Important Reading Update

I have much to catch up with online, but have been spending most of my non-work time either unpacking or reading.

I wanted to finish Neal Stephenson's  Reamde before I gave it back to the library whence it came. Which turned out to be a slight challenge, partly because it's over 1000 pages and I started it while we were moving, but also because I stopped reading it in the middle so I could read N.K. Jemison's The Kingdom of Gods, which I checked out of the library later but wanted to read even more.

So I wound up keeping Reamde a day late, possibly the first time I have ever had an overdue library book, because I really wanted to finish it (and couldn't renew it, since other people had it on hold after me).

I guess this speaks well for both books--I put all else aside because I couldn't wait to read The Kingdom of Gods, and I committed the grave misdeed of keeping a library book late because I couldn't let Reamde go unfinished.

Good work, authors, writing books I must read even when packing, moving and unpacking!

Now, all finished with these fine books, I should dedicate much more time to the unpacking, but it's also very tempting to play Mass Effect 3 instead. I was hoping to get through a significant portion of that before the baby, but it doesn't look as if that's going to happen, considering all the boxes everywhere, so I'll just have to do my best when I can. 

Occupy the Library

I see via Shakesville that the Occupy Wall Street Library (the existence of which is super cool) has a web site.

They're working on a catalog using LibraryThing, and are archiving documents produced by OWS activities for the future as well as accepting donated books and making books available.

Love it!

They obviously also have a Facebook page and a Twitter feed, as well as a YouTube channel. This is the 21st century, after all.

I love the idea that a library is a fundamental enough idea that a group of people gathering for totally non-library-related purposes will spontaneously put one together.

Rock on, everyone.

Bleaaaaaahh...

It really sucks to be sick and have a backache at the same time. I wanted to spend all day in bed, sleeping off the worst of the illness, but I couldn't get comfortable there because my back hurt too much, so I figured I might as well get up.

Also, I did need more Tylenol.

I know: whine, whine, whine.

In other news, I didn't accomplish anything productive because I was too busy whining. I was kind of disoriented--I walked several blocks the wrong way down the street when I got out of the pharmacy--so my concentration was probably doomed anyway.


I did read this interesting post on Butterflies and Wheels that mentions the ways in which the work of journalism is changing.

In a conversation I had with a journalist recently, we discussed what he deemed the two temptations of our post-print era. One is getting mixed up in what he called the“information jungle.” The other is sitting complacently in a “filter bubble.” He suggested that the task of good journalism in the coming years will be to serve as a curator for the public, exposing citizens to, without overfeeding them on, information and ideas that challenge or deepen their firmly held beliefs. All right, but what shall we call it? How about “out-of-the-jungle, beyond-the-bubble Black Swan journalism?”

This idea that journalism may be more about a kind of curation that simply reporting facts reminds me of the idea that librarianism of the future (or of the present, really) can also be seen as more about curation than collection.

If everything (or a significant portion of the 'everything' that most people are likely to look at) is fairly readily available, which parts of it do we want to highlight and recommend to our users?

Except for historical or highly specific collections, it might eventually be less about collecting physical items and keeping them in a single spot, and more about linking to items in various locations online. And paying for them, of course. How many times do librarians roll their eyes when someone says they found a journal article 'free' online and turns out they got access because the library pays for a subscription?

Maybe journalism is looking at a similar problem, in that people find all their news 'free' online and don't really think about how someone--perhaps a professional journalist who might enjoy getting paid--may have been involved in writing and submitting the initial report.

Maybe promoting journalism as more 'curation' will make it seem more worth paying for, to at least enough people to keep news sites going?

Or maybe I'm too disoriented (and recently shivering, but now sweating!--it's the ague, I tell you!*) to actually think about any ideas.


*Incidentally, MeSH doesn't have a term for ague, but maps it to Chills, previously indexed as Shivering, which is much less interesting than the dictionary definition of ague.

Library Games

Remember the game where 500 people got to spend the night hunting for artifacts in the New York Public Library?

It took place on May 20, and Library Journal has a nice write-up of it. Sounds like a good time was had by all.

I think we should definitely get a similar game underway at my library soon. We're bound to have equal success, given that we are at least as renowned as the NYPL, and have at least as many cool things.

Oh, wait, actually we totally aren't and don't. We're scrappy, though.

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People Need to Know

A lingering thought from Librarian Science Camp.

It was interesting to see some of the presenters really give credit to libraries and librarians for making sure that information, articles, etc. that they need are stored, organized and available, while others did not do this so much.

Granted, the ones who gave us mad props may have just been being nice. Or trying to mollify us, out of fear that we would suddenly snap and start tearing people limb from limb if not appeased. Because you never know, with a critical mass of librarians. Behind our helpful, pleasant demeanor, there could easily be hidden a seething blood rage. But it hardly matters: credit is credit, I say.

However, it's evident that some people really do think that "it's all online" so the library isn't really necessary. Even when they just said that what's online is expensive journals that (one would imagine) someone has to subscribe to to make sure they can get them, and it's probably not the department chair, although one never knows.

Clearly it's an ongoing struggle to get the word out that the library is not just that building with the books, but includes a vast online presence dedicated to ensuring that you can actually get full text access to the stuff you want to read.

Vast Online Library Presence is what I'm going to be promoting from here on. So, VOLP, I guess.

It's going to be presented as a lurking force, hovering over, under and below all your online dealings. Looming out of sight just behind your screen. Watching your every click and making sure there's a full text article on the other side of the link, whenever said full text has been lawfully purchased and made available for the current students, faculty and staff of this fine institution.

Not creepy at all.

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Listen Up!

You must properly appreciate and enjoy the Library of Congress' new project, the National Jukebox. It has early sound recordings including music, songs, speeches, and "even early sound effects."

You can stream the recordings from the website, but not download them. The site was a little sluggish when I was there earlier, probably because a lot of other people were also visiting, so I can't personally testify to the sound quality, though I'm sure it's fine.

To be honest I probably won't spend tons of time listening to antique sound recordings, anymore than I spend lots of times watching the antique films the LC also provides for us, but I think it's wonderful that they're available.

Way to preserve history, Library of Congress! I love and salute you.

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Fun With Your Library

I think I may have seen this in passing somewhere else, but just saw it again on the Wired site, where I actually noticed it: a treasure hunt sort of game called Find the Future (click for exciting video teaser!) to be played by 500 people staying overnight in the New York Public Library.

Wow, that's awesome.

There's pretty much nothing about it that's not wonderful. Spending the night in a library, hunting down fascinating items from the collection and, judging by the preview, joining your fellow players in writing a book about it. Nice!

The overnight event is May 20, and the game will be available to other players thereafter, both those visiting the NYPL in person and those joining in from online. I'm more likely to be in the latter group, since I haven't been to New York in about 10 years.

Brilliant. I hope this is a smashing success.

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Check Out This Great Idea!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love going to the public library website, searching for a title, saying "hold this for me" and having it delivered to the branch nearest me?

I really love this!

I'll read a review of some book that seems interesting, but that I can't really tell if I'd like enough to own, and I can borrow a copy and read it! And then I give it back, and someone else can read it!

Meanwhile, I'm already reading something else, because there is a huge supply of titles available!

You have got to get in on this public library thing. It is truly awesome.

To my government: Please continue to use my tax dollars to support this concept. Thank you.

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Awww...

Successful professional geek Wil Wheaton has a lovely post about librarians, brilliantly titled "librarians are awesome."

He's talking about public librarians, and I second that. They are awesome.

Public libraries are precious jewels, and public librarians are the sparkles.

I mean, medical librarians are also awesome, don't get me wrong, but the public library was my first love.

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Wildlife Re-Wilded

For anyone who was eagerly following the story of the hawk in the Library of Congress Main Reading Room and for some reason was following it on this blog rather than on the Library of Congress Blog*: I am pleased to report that the hawk was captured and safely removed yesterday.

It will be rehabilitated (taught the error of its ways and given tactics to help it deal with the temptation to get into large buildings) and released into the wild.

No books were reported harmed in the capture.

Happy endings all around!


*In other words, for absolutely no one. But just in case.

Hawk Update!

Still in the LC Reading Room, but in no danger at the moment.

Crafty plans to lure it into a live trap continue.

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Wildlife News

Matt Raymond, on the Library of Congress Blog, reports that there's a hawk in the Main Reading Room. The guess is that it's a Cooper's Hawk, specifically.

Check out the post for cool photos and terrible puns.

A library is certainly not the idea environment for a hawk, nor a hawk the ideal visitor for a library, but it's more interesting than the large cockroach that holds first place in terms of non-human life forms I personally have seen from the stacks.

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Now if Anyone Wanted to Advertise...

Stephen's Lighthouse has an interesting post on how Google is different from libraries. Well, OK, one of the numerous ways, since there are certainly many that one could discuss.

The particular way he's talking about here is that Google is ad-funded, so they are, essentially, working for advertisers, and whatever value they offer to other users is in the service of advertisers and therefore somewhat incidental.

Whereas libraries do not work for advertisers, and whatever value we offer users is based more on the hope of being valuable to users. Whether or not we always succeed in being valuable, or as valuable as we could be, or as valuable as Google is incidentally, can always be debated, but the intention is to serve the library user, not the advertiser.

It's an interesting way to think about focus.

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You Always Fail Someone

Unfortunately, the new awesome e-only journal model at the library where I work doesn't satisfy everyone.

One older doctor said today, in a wistful way, "I don't like the library as much as I used to."

Aw. That made me kind of sad.

I could only sympathize. I know, if you want to come in and browse through the journals of your field to see what's going on, it's just not the same on the computer.

Especially if you're not really that familiar or comfortable with the conventions of online journals. Which, let us remember, not everyone is, even in a high-tech profession.

How do you find the title you want? How do you get to a particular issue? How do you get the full text of an article you want? (Naturally, the journal he was looking at also picked that moment to have problems with providing full text.)

Sigh. It's the shelves, I told him. The online versions aren't as easy to use as the traditional print, but they take up a lot less space.

You can't do everything, and there's no way around that, but he seemed very nice and I felt kind of bad that we've sort of nudged his model of library user out of the picture. I mean, we'll help him, I did the best I could to direct him to the exciting possibilities of the e-journals, but if that's just not how he prefers to read, I don't know how much use he'll get out of it, and I'm afraid he may just find that the library isn't for him anymore.

I suppose you'll always fail to be what someone is looking for (often many people in many different ways!). You just have to do the best you can for people with the resources you do have, and recognize that that won't always be exactly what they want.

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Continuing to Lend Other Peoples' Stuff

The Netflix-in-libraries story is continuing to move about on the web. An interesting little round up is on the scholarly kitchen, which has plenty of choice quotes.

Aunt B linked to it with her own choice quote: "I see the whole Google Editions made some of you think audacious enough violations of copyright are fine."

The short version is, there remains a good deal of doubt about the overall awesomeness of this practice from a legal standpoint, even though it's clearly pretty great if you just want to expand your collection access.

Believe me, I'm all about access!--but also, not getting sued.

I might have some more thoughts, except that I now have both allergies and a cold, and I'm so stuffed up I can barely breathe. Good times.

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Lending Other People's Stuff

iLibrarian points to a post on Tame the Web about an academic library where they're using a Netflix subscription to provide their students and faculty with access to videos.

My immediate question--one also asked by several commenters--was "is that legal?"

Apparently the library in question has never concealed its institutional identity and has not had any complaints from Netflix about the practice, and while the user agreement does not specifically cover library use, it hasn't been specifically forbidden.

So one of those gray areas, perhaps: it's legal until someone tells you to stop.

I don't know if my library administration would be into it, just in case, but there's no denying it would be a really handy resource for library use. Less so in the case of a medical library, until Netflix starts carrying the popular Video Atlas of Human Anatomy, but there are certainly health-related films that might be of interest in various courses, not to mention that sometimes people may enjoy watching some non-course-related materials to give their brains a break.

Just get a viewing room with a TV and a Netflix box of some sort, and let people watch whatever their educational or entertainment needs dictate! A huge video collection available on demand for a reasonable monthly fee, without the need to devote huge portions of the budget to it, or to worry about processing, storing and circulating a bunch of DVDs. I like it!

Maybe Netflix should think about offering institutional subscriptions. I suppose they'd have to work out the agreements with all the film companies too, though, so maybe it's not worth the hassle to them.

Copyright: my old archnemesis.

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Project Update

I am pleased to report that my recent plan to become reacquainted with an old friend, the public library, is so far proceeding well.

I have successfully visited and borrowed books from the branch near work, including books requested from other branches and held for me, and see no reason I should not be supplied with reading material for life by drawing from the resources of the Boston Public Library system.

It's a beautiful thing.

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Meeting Up With Old Friends

I've decided to try to renew my old and longstanding, but lately lapsed, friendship with the public library.

One of the things about working in a medical library is that the collection contains very few items that I myself want to take home and read. And I miss reading.

A colleague pointed out that the Boston Public Library has a branch not far from work (duh--they have branches all over. Why did I never think of this? Laziness). So I'm going to try going there on lunch or on the way back to the train after work.

If I know in advance what I want to pick up, and go prepared with a call number (or have them hold it for me!), it shouldn't add more than, say 20 minutes.

I can surely devote 20 minutes once a week or so to nurture this important relationship. I would think.

We shall see.

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Generously Sharing Other Peoples' Stuff

Jim C. Hines on SF Novelists has a post about why libraries, despite also giving people the chance to read books they didn't personally buy, are not the same as file-sharing sites.

There are also some interesting replies in the comments from library users and workers about library purchases, the future of e-book lending, and more.

This makes me feel like a horrible person and a disgrace to my entire profession, but I have to  shamefacedly confess that I hardly ever visit my public library. I mean, it's probably been a couple of years since I've checked anything out. Even though it's an excellent library (Boston Public Library, of course, and also my smaller local branch), and I know I could constantly get books there that I'd like to read.

It's just not on the way to anywhere I usually go. I'm sorry! Really, really sorry. I do love you, public library. We just don't hang out in the same circles anymore. I cherish our time together in the past, and I hope someday we'll be close again.

It's possible that e-books might be a way for me to resume contact with my public library, but I sort of wonder if the relationship would be the same. We wouldn't have the same kind of real-world connection, me browsing the stacks for stuff that catches my eye but that I'd never think to look for specifically, and checking out the "new arrivals" for exciting new topics.

Plus, I'd have to get an e-book reader to effectively take books on the train, and I don't see that happening anytime soon, because I'm super cheap. Aside from the train issue, I'm not bothered by screen glare the way some people are, so I can pretty much read all day on a computer, but it works better for short pieces, I think. It's hard to really get excited about sitting down to a fat novel on the laptop. Something about the type of concentration the lighting fosters, it seems easier to work on smaller chunks of material.

I know there are also all kinds of interesting questions about file sharing in general and video/music sharing in particular, like "is illegal copying destroying the music industry?" and "is it just as bad as taking money right out of the pockets of starving musicians and filmmakers?" and "even if you're just copying a CD you bought onto your own computer?" and "but if someone gives me a copy of a song, or a bad copy of a movie, and I like it I might buy more songs and/or a better, legal copy of the movie, so isn't it actually helpful advertising?" and "hey, don't you like to get paid for stuff you worked on?"

I'm feeling too bad about myself to get into that, though. As a pathetic excuse for a library-loving person,
all I can really do is hang my head in shame and go sit in the corner.

Anyway, the original point is, you should go check a book out from the library and feel good about it, because libraries are truly awesome, but authors prefer you not download an illegal copy.

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Spur of the Moment

I enjoyed this post by Shelf Check's Emily Lloyd about the possibility of spontaneous library programs. Something that you have basic rules and equipment for in advance, but don't have any specific date or publicity for--then, when the moment strikes, you can break out an unexpected program!

For example:

My particular nerdy fantasy is for a whistling contest. It's busy; one of us announces over the loudspeaker, "Okay, it's obvious there are a lot of bodies in the library right now. But how many of you can WHISTLE? We're having a spontaneous whistling smackdown in the meeting room in five minutes. Who will be [Name of Town's] Next Top Whistler?" (In my fantasy, we also film willing contestants with a Flip and upload the videos to the library's YouTube channel).

I personally can't whistle at all, so I wouldn't be a participant in that one, but I could judge!

We don't have a loudspeaker at my library, plus I'm not sure how pleased the intently focused students would be if we started making noise in our not-very-soundproofed meeting room, but I'm intrigued by the general idea.

Honestly, spontaneity might not translate that well with the kind of programming we do ("Spontaneous PubMed class! Textbook read-off! Get to know Web of Science! Thesis formatting contest starts now!"), but maybe that just means we should do more exciting programs.

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