To help libraries and booksellers create an event around the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie release (5/25/77), Random House is offering free Star Wars event kits.
Kits include a few books, posters, pins, activity ideas, and other promotional materials. Requests must be submitted by March 1st, 2007.
Yesterday, the big storm sweeping across the nation finally made it to Eastern Massachusetts. Although Chelmsford didn't get as much snow as areas further north, what we did get was a mixture of snow and ice.
School closings were announced the day before, in anticipation of the storm. The library, though, was told we would be open as normal. Being a town department, until Town Hall closes at 5pm, it's the Town Manager who makes the call to close early.
This year we have a new Town Manager, and this was his first storm. The weather was bad enough by about 11am that it was dangerous to be on the roads, and even though the storm was getting worse, he chose to keep the library open.
His logic, which he conveyed when the library's Assistant Director called to ask if the library could close, was that the Town has to pay library staff in case of a storm closing, so he would rather pay them for working than for a day off.
Since I work the late shift on Wednesdays, I drove in through the worst of the storm to get here by 1pm, as did a few other late shift people. When I arrived, there were ten library staff - and three patrons. I spent the next few hours alternating between shoveling the library's walkways (because, although we're a Town department, no Public Works employees are assigned to shovel at the library) and explaining to staff why they couldn't go home.
Ultimately, the Assistant Director (the Director is on vacation this week), the Chair of the Trustees, and the library's union representative all asked the Town Manager to close the library. At about 3pm, the Town Manager called to say the library could close at 4pm. At which time, we all dug our cars out of the parking lot and drove home in the storm. The Town Manager dropped substantially in the opinions of library staff that day.
I don't know if this was a case of him wanting to show everyone who was in charge (since he is new), or him just having so much going on that he wasn't able to fully realize conditions here. I know libraries are essential to their communities, but they are not essential in terms of the "essential services" need to run a town during a storm emergency.
Morale issues aside, closing a library due to snow should not be a difficult decision to make - and it certainly shouldn't be a matter of getting the Town's money's worth out of the staff.
Last week, as I was quietly minding my own business at the reference desk, two middle school girls came down the steps. Since the steps are right in front of the desk, I tend to look up when I hear people, which is what I did in this case. When they saw me, one turned to the other and whispered, "it's him, it's him!"
I have to say that his kind of freaked me out. I had no idea what they were talking about, but it was pretty obvious they were referring to me. And when I say obvious, I mean obvious to every single patron on the floor at the time, because she "whispered" in one of those not-at-all-a-whisper whispers that middle school girls are so good at.
Anyway, they passed by me and went into the teen room, and sat working at a table for maybe an hour or so. Then, they came up to the desk and asked if I was the guy that came into their classroom to talk about how to use databases for research. Whew.
About a month ago, I and two fellow librarians visited the local middle school. Apparently these girls remembered me from that, and so were coming to ask me to help them with their project.
Which is great - in addition to introducing resources to the kids, our goal was to introduce ourselves to them, so they would feel comfortable approaching us and asking for help.
And our outreach program continues - today we visited the middle school again to talk to the second wave of students (about 250) who are just now starting this project. In another month's time, we'll go back again to speak to the rest.
Now for me, speaking to a group this large means I have no chance of remembering any of their names or faces. But this makes me feel that if kids know me as "that library guy," I need to be on my best behavior when I out grocery shopping or whatever - who knows who's watching, and may or may not approach me in the library as a result.
Having groupies is a big responsibility.
This is interesting. In these times of elevated threat levels, a patron asked me if the library had a copy of Chelmsford's Town Emergency Management Plan.
We do not, so I tried to track it down.
After a series of phone calls, I finally talked to someone called Walter in the Town's Emergency Management office. Walter told me that, yes, such a plan does exist in print. It's about 200 pages long, and there are only five copies of it - only the heads of the emergency responder departments in town have copies.
Even though it is a Town document, and therefore available to the public, the library will not be getting one. Walter feels that there is too much confidential information contained in it (by which, I thought he meant procedures and practices that we wouldn't want terrorists to see, but he was actually more concerned with protecting the home and cell phone numbers of the Town's emergency responders).
However, if anyone does want to see the plan, they can call the Emergency Management office (978-250-5280) and leave a message for Walter (he's a volunteer, and so doesn't keep a regular schedule) to make an appointment to go down to the office and see the plan.
To answer this question, I used the phone book to find local phone numbers. After the fact, though, I wondered how far I could get only searching the internet. The answer is, not very far - I could find the town website, but it was a struggle to actually find the (not at all helpful) Emergency Management Agency page within the town website. I had to use Massachusetts' official website to find Walter's contact information. Here are a few other resources I found that might help if you're looking for similar information:
From the state-level websites, you should be able to drill down to find your local information. But, as I found, a call to your town/city hall or police department might be the best place to start. Being prepared does not require living in fear.
Marketing. There's always workshops concerning how to market libraries and services at conferences, and they are always well-attended. This past weekend seemed to be a perfect storm of marketing-related events, so I thought I'd convert-to-library a few ideas I witnessed recently.
Direct Marketing: I got this "Important!" water survey kit in the mail. Survey questions regarded water use/quality and home ownership, including space for me to fill out my name, address, phone number, etc. They also asked I fill the little bottle with tap water and return everything back to them. I did not like that this company barely identified themselves (I needed the internet to find out this is just a marketing campaign of a company that sells water systems), but could libraries do a similar direct mail campaign to find out what patrons want from libraries? It could be a good way to reach those people who don't come into the libraries, what their reading habits/tastes are, and what the quality of water around town is like.So much to do, and so little time.
A friend of mine sent me this comic strip - it's nice when people outside of libraries notice library-related things.
Anyway, this comic also struck me as funny, due to the double-standards inherent in libraries. We pride ourselves on promoting and providing equal access to all information and resources, and yet there are certain topics that could make any librarian think twice. Should the Quran be one of these topics? No more than the Bible.
But I've also noticed this double-standard when it comes to internet use. We defend peoples' rights to look at white supremacist or political websites, which could easily make someone else in the library uncomfortable. But when it comes to people looking at porn in the library, librarians often actively try to curtail it. Why? Because it makes some people uncomfortable.
I know that in public libraries, kids are always a concern, and do need to be protected to some degree. But why would accidentally seeing porn on someone else's computer screen be any more harmful than a flag-waving racist?
Not that I have a solution, of course - I just dislike inconsistency.
