Youth and Libraries

Courtesy of Vancouver Public Library/Creative Commons License

The Pew Research Center has published a study about the reading and library use habits of people between the ages of 16 and 29.  It might surprise many people who DON'T use the library to find out that this 16-29 age group DOES use the library!  For those of us who work in public libraries however, this should not be a great surprise.

Walk around the Hutchinson Public Library in the afternoons and you will see many teens and young adults using our library.  We often have a variety of home school students and community college students using our resources.  If you stop to think about it though, it makes sense.  I think many of the folks who "marvel" at the opportunities provided by the Internet, e-content, smartphones and tablets are people who didn't grow up with them.  Those younger people who have grown up in an Internet world see the library / physical materials / librarians as a few of the tools among many options, but tools that are of value nonetheless.

Libraries must evolve to provide the services and resources that people find useful.  I think that is happening and I think that the Pew Center study gives us an indication that we are on the right track.

Kansas Election Information

The reference librarians at the Kansas State Library KGI blog have provided us with a nice series of links to Kansas elections-related information provided by the Kansas Secretary of State's office among others.  This is non-partisan information about our election process in Kansas.  Please note:  this information is in no way intended to promote anything beyond greater public knowledge of the election process in our state!

The librarians that run the KGI blog are awesome!  I encourage you to browse their archive of posts, there is a wealth of information to be found.

Science Fiction Book Discussion Group

We started a new activity this year to go along with our "Are You Prepared... for the END?" series of programs.  Our Science Fiction book group was themed for this first year - all books about an apocalypse of some sort.  We started with One Second After which explored the devastation that an EMP would cause to the USA.  We followed that with the classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz, then the collection of short apocalyptic fiction, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse in June.

For out August Discussion, we switched back to novel format with another classic, George R. Stewart's Earth Abides, wherein a plague has wiped out mankind (for the most part.)

Our latest discussion, on the 4th of October, was about the 1985 Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle novel, Footfall, with an alien invasion theme.  At our discussion, I think we agreed that we had been depressed just about enough having spent the better part of the year reading about the many possible ways the end of mankind might be achieved.  However, we haven't made it past our tongue-in-cheek "deadline" of December 21st of this year, the end of another cycle on the mesoamerican long-count calendar.

Sticking with our theme, we've decided to round out the apocalyptic year with Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  This book spawned a series of sequels, a radio program, film and stage adaptations, a video game, comics, and much, much more.  While the Earth gets blasted to make way for a galactic freeway, the adventure thankfully doesn't depend on the doom-and-gloom reality of the other works we've read.

Which brings me to the end.  Well, not really the end so much as the beginning for the rest of the SF book group's existence.  We will meet monthly in 2013 and read a variety of SF and fantasy - titles TBD.  If you read this and are interested in joining (and we would love to expand the group), contact me directly at gwamsley@hutchpl.org.

Success! Many Younglings are on the Jedi Path

We had a great turn-out for the first ever Star Wars Reads Day this past Saturday, October 6th.  Somewhere between 55 and 60 younglings from the local systems converged on a Jedi training center here at the Hutchinson Public Library.  They practiced channeling the force using concentration and a steady hand.  After constructing their light sabers, they honed their skills as fledgling Jedi!

There were pictures with Jabba the Hut (only 1,000 Galactic credits per shot) and with a land speeder.  The day wouldn't have been complete without a selection of Star Wars books and videos to check out and wonderful refreshments including "Yoda Juice".  sounded dicey to me, but the younglings loved it!

Special thanks to the wonderful and talented Children's Department staff and to all the volunteers who helped make the program a success.

Phase 1 and an Alien Invasion!

The first phase of our great book shift is progressing.  This is what the second floor looks like as of this morning:

From the Kansas Room door

3 rows of stacks up, ready to assemble the 4th

Down stairs in the Children's Department, preparations for Star Wars Reads Day are nearly complete.  I think that it will be a lot of fun!  Luke's speeder is nearly complete and Jabba is making a killing charging 1,000 credits per picture!

Our program starts at 2pm on the 6th (Saturday).

This photographer is my kind of scum - fearless and inventive!

..."but I was going in to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!"

eBooks and Libraries

A delegation from the American Library Association (ALA) met with publishers at the Association of American Publishers (AAP) conference last week.  The biggest positive I see from it is that there is still a willingness to talk about solutions for libraries to provide ebooks to their patrons.

Here is a re-cap of the meeting from the ALA president, Maureen Sullivan.

I still wonder what will be the outcome of all the sturm und drang of libraries "giving away" the intellectual property created by the big publisher's authors.  Public libraries have for scores of years purchased and loaned books.  The publisher's position is, of course, the exact tack that the RIAA and big music industry companies took with the intellectual property of their artists and what happened?  Someone else <cough>Apple<cough> came in and took their business away.

I wonder if big publishers have missed the boat in the same way the music industry did?  Projects like this one in California, this one in Colorado, and this one in Houston Texas show a strong desire on the part of libraries to strike out on their own.  The world of publishing is much larger than the so-called "Big 6" publishers which includes the likes of Penguin, HarperCollins, and Hachette.  In the coming 2-3 years, these projects will prove their worth or something else will come along to provide the service.  Libraries continue the shift more and more toward providing services rather than dispensing "things", be that books, DVDs, or something else.