The future creeps closer

Six months ago, Amazon announced that the Kindle outsold hardbacks on their website. Now, not only have Kindles surpassed HP7 as the most sold product, they have outsold paperbacks, too.

This is not surprising. eBooks and eReaders are a way better business model than paper-and-glue books. It costs way less to store digital content (you don't have to rent warehouses) and it is way cheaper to deliver (no pesky shipping costs).

While I think book-selling as a form commerce is certainly dwindling, I still stand by my assertion that books - and more importantly, libraries - aren't going anywhere. Varying forms forms of information formats will be needed for different information wants and needs. And information professionals are still going to be needed to help people search for appropriate and effective information resources.

Although libraries are still going to be relevant, they are going to look much different in the near future. I'll let Abbey tell you why:

tweet tweet

It seems the one social media trend that librarians are all over is twitter. I hate feeling left out. So...

...It's official. I've joined the revolution. Follow me.

Good Question

"Why is it, they ask, that the librarian always finds a 'dirty' book to be better written than a 'wholesome' one?"
- Not Censorship But Selection, Lester Asheim, 1953


photo credit: National Media Museum via The Commons

Visual data, so hot right now.

I love infographics. love. love. love infographics.

I've always been a visual learner, but in today's age of communication technology the amount of possible ways to present information visually seems infinite.

David McCandless, British writer and designer, seems to be a the forefront of the infographic movement:



If you enjoyed this video, check out McCandless' site: Information is Beautiful.

Libraryland.

I've been meaning, for a while now, to teach myself how to embed youtube videos onto my blog. Turns out it is WAY easier than I thought: if you know how to copy and paste, you know how to embed videos.

I needed something to practice with, so I used these videos that were recently shared on my school listserv. The staring librarian is an alumni of my Master's Program, and he's got some great stuff here.

I hope he's cool with me sharing these - I figure if he wasn't, he wouldn't have put them on you tube...

If you like what's here there's more at his YouTube channel, including short book reviews. Certainly worth checking out.

we've gone global...

Not long ago, I posted about a fund-raising campaign that my cohort was conducting, raising funds for graduation: The 2011 Tattooed Librarians of the Pacific Northwest Calendar. So far we've made a couple of hundred dollars, so it's been a success (don't worry, there are still plenty of months left to fill with beautiful ink and intelligent young librarians, so you should buy yours today!). One of my favorite parts of this project has been watching where on the internet it's been popping up.

For example, it was featured on two of my favorite blogs: The Swiss Army Librarian and Needles and Sins. An overarching goal of the project (other than making us money) was ensuring that it was accepted in both the library community and the tattoo community, and seeing that calendar on these two blogs confirmed our success.

I think my favorite spot we discovered the calendar being promoted (and certainly the most surprising) was Bibliothecaris in blog, Dutch librarian/writer Laurent Meese's blog:


They always tell you to be careful what you put out on the internet, because you never know where it might end up. Logically, this makes sense, but it is still surprising when it happens to you. Thankfully, this sort of surprise was super positive, proof that our calendar now has a global reach (I just hope that folks across the pond are purchasing our calendar)!

I wanted to confirm the language this blog was written in and read what was actually said about the calendar. So I hoped over to Google Translate, and it was pretty easy to copy and paste the text. He is what Mr. Meese had to say:

Tattooed librarians, it is not an oxymoron. The students of Emporia State Master of Library and Information Science give a remarkable calendar for charity, namely himself. They should, has recently paid for their graduation and thus to generate some income. The calendar shows no traditional librarians pads with a bun but trendy birds with tattoos and piercings. DiVenti photographer Lisa took this funny pictures of the prospective librarians in the Pacific Northwest College of Art Library. The calendar costs 25 U.S. dollars. Last year there was a similar project with the Texas Library Association and their 2010 calendar "The TattooedLadies of TLA . A new fad is born, so it seems.

...Trendy birds with tattoos and piercings, indeed! Obviously not the best translation, but enough the get the feel. Thank you, Mr. Meese, for helping us with our cause (ourselves) and spreading the gospel of tattooed librarians!

PS: If anyone knows of any great plugins for FireFox that offer great translating features, please share!

sharing equals caring

Why is it that when I want to make an omelette, my eggs get scrambled and when I want to make a scramble, my eggs turn into an omelette? Not that this is either here nor there, but I am finding there are two things in my life that are turning me to Buddhism: Public transportation and cooking eggs.

Anyways, onto librarianship! Here are three articles I've read online in the past week that I thought were fascinating and wanted to share.

First up: Bookstore on the ropes. Here is a story about an independent bookstore that is going out of business. I know, I know: sad. But I think the owner has come up with a great analogy for the trifecta of threats (poor economy, eBooks and online shopping) that is bringing down independent booksellers: A perfect storm. I hate that bookstores are closing, but I like a good analogy.

Next up: Patrons clear the shelves. Here is a story of a British library that was on the chopping block (much like the bookstore in my first story), and the patrons were so concerned that the library is going to close that they checked out ALL the books in the library. I feel ambivalent about this story. On the one hand - I love the direct action that the patrons took to send a strong message to the library power holders and decision makers. On the other hand, part of me thinks that it sucks that there is nothing on the shelves. I know it is obviously a temporary action, but I feel if any patron walks into a library, they should be able to check out a book, even if it is not the book they are looking for. This action also makes me wonder what librarians (and myself) can do to make sure that an action this extreme is not needed, and the value of a library is always understood.

This last one is interesting, and got stuck in my mind after a recent conversation. I was having a drink with friends after class, and a recent acquaintance - who apparently is a devout devil's advocate just learned that we were library students - wanted us to defend our profession in the age of google. We did our best in dealing with a tired argument, but I wish that I had his email address to share this article with him: Humans vs. automated search: Why people power is cool again. This article discusses some issues that the infamous google algorithm has - mainly that spam and "content farms" can really effect the results of google searches - and how people influenced searches can really insure that good information can float to the top among a lot of the crap that is out there.

In closing - my quiver for the blog is currently empty, and school is really kicking in. I hope to continue with regularly scheduled postings - at least once a week or so. But please don't be surprised if posts are a bit more space out than that. Thanks again to all my readers!!