Displays

Displays are essential for both making the library feel welcoming and accessible, and also helping with browsing. I often go and pick staff picks for displays when the desk is slow, but recently we got a memo reminding us that it's not just important to find books that are good - we also have to find books that look appealing. The librarian in charge of coordinating the displays told me that she will always pull books if they look old and gross or have boring covers. There are so many factors that determine whether someone picks up a book, and we have to consider all of them to create a good display.

All through October and November, we've had this display that says "Fall Into a Good Book," which first had Halloween and fall books and now has a lot recipe books for Thanksgiving. The central part of this display is a stuffed body with a pumpkin head that looks like it's fallen off a hay bale. He's cute, and it's fun to watch the kids come in and look concerned for poor Punkin' Head, patting him on the head, trying to help him sit up. One little girl took the little bandanna out of his back overall pocket and blew his nose with it. Meanwhile, the parents who are monitoring the children see the books and ask if they can take them from the display - the answer to which is, "Of course! Don't you know this is a ploy to up our circulation?" (Okay, maybe minus the last part.)

The really fun thing about displays is that they do help people to have a smaller pool of books to browse, but they also give them something memorable. Having the Punkin' Head display is fun and I think it helps people claim ownership over the library because they feel like it's a more fun and inviting place to be.

Theft

In the AV department, we have a fantastic collection - except when it comes to rap music.

I know they want it to be a good collection. They're tried. Everything is just gone. Theft in the rap section is such a problem that the entire collection (what's left of it) is kept in a back room. If the patrons want it, we go and get it for them and they look at it at our desk.

It's really a shame, because I know that when I'm choosing my library materials, I prefer not answering to anyone about it. I don't want people to see what I'm picking - it's one of my favorite things about the self-service checkout. It's not that I'm checking out things I'm embarrassed about - it's just that I really like having things to myself. The kids that want to listen to rap music don't always want to ask, and I'm sure we're cutting off some of their access, but I don't know how else it could be done. It's a problem. I think the RFID tagging project that's going on could help a little with security, but I'm not sure it will be as much as everyone thinks it will.

Crazy Days, Collection Continued

This weekend, we had an insane Saturday - for about an hour. There was a kid at the desk who needed help finding a copy of Harry Potter and didn't know where the YA section was. The phone was ringing, a man needed help printing in a hurry, and another man needed to know how to fit everything on one page, In the meantime, everyone was away from the desk, and when someone came back and said she wanted to take a break because she needed a snack, I thought the other librarian was going to smack her.

However, after a little while, it calmed down again and was quiet - minus the Adorable Adoptable dogs barking downstairs and one 911 call that we had to make because a patron downstairs was having chest pains.

In other news, I'm enjoying my collection evaluation project. I've made a list from about 3 different sources, and I'm going through the catalog checking to see if we have particular jazz albums, whether we have other albums by the artist, and whether the album is actually available on CD right now. Sometimes we have the item, but it's gone missing - and now it's not available. There are holes in the collection that are starting to make themselves more clear - but we have plenty of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, so that's a comfort. I look forward to working on it for the next few weeks.

Duncan, R. (2010). EBOOKS AND BEYOND: THE CHALLENGE FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES. APLIS, 23(2), 44-55. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

This article talks about the rapidly increasing popularity of e-books, especially in light of the recent release of the iPad and other e-readers. Since people want to be able to get their books whenever and wherever they want, libraries must consider how to respond to public opinion.


A library in Australia took a survey to see what people's interest level in e-books and e-readers is, especially compared to their interest and usage of physical books. The survey was inconclusive on several points, but the study did indicate that regardless of how e-books affect literacy or purchasing, the number of e-books being published and sold is definitely increasing. It suggests that in order to know how to proceed, libraries should survey their patrons to find out what the interest level in their community could be for e-book access and e-audiobook access in the library. In some areas, iPods and e-reader popularity may still be in the future. Finding out about the age, gender, and technology habits of the respondents can be helpful.

As libraries, we should be considering the possible futures for e-readers and how their popularity could affect our services. The article reminds us that we need to be ready - both to help our communities offer access to those who may not have it, and to meet the demands of our patrons before they lose patience and go elsewhere for our services. It's important not only because it's popular, but because it could be the future, and we could find ourselves becoming irrelevant if we don't step up to the challenge

Kinney B. The Internet, Public Libraries, and the Digital Divide. Public Library Quarterly [serial online]. April 2010;29(2):104-161. Available from: Academic Search Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 8, 2010.


This study used census information and and a linear regression model to determine both how libraries are trying to combat the digital divide, and how having internet access effects library usage. The study found that there were no disparities in the number of computers available between lower-income area libraries and their counterparts in higher income areas, but found a large disparity in areas with a higher percentage of non-white and non-English speaking areas. Having computers available to the public increased the libraries' gate counts, but didn't necessarily have an effect on their circulation.


The hope has been that libraries would be able to offer access to information for those who can't afford computers and home internet access. The article points out that students who weren't doing well in school were more likely to be without internet access at home. There are divides along racial lines, religion lines, education levels, and language lines. However, research shows that the benefits of computer usage are huge - for education, for job searching, even for researching hobbies. Those who use the library solely for internet access are far more likely to be digitally disadvantaged, and disadvantaged groups use the library for internet access far more than the national average.


Simply offering internet access isn't always enough. Libraries should be prepared to both offer access and help people who don't know how to use the internet to access the information they need. It isn't the final solution, but libraries certainly help, and they are being used by those who would otherwise have minimal access.

Bourke, C. (2010). LIBRARY YOUTH SPACES VS YOUTH FRIENDLY LIBRARIES: HOW  TO MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT YOU HAVE. APLIS, 23(3), 98-102. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

This article talks about the way that libraries tend to design youth space away from the other physical space of the library. Libraries have had a tendency to marginalize youth, but the ideal situation would be to provide a space where teens can gather, but also where they can be both safe and unsupervised; the most important aspect of this is that it should be a dedicated youth space if at all possible. Most libraries that do have dedicated space for teens and young adults only dedicated about 2.2% of the library space to it, even in larger facilities.

According to Bourke, one of the most important aspects of making young adults feel comfortable in the library can be the attitude of the staff. However, there isn't much in the way of professional development for librarians who wish to make youth feel welcome, and this should include more than just the youth services team. Librarians need to be aware that their attitude can make or break the experience for young adults, an idea that seems especially important to me as we go forward hoping to maintain libraries in our communities. young adults grow up to be the adults who continue using the library, and the parents who will bring their kids to the library.  

Bourke suggests that formal surveys and less formal fly-on-the-wall behavior can give us insight into how we're doing with the youth. We need to look at the services we're providing and see whether our collections meet the needs of our younger patrons - which includes our databases, our music, our movies, and other kinds of materials. If we can create more space for the YA patrons and then make sure we're marketing to them as well, we can let the young adults know they're welcome in the library and we're trying to meet their needs. 

Tech Support

I'm always amazed at how much of my life is basic tech support. I feel like I have a slightly better-than-average grasp on technology, but it never ceases to amaze me that 1) I work somewhere that requires me to constantly show people how to use a computer, and 2) I know how to show them, mostly because their answers are incredibly basic.

Generally, I understand that not everyone gets how our printer works. It's no problem - it's so easy to do, and I love how amazed some patrons look when I show them how to release a print job. However, some tech problems require me to step back and really think about how natural technology has become to me, and how unnatural it is for some people. For example:

1. Twice in the last week, I've helped people who couldn't figure out how to sign into their yahoo.com account. It turned out that it wasn't working because they were trying to sign in on hotmail.com. 
2. I've had at least 2 girls who were within 5 years of my own age who had no idea how to use an external hard drive. One was actually younger than I am. How does one avoid learning how to use a thumb drive until they're 18 these days? 
3. I had to explain to a man the other night that even though you have to use an email account to sign in to amazon.com, your email account is not automatically connected to your hotmail account - i.e. amazon doesn't know what your hotmail password is, so it won't automatically sign you in with that password until you've set up an account with them. He was very confused - as was I after awhile, because I didn't actually know how to explain that your login is individual on every website (unless it's a google-related website, but let's not go there) and you have to set it up for each new site. (This gentleman also told me that the hand-eye coordination of a computer was difficult for him, and he didn't know how to make it all work together. He hasn't had a lot of experience, clearly, but it was jarring all the same.)
4. I was trying to figure out how to help a lady get into her hotmail account, but hotmail didn't recognize her username. At that point, all I could do was explain to her that ther was no way for me to recover her password if I didn't have her username. There is no list of usernames for you to peruse to see what yours is. Because there are millions and millions of usernames.
5. Yesterday, I taught a man how to move something up a line - using the Backspace key. He said, "Ah! I learned something new today!" 

It's fascinating to try to disconnect myself from what I feel is common knowledge and try to approach problems from their perspective. Everything is like a foreign language to them, and they're trying to use a tool they aren't familiar with to do something they don't actually understand the theory behind. It's like helping my parents with my computer, except that from years of living with their kids and from having jobs that involve computers my parents have picked up things like what programs will take them to the internet and what a word processor is. (I tried to explain word to a woman in her 80s the other day. I told her it was like using a typewriter except you could edit your work without retyping everything.)

Public libraries, you are a brave new world.