeing the last bill for May/early June will be a blessing!  There are lots of options for flat-roofed structures, I found out as we went through this process.  I hope we picked the right one.

Quiet Reading Room

Study carrels

We are moving steadily along with the renovation of the old quiet reading room.  It is starting to look like what, I think, we were looking for in a nice study space.  This project has been funded almost entirely by the Friends of the Hutchinson Public Library!  We are planning a grand opening for mid-July - watch for an official announcement.  The pics you see here are part of a series that Annette Smith has been collecting.  More of them can be seen on Facebook.  The wainscot you see in the room was created using oak hardwood paneling salvaged from the Women's Civic Center building.

An early shot

Same wall with wainscot, new door, and trim

Now with floor and some of the new furniture

Irregular ebook update

There has been a considerable amount of discussion regarding ebooks and libraries in the past year.  There has been the usual and perpetual speculation about whether or not libraries (particularly public libraries) will disappear now that books are so easy to buy.  And while these are serious issues needing serious discussion, I have yet to hear serious answers that address the fundamental problem at the base of the ebook "revolution".

What is the fundamental problem?  It is an old one, one that first arose in a big way with the computer / Internet revolution: The economic divide that continues to grow in this country.  In library and electronics age terms, this has always been called "the digital divide" and libraries have acted to this point as the bridge.  With the surge in ebooks, the "haves" will continue to be able to acquire the tools (readers) and purchase the access or content and the "have nots" will continue to have to rely on other sources, like public libraries, to help them keep up, even if they do purchase their own reading device.

A news report from Library Journal covering the recent BookExpo America (BEA) sums this issue up nicely.  I think that there is common ground and a vested interest for all of us in making sure that information is available to all in this country.  I don't know exactly where we will end up, I wish I did (since a little savvy investing could then allow me to retire early!)  But I believe there is a role for libraries in the shift toward ebooks, and I believe at least part of that role will still be that of  a great equalizer.

Summer Celebration!

We had our kick-off for the "One World, Many Stories" summer reading program Friday morning from 9-11:30am.  While it was hot, it wasn't too windy.  I was responsible for the giant tic-tac-toe game and gave away a few over 200 books to players.  Quite a fun morning and it feels good to know that those 200+ kids each have at least one book to call their own.

Some people don't like bagpipes, but the pipers we had this morning were awesome!  I climb stairs (for exercise) sometimes and often listen to pipe and drum marches.  That aside, these gentlemen from McPherson were very enjoyable.

There was a story teller from Lindsburg whose tales were both entertaining and educational.  She talked about life as a plains settler.  My kids had a tough time coming up with answers to challenges she posed.  Those early settlers had to make many hard decisions about the simplest of issues - such as, "If you had to choose just one thing, what would you bring with you in the wagon on the way to your new home?"  This was a revelation to our kids who are used to bringing all sorts of toys and books on car trips.  They had a hard time coming up with what would be most important to them to bring along.

We now have over 500 young people signed up for the reading program along with more than 70 in the young adult program.  If all of those who signed up actually finish the program that would mean nearly 6000 books will be read over the summer!

Preserving the past with today's technology

A new technology program!  HPL is hosting a collaborative program designed and organized by Kristine, our fantastic technology trainer.  Kristine has drawn together the expertise of the Reno County Genealogical Society, HPL staff, the Kansas Cosmosphere, a professional writer, and more to create this course.  Here's what it is all about:

Four and a half months of programs, classes and help days beginning June 30th and running through November 11th.  The program is divided into 3 modules; Researching Family History, Preserving Family History, and Family Food Traditions.  Each module will have an introductory lecture, training lab classes, online content, and 1:1 assistance through lab workdays and email support.

The best part about this program is that participants can pick and choose what to attend.  One can attend all of the events, some of the events, or do the program completely online.

One of the goals for the project is to provide the opportunity to create a one of a kind family "product".  Some ideas include; a self-published family history book, a DVD with family photos and videos, a family blog or website, or a family cookbook with stories and photos.

I said before that the "best part" about the program is that you can pick and choose what to do.  Actually, the best part might be that the program is free to participate.  All you have to do is sign up at www.preservingthepast.org to attend the kick-off lecture OR email tossieconsulting@gmail.com if you want to participate but can't attend that first session.

Hooray! It's almost here!

June 3 - THIS FRIDAY - is the HPL Summer Celebration.  Our big kick-off for the summer reading program for children.  Sign up and get your passport for "One World, Many Stories".  For each book completed or for each hour of reading, registered children get a stamp in their passport.  Collect 10 stamps and receive a prize.  This program allows children to travel around the world or even into another world through reading.  There are programs available for all age groups, including adults!