Daily Thoughts 2/28/2010

Illustration from the children's book A Book of Nursery Rhymes by Clara E. Atwood, 1901

Daily Thoughts 2/28/2010

Taking the day off to relax and think a bit.

I read some more of The Marketplace of Ideas by Louis Menand. He does not mention libraries in the index. He makes a brief mention of libraries as a kind of mine for knowledge. Then he makes a comment about Wikipedia making a lot of the knowledge previously held only in universities available to the public.

Right now, pretty much all of the Western cannon in literature, philosophy, and art should be available as images or texts on the internet. It is only a matter of when they will be scanned in if they are not already there. Most of it is material that is well past copyright. Most photographic images from museums are derivative copies of original works. What is copyrighted is the criticism produced by universities and other places on the work.

This opens up a whole new idea. If anyone can see the work freely, how well will academic criticism hold up to free public scrutiny. It should be very interesting. This scrutiny will be world wide and available to most people with an internet connection. I am not sure that the classics are generally censored in most places.

What will make it even more interesting is that an internet connection does not have to be a computer anymore. Anywhere there is an internet enabled cell phone, will be a place where people can read classic literature which is not under copyright. Because most of it is free, it may enliven the reading of the classics and the literature and images of the humanities; philosophy and art all over the world.

There is a lot of creative potential here, because people will be free to do with it what they want to. I am waiting to see what will happen.

Daily Thoughts 2/27/2010

Besuch in der Bibliothek, 1741, Pietro Longhi

Daily Thoughts 2/27/2010

If you get a chance read With A Little Help The Price is Right by Cory Doctorow in the February 15, 2010 Publishers Weekly, Pp. 18-19. It is an excellent article on ebook pricing and the issues surrounding it. I also saw a book which looks interesting: Playing With books: The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book by Jason Thompson.

Today was another quiet day. I did more weeding in the mezzanine and a bit more checking through the 800s today. It is moving along steadily. I also checked on having security strips put in books.

I am thinking about the flyers, bookmarks, and other marketing materials in the library. I checked out another book today, The Market Place of Ideas Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand.

I started reading The Marketplace of Ideas on the way home. The first line of the introduction reads, "Knowledge is our most important business." I rather like that statement. It fights right in with my profesion. I also found out that the series editor for this book is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. from Harvard University. This indicates the book has quite a bit of thought in it. I've noticed that a lot more professors are writing books for the general public these days. It seems ideas are escaping from the "ivory towers."

The first chapter of the book is on the concept of a general education. I got a humanities focused education so I can relate to this. My undergraduate degree was in anthropology. There is not a whole lot of practical application for an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology focused on modern culture. It was a step towards my professional masters degree in library science.

A public library is of course a public marketplace for ideas. Our job as a librarian is partially to select which ideas which people will partake of. It is considered a place for self education. There are questions right now whether our library is part of the city, or part of the school district. Is self education a form of formal education? or an adjunct to it? It is an interesting question.

Daily Thoughts 2/26/2010

Archibald Macleish, Poet, Writer, Librarian of Congress

Daily Thoughts 2/26/2010

During last afternoons discussion for Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management, someone asked about Record Books Transparent Language USB sticks. They are very popular and easy to use. We have Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. It is another way to manage software for languages. I find them easier to use than cd-roms. They are also easier to copy protect. This may be a better way to distribute software for libraries. http://www.rbfilm.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=rb.transparent

I have been reading more of The Responsive Public Library How to Develop and Market a Winning Collection by Sharon L. Baker and & Karen L. Wallace. It combines a perspective of marketing with collection development. There is quite a bit of interesting material in this book. It tells us that if a book is displayed face out on a shelf instead of sideways, it is seven times more likely that the book will be checked out. This is why book displays are so effective in circulating books. Bibliographies of books are not quite as effective. A book or other item on a bibliography is four times more likely to be checked out than a book which is simply left on a shelf. This is why bookmarks and recommendation lists increase circulation. It reminds me that we need to make our list of African American authors more presentable, print up some more bookmarks, and maybe create a few more suggestion lists.

They also talk about labeling in this book. One of the most effective ways to increase circulation with labels is to simply add the label award to an item that has won any kind of award. There are a lot of well thought out ideas in this book. Unlike other books on marketing in libraries, this book has numbers and statistics to back up many of their ideas.

The writing is well done for a textbook. I found the presentation of ideas to be quite absorbing. There are charts, diagrams, extensive notes, and an index at the back of the book.

I find myself in agreement with the style of collection development which combines with marketing in this book. It is a style which I could easily adapt as my own. In fact, there is so much in this book that could be potentially used, that I will have to pick and choose the best parts.

There is an excellent section which describes how to choose parts of a collection to merchandise while still maintaining the overall dewey category system. I am not a fan of going completely to the Book Industry Standard and Classification scheme. I rather like the idea of using some of the subject headings to do merchandising while still keeping the dewey numbers.

Daily Thoughts 2/25/2010 (Bookweb)

Virginia Haviland, Founder of the Children's Book Section at the Library of Congress; Author, Librarian ca 1935

Daily Thoughts 2/25/2010

I found a rather entertaining title by a science fiction writer and scientist, The Science Behind The Secret by Travis S. Taylor. He writers military science fiction. This amuses me the same way that the book, The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss amuses me.
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1439133395/1439133395.htm?blurb

Something that bothers me a little bit is that Bookweb has stopped publishing its media guide. I found it rather useful http://news.bookweb.org/mediaguide/ The only thing which I know that is similar is the Books on the Air guide from New York Public Library http://library.booksite.com/5796/nl/?list=NLAIR

I did another chat for Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management. It was interesting listening to college librarians talking about purchasing ebooks and journals for online courses. There has been an increase in distance learning. Part of that increase in distance learning is providing ebooks and ejournals for students who are online. It also makes sense in an online course to have an electronic textbook. I know that there are a number of colleges which offer masters in library sciences online. It sounds very different than when I went to school.

Daily Thoughts 2/24/2010

Original scan of The Library 2nd edition by Andrew Lang

Daily Thoughts 2/24/2010

The New York Library Association is running a campaign to support New York Libraries. It includes material to support libraries as well as ways to contact your reprentatives and petition government. http://www.protectnylibraries.org/ . It is part of a campaign to support New York libraries. Please take a few minutes to tell people why you think New York lirbaries are essential by clicking on the link.

Today, I did more weeding in the mezzanine, worked a little bit more with the 800s, and spent a little bit of time looking at the displays. We have been getting a lot of obituary requests for our ereference, that and a lot of local history requests, especially about people who live in our community. I also looked throught the bookmobile request list. There were a lot of things which people have been requesting.

I also finished pulling books that needed to be added from the gifts. The shifting project on the main floor is moving along steadily.

On the way home, I read some more of The Responsive Public Library. One subject which I found particular interesting was the idea that 16% of bestselling books are award winning titles or have high literary merit.

It is not uncommon for prominent people to recommend quality titles and those books to become bestsellers. In a way, I am not surprised by this. There are a number of readers choice and viewers choice awards for different subjects. The Hugo Awards in science fiction are based on a popular ballot, and many people wait eagerly to get the Edgar Award winning books for mysteries. The Pulitzer Prize books and the Nobel Prize books have become a byword in what is good. This is also true of films. If a film wins an Academy Award it is almost guaranteed to have a burst in popularity.

I often think there is a narrow corridor where popularity and quality intertwine. This is a place where library collections can be at their best. Having Caldecott and Newberry Books in childrens collections is an almost guaranteed draw for usage. Even genres like romance will have titles which are well written. The RITA awards list the best romance titles. Virtually every category of material has awards. Finding which of these combine with popularity is a good point to start from.