Clare Vanderpool at the 2011 Prairie Book Festival!

GREAT NEWS!  I just found out that Wichita native and 2011 Newbery Award winner Clare Vanderpool will present a program at the 2011 Prairie Book Festival here at the library!  So, put September 24th down on your calendars - it is not often that one gets to meet a Newbery Award-winning author.

Ms. Vanderpool's book, Moon Over Manifest has been highly regarded in the review sources (not surprisingly).  I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't read it yet, but I will definitely have it done soon.

The original intent behind the Prairie Book Festival was this very thing - to showcase the literary talent right here among us.  True, there are many great authors in the world but right down the road from Hutchinson lives an author who won the highest honor for children's book writers - the Newbery.  I wonder if there is another award-winner coming up around here too?

Ms. Vanderpool has also graciously agreed to give talks to 4-6th graders at 2 of our local grade schools, which I think is wonderful.  We will finalize arrangements for which two schools that will be very shortly.

Of course we cannot forget the group that has made this (and so many other things at HPL) possible - our generous and wonderful Friends of the Hutchinson Public Library.  Without their hard work raising funds, many of the great things HPL has to offer would not be possible - chief among them the high caliber guest authors we have from time to time.  Thank you Friends!

Early Literacy Stations are in!

These are the new computers in the children's computer area.  The name may not be flashy, but the computers themselves are pretty cool.  They have touchscreens for easy use by younger computer users and are loaded with a huge number of children's software titles that are BOTH fun and educational.  There are several categories for the programs - science, math, reading, etc.  The full title list is here.

Please come in and let your child give them a try!

Here are a couple of pictures:

Colorful, if nothing else!

11 Science Titles

New computers, spaces, and other cool stuff

I am starting to get more excited about the Quiet Reading Room - it is nearly done!  In fact, the space itself is ready for the new furniture.  If you go in there right now and look around a bit, you will see two SAMPLE chairs.  Each is customizable size- and softness-wise.  Please sit down in one and tell me what you think.  They are samples of these:

Bear in mind that we can get the"Reflect" (the chair with arms) with a wider seat, a softer cushion, a higher back and a tablet arm.  Also, we can get the "Cavetto" (the chair on the right) with a firmer seat.

I am of two minds about these chairs.  I liked the Cavetto more than I thought I would when I actually sat in it, but I like the wood-capped arms of the Reflect chair.  For me, I would sit in the Reflect longer.  The Cavetto is nice with the swiveling tablet arm though, and I like the really tall back.  I am a little afraid of dirt and grime accumulating on the fabric though.  No matter the style choice, we will order them with this cool fabric that will not absorb stains or spills and can be cleaned with fairly harsh cleaners.

We are finally getting moving again on a project started in November to rejuvenate the children's computer area.  Three AWE workstations have just arrived and are being prepared for use.  Though more expensive up front than a normal computer that we would add software to, the AWE stations more than make up for their higher price in convenience and lower upkeep.  You see, they have all the software fully installed on the computer's hard drive so there is no need to swap disks to use them.  Also, there is no need to install software after the fact, repair or replace scratched game disks, deal with compatibility issues, update to latest versions, etc.  Their website has a little pop-up video overview you can see here.  Also, you can see the .pdf list of software these computers include here.

These computers will be a nice addition to the department and ease a tremendous burden on our IT staff.  If they are successful, we may purchase more in succeeding years.

Also, we are very grateful to our Friends of the Library for purchasing (among many other things) two of these carts to hold our gaming systems we use for game days!  We will be able to just roll the carts out, plug in the power, and hand the controllers to the first kids in line. 

Preventing Identity Theft

I just love the KGI (Kansas Government Information) Blog.  The blog is a product of the State Library's reference staff, and they do a really great job.  In fact, I think their style is exactly what a blog created by a reference department should be (in my extremely humble opinion).  Their posts are always well organized and always packed with useful links about the topic they have chosen.  Perfect starting points for patrons asking about where to start researching a topic.  I have a link to it over there in the sidebar.  The entry this week is a collection of links to all sorts of great information for protecting yourself online from identity theft.  I highly recommend adding the KGI blog it to your list of sites you regularly visit.

Man, this soap box is getting rickety!

Here I am again, stepping up on my virtual soap box.  I've been having a lot of difficulty lately reconciling all the budget slashing affecting not only the library world, but public services in general with the total lack of accountability for those folks who ran the financial ship on to the rocks.  So, now the public services that help people get back on their feet are being threatened with gutted budgets at the very time the "regular folks", i.e. you and me, are using them most.  Maybe I'm off base.  But I don't think so.

[Steps off soap box]

Here's something MUCH cheerier:  The paint is dry, the wainscot up, and the floor is in our new Quiet Reading Room.  Right now there are two sample lounge chairs in there, available for testing.  If you are local, go and have a sit and let us know what you think.  Bear in mind that each chair is customizable regarding seat width, back height, firmness of cushions, etc.

Another good development is that the design process for our new library website is rolling along.  I think we are moving in the right direction and I think that the patrons will like the awesome new features.  Among them will be a calendar that will allow direct registration for library events, straight-forward jargon-free language, and a vastly simpler navigation.  We're expecting a mid- to late-spring launch.

Civic Duty...

Important, but really, really disruptive.  Having just spent a week and a day with a dozen of my peers sitting on a jury, I have a renewed appreciation for our justice system.  It is truly a fascinating process.  Sometimes tedious, sometimes baffling, but orderly, fair, and based utterly (from a juror's perspective) on weighing facts presented against the law as explained by the judge.  However fascinating though, it put me behind at work to a degree that will take me weeks to pull back even.

Back in the library world though, one of my fears for ebooks seems to be coming true.  The publisher HarperCollins has decided that they want to pretend that ebooks are the same as paper books - but only in very specific ways.  These specific ways are tied directly to their financial bottom line to the harm of us all.  Am I being melodramatic?  Possibly.  But I think that my fear that publishers were trying to steer the written word toward the licensing model used for software is coming true.

You see, HarperCollins has just discovered a key fundamental difference between paper books and ebooks and realized that , "Woah, this could hit us in the wallet!", though I have doubts about the wallet part.  HarperCollins has realized that ebooks have the potential to last forever.  Therefore, they have changed their DRM scheme so that ebooks purchased by libraries "wear out" after 26 checkouts.

In practice, that means a service like OverDrive, a service to which we subscribe, will charge us every time we have a 27th borrower wanting to download an ebook.  That means every time a patron downloads a book but decides it's not for them and deletes it from their reader, the library has lost 1/26th of the use of that book, even though it was never read.  What if a patron downloads it and never even transfers it to their reader?  Still a lost 1/26th of the book for the library.

Consider the number of times you have been to a library, checked out a number of books and returned a few because after browsing them or attempting to read them, for one reason or another you decided it wasn't the book for you. Is it reasonable to assume that those unread or partly read books have had 1/26th of their useful life consumed?  I don't think so.  In fact, I think that the majority of our paper books, even with the crummy bindings that pass for "library binding" these days last longer than 26 circulations.  I looked up a random copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and looked at its use statistics.  It was added to the collection in 2005 and has since circulated 46 times.  Under HarperCollins new model we would be looking at purchasing a third copy in the very near future if it were an ebook.

In my opinion, this is the final step in turning the "book" into purely a commodity where previously it was a medium to store the accumulated wisdom of civilization as a whole.  Still too melodramatic?  Perhaps.