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.

Kindle book lending site!

I find this fascinating - someone has set up a website to borrow and lend Kindle books.  The site is called Lendle and you can read about how it works here.  The site's FAQ makes it pretty clear that what they are doing is taking advantage of the fact that Amazon allows you to share books with friends.  That sharing is pretty restrictive, but if you were to scale it up, as Lendle is trying to do, you could create a borrowing library of some substance.  In the end, however, the problem remains with this statement from the FAQ:

How many times can I lend my book?

Unfortunately, Amazon only allows each owner of a book to lend it once.

The scale will have to be quite large, in terms of copies of each title, in order to make the service work for very long.  I think the time is coming to hash out what will become of the "printed" word.  The idea the Lendle represents is what most of us recognize as at least an interlibrary loan (ILL) system, something libraries everywhere already do with paper material.

The issue seems to be whether or not people will pirate all the ebooks if the publishers relax their rules just a tad.  Will that happen?  Maybe.  Certainly, to some degree there will always be copyright violations - there always have been.  But libraries buy a lot of books.  Libraries will continue to buy a lot of books in paper format for the foreseeable future.  We want to continue to make the published word available to everyone, including those people who won't buy an ereader or will not be able to afford to buy one and the books to read on it.

There's always print-on-demand too.  How cool would that be?  Patron checks catalog...oops!  The Library doesn't own that one.  "No problem!" says the librarian, "Have a cup of coffee and I'll bring you your copy in a few minutes!"

Libraries on life-support

I know that librarians do a poor job of explaining their worth to just about everyone.  I know that I am equally culpable in not making a better effort to advocate, extol, and generally proselytize the virtues of what is often viewed as a prim-and-proper relic of the past - the public library.  I promise to do better.  I am going to increase my campaigning, awareness-raising, interest-garnering activities this year, and I am starting here.

I also know that I have been ranting with increasing frequency these days at the lack of thought and foresight employed by our nation's leadership.  So part of my righteous indignation (intelligible or not) will be directed at some of the dangerously short-sighted foolishness our leaders are proposing as "prudent".

Three different articles and/or calls to action came to my attention just this morning.  The first is a great opinion piece by the author Scott Turow published on that bastion of "lefty"-ness, the Huffington Post.  Don't, however, discount the power of the article simply because of the medium.  Read it - Mr. Turow hits the nail on the head regarding the attitudes of today that are quite literally destroying the egalitarian basis of our nation.

The next article is a blog post presenting 10 "misperceptions" about public libraries.  The post is a somewhat humorous look at ways we librarians are perceived.  I think most of them are fairly commonly held and I think the list could be expanded quite easily.

The third thing that I read this morning was a call to action on a piece of federal legislation - the FY2011 Continuing Resolution.  It would seem that a Representative, Mr. Scott Garrett - R-NJ, would like to eliminate all funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) including Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).  Not only would this be disastrous for libraries, it is monumentally, colossally stupid.  Money from LSTA funds lots of library related things.  In Kansas, some federal funds provide access to databases.  Databases offered at public libraries like "Learning Express" provide practice tests for all sorts of degrees and certifications.  People who have lost their jobs often come to public libraries to get help finding new jobs.  Yet we want to cut the funding for these tools?

So, do people really still use libraries?  The answer is "yes".  My post about Kansas' State Librarian testifying before the legislature shows that.  The really sad thing is that in the grand scheme of things, libraries are cheap.  The root of all this funding nonsense gets back to the idea that librarians are terrible at letting everyone else know how many people they serve for how little.  Two rants in one week - I'd better go check my blood pressure.

State Librarian Testifies

Earlier this week, the State Librarian of Kansas testified before the Kansas House of Representatives' Education Budget Committee regarding funding for Kansas libraries.  Here is a .pdf of her remarks.  A good illustration of something reaching a "tipping point" is the withered budget for the "State Aid grant program".

First a little background:  The "State Aid" grant program is money distributed directly to libraries in Kansas and is intended to supplement local budgets and help raise the level of library service across the state.  We in Hutchinson have been fortunate over the years and haven't been in desperate need for these funds, but they do help and we use them for their intended purpose - to raise the level of service we provide.

To return to the tipping point idea; the budget for State Aid has dropped from $2.7 million in 2002 to $1.7 million in 2011.  The money is distributed based on population served, so it was never much for smaller communities anyway, but that small amount has shrunk by about 36% in less than a decade.  The Legislature and the Governor have arrived at the moment where they need to decide if libraries are worth anything to Kansas.

Here's what a snapshot of library service means to Kansans on a daily basis.  In one day:

• 39,037 people visited their local library (roughly 10.1 MILLION visits per year!)
• 75,827 items were checked out (roughly 19.6 MILLION loans per year!)
• 4,411 questions were answered
• 10, 859 people used the Internet (roughly 40% of those have no other Internet access)
• 1,945 people found help searching for a job (that is over 500,000 job searches per year!)

I suppose my point is, how else could you provide that amount of service for such a paltry sum?  Granted, all of those libraries services are primarily supported by local tax dollars.  Many small libraries rely on State Aid grants to provide that "extra" that helps some of those 500,000 job searches turn into job offers for the patrons they serve.  The prime example of this is the statewide database subscriptions.  Only the largest and strongest of our State's libraries could afford these on their own.  Learning Express Library is one that many job seekers and students would sorely miss if the State Library couldn't fund it.  It provides scores of practice tests for academic and occupational certifications.

If the State Library "tips"; if our State leaders cut more; they might as well cut the whole thing.  There is a point at which a service becomes non-functional and the State Aid program is nearly there.  When funds or manpower or delivery methods become so curtailed as to be a waste of the remaining money spent on it, a decision must be made.  I would argue that in the tight budget they are looking at, the State should dump a few million EXTRA into the State Aid grant program and the state-wide database system.  Many people are, quite clearly, using their libraries for help during our economic recovery.  How better to lend a hand to people who are seeking out solutions to their problems?  These are the motivated ones - give them a leg up instead of tripping them up.  Libraries, especially public libraries can and will help them succeed.

So that's my rant-for-the-week.  Thanks for indulging me.