LibraryTrax

Shelf Awareness Blog reports that retail stores and libraries realize that the more books are “face out” on the shelf, the more books circulate/sell.  With more books “face out” there will be less room for less sold/borrowed materials.  The original Wall Street Journal article (subscription needed)  says at a typical Borders superstore, the reduction of inventory will be between 4,675 and 9,350 titles out of about 93,500. Borders said customers at its new concept store had the impression that more books were available.

So it is not really about the total number of books you have, but how the books are displayed and having lots and lots of high demand items.  To read the article go here.

The American Library Association’s Public Programs Office, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), and Oprah’s Angel Network have selected 173 libraries to receive Great Stories CLUB grants, which will support book discussion programs targeting troubled teens. Participating libraries will receive 11 sets of three theme-related books to provide to members of a book club. They will also have access to a variety of online resources, designed to help plan and implement programming.  The following South Carolina libraries and their partnering agencies are recipients:

Kershaw County Library, Camden, SC
Continuous Learning Center, Camden, SC

Burke High School, Charleston, SC
Credit Recovery Program, Charleston, SC

Charleston County Public Library, Charleston, SC
Carolina Youth Development Center: Ledford House, North Charleston, SC

Olympia Learning Center, Columbia, SC
Olympia Learning Center, Columbia, SC

Greenville County Library System, Greenville, SC
Pendleton Place, Inc., Greenville, SC

North Myrtle Beach High School, Little River, SC

Creek Bridge High School Media Center, Marion, SC
SC Department of Mental Health, Marion, SC

W-S Alternative School, Wagener, SC

Congratulations to all the grant recipients!

In the March 2008 Computers in Libraries there is a great article about how the Howard County Library in Md. have switched all public computers to open source software with great results. What I found particularly interesting is the survey conduced using “SmoothWall” to analyze which sites patrons use. Over 80% of web activity in our branches went to five websites in order of number of hits: MySpace, Google, the library catalog, Facebook and Yahoo. As noted in the article its nice to see that the library catalog is in the top five. Also of interest was what patrons are using the computers for–job applications which can sometimes take longer than an hour.

Libraries will not be obsolete in the coming years, but instead will continue to be viable places to locate information, improve lives and communicate with others! Take a look here (hopefully full text soon!!). If the article is not available locally, contact your local SC public library who will contact the SC State Library interlibrary loan services :-))

Libraries need to change with the times.  Being able to design a new or renovate a library does not happen often.  More likely we have to adapt our physical building to our changing role in our community.  The way a library effectively functioned pre Internet is completely different to todays collaborative environment.  I just finished watching the College of DuPage’s latest teleconference — the subject of this session was trends in library buildings. I have always been fascinated physical arrangement of libraries and how it impacts on its functions. The teleconference gave lots of food for thought and will be archived and available soon.

Reference Desks is one area that definitely could use some improvement. Yesterday, at the Public Services and Reference Managers Exchange, Deb Salmond of the York County Library (Rock Hill, SC) described their new reference workstations that are scattered in the nonfiction, reference areas. The workstations have large signs with the words “JUST ASK ME”. Each station (there are three) has a small desk with computer printer, chair (for librarian) and chair for person asking the question. Wow, so simple and so effective. The best part of the plan is that everyone knows what “JUST ASK ME” means!! Deb is finding that there they have more business than ever before and staffing has had minimal changes.

Later, I was looking at one of my favorite blogs Logic+Emotion. David Armano blogged about another blog (how many blogs can you have in one sentence) on changing furniture to meet today’s needs. Take a look. It does not have to cost a lot of money to make your environment more inviting –

I came across this blog post in Slashdot this morning, where discussions about libraries sometimes occur.  It’s always useful to hear how our profession is viewed by people in other lines of work, particularly in technology fields.  I’m not sure I buy the demise of libraries as portrayed on this “Timeline” but it’s clearly food for thought, and I totally agree with the comment below on the role of libraries as social centers.

“Ross Dawson, a business consultant who tracks different customs, devices, and institutions on what he calls an “Extinction Timeline,” http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2007/10/extinction_time.html  predicts that libraries will disappear in 2019. He’s probably right as far as the function of the library as a civic monument, or as a public repository for books, is concerned. On the other hand, in its mutating role as urban hangout, meeting place, and arbiter of information, the public library seems far from spent. This has less to do with the digital world—or the digital word—than with the age-old need for human contact.”