“Raise your hand if you hate libraries”

The Freakonomics blog has an excellent post today, entitled "If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?" Certainly worth a read, and the comments are good, too.

And interestingly, I saw Sicko yesterday, in which a very similar principle was brought up: if something as socially-important as health care can be privatized, then why not privatize other public services: fire stations, police departments, libraries? Why should we hold onto our old-fashioned, socialistic, help-thy-neighbor way of running these services? Surely we should be looking for ways to make money off of these things, like good little capitalists. Or are some things more important than money?

Thanks Chris.
freakonomics, libraries, library, privatization, public libraries, public library, role of libraries

Posted under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Update on the Saugus Library

As of July 1st, 2007, the Saugus Library has reopened, albeit with limited hours.

They are still short when it comes to the budget, but between donations, dedication and volunteers, the library is managing to provide some core services to its community. Congratulations Mary Rose Quinn (Library Director) and the rest of the staff.

A recent Boston Globe article details the situation pretty well - what caused it, what things are like now, and a few possibilities (including intervention from the state government).

In the meantime, since the library's closure, the Saugus library has unfortunately been decertified, which means Saugus residents can't borrow materials from other Massachusetts libraries.
close, closure, libraries, library, public libraries, public library, saugus, saugus library, saugus public library

Posted under Uncategorized | Comments Off on Update on the Saugus Library

Reference Question of the Week – 7/1/07

This is more of a trivia question than a reference question, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

A patron came up to the desk and asked,

What's wrong with the new British President?

I had a feeling she meant Gordon Brown, the new British Prime Minster, and confirmed this. But what was "wrong with him?"

Well, someone told me that he can barely see at all.

Ah. I remember hearing on National Public Radio, on the day Tony Blair handed over power to Gordon Brown, something about him being blind in one eye. I did a quick internet search and found two sources that confirmed this, an article on Wikipedia (of course) and an article in The Times of London.

To summarize:

"...at the age of only 16...[h]e suffered a detached retina, after being kicked in the head during an end-of-term rugby match at his old school. He was left blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and lying in a darkened room for weeks at a time. Later...he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. After undergoing experimental surgery...the eye was saved...he had the defective eye replaced with a glass replica..." (from Wikipedia)

That answered the patron's question, and she left happy with her new knowledge.

But it made me wonder - with all the talk about "is America ready for a woman or a black President," would America ever elect a blind (or otherwise handicapped) President?

Sure, there was FDR, but his condition was carefully downplayed or hidden at the time. Even when the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial was constructed, a statue of him in a wheelchair was only added much later.

I think I remember that in the 2000 Republican primaries, some candidates were ridiculing John McCain for not being able to lift his arms over his head, due to war injuries. If something like that could be used as political fodder, surely blindness could. So, way to go Britain - thank you for being more mature than us.

british, gordon brown, libraries, library, prime minister, public libraries, public library, reference question

Posted under Uncategorized | Comments Off on Reference Question of the Week – 7/1/07

Where The Naked People Are

I love it when completely unconnected things converge to create a complimentary coincidence. Conspiracy? Come on...

Today's confluence involves the Unshelved comic from 6/29/07 (click the image to read the entire strip), and the book I'm currently reading, Sewer, Gas & Electric, by Matt Ruff.

The quote below, like previous quotes, concerns libraries, but unlike them, is a bit lengthy (but it's worth it):

...Maxwell had also found a vocation of sorts, unpaid but satisfying, even addicting.

He moved library books.

"You ever notice how you can't find any naked pictures in a library?" Maxwell would sometimes say to strangers on the subway, by way of explanation. "What I mean is, you're a kid, your voice changes, and one day you start and wonder if you could find a book with naked pictures at the public library. Like, could they have bought one by mistake, put it on the shelf where even a kid could get at it. So you look up subjects like 'Erotica' and 'Nude Photography' in the catalog, and it turns out they have some hot-sounding titles, like An Illustrated History of Pornographic Films. But when you check for the call numbers on the shelf, those kinds of books are never in. Hell, you might find one that's all text, in French, but if it's a book with actual naked pictures, it won't be there. Even if the catalog says it's on the shelf, it wont' be there. Even if you come back and check every day for a month - when you voice changes, you do that kind of thing - it'll never be there. Like it's been removed. Surgically.

"Well, you know, I figured out why that is, not just at one library but at any library you go to. ...it just hit me: there's a conspiracy. Guys all over the country, a secret brotherhood. They come into every library first thing in the morning, and they grab all the books with naked pictures before anybody else can get to them. They don't take them out, and they don't steal them or burn then, they just refile them. They put the books with naked pictures in boring parts of the library, stick 'em in between the books that nobody ever reads. Then, later, when the kids whose voices are changing come in, the members of the brotherhood just stand back and laugh up their sleeve. It's a very important job."

That is, of course, unless you happen to be browsing the reference collection in the Muskingham Muskingum College Library.

boo, books, electric, gas, libraries, library, matt ruff, muskingham, muskingum, naked, naked pictures, nude, nudity, public libraries, public library, ruff, sewer, sewer gas & electric, sewer gas and electric, unshelved

Posted under Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Preparing the Empire Falls Parade Float

I don't know if this is bad luck, along the same lines seeing a bride before her wedding, but here are a couple "before" photos of my library's float for Chelmsford's 4th of July Parade [pdf].

Since we did a One Town, One Book program this year featuring Richard Russo's Empire Falls, that's the theme chosen for the float. It is supposed to look like the inside of the Empire Grill, a diner featured in the story, and people will be dressed in character passing out copies of the book, pins and magnets.

On the right side of the picture is the diner's door, and on the far left is a backdrop painted to look like an average scene from a New England mill town (the backdrop is also a wooden Very Large Book). The dinery part will be in the middle, complete with counter, table, chairs, menus, ketchup bottles, etc.

I'm sure it will look better at the parade tomorrow.

And for my part, instead of riding on the float, I made the "Empire Grill" sign. It is supposed to look like a neon diner sign, but I think it looks like what it is - some plastic tubing spray-painted neon orange nailed to a piece of plywood spray-painted black. But at least people will be far away, and it'll be moving.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

chelmsford, chelmsford library, chelmsford public library, empire falls, empire grill, float, libraries, library, one book, one town one book, parade, parade float, public libraries, public library, richard russo, chelmsford public library

Posted under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Shelving By Dewey Guidelines

This is about as far from Library 2.0 as you can get (and perhaps short-lived), but I created a quickie guide for putting books on the shelf according to the Dewey Decimal System.

My library has gotten a few new pages (people who put returned books back on the shelves) and shelf-readers (people who straighten the shelves and make sure the books are actually in order) recently, and when I started training them, found that we had no documentation on the Dewey Decimal System. We had a Dewey test they needed to pass before they were allowed to work, but nothing with which they could prepare for the test.

So I made up the handout below, as a quick overview/introduction to Dewey, and also a reference guide for them to keep with them in the stacks until they get the hang of it. It's designed for double-sided printing, and some of our shelvers even laminated it.

• Adobe pdf file, 35KB
• Microsoft Word file, 45KB

This handout is tailored for the Chelmsford Library, but feel free to modify the Word version to work best for your library. If you have any questions (or notice any mistakes), please let me know.

Posted under Uncategorized | 7 Comments »