Archives for Books:

Another Outlet for Used Books

Picked up again from the Maine Libraries Listserv, here's another resource for an option with what to do with used books.

A website called Better world Books (http://www.betterworldbooks.com) recycles used, unwanted, weeded and discarded books. They pay for shipping, and either recycle donations or use them to raise money for both libraries and non-profit literacy initiatives in the U.S. and other countries.

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Recent Junk Mail – Books and Pets

I get a lot of junk mail coupons mailed to my house. Usually they're neatly tucked into a single envelope, which is easy to put right into the recycle bin without opening. But for whatever reason this week, I opened the envelope.

Most of the coupons and advertisements were what you'd expect - oil changes, gutter cleaning, eye glasses, etc. But two of them stood out.

The first is yet another outlet for old or used books. It is a company called "Got Books," which will take pretty much anything (books, magazines, CDs, records, etc.) and then sells them for profit and as fundraising for local charities. They'll even pick up your items free (if you're in New England, and they have a location near you). Since they make money off the deal, I can't really endorse them, but it is another option to get rid of unwanted items: http://www.gotbooks.com.

And the second one just couldn't pass by without comment. It's a company called Pet Butler, and their slogan is, "Got Poop? We Scoop!" Yes, you hire this company to come and pick up your dog poop for you. Yes, there is really a company that does this, and you can become a client at http://www.petbutler.com (again, it's a business, so no endorsement is implied by this link).

Of course, the burning question is this: what do they do with it all? Their website has a humorous Top 10 listing, and a more serious answer in their faq [pdf]:

We throw it on your neighbor’s lawn and leave a business card! No, actually all pet waste and trash is bagged then taken to the proper city dump station or placed into our dumpster where it is stored until collected by a licensed commercial waste hauler who quickly and legally disposes of it. In some areas there are local ordinances that forbid anyone from removing pet feces from a property in which case we will double-bag it and put it in your trash can or other designated area. Unfortunately there is no commercial use for dog mess as it is protein based - poisonous to lawns plus we normally collect a lot of rocks and trash which would ruin fertilizer.

Hmm - I wonder what you can tell about someone's life when they are this entertained by junk mail.

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Sex…@ your library

So, I'm making my rounds just before we close last night, and what do I find? A condom and wrapper. Hooray.

I know it's a fetish of sorts, and I've heard of libraries having trouble with patron fornication. Even another library I worked in had incidents (before I was there). But this is the first time I've come face to face with it, so to speak.

I talked to some of the other staff about it today, and we all agreed that yes, the place where the condom was found is a very secluded, blind corner, and yes, we need to address this. One of the other librarians asked if I could show her exactly where I found it, and when I took her back there - guess what we found? Another condom.

Luckily, thankfully, although both were opened, neither were used (although we didn't look too close). It could possibly be just kids getting excited about playing with something taboo, even if they're not using them for their intended purpose.

But it's pretty clear this is completely inappropriate library behavior, and so we're looking into how to stop it. Here's what we've come up with so far:

1. Put up a security camera (which is costly, and would also have to be monitored to be effective)
2. Put up a fake security camera (and hope the presence of it is intimidating enough)
3. Make desk staff get up at least every thirty minutes and "patrol" (which is something we should really be doing anyway)
4. Redesign the layout of the stacks in this area, to improve sightlines (which actually isn't feasible, considering all our shelving is bolted into the concrete floor, and aligned with the ceiling lighting)
5. Remove the shelves from this area that make it so secluded (although, my first thought on that is that this would just give more space down there for who knows what)
6. Wall off this corner entirely, and make it into a storage closet

I think the final solution will be a combination of a few of these. Definitely #3, probably #5, and maybe either #1 or #6. Sigh. Never a dull moment.

(And don't even get me started on oversize books in general - they seem to be problematic in every public library)

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Getting out the (Patron) Vote

In 2007, my library is conducting a "One Book One Town" program. It's the first time this community has done it, and the library received a grant [pdf] from the State to run it.

The biggest question, then, is which book to read. Instead of the library just picking one, we decided to let the patrons choose their book. To do this, the library designed a two-step process.

Step One was "nominations." During the months of September and October 2006, we had nomination forms and boxes in the library and on the website, for patrons to nominate a book (or books - they could nominate as many titles as they wanted) that they thought would be a good read for the entire town.

When nominations closed, a committee of library staff and townspeople tallied up all the nominations. The idea was to take the top five or so most popular, but the committee found that the nominations were all over the spectrum. So, they had to apply some criteria to help narrow the list:

• had to be fiction
• had to be under about 400 pages
• had to be readable by and interesting to ages about fourteen to adult
• shouldn't be a book everyone read in high school

Once those criteria had weeded out many books, the committee then chose the three most popular nominations, and created a voting ballot for general elections.

Step Two came on Election Day (today, Nov. 7th), with ballots and boxes set up in the library, on the website - and also at the election polling locations around town. The idea was to get people interested in the One Book One Town program by really letting them vote on which title they read.

Voting is going on right now, and I'll post how the results come out.

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More NELA residue

While attending the sessions at NELA, I was keeping a running list of social networking websites I had never heard of before, but that I thought might have some application within the library. I intended to post about all these last week, but forgot until Chris happened to mention one in an email. I know I'm probably the last to hear about such things, but here they are...

• Readers Advisory-type Websites
• last.fm: Pays attention to the music you play on your computer or ipod, and keeps a running list in your music profile on their website. Your profile can be viewed by others who share your taste in music, and you can find new music to listen to by finding other people who share your tastes (like Chris does)
• AllConsuming.net: This website covers anything and everything that people consume, but the section that interested me was, of course, the books section. Search for a book to find people that are currently reading or have read it, reader reviews, and also links to other books read by these same people - I like the "read-alike" aspect of this website (although I wasn't too impressed with the design)
• 43Things: A website where people can keep track of the things they want to do with their life, like "write a novel" [4312 people] or "learn Klingon" [29 people]. It's a way to meet people with similar interests, and have people find you
• WebShots.com: Very similar to flickr (which I use) but apparently attracts more youngies than old people like me - but it's always good to know what the kids are up to. They also seem to have more "mature content" control than flickr does, which I found interesting
• "Enhance Your Website" Tools
• Even I had heard of Meebo.com, but MeeboMe.com was new. It lets you embed an IM chat window right on your website, so client software does not need to be installed on a computer. I really like this idea. I have been trying to get IM Reference going in my library, and this might be the way to go. I think, just like Meebo, it works with AIM, MSN, Yahoo and GTalk, so this would be a great tool to have available on the library's public computers. I have to play with it more, but I'll keep you posted
• Feed2JS.org: Again, this requires more playing on my part, but from what I understand of it, this tool lets you convert RSS feeds to javascript code, which can then be easily embedded on a website. So, if I wanted to display the posts from a Weird Al Yankovic blog (and after all, who wouldn't?) right on my own homepage, this tool allows me to do so

So many websites to keep up with. The distressing part is trying to get this information to my patrons (of course, they might know about them long before I do). It seems to me that making a webpage bibliography of these is a bit anachronistic, but will serve until I find something better - so if you know of a better way, please comment and let me know.

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