LLOPSCited

by Kristine Lloyd

As if we needed more reasons to sprinkle ourselves with self-love, the BYU Old Spice parody video, like the UW Gaga video, has gone viral. People are talking about it, talking about us, which is good, right? Are we at, dare I say, the Tipping Point of total hipness? Even though that phrase is more used than Vol. 25 of the Washington Practice Series, it might be apt. This recent NPR story extolls the virtues of libraries and lists reasons why we might be on the verge of a pop culture breakthrough. A couple of the reasons she lists make great reasons why we should have our own reality show, as she titles it, The Stacks. We get in fights, maybe not the dramatic brawls worthy of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, but certainly fights over issues like funding and censorhip. In other words, we can show our mettle when we need to. She also points out that since we are open to the public, we have all kinds of juicy stories to tell. Those of us in private libraries may not have many, but I know Rick and Rita at King County have shared a few with me. I’m a little jealous, because public librarians have the best stories to share. I mean, did you hear about the lady throwing condiments down her public library’s book drop? Her mug shot just screams public library defiler and reality show star.

If the new fad is creating fun library video clips to market your library, Brigham Young University just upped the ante with their slick and entertaining biblio-mercial (sorry, I could not resist!). This is almost Super Bowl quality people. Watch out librarians everywhere. Time to bring in the Mad Men.

Would it be a down payment on a house, maybe in the Queen Anne area? I found this Seattle PI article interesting. The author notes that King County’s Library system costs about $72 per person per year. With Westlaw and Lexis thrown into the mix, I’d be frightened to look at the numbers. $72 sounds more like a quick shopping trip to Whole Foods. Do you keep track of these kinds of statistics in your libraries?

by Karen Helde

In this classic bit of Sesame Street comedy, Cookie Monster struggles to accept the fact that his library has just books. No cookies. Just books. So when watching it, do you identify more with the librarian or with Cookie Monster?

I confess that I found myself siding with the C. Monster and his cheerful obtuseness. His goal in life is to get cookies. A book to go along with the cookies is great, but it’s really all about the cookies. Is he that different from most people (or monsters, on a bad day) who walk into our libraries? They’re not really there for the book, the password, the article, or the URL. They’re there to get whatever is playing the role of “cookies” in their life at the moment: a partner’s recognition, a good grade, a client’s satisfaction, a resolution to a neighborhood dispute. Continue reading »

by Karen Helde

I was charmed by a recent NPR story on Senator Dodd’s financial reform bill.

Yes, I just typed “charmed” and “financial reform” in the same sentence. Intrigued? Go ahead and listen. No, don’t read the transcript – you need to listen.

Reporters Adam Davidson and Chana Joffe-Walt must have realized that their topic had the potential to glaze the eyes of even their most dedicated listeners. So Davidson invited his dad, a professional Shakespearean actor, to read excerpts from the bill. The senior Mr. Davidson does a beautiful job of giving both gravity and grace to the language. To his credit, he resists hamming it up (but does sound like he’s having fun).

Continue reading »

by Fred Hanson

I imagine most librarians would sense a kinship with John Lennon. He seemed the “bookish” rock-n-roller, authoring acclaimed books. One would hardly think of Keith Richards.

In this article about his upcoming autobiography, Richards mentions aspirations he once had of becoming a librarian. He even considered using Dewey to arrange his personal library before deciding it was too much work.

It’s great to find him saying “The public library is a great equaliser.” Imagine a wastral (and rock idol) like Keith praising libraries! It sounds so much more genuine than the usual sound bites politicians lob in our direction.

by Erin Hoffrance
It may not be the world’s smallest library, but picture  a donkey as a bookmobile, or biblioburro as it is called. I stumbled upon this CNN article while reading Law Firm Bottom Line. The man in the story, Luis Soriano, rides his donkey around rural parts of Columbia bringing books to children. Many of the children in this region would have to travel a long way to retrieve books from school, so Soriano takes to his donkey and offers a bookmobile-like service.  In addition to books, Soriano provides homework help for the kids. A man whose children benefit from this service is quoted as saying ‘You can just see that the kids are excited when they see the biblioburro coming this way. It makes them happy that he continues to come [...]. For us, his program complements what the children learn in school.’

I don’t see myself delivering books by burro around Seattle, but a Segway might work!

 by Fred Hanson

Feeling virtuous that you are recycling the books you discard? Meet a firm librarian who has re-defined book recycling. Kathy Kelly once agonized about tossing the many books we all must pull off the shelves. Now she transforms outdated and unwanted law books into bags that sell for $125 to $350. Read how Kathy used a simple tool, not a lot of experience, but plenty of imagination to create a new product and go much further in recycling than most of us thought possible.

In the daily rush of responding to reference queries, it’s easy to forget about the greatness of libraries. Libraries are places that save people every day, people like Shon Hopwood, who went from robbing banks to representing a fellow inmate at the Supreme Court, after spending hours studying the law in his prison law library. Makes a LLOPS member feel proud to be donating books to our local public law libraries.

by Erin Hoffrance

On a recent cruise around the web, I stumbled upon an interesting post at the Librarian in Black Blog about a new Library Journal column, written by 2009 Professional Development Workshop superstar, Aaron Schmidt. If you did not already know about this library celebrity, Aaron is the digital initiatives librarian for the DC Public Library, and he is also half of the user experience consultancy at Influx.

The new column, The User Experience, is concerned with, of course, user experience, as well as information architecture and design. Information architecture is one of those hot, new terms that gets bandied about liberally in library school and at conferences, but I fear I have not ever fully grasped the meaning of it. In this first column, Aaron does a great job offering definitions of user experience and design. The article does not talk down to the reader who has more to learn about user experience and does not bore the reader who is well-versed. Aaron will be a great addition to the Library Journal publication, and I am already looking forward to his next column!