LibraryTechtonics

Recently, a librarian posted a message to the Publib listserv about policies on charging personal items, which included someone trying to charge several items, including a laptop and a personal shaver. It became a problem when someone else needed an outlet for their laptop, so they kindly asked the gent to move one of his items so that the patron needing an outlet could have one. Some ornerness ensued, thus the inquiry on policies to the list.

So far, it’s been an interesting mix. Some people are avidly against charging anything outside of the actual laptop being used, while others are taking The Power of Nice approach (a good one, in my opinion) to the issue and saying that any opportunity to say yes to a user need is a good opportunity. A new set of answers includes power management by the minute charge systems, where people can pay per minute for charging items using something like their print card.

There are several keys to having a policy on this issue, in my mind. First, it needs to be fair and equal across the board, because it’s unreasonable to say, “You Here can plug in your phone because it’s almost out of juice and you have a kid at school, while You Over There can’t because you’re just using it for the Internet connection to your VPN on your laptop, and You Mister certainly can’t just because all you’re doing is waiting for friends to call.” Good signage/explanations for the policies are also key, because you want your staff to present a strong unified front with the same explanations, which just looks better for the library, with fairness in mind.

Lastly, it’s my belief that a library should try to meets needs as a library is able. It would be super for a library to have a “Two outlet per person” (or even a “One outlet”) policy if there’s really an electricity cost crunch for a library, but that way, outlets can be used for free without having a huge laundry list of Can’ts and Don’ts. Alternately, a low-cost charge option might be nice for extra outlets used; heck, you could use it as a Word of Mouth way to get your patrons to lobby for more money for the library.

As that traveler with the hawk eyes for free outlets, I plug in anywhere that isn’t taken, or doesn’t have a sign over it, and I’ll stay there until someone tells me I can’t, or I until I need to leave. It’s important to note that I’m not alone. It’s a mentality of gadget folks, which are a growing potential constituency of libraries, and whose needs should at least be considered. Or decreasing, depending on how much friendlier the local Starbucks or Borders appears to potential users. So if you’re concerned about such things, consider what you can offer, consider saying yes even if it’s within limits that can be explained in a friendly way, and consider having a policy.

“You got my gaming in your education!”

“You got your education in my gaming!”

“Let’s host a thing and talk about it for serious.”

What: Serious Games : Human Science in Design
When: Monday, May 21, 2007, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Where: British Consulate General, One Memorial Drive, Suite 1500, Cambridge, MA 02142
“Join Keynote Speaker,Professor Robert Stone, Director, Human Interface Technologies, Chair Interactive Multimedia Systems University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is predicted that by 2008 40% of U.S. companies will adopt serious games in their training efforts. Learn more about games-based learning, its market and what it means to the US and UK markets.”

Serious gaming, in a nutshell, uses games to address issues and increase learning in work, school, and personal situations.There’s a whole organization behind the use of serious games in the education, training, health, and public policy fields. In his Technoschism keynote at MLA this week, Stephen Abram mentioned how we’ve lost a sense of play in librarianship. He’s right: while the world is playing their way to solutions, we’re still a little too serious for our own good (and a little too focused on DDR as the way to absolution). Serious gaming is something that libraries should really look into — a little serious, a lot fun — to ease into the idea that, well, sometimes toys really are *useful*.

The goal of the New England Learning Association (yet another NELA that actually used to be BELA - Boston E-Learning Association) is to integrate technology into education in a way that makes sense and is successful. The organization is diverse in it’s members, including corporate, higher-ed, and K-12 people in executive, manager, trainer, instructional designer, technologist, consultant, and solutions provider positions (as per their about us page).

As a general thing, diversification of backgrounds in an organization can do amazing things for the creative capital of the group, and to the benefit of everyone, and gaming is probably the most diverse group I know it (we’re not *all* supergeeks, you know). I actually heard about this from the Second Life Boston Meet Up group, whose members I met at the Museum of Science Second Life presentation last week (all about networking, kids, especially *outside* of librarianship). It’s unfortunate that librarians aren’t featured on the highlight list of typical members, and I’m not sure if there are any librarian members of the group, but I may venture to become one of them. Even if it means being The Token.

So yeah, consider hitting this, if you can. I’m registered, and I’ll blog it (hopefully) soon after.

I’m on the Libraries@Random newsletter list for Random House, because it’s a nice newsletter. There are freebie drawings (I won one once), interesting roundups of books (all from RH, granted), and book newsy bits (did you know that May is Latino Books Month?). It’s nice.

Today, I was very impressed by their “Collection Development Ideas” section, which focused on their “After Dark” romance, erotica, and self-help books. There’s even a link to join their “Books for After Dark” newsletter, clearly marked as “intended for mature audiences.”

However, I’m not impressed with the fact that, although I *want* to link to the issue of Libraries@Random I received in email so’s you can see it, I can’t. The link at the bottom that I’m s’posed to be able to click on if I can’t read HTML emails, and that should presumably link to the archive copy on the site, doesn’t not go where it says it does. It goes to the Libraries home page on the Random House Biz Solutions site. Interesting and worth viewing, but not really *right*.

This makes me sad. Furthermore, it’s just not terribly usable, and I’m a big fan of usable. I think I sent them email about this in the past, about not being able to access the online HTML copy (or link to it and give them props, for that matter), but I never got a response.

To add further confusion, the link on the main Libraries page to Libraries@Random is apparently to their Grades K-12 edition, which is very different from what I receive in email. It looks very interesting, so if you’re a school or children’s librarian, I’d give it a look. However, it is confusing to have 2 newsletters of the same name with different content, and only link to one on the landing page.

Either way, I just wanted to share that the Libraries@Random newsletter really is a good thing, especially this issue (it’s biweekly). Hopefully they’ll fix their weird archiving issues (if you subscribe, at least you can *see* the issues).