The Tech from the Non-Techie blog featured an interesting article, “Educate Don’t Alienate,” giving voice to something I think many library staff feel: charging for printing and setting up complicated print management systems causes grief for the customer, grief for the library, and does it really save the library any money? The author, Beth Tribe, proposes not charging for printing and instead educating the rare offender who prints out his/her entire thesis eight times.
Philosophically, I am a proponent for eliminating all charges in libraries whenever possible, including late fines, print charges, copy charges, and not investing in expensive systems to track these minor charges and alienate our customers in doing so. I understand the arguments that some library services are “extra,” or “not basic,” and that taxpayer money shouldn’t go to Mr. Public’s 800 color copies of his retirement party flyer or 17 late children’s books. I also understand that these are “revenue streams” that might be hard to convince a city or county governing body to abandon. At the same time, I argue that the investment of staff time, technology infrastructure created to handle these small charges, and bad customer service (including people who just don’t ever come back to the library) outweighs the money we potentially make back.
If you’re thinking about this yourself, just lay out a quick and simple cost-comparsion between resources gained from each of these services at your library and resources spent. You might be surprised to find that the difference in what you’re gaining with the current method isn’t as big as you thought it was.
OK, now everybody–argue with me 
This Psychology Today article, “Understanding the Psychology of Twitter,” has been getting a lot of play in the library world in the last couple of weeks. I found it quite interesting, and likely helpful for all of those folks who don’t like Twitter or understand its appeal. It focuses on the use of Twitter for social aspects more than, say, resource sharing as is often done in the library field. Still useful, and amusing…
The Internet Librarian 2009 Blog is up now! If you’re attending and blogging, check it out for instructions on getting your “Blogger” ribbon for your name badge. And read all about LibCamp Monterey, a free un-conference two days before the main conference starts, and being held at the Monterey Public Library. If you can make it a day early, this would be a great chance to discuss the issues that matter to you and learn more from your colleagues! If you need more info on Internet Librarian 2009, check out the:
Handheld Librarian II is an online conference being held February 17 and 18, 2010. Proposals are due November 1, 2009. Below is information from the official call for proposals:
THEME: Alliance Library System and LearningTimes invite librarians, library staff, vendors, graduate students, and developers to submit proposals for programs related to the topic of mobile library services for the online conference. Proposals are due November 1, 2009.
TOPICS: The Handheld Librarian II conference will feature interactive, live online sessions and links to recorded events following the conference. We are interested in a broad range of submissions that highlight current, evolving and future issues in mobile library services. These include but are not limited to the following themes:
- Ebooks and audiobook
- Managing mobile content: eBooks, Journals, video and more
- Mobilizing the library: web presence, OPACs, databases and other electronic resources
- Promoting mobile services and using mobile devices to promote traditional library services
- Information security on mobile devices
- Access to and licensing of databases on mobile devices
- Mobile products and services in the medical library
- Text Message reference service
- Vendor development
- iPhone applications
PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS: This conference accepts proposals for presentations delivered in several online formats:
- A featured 45 minute presentation
- Panel discussion with others (10 minutes of presentation)
- Virtual Roundtable discussions on selected topics
- Virtual poster presentation
Submit proposals by November 1 to: handheldlibrariancfp@gmail.com. You will be notified by December 15 if your proposal has been accepted.
PRESENTERS ARE EXPECTED TO:
- Conduct an online session using Adobe Connect
- Provide a photo, bio and program description for the conference website by December 31, 2009
- Respond to questions from attendees
- Attend an online 30-60 minute training on Adobe Connect prior to the conference
Google Wave, Google’s new “what if email were invented today?” system, launched in limited release today. The original set of 100,000 invitations went out today (I’m crying over not getting one). You can request your own invitation here, but don’t expect one for a bit. If you don’t know much about Google Wave yet, think of it as email/instant messaging/social networking all rolled into one web application. Sweet, right? Now you see why I’m crying.
Looking for an open source music resource, perhaps for some intros to your library podcasts? Check out Jamendo (found via David Lee King’s Twitter feed). Sweet monkeys, people! This site has lots of music, good music at that, and easy searching and downloads. This is definitely on my short list of hot podcasting resources for libraries.
The Ann Arbor District Library is now live with SOPAC 2.0 (a librarian-created open source next-generation web catalog system, a.k.a. a catalog overlay system). Two other libraries are live as well if you’re looking for sample implementations: Darien Library and Palos Verdes Library District. John Blyberg is a genius, and I’m glad that more libraries are profiting from his genius by using SOPAC.
Roy Tennant has written “The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology.” Long overdue, this list can be of help to any manager/administrator and anyone working on technology in libraries who is trying to help their managers understand how to manage, support, and provide technology to our end customers. From Roy’s post:
It’s not insulting to say that those who run libraries tend not to know all that much about technology. A very different set of skills are needed to run an organization, and those skills do not often come packaged along with technical knowledge and experience. But administrators need to know some specific things about technology in order to do their jobs well…
Note: I still want to be Roy Tennant when I grow up.
RUSA has released its list of Best Free Reference Web Sites 2009. This is the 11th annual list (see the previous years’ lists here). My favorite two sites this year are:
- ePodunk: profiles of cities and counties across the U.S., including data on airports, cemeteries, museums, city and county statistics, and links to local government sites, local media, community organizations, weather info, library info (!), and local trivia.
- Lexicool: directory of 6,000+ free online bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries
For other awesome eReference websites, don’t forget to check out the Librarians’ Internet Index (not kept up as much as it used to be, but still current enough to be of use) and this 2004 “Beyond Google” article from PC World (amazingly still useful).
The Houston Public Library is piloting a service that delivers books, movies, and music to you car–curbside service at the library! People who have mobility issues, agoraphobia, are in a hurry, or who are just plain lazy can now rejoice!
found via ResourceShelf
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