LibraryTechtonics

Political candidates with MySpace pages targeting young voters. Blogs to target online readers and get the word out about a campaign, a court decision, a new trend. Google Bombing against candidates from members and supporters of the other candidates.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, there was an interview with Joe Trippi (he authors a really interesting blog, too), author of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything, where Mr. Trippi talked about how social networking on the internet, and the rise of new technologies in society, are affecting the political climate, and the behaviors of voters, and potential voters. I recommend you listen to this news bit (it should be up after 10am EST today).

If you haven’t been paying attention to social networking and other communication technologies, now is the time for you to catch up. If politicians are seeing fit to use the technologies to reach voters, it must be something that *works*. The same way politicians are starting to use technologies to reach people, librarians need to understand the technologies and how to apply them to reach out to patrons and *potential* patrons.

I did a presentation (.pdf) on October 16 (I neglected to mention it ahead of time here, my apologies) at the North Atlantic Health Sciences Libraries (NAHSL) conference on new web technologies, and it was basically all about social social software on the web, how the blog publishing paradigm has pretty much formed a base for interactive technologies on the web, and how it’s more about adding social software bits to your sites than about how to build your site with DHTML or AJAX or whatnot (still important technologies, but not as important to Joe Internet User).

If you’re new to social software, this presentation is a good place to start, but you also want to pay special mind to slide 14, with further reading and resources.

On an side note, NPR Classics in the Morning is playing the score from Harry Potter this morning. Happy Halloween and Happy Samhain!

I got this a few weeks back, and didn’t get to post it. It’s probably been around the blogosphere, but figured I’d share just in case it hasn’t, especially for librarians in Massachusetts.

For a limited time, “anyone who lives, works, attends school, or owns property in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is at least 13 years of age” can sign up for a Boston Public Library temporary library card online. So, if you work in a Massachusetts library, and would love for a patron to be able to access a resource through the BPL, that patron can sign up for a temporary eCard. The temporary eCards last 6-months before they expire, but upgrades for lifelong cards are available if you go to a BPL branch with proper ID.

The FAQ doesn’t mention if you can sign up for a new temporary if your initial temporary expires. It does, however, mention that you can download audio, video, and music as well as access the databases with the temporary card.

We’ve been talking about doing something similar at my library. The biggest issue is making it instant, a la BPL, as opposed to doing it by hand then calling or sending something to the patron. I haven’t talked to the network yet, it’s on my ever-growing list of projects (all fun, mind you) at RPL. In the meantime, BPL electronic access, even if temporary, is a great advance, and useful resource for MA libraries to know about.

Yet another reason to love my library. We try stuff, see if it works, entertain new ideas, and try something different if it doesn’t work out. We’ve got a lot of new stuff coming up (I’ve been remiss to write, there’s a lot going on in my non-library life, and blogging here has unfortunately taken a back seat), but I wanted to highlight this while it was fresh.

A few months back, different departments at my library began a discussion on interfiling the nonfiction DVDs. I can’t remember where it started, but like just about everything else here, it was a multi-department, synergistic brainstorming and effort to decide if it was a good idea, and how and when it should be done.

Over the past little while, we’ve been moving things around quite a bit. A flooding incident necessitated closing our nonfiction area (the entire basement) for repairs, which meant moving quite a few things around to keep them accessible, including our very popular DVD collection. We liked some of the changes so much, that with a few tweaks, we kept them. For instance, the DVDs are now upstairs with the bestsellers near the circ desk (which is the first thing you see when you walk in), instead of in the basement with the CDs and VHS tapes. Not that our circ figures on the DVDs were shabby before, but high-traffic + high-demand = high circ + better security. Not as many disappearing DVD discs as before.

(We might be moving our CDs upstairs, too, but it would require a bit more layout finagling, and a bit more planning.)

We started out a little while back interfiling the DVDs, cassettes, and CDs for language with the language books in the stacks. It just seemed silly to say, “Go one room over to the shelf with the CDs and tapes, then go downstairs on that side to the DVDs and VHS tapes, then go to this row downstairs on the other side of the floor for the books.” One stop just seemed to make the most sense, and it’s been working so far.

Today, the interfiling of the nonfiction DVDs begins. It’s not so much like patching holes in a basket, as carefully adding embellishments to a basket that could just use some sprucing. Now the “learn to play guitar” DVD can be found with the “learn to play guitar” books for music enthusiasts, and all of our WWII documentaries will live with the matching book materials, which will work out nicely for history buffs and students doing reports. You know, like mini points of service on different topics with different content media. Like, say, doing a search on the web and seeing web sites, blogs, news hits, YouTube videos, and podcasts, but, you know, more static. Reading residents might get less exercise running around, but I think they’ll be OK with that. ;D

I don’t know if other libraries do this, or how many. I don’t know if there are librarians crawling out of their skins as they read this, or nodding their heads in firm agreement, or not really knowing out to react. I’m just not sure, but I definitely feel like sharing. I, professionally, think it’s a smashing idea, and I think our patrons will like it. Sure, there will be a few puzzled looks for a while, and some “where did that move to *now*?” murmurs, even with all the moving from construction well behind us. But, overall, people tend to like our changes, and I think they’ll like this one as well.

It does bring up the interesting question of whether or not to move the VHS nonfiction tapes, too. They do still circulate a good deal, and it would be nice for people to know that they have VHS options if all of the DVDs are out. My guess is that we won’t, since they don’t circ nearly as much as the DVDs, and they make a significantly more sizeable footprint than DVDs on the shelves.

Who knows, we’ll see.