Warner Video Restricting DVD Sales to Libraries

The cataloger at my library found out last week that Warner Home Video has initiated a new policy that puts a serious crimp in the way libraries can buy DVDs - and I'm surprised it hasn't met the same uproar as HarperCollins' ebook policy.

The change is that Warner Home Video is forcing DVD distributors to:

• place a 28 day embargo on sales of Warner feature titles to libraries
• discontinue providing libraries with DVDs that contain all the bonus features, but instead only sell us the "rental" version that is just the movie

Midwest Tape explains the change on their website, and we also received an email directly from Ingram to the same effect. When our cataloger called Baker & Taylor to see if they were honoring it, they said our account had already been modified to bar us from ordering these DVDs, and they just didn't tell us they were doing it.

I see this policy has horribly misguided.

• I presume it's designed to increase their DVD sales figures, but I don't think people who use library DVDs are likely to purchase these DVD on their own
• this will likely increase pirated movies, because the people who want to watch movies for free will have to turn to illegal sources, instead of the legal copy they could have gotten at the library
• not letting us buy the versions with bonus materials just seems vindictive - and since many patrons look for bonus materials, this is yet another instance that will require librarians to explain to patrons that it's the vendors that are keeping them from what they want, not us
• although Warner is trying to pressure our traditional (and convenient) DVD sources from selling to us, libraries can still purchase the full versions as they are released from other sources, such as Amazon or local stores (although Warner is trying to force them to limit the number of DVDs someone can purchase at a time, but we usually only buy a few anyway)
• besides patrons, Warner is mostly hurting its DVD wholesalers (like Midwest Tape, B&T, etc) - chances are we'll stop buying from them and go directly to retail outlets, which might lead to an erosion of their distribution network as a whole

A discussion has begun on the Publib listserv, and someone mentioned that this isn't a big deal because it's only one studio - but it only takes one to start the domino effect. However, I really do think this will all come down to sales, and I seriously doubt Warner will see any bump in their sales as a result.

For more information, or to express your opinion, contact Warner Home Video directly at 888-383-9483.

Update 10/19/11: Check out Library Journal for more on this.

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Reference Question of the Week – 10/9/11

This was not a difficult question, and not the first time I've encountered it. But the patron was funny, and I was actually surprised how well this particular tool worked.

About eight minutes after we opened one morning, a woman comes to the desk and says,

You have to help me - I'm desperate.

And then she walked away. It didn't take my librarian-sense tingling to know she wanted me to follow her, back over to the computer where she was working.

She sat down and said (without looking to see if I had, in fact, followed her),

I can't print out this project. My son the poor kid wrote it at home and our printer is busted so I came here to print it for him but your computer won't let me open it and he needs it today so can you print it for me it's in my email do I need to save it to a disk it won't open...

You know, one of those situations when the patron won't let you get a word in edge-wise, even to answer their question. Obviously she was in crisis-mode, but was kind of humorously fatalistic about it, because apparently everything had been going wrong: their home printer broke, come to the library to print but can't open the file, etc.

She had emailed the file to herself (which was good), and I could see the attachment was a .odt file, which is the extension of a document created with Open Office. I thought Microsoft Work was able to open that file type, but when I downloaded her file and tried it (which I think is exactly how far she had gotten), it didn't work.

So first I explain to her why it doesn't work - because she created the file with Open Office (which she knew, and that was good), but that we don't have the right software to open that file type. Then I started to explain that she'd have to go back home and use Open Office to save the file in a format Word could open - .doc, .rtf, etc. She then started in (crisis-thinking again) on whether she should have saved it to a CD (which is never the answer), name the file something else, and all kinds of other options.

While she was talking, it occurred to me that we might just be able to use a file converting website, without her having to go home. So while explaining what a converter website is, I did a quick search for convert odt to doc and spotted a website called ConvertFiles.com.

It was perfect, and easier to use than any other converter website I've found (usually my go-to is Zamzar). You just upload your file by clicking the Browse button, choose the format you'd like to convert to, and then click convert. It took maybe twenty seconds, and then we could open the file in Word.

What I liked about this website was that it let you open the file right away, instead of them emailing it to your account as an attachment.

And boy, when her son's report popped up on the screen, she almost cried. She also tried to print it as quickly as possible, just in case it suddenly went away like some cruel trick.

In my library, printing costs $0.15 per page, and her son's report was two pages. She immediately pulled out a dollar bill, handed it to me and said, "keep the change." But she must have known we can't accept tips, because when I showed her how to use the pay-for-print machine, she took her change back - and then hugged the printed papers to her chest and kept saying, "oh, thank you thank thank you..." all the way back to her workstation.

From start to finish, this entire reference interaction took about three minutes - and in that time, this woman's emotions went from one extreme to the other. It was a very small part of my day, but I think it had a huge impact on her's (and her son's) - which is why I think a converter website like this should be in every reference librarian's toolbox.

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Details Create the Big Picture

Thanks to everyone who took part in Work Like A Patron Day yesterday, and I hope you got something out of it.

I wasn't able to spend as much time with it as I had hoped, between meetings and projects and helping patrons (it was a busy day yesterday). In the time that I was WLAP'ing, I didn't notice anything major, but just a lot of little things - hence the title of this post, which is a quote from Sanford I. Weill.

• At the public workstations, I'm always straightening our scrap paper and pencils holders, but when you sit down to check your email, it's easy to get tunnel vision and not even notice that stuff - maybe I'm just more of a neat-freak than necessary
• The tunnel vision also filters out most of the noise and bustle of the library - which, in my library, there can be a lot of. At the reference desk the noise makes me tense because I worry it might be bothering other patrons, but when WLAP'ing, it didn't really seem that bad. Actually, it just seemed like I was sitting in a very busy and active library, which was great
• We have an overhead public address system in my library, and you can clearly tell which staff are comfortable using it and which are a little intimidated, by the tone of their voice during announcements
• The woman who used the study room before me smelled strongly of mint
• Another staff person pointed out that we need to clean the front of the building - it looks okay in this picture, but the "Chelmsford Public Library" engraved in the stonework is getting obscured by rust from the roof

I was a little disappointed I didn't get to spend more time with this today, but it's certainly not just a one-day event. I try to do this any time I can all year round.

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and please share any highlights of your day.

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Working Like a Patron, and, Rethinking Reference

Just two sort-of unrelated announcements today, although they actually compliment each other quite well:

Wed., Oct. 12, is Work Like A Patron Day
I know it's not feasible for everyone, but if you get the chance tomorrow, try approaching the library as if you're a patron - use the front door, use the public bathroom, see if the posted signs help you at all, whatever. Check out the Work Like A Patron Day 2011 post for more ideas and how to share your experiences.

Rethinking Reference, Non-Fiction, and Local History
This past Friday I gave a talk for NHLA-READS on a few projects my library has done to keep our collections (and access to them) in step with the needs of our patrons. They are a great group and I had a wonderful time, both giving my talk and listening to the other speakers. If you're interested, my slides and other links are available.

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Reference Question of the Week – 9/25/11

In library school, one things I was taught was the way a library is organized allows for a great deal of serendipity. This isn't really a reference question and doesn't have anything to do with the way a library is organized, but when I came in to work one day, two of my coworkers filled me in on this odd case of serendipity.

About 10:45 that morning, a patron came to the desk and said,

I left my laptop here last night - did anyone find it?

My library is on two levels, so we have one lost-and-found at the Reference Desk (downstairs) and another upstairs near the Circulation Desk. The person on duty at the Reference Desk checked our lost-and-found box, and not finding a laptop there, went upstairs to check the other one.

Nothing there either, so she came back down to the Reference Desk to search a little more thoroughly - thinking that if someone had found a laptop, perhaps they put it somewhere a little more secure than just the lost-and-found box (which is a drawer in the Reference Desk). She searched all behind the desk, and after not finding it, started looking in the Reference Office (which is right behind the desk).

The only thing she found back there was a laptop in a Black & Decker bag that had been left here over a year ago. The battery was dead and we didn't have a charger for it, so we couldn't turn it on to try to identify it. I didn't want to just throw away a laptop, so it just sat in a corner of the office - literally for over a year.

The staff person knew that couldn't be it, but picked it up and showed it to the patron anyway saying something like, "this is the only lost computer we have."

Apparently, the patron looked at it intently, paused, looked at it again, and then said,

Well, wait. That is my laptop. It's not the one I lost last night, but it's mine - I lost it like a year ago just before I stopped working for Black & Decker.

How bizarre is that? Since he had the timeframe right, she gave it to him - but it still didn't help find his most recently-lost laptop.

By then it was 11:00 AM, and the second reference person was just getting to the desk to start her shift - and, it just so happened that she was the person who had closed the night before. She remembered the patron, because just before closing time the previous night, she had seen a laptop sitting unattended on a table, and asked him it if was his (since he was one of only two patrons still there at the time). He had said it was - but even with this reminder, apparently he forgot to take it with him.

Since the laptop was nowhere else to be found, she walked over to the table where she had seen it last night - and there it was.

The patron was happy to have both laptops back, and left - and the Reference staff were kind of baffled that he had them running all over the building looking for it, without even checking to see if it was where he had left it the night before.

Lost and Found Policy
I was happy too, because it made me feel vindicated for not chucking out that laptop long ago. I didn't want to get rid it of without knowing if there was private or personal information on it, but I also didn't feel right drilling or otherwise destroying it.

But this makes me curious what other libraries do with found laptops. For flash drives, I look at the files and 90% of the time find a resume that allows me to contact the owner and return it. Otherwise, our policy basically is keep everything until we run out of room, and then get rid of the really old stuff to make more room (and delete all files on any disk before we recycle it).

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Update on Screencasting Options

A couple weeks ago, someone who reads my website emailed me this question:

I was wondering, in reference to your article from August 9, 2009, what web-based screencasting resources you might recommend given that both ScreenToaster and Screenjelly have apparently bit the dust?

His email took me a little by surprise - I hadn't realized that both of them were gone now.

I haven't made a screencast in awhile, but they're always a good idea (check out the Overdrive/Kindle video by the King County Library System), so I did a quick search and read some reviews just to see what was out there. The best free online options seemed to be http://www.screenr.com and http://www.screencast-o-matic.com, although I haven't tried either one.

I also know a lot of librarians use Jing, but that is software you download, so it's a little different. And another somewhat related option is http://www.xtranormal.com - it doesn't do screencasts, but is an easy way to make little movies.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for creating screancasts and videos? Or any links to good examples of library promotional/help/training videos?

In any case, one last word of caution: since these do come and go so often, it's good not to use them to host your video - upload them to YouTube or at least save them as video files, so you don't lose them if the website goes out of business.

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