And that’s why it’s occasionally useful to flip the script when introducing new technology to one’s patron base. Unfamiliar principles can go over more successfully if they’re couched in familiar concepts. Take Dropbox, for example. While the concept of “cloud computing” might be tough to wrap one’s head around, everyone understands the file folders on their desktop. By giving users that simple means of saving their documents, Dropbox can now introduce all sorts of radical concepts—from universal access to said folder from any device, to file-sharing, to collaborative editing. No small feat for a simple computer file folder.

Similarly, libraries can leverage their presence as an event space to spark groundbreaking discussions about the role they play within the community. By giving the audience as much of a role over the agenda as the organizers, you can help to identify new stakeholders and create opportunities for your patrons to learn from one another. These principles are at the heart of the unconference.

Let’s Put On an Un-Show



This past May, I helped plan the Chicagoland Library Unconference (CLUncon). Along with my partners in crime,¹ we created an event that drew more than seventy-five librarians from across the region. With a couple of speakers and no set agenda, we offered an environment for discussing library issues in an immediate, practical manner. With the shock of actually pulling the event off having worn off, it’s a good time to reflect on the project and see what worked. With just a little tweaking, the unconference-as-continuing-education model can be adapted to function as a public idea generator. Here are a few suggestions to get the ball un-rolling.

Build Your Team

An unconference is a real opportunity for you to forge strong connections with key patrons. Who are your power users? Your community movers and shakers? Your active local organizations? These are all the kinds of people you want on your team. If you can get the right people involved, many of the issues related to brainstorming topics, planning logistics, and recruiting a crowd can become much easier. This momentum can build quickly: once the core group of organizers came together, the enthusiasm level changed from “Wouldn’t this be cool?” to “we need this, this, and this” almost overnight. If you need additional material to help sell the idea of an unconference to your stakeholders, Unconferrence.net has gathered a number of useful resources.²

Set the Stage

Even though the unconference model is built on spontaneity, sometimes your audience needs a nudge to get started. Providing a broad topic of conversation will give folks an idea of what the event is going to be about, and can help get the wheels turning in the weeks leading up to the event. For CLUncon, the question was “What are the issues facing libraries, and how can we work together to develop creative solutions?” It didn’t take much prompting beyond that to draw a crowd and get them talking. A topic like this can be easily applied to a community conversation, but it’s not the only direction you can take things. Even something as wide-reaching as “What are you passionate about?” or “How would you improve your community?” can provoke some powerful conversations. As you work to choose a theme, it’s important to talk with your community to determine what matters most to them.

Let Your Audience Drive the Agenda

CLUncon sold out within thirty-six hours of tickets going on sale. With six weeks until the actual event, we felt it was important to keep building momentum. Our solution: crowdsourcing the discussion topics within the broader theme, giving attendees a better idea of what they had gotten themselves into, while giving everyone an opportunity to state their case as to why particular issues were important. To facilitate this, we used Idea Informer, which gave us an easily embeddable system that allowed anyone—attendees or non-attendees alike—to propose and vote on their favorite topics. The result was a low-key version of the South by Southwest conference’s Panel Picker, and a great way to get the audience working on collaborative ideas.

Voting is just one way to get people more invested in your event. Your online presence can help to keep the conversation steady on the ramp-up to launch day, and inviting attendees to provide guest content—blogs, video, and more—can help inspire other people to join in.

Look Outside Your Comfort Zone

Similar to the way in which we chose a theme, we wanted our keynote speakers to come from outside the library world, in order to start conversations that looked beyond traditional library thinking. Filling this role were Nick Disabato, creator of Distance (distance.cc), a quarterly journal and online platform devoted to essays and conversations on web design and user experience issues; and Becca Martin, community manager for Everyblock, a hyperlocal news aggregator and message board service offering by-neighborhood news updates in nineteen cities.

Our hope was that our audience would find the parallels between what Disabato and Martin were doing and their own communities. Both Distance and Everyblock have some sound strategies toward building online communities, and we felt that libraries could use them as models for how to bring people together in their own communities. While I think this message got through to most program attendees, we could have probably provided more guidance as to what we hoped to accomplish. If you’re looking to get people thinking outside the box, you’ve got to at least make a door for them to walk through.

Keep the Conversation Going

Holding an unconference was only phase one of a much larger plan to get area librarians talking. The CLUncon.org website is designed to feature occasional blog posts from organizers and audience members alike, in the hope of creating an ongoing resource for people to think creatively about library issues.

Library events can serve a similar purpose, provided you make the commitment to keep a steady flow of content going. Like with any major social-media effort, persistence is the key to creating and building an audience.

Other Frameworks for Un-Spiration

If you’re looking for more structure as you plan your own unconference-style event, several organizations have resources to help you get started.

Out of this growing micro-industry, the speaker series known as TED is likely the most well-known. Short for Technology, Entertainment, Design, the organization has been working for nearly thirty years to provide speakers with eighteen-minute windows of opportunity to inform and inspire. They’ve developed a set of resources³ for local groups to organize independently run TEDx events, leveraging the TED brand to draw a crowd and get people talking. The startup guide includes specific guidelines for libraries to start their own events, as well as a framework for smaller TEDx salon discussions.

Ignite talks take the TED format and compress it even further. Similar to the Pecha Kucha format of presentation-giving, speakers are allowed five minutes and twenty slides to discuss something they are passionate about. The Ignite framework⁴ also offers optional icebreakers and contests to help the crowd get comfortable with one another.

If your community’s interests run more toward robots, circuit boards, and other gadgets, then you may want to organize a mini Maker Faire.⁵ This stripped-down version of MAKE magazine’s official events is a showcase for creators, hackers, and tinkers alike. This would be an ideal partnership for a school or community college computer science department, not to mention a local hackerspace, if one exists.

Sometimes, there’s no replacement for putting a group of enthusiastic people in the same room and getting out of the way. No matter the format, unconference-style events serve to start important conversations in your community, and reinforce the library as a platform for new ideas to emerge. It could be as simple as an open meeting in a coffee shop or a Google Hangout, or it could be a full-fledged, day-long program. One way or the other, it’s a way to help build those most human of connections within your community. By doing so, you can help to further your library’s role as a springboard for new ideas and technologies.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. Carolyn Ciesla, Michael Gershbein, Richard Kong, Anne Slaughter, and Ryann Uden, librarians from the Chicago suburbs of Homewood, Glencoe, Arlington Heights, Oak Park, and Barrington, respectively. Association consultant and former ALA Director of Membership John Chrastka also assisted with conference logistics.
2. Kaliya Hamlin, “How to DIY Unconference,” accessed July 15, 2012.
3. TED, “TEDx: Organize an Event,” accessed July 20, 2012.
4. Ignite, “How to Produce an Ignite Event,” accessed July 20, 2012.
5. Maker Faire, “So You Want to Make a Maker Faire?” accessed July 20, 2012.

The post Let’s Get Together: An Unconference Primer first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Shifting Demographics Bring New Challenges

According to 2010 US Census Bureau figures, in the last decade, the number of white people in New Jersey declined as the number of Asians and Hispanics soared. In fact, in Middlesex County, the number of Asians jumped more than 50 percent. By 2010 Asians accounted for 21.3 percent of the population in this county.¹ 

So, how do we best serve these diverse communities? The challenge faced by many libraries is to develop collections of relevant, popular books in world languages without having a librarian on staff who speaks or reads those languages. And how do we make our libraries a welcoming space for patrons who recently moved to the United States and speak very little to no English?

PPL has attempted to address these challenges over the past several years. We shared at our meeting some stories of our efforts that succeeded, and some that were less effective.

In the early years of our world languages collection, the library purchased books in Chinese and Gujarati because these were the two most common languages other than English spoken by our foreign-born residents. For Chinese books, we were fortunate to have a staff librarian and cataloger who both spoke Chinese. They were able to select and catalog the Chinese collection. But for the Gujarati collection and languages that we collected later, such as Hindi and Spanish, there was no librarian on staff who was familiar with these languages. The librarian who purchased these books relied on the judgment of the book distributors to send books that were current and popular. The only way to verify this was to look at circulation statistics well after the books were purchased.

Eliciting Opinions from World Languages Readers



In an attempt to determine how patrons felt about the world languages books that we were purchasing, we approached library users as they browsed in the stacks and asked them for their opinions. These attempts were not always successful––for a number of reasons. Sometimes the language barrier was too great to have a meaningful conversation about the quality of the collections. Many times, face-to-face conversations resulted in users simply saying that everything was fine. There seemed to be a reluctance to complain or give any negative feedback about the books.

In order to make more informed choices for book purchases, we also tried to form focus groups for each world language that we collected. Ideally, the focus group would consist of library users who read the books in a certain language, and would be willing to meet at the library to evaluate the collection. We posted signs in each language asking for users to join focus groups, and spoke with users about it when they came to the desk to check out books. Again, there was little or no response.

Finally, we chose to elicit opinions from our world languages readers by creating a brief survey on paper. Each time someone checked out books in a language other than English, the library staff member inserted a survey into one book. The survey asked questions such as:

1. For fiction: Are there specific authors whose books you would like us to order? If so, which authors? Are there certain genres you would like us to purchase more of, for example humor, mystery, short stories?
2. For nonfiction: Are the books up-to-date? If not, which subjects are too old? Are there certain subjects you would like us to purchase more of?

This approach proved to be much more successful than any other we tried. Many surveys were completed and returned to the desk over the following weeks. Users were much more open about their opinions than they had been in person, perhaps as a result of the anonymity.

After collating the responses for each language, we contacted our book distributors and requested specific titles, authors, and genres. We were finally able to target our purchases to meet our community’s needs.

Creating a Welcoming Environment

Another way to serve our increasingly diverse community is to provide a welcome atmosphere in the library. To this end, we ordered a large banner with the library’s logo on it, and the word “Welcome” in all of the languages spoken in our area.

We also changed our signage in the English as a Second Language (ESL) section of the library to be more descriptive. For example, in addition to Dewey classification, we made descriptive labels such as “Citizenship,” “Grammar,” and “Pronunciation.” The rationale behind these signs is that non-English speakers might hesitate to ask a librarian for help to find materials that are only labeled by Dewey number. The more descriptive signs make it easier to navigate the ESL section of the library.

For those library users who speak very little or no English, we have created a Translation Aid. The idea for this came from the Philadelphia Free Public Library, whose “Translation Station” flip chart offers help in many languages from Arabic to Vietnamese. The aim of PPL’s Translation Aid is to help improve communication between library staff and users who do not speak English. It contains translations of phrases that are commonly used in a library, such as “I need to find a newspaper” or “I have a book on hold.” These phrases are shown in Chinese, for example, with the English translation written beneath. The user points to the Chinese phrase, and the staff member sees what he or she is looking for. Conversely, if the staff member wants to express something but does not speak Chinese, he or she can point to the English phrase “Do you need to apply for a library card?” and the user will see a Chinese translation beneath. The Translation Aid does not offer more than basic communication, but it has been warmlyreceived by our new immigrants who seem genuinely pleased by this effort.

Multicultural Programs

PPL’s programming this year has been a celebration of ethnic diversity. Performances have included a Mexican guitar player, Indian dances, and gospel groups, among others. Throughout the year, our six-member Diversity Committee works on projects aimed at welcoming people of many cultures.

One way to get the community involved in the library is to provide a display case that showcases items from the home countries of the library users. In response to a call to “Show us your ethnic heritage,” many patrons brought in pottery, traditional costumes, and art from their native lands. The items are on display for all to see, and some include descriptions of the items. Patrons have been pleased to view and add to this display; it is becoming a popular way to learn about other lands. Our meeting of librarians from across New Jersey resulted in many informative conversations about how to meet the evolving needs of our diverse communities. The consistent theme, however, was the positive results gained by involving library staff and users in efforts to promote communication and understanding. The library belongs to the community, and they genuinely want to help.

REFERENCE

Richard Pérez-Peña, “New Jersey’s Ethnic Makeup Shifts, and Population Drifts Southward,” New York Times, Feb. 3, 2011, accessed Sept. 19, 2012.

The post Meeting the Needs of Diverse Communities first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

System Analysis

The spark that ignited the search for a system that allowed for a user-friendly way to search through a series began when I started looking for a book organization program for my personal use at home. I used the system analysis process to outline what exactly I was looking for. The first step in the process was to delineate what the system needed to do. The system should be able to take the Microsoft Excel file containing the information from my previous book organizer, the Living Bookshelf, and reuse in its own catalog. The system should provide quick access to titles in the catalog through either a search box or filtering option. The system should allow personal commentary and notes to be made on the individual titles. I wanted to be able to add reviews, ratings, and find out if I own, need to buy, need to read, or already read a particular book. The system should also allow access to online booksellers. Living Bookshelf offered a direct link on a book’s page to the same book’s page on Amazon.com and I would want a similar feature in the program I selected.

Once the general idea of the system was determined, I went to the next steps in the system analysis process: Determining the purpose of the program and how well a selected system met those requirements. I was not running a professional library. I just needed a program that could organize a small private collection of about a thousand books along with a wish list of hundreds of other titles.

The next several steps in the analysis process involved choosing an actual program. After searching through about a dozen different products, the one that seemed like it would work the best was All My Books. After installation, I began testing All My Books and compared how well it worked compared to the Living Bookshelf (my benchmark organizer) and how well it matched the requirements outlined in step one of the analysis process. All My Books allowed the importing of book data contained in various formats, including Microsoft Excel. It also had a search box and filters while displaying the entire collection on screen with a scroll feature and the ability to simply type a letter on the display or go right to the beginning of that letter’s section. All My Books included a star rating system where users could rate a book from zero to four stars, which would be visible on a book’s profile page. Also on the profile page, users could check boxes marked “Wishlist” or “Unread.” The main catalog display also showed a shopping cart icon if a book needs to be bought and a book with an exclamation point if a title is owned, but not read yet. All My Books further meet the step one requirements by including a link entitled “Visit book’s web page” that takes users directly to book shopping sites such as Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

Evaluation of All My Books

When it comes to obtaining and displaying information for books, All My Books uses a system much different from the Living Bookshelf. While people using the latter would simply search for the title in all my books; click an add button; and see the title, author, a photo, and a review all pre-load, All My Books’ process is a bit more complex. First, a user must go to “Book” and either “Add . . . ” or “Add using ISBN. . . ” and type in information about the book in question––whether that is the title, the author, the ISBN number, or another piece of important data. The next step really sets All My Books apart from the Living Bookshelf. Instead of having to manually type in all of a book’s information, the program performs a hypermedia search for the user. All My Books accesses an existing book database such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s website and provides all the titles related to the search query.

Once the user finds the title they desire, the data contained on that book’s page goes into what are known as frames. A frame specifies the type of information that will be inputted into the system and displayed. In the case of All My Books, the type of frame used is called a minimal frame. A minimal frame provides slots for various pieces of specific data, but focuses on one overall relationship, which for All My Books is the relationship between the information in the slots and the book being added to the database. Additional slots outside the first frame of slots such as publisher, binding, dimensions of book, price, and date the book was added to the catalog also appear.

However, a user of All My Books does not see the information displayed in this manner. The system displays the data in a way that is more akin to a Facebook profile page rather than a normal library catalog such as WorldCat that shows its data in a similar low-level means of expression as in the minimal frame example above. All My Books’ profiles use higher level means of expression to show their data. These higher-level expressions include:

1. images and pictures (an image of a book cover that can be clicked on to be enlarged);
2. visual text (the data put into neater-looking frames and linked so users could find related information such as other books by the author); and
3. hyperlinks to important resources (a link to the profile where the book data originally came from).

While the profiles express the information on a single title, another way to view books in the database is through the scrollable catalog. Once all the slots for a book are filled in, the data contained in the “Title” slot gets placed in the scrollable catalog. Users can search by typing in a title or filtering by the information contained in the profile slots. Another way to search the catalog is by clicking on a title once and pressing a letter or number. This instantly takes users to the first title starting with the letter or number they typed in. Instead of scrolling through the catalog until they get letter “B,” users just need to press “B.”

The Big Problem

When I started using the search methods offered by All My Books, I realized that the catalog, while satisfying my initial system analysis requirements, failed to work in the way I hoped. I wanted quick and easy access to my nearly two thousand book-strong collection and wish list. The search box and the filters, while they could satisfy user search queries quickly, were not fast enough for me, so I began tinkering with how information gets displayed in the scrollable catalog. The scrollable catalog required no extra typing or filtering to search through a collection, thus making it the easiest search option for me to use. I soon found there was a limit to the scrollable catalog’s effectiveness. All My Books organizes its content by the first symbol in the beginning of a book’s title, starting with 1 through 9 then continuing on with the alphabet.

While organizing based on a first number or letter makes the display appear neater, it does nothing but hinder me in searching through the catalog––especially when looking for books in a series.

Solutions

A sizable portion of my personal collection is made up of books in a series. With the way All My Books sets up its scrollable catalog (by alphabetizing) and how books in a series sometimes do not share a common series title, related works could be separated by hundreds of other unrelated books. The books that are a part of the science fiction series based on the novel Gateway illustrate the problem:

Annals of the Heechee
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Gateway
Heechee Rendezvous
The Boy Who Would Live Forever

Despite the fact that Gateway is the first book in the series, Annals of the Heechee gets placed ahead of it in the catalog because it starts with an “A.” Because my All My Books catalog contains close to two thousand items starting with the same letters of the alphabet, books in the Heechee Saga, as Gateway’s series is known, and other series like it are displayed nowhere near each other.

The alphabetizing and separating of titles was creating an inefficient structure that hurt the usability of All My Books. I began analyzing All My Books hoping to modify it in some way to create a more efficient structure. Due to the limited modification options available in the free edition of All My Books, the only option left open was being able to change the information displayed in the profiles and scrollable catalog. Because my problems concerned the scrollable catalog, I focused on that particular area. The scrollable catalog displays information contained in the “Title” slot from the frame of the book being searched. The connection between the catalog and the “Title” slot indicated this is where any modifications to the scrollable catalog should be made. Since the indexer is allowed to change any piece of information in the slots, they can precombine available descriptors before the item in question gets displayed. With the idea of a precombination system in mind, I settled on adding keywords to books to designate them as being part of particular series to solve my problems with All My Books.

To decide what keywords a user might think of in relation to a books series, one needs to understand the natural language processing of users. Natural language processing, or NLP for short, acts as a survey for the designing of a system, with an emphasis on language and word usage. One of the purposes of using NLP is to prepare a description for a document. By analyzing what language a system might be dealing with, an indexer using NLP could assign a class in order to place an item into a specific category. When modifying All My Books, the thinking behind selecting a keyword as a class descriptor came from what naturally came to mind when looking at a series. The Harry Potter series offers an excellent example of how the process worked. Since the release of the first book fourteen years ago, the series has become one of the most popular in the world. Terminology from the books, such as muggle, has become part of everyday language. It would be to an All My Books indexer’s advantage to use that ingrained knowledge to display books in the scrollable catalog, so that when people search for the Harry Potter series, they can just use those ingrained terms to indicate all Harry Potter books. Looking at the system semantically also pointed me in the direction of developing keyword descriptors. A semantic-based system involves relationships. Individual concepts would be connected to other related concepts. Creating relationships between similar items such as books in a series follows a natural mode of thinking in the same way NPL identifies natural linguistic connects. The keywording of an entire series helps form these relationships, bringing all the books in the series together, thus eliminating the time spent scrolling or using any additional filters. For example, instead of the individual parts of the Heechee Saga being placed in different areas of the catalog, keyword relationships create a neighborhood, as seen here:

Heechee Saga: Annals of the Heechee
Heechee Saga: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Heechee Saga: Gateway
Heechee Saga: Heechee Rendezvous
Heechee Saga: The Boy Who Would Live Forever

A neighborhood is a cluster of objects brought together by an existing relationship. In the case of All My Books, the Heechee Saga volumes (the objects) were brought together by a set of keywords, the existing relationship created by using “Heechee Saga” as the keyword descriptor. Creating a neighborhood through keywords works by taking advantage of All My Books’ alphabetizing function. Since the words that came to my mind when I thought of the series, “Heechee Saga,” started with an “H,” and all the titles began with the same words, All My Books displayed the entire Heechee Saga together in the same section of the catalog.

However, despite the benefit of bringing books in a series together, the keyword descriptor failed to meet one of my original desires I outlined in the system analysis of All My Books––the identification of the proper chronological order of a series. Lacking a thorough knowledge of a series can hurt a person’s ability to identify what order they should read books in. I personally experienced this problem when starting Lord of the Rings. I bought The Return of the King before reading The Fellowship of the Ring or The Two Towers because I did not realize, nor see any indication on the book itself, that The Return of the King was the third title in the series. I became confused when the book kept referencing previous events and other pieces of information only those who had gone through the first two books would have known. When modifying All My Books, I wanted to solve the book chronology issue. The solution involved using numbers in a similar fashion as the keywords. By placing a number descriptor before the actual title of the book, but after the keyword descriptor, the catalog keeps series neighborhoods together while also lining up books in proper sequential order.

The following conceptual data schema diagram illustrates how the overall series-searching system, including the keyword descriptors and number descriptors, would function:

Entity
Item
Series
Key
Number

Relationships

Key<signifies>Series
Item<isidentifiedby>Key
Item<isin>Series
Item<isnumber>Number

The entities are the distilled versions of the information to be included in the database. “Item” is the material being compiled in the database. In the case of All My Books, the items being compiled are books. “Series” identifies the actual series an item is in. “Key” is the keyword or keywords an indexer determined appropriate in identifying a series. “Number” signifies the place of the book in the series. The first relationship indicates what series a specific keyword or keywords identifies. With the “Key” – “Series” relationship established, the next relationship connects the keyword or keywords to a book. Using the resulting associative relationship, “Item” – “Series,” the book can now be connected to the exact series being identified by “Key.” The last relationship identifies the chronological location of a book within a series. To the benefit of those who maybe do not want to use the new descriptors to search for a series, the series–search conceptual data schema also does not interfere with normal free-text searching that All My Books or another library catalog might use. For example, if a user searches for Hunters of Dune using the exact title or just Hunters without involving the series identifier, the user will be directed toward the book schema because the keyword and number descriptors add, not remove, information from the title.

The following theoretical scenario shows how the number ordering might help patrons in a library:

A patron who just finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone wants to find out what the next book they should read is. The library the patron goes to recently installed All My Books with the keyword and number modifications. By typing “Harry Potter” into the catalog, the patron sees the following on screen:

Harry Potter (1): Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter (2): Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter (3): Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter (4): Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter (5): Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter (6): Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter (7): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The patron finds the number of the book they finished, which is (1), and then finds the book with (2) before it, which is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Concerns with Changes

Despite both modifications meeting my requirements, two issues might hurt the widespread use of the keyword and chronological numbering organization system in All My Books and other cataloging systems. The first issue concerns the numbering system. As outlined previously, the chronological numbering system is supposed to order books by the way they are supposed to be read. In a perfect world, the numbers should line up.

While series with nine or less books in them will line up properly, beyond that, things get messy. An example of when the system breaks down is the Dune series of science fiction novels. Written over several decades, the Dune universe spans sixteen different volumes: The six originals by Frank Herbert and ten prequel, sequel, and additions to the original series by Frank’s son Brian and author Kevin J. Anderson. In the perfect world, with the changes made to All My Books working as intended, the series should look like this:

Dune (1): The Butlerian Jihad
Dune (2): The Machine Crusade
Dune (3): The Battle of Corrin
Dune (4): House Atreides
Dune (5): House Harkonnen
Dune (6): House Corrino
Dune (7): Dune
Dune (8): Paul of Dune
Dune (9): Dune Messiah
Dune (10): The Winds of Dune
Dune (11): Children of Dune
Dune (12): God-Emperor of Dune
Dune (13): Heretics of Dune
Dune (14): Chapterhouse: Dune
Dune (15): Hunters of Dune
Dune (16): Sandworms of Dune

Unfortunately, the numerical cataloging method when used in All My Books organizes the Dune series in the following manner:

Dune (1): The Butlerian Jihad
Dune (10): The Winds of Dune
Dune (11): Children of Dune
Dune (12): God-Emperor of Dune
Dune (13): Heretics of Dune
Dune (14): Chapterhouse: Dune
Dune (15): Hunters of Dune
Dune (16): Sandworms of Dune
Dune (2): The Machine Crusade
Dune (3): The Battle of Corrin
Dune (4): House Atreides
Dune (5): House Harkonnen
Dune (6): House Corrino
Dune (7): Dune
Dune (8): Paul of Dune
Dune (9): Dune Messiah

The Dune example shows that All My Books organizes any item with numbers in the title by the first digit of the number. Instead of placing the tenth book (The Winds of Dune) after the ninth book (Dune Messiah), the tenth book gets placed after the first book (The Butlerian Jihad). Every subsequent volume whose number starts with a “1” will fall after the tenth title. The same occurs with all other single-digit numbers. From a usability standpoint, this problem makes my chronological ordering system not completely user-friendly. While some series such as Harry Potter or Twilight do not have to worry about having more than nine items cataloged, people could become confused when looking at series with ten or more books. If users did not know what the numbers meant before using the catalog, they might select the wrong book to read next or wonder why someone would be employing a catalog that places the tenth volume of a series after the first volume.

The second biggest problem with All My Books changes after the numbering issue concerns single titles. The keyword and chronological ordering system is designed around a series. However, not every book in a library’s collection can be placed into a series. War and Peace, Ulysses, The Grapes of Wrath, and numerous other titles cannot be organized by numbers or keywords. An indexer would have to let All My Books organize standalone books alphabetically. The only way to separate these items out from the rest of the catalog involves the search filter. By indicating what subject to place the book under, a user can search through a shrunken-down portion of the collection. However, the purpose of the keyword and chronological ordering system is to eliminate most of the need for filtering options, not encourage them.

Conclusion

The objectives of a library catalog should be to offer intelligent access, easily identifiable titles, and show relationships between materials. Despite a few issues, the modified book-searching system created for All My Books satisfies the objectives and solves the problem of displaying series information in a library catalog.

The post Why So Serie-ous? A New Way to Catalog Books first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

While it’s true that e-books are books, it’s also true that e-books are not books. The comparison and contrast––and ultimately the paradox––is reminiscent of a Zen kōan (or saying) which is sometimes used to find a truth by juxtaposing two confounding statements. And like a kōan, exploring the paradox can be helpful in determining the truth about e-books, and the public library’s new role in this rapidly shifting world of content where, for the sake of profit, form and function appear intermingled but are really separate things.

This broadening of the definition of book complicates one of the primary functions of the public library, which is connecting people to information, education, and enrichment (mostly in the form of books) at no direct cost to the seeker as a taxfunded public good.

What happens when this primary function undergoes a dramatic shift, especially when it’s not driven by the library, but by the marketplace? We’re living it right now.

A physical book is mostly one thing––a near-perfect technology to deliver the printed word. When information was mostly print, libraries developed the  methods and practices to find the good stuff and organize it in ways that makes efficient use of space and makes that good stuff easy to find. Working with the simplicity of a single physical format, libraries created a fairly complex and effective structure to select, collect, curate, and distribute physical materials. The book remains unchanged for its entire lifecycle, which for many libraries is a fairly long time. Eventually, the book wears out, or is weeded. Otherwise it doesn’t change. Further, libraries buy (and own) physical materials and loan them to people, with few restrictions. When you own books, the details of loaning are your choice.

E-books are mostly many things. It’s helpful to remember that when a book is an e-book, the physical form and the function become two separate things, despite the appearance that they are one.

The core content is text, stored electronically, and accessed electronically. To read (access might be a better term), you need electricity, a piece of hardware (like an e-reader), an operating system, power, and connectivity. The content is (mostly) not owned by a library, but leased for a period of time.

Libraries can buy and loan e-readers, of course, but they are different beasts. Despite the fact that a single device can hold many licensed e-books, the devices can be costly compared to physical books. Since they are designed with a single user in mind they can be troublesome to configure in a multi-user environment. The content pretty much stays the same, but the hardware (with its ongoing obsolescence cycle) runs in and out of our lives at a brisk pace. Case in point: How many times have many of us bought the Beatles The White Album? Original vinyl; reissued vinyl; 8-track; cassette; CD; remastered CD (you know, because the sound on that first CD edition was really terrible); and now in games like Rock Band. The format changed; the content pretty much remained the same.

To the consumer or library patron, an e-reader is a cool, handy device to access and read books. To the vendor (including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others) an e-reader is primarily a personal, mobile storefront for their wares (just try configuring your new e-reader without setting up an account and sharing your billing information––you won’t get far). It’s in this way that the physical form (e-reader) and content (e-book) can appear as a single thing––but the relationship between the two is created to help a company prosper in the market. Add to it that only certain titles are available on certain platforms, circulating e-readers in a public library starts becoming complex quickly.

It’s no wonder that libraries are grappling with e-books. Libraries are experts in managing physical books. E-books are really nothing like physical books, and the tools we have are not adequate to deal with them.

Libraries have been mostly in the backseat on this wild-ride shift to digital materials. The public is showing its love for the new book format. Sales of e-books from vendors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble are beginning to outstrip the sales of physical books. E-books make great sense in the marketplace. While the creative process to make a good book will always require a substantial investment of blood, sweat, and tears, the storage and distribution of e-books takes relatively tiny resources in comparison to physical materials. Less overhead means more profit. The writing has been on the wall for some time, but now it’s in indelible ink: Electronic publishing is here to stay.

The public library marketplace for e-books, on the other hand, is dismal. Libraries are reporting astronomical increases in e-book checkouts (reflecting the commercial marketplace, patrons are showing love for library e-books), but when we look closer the numbers appear to be much like an increasingly growing fish in a tiny pond. Libraries literally have less than a handful of viable options to lease, buy, or facilitate e-books for patrons. With so few options, most libraries I’ve spoken to feel over a barrel. So much for the library brand being books. What if we can’t get the e-books we need to serve our communities and our role?

Not only do libraries have few solutions for e-books, but the ones we have are imperfect. I’m grateful for the options we do have. Bless you OverDrive, 3M, Net Library, and libraries like Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries and others who have waded through the murky licensing waters to make it possible––at all––for libraries to obtain e-books to lend to patrons. At the same time, librarians and techs know that current e-book solutions are mostly difficult for patrons to use. In stark contrast to physical materials, it’s often easier to purchase an e-book than it is to borrow one from the library. It’s a dark joke that underscores another shift.

The shift to digital is sometimes accompanied by talk about the relevance (or perceived lack thereof) of the public library in the modern age. The attack isn’t
necessarily new, but if books (including ebooks) are our brand, and if we can’t get books in the same manner as we can now, for the first time ever the critics have some credible fuel for their fire.

As libraries, we wring our hands every time someone who should know better questions the relevance or purpose of the library. When OverDrive announced future support for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader in spring of 2011, CNET Senior Technology Editor Brian Cooley seemed surprised that libraries were needed at all.³ In fall 2011, comedian and political commentator Bill Maher (in an interchange with Penn Jillette) said “We have the Internet. We don’t need a library at all.”⁴

Of course, the library community was quick to react. Were either one really serious? Who knows. Shouldn’t these two know better? Perhaps. But if they don’t, where does the blame lie? I recently had my own mini-crisis considering the relevance of the library, thanks to a bright shiny technology object with a black apple on the back of the case.

I remember how I felt the first time I picked up an iPad. With access to e-books, music, spoken word, movies, television shows, specialized (and educational) apps, the Internet, and more, I had a terrible, horrible thought.

“If I have an iPad, why do I need a library?”

This thought is one that many are having. If you work in libraries, it’s probably just a fleeting thought. After all, public libraries serve the public good. I love technology and the cool, vital things a competitive market brings us. I also know that there is a unique value in how the library removes commerce from the equation –– no direct dollars change hands for the information. Tax dollars do the heavy budgetary lifting.

If you don’t work in a library, the answer might not be so apparent. When Cooley and Maher question libraries, the part of me not getting miffed begins to really understand how they might feel that way. I could pat myself on the back for taking an enlightened approach to the conflict, but it really doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me realize just how enormous the issue is, and what is really at stake. This isn’t about libraries or librarians getting respect, or even about jobs. This is about how market forces could, perhaps unknowingly and without malice, wipe out the public good served by libraries.

I believe the purpose of the library transcends physical formats. In practice, in our rapidly changing world, our purpose must transcend any format that information comes in. For a moment, consider the (terrible, horrible) possibility that libraries are not able to get physical books like we have in the past, and that the majority of adult titles shift to digital. What if we still only have less than a handful of imperfect choices to lease and loan to patrons. Are we still a library?

It’s time to examine our missions in this new world of content. Books are our current brand, but in a world that is shifting to electronic forms, and to fulfill our public good role, our brand needs to change. I would love our brand to be “access to the resources and tools in an ever-changing world.” That means access to e-everything, including the tools and training needed for content creation, and in physical spaces. Places to gather and discuss ideas. Places to learn, and places to teach.

Knowing how to go forward isn’t a snap. Too much is changing in too many places. Our organized efforts, from adhoc groups to professional associations, are feeling the strain. By the time the membership understands the nature of the problem, the problem itself has sometimes changed. Al Franken, in his campaign against net-neutrality legislation, spoke to a group of techs at the annual South by Southwest Interactive conference and urged them to use the Internet to save the Internet.⁵ In that same manner, I believe we can save libraries with libraries––but only if we know where we’ve been, what’s  happening now, and how to retool libraries to take them where we want them to go.

REFERENCES

1. OCLC, Perceptions of Libraries, 2010: Context and Community (Dublin, Ohio: OCLC, 2010), accessed Jan. 30, 2012.
2. OCLC, Perceptions of Libraries, accessed Jan. 30, 2012.
3. “CNET Editor: ‘The Library? How Quaint!’” LISNews blog, Apr. 23, 2011, accessed Feb. 7, 2012, .
4. “Bill Maher Doesn’t Like The Library,” YouTube video, 0:59, posted on LISNews blog, Nov. 11, 2011, accessed Feb. 7, 2012.
5. “Sen. Al Franken to Introduce Net Neutrality Bill,” YouTube video, 1:54, posted on Save the Internet, accessed Jan. 30, 2012.

The post If Books Are Our Brand… first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Genesis of the Event



LPL, founded in 1759, serves a population of more than 206,000 residents in fourteen municipalities in Lancaster County. As with many free public libraries in Pennsylvania, the library is a 501(c)(3) and only partially supported by government funding. Due to major cuts in state and municipal funding, the library now must generate more than 60 percent of its operating income itself. We do this by soliciting donations from the community, hosting benefit events, and employing miscellaneous techniques such as passport application processing.

Ever seeking novel ways of fundraising, in late 2010 we experimented with email as a means of soliciting donations from our library’s cardholders. We targeted a new class of donors in this campaign––the computer-oriented millennial generation (born after 1980) whom we believed might be more responsive to an email than a snail mail donation request. We created a message to specifically appeal to this younger generation of library users
(see figure 1).

The email campaign brought in a few thousand dollars in online donations. We also received several encouraging responses about using email as a communication method. One of the responses was from a thirty-something local artist named Christian Herr. He wrote that he had not been hitherto aware of the library’s need for outside donations. Although short on cash, he expressed a desire to support the library by volunteering his services. We invited him in to discuss his ideas. Herr explained that the millennial generation may not always be able to give monetary donations, but that they do want to help nonetheless. He suggested that perhaps he could encourage fellow young, emerging artists in our community to donate artwork to the library. These could then be sold via an art auction. This was an exciting and timely idea because the library’s home city of Lancaster has developed a burgeoning arts community with many downtown galleries near the library. Herr’s enthusiasm caused us to agree that an art auction might be a great way to raise money and library awareness as well as being a vehicle to promote local artists. This idea soon caught on with the community. Herr’s community spirit prompted additional support from a church, a restaurant chain, local breweries, a university, an art school, several businesses and many individuals for what became known as the Library Lovers’ Art Auction (LLAA).

Scope and Planning of the Project

Forming the LLAA Committee and Assigning Roles

The next step was to form a committee of experienced individuals who could plan and implement the various aspects of the event. We staffed the auction committee with positions (drawn from the Friends volunteers and library staff) to handle art solicitation; sponsorship solicitation; art inventory; publicity and catalog preparation; facilities and art display; event arrangements and refreshments; silent auction; and event cashiers, clerks, and runners.
This was a perfect event in which to include the Friends of LPL. The Friends operate as an auxiliary fundraising and advocacy group for the library. Since the auction would involve a collaborative effort between library staff and the Friends group, it was decided that the library director (myself) and Friends president Cordelia Moyse would both serve as co-chairpersons of the LLAA committee. We both recruited committee members from among staff, Friends, and other volunteers. Our Friends president was able to recruit some influential community members to join the committee as well as provide essential advice and material support.

Logistics

The first task of the committee chairs was to pick an auction site and date. A problem was that the library’s community room did not readily lend itself to an art auction event. However, Moyse is the wife of the rector of the St. James Episcopal Church, which also happens to be the library’s next-door neighbor. St. James had purchased an unoccupied warehouse adjacent to the library with the intention of using it as a community center. They were willing to host the auction as the inaugural event for this venue. The warehouse was undergoing construction to bring it up to code and the appeal of the location was its urban, industrial Greenwich Village–like arty look. The committee unanimously agreed that it would be an ideal place for an art event. However, there was concern regarding the size of the warehouse being too small for the auction. To solve the problem, the event arrangements chair, Joe Hess, recommended using a rented tent and chairs to hold the live auction in the adjacent parking lot. The pre-auction storage and display of the art would be in the warehouse along with the refreshments and the silent auction. Because the auction would be in a tent, we selected an early October date when the weather would still be mild. We decided we would have an early Saturday evening auction with ticket admission with a preview party the night before with refreshments at both events.

Recruiting an Auctioneer

One cannot have an auction without an auctioneer, so recruiting the right one was a critical step. Although some-not-for profits may employ volunteer amateur auctioneers, we sought a professional auctioneer who could provide valuable skills and experience and necessary auction supplies. Through personal contacts on our library and Friends’ boards we were able to get the area’s foremost art auctioneer, Karl Bolz, to graciously agree to serve as our auctioneer on a pro bono basis, waiving his standard 10 percent commission fee. Even better, he also agreed to provide us with free auction bidder number cards and bidder receipts, offered to publicize the auction both on his website and in the national AuctionZip database, and even offered to bring his computer-based, real-time bid recording system (which most professional auctioneers have) to the auction. He also offered us use of his professional auction clerk staff on an at-cost basis.

Solicitation of Artwork and Sponsorships

Our auction required three levels of solicitation:

1. soliciting works of art and crafts to be auctioned;
2. soliciting cash sponsorships and catalog advertisements; and
3. soliciting donations of food, drink, and services.

Herr, the young artist who came up with the idea for the auction, accepted the primary responsibility for soliciting original art from his colleagues in the local artistic community. We also recruited the city of Lancaster’s public art manager, John Lustig, to join the committee to provide us with his expertise and experience in evaluating and selling art. Herr and Lustig served as our resident “art jury” and also coordinated the hanging and display of the art at the auction. With their input, we prepared a set of donation criteria to ensure that only high-quality pieces of original art, signed prints, and select crafts from recognized artists and artisans would be put up for auction. As each art piece was received, it was cataloged, photographed for the auction catalog, and stored in a secure climate-controlled site in a local community center that was volunteered by an LLAA committee member. We, of course, formally thanked each donor and recognized them in the auction catalog.

The LLAA committee focused its art solicitation on emerging artists. We realized that some of these artists might have financial situations that could prevent them from making outright donations of their art to the library. Therefore, we offered to take their art on consignment, providing them with a portion of the sale proceeds up to 50 percent. Though not encouraged, we accepted minimum reserve starting bid prices if required by the artist.

Donated and consigned artworks covered a wide spectrum of styles, media, and subjects. We received original paintings, original magazine sketches, collages, ceramics, jewelry, leather crafts, antique photographs, and signed prints. Subjects included landscapes, nudes, still lifes, portraits, and geometric designs. We also mined the library’s storage areas for auction items and found numerous and various pieces of art accumulated through donations and bequests over the years. These included original drawings, signed prints, and examples of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania German hand-lettered and illuminated Fraktur birth certificates. These items were retrieved, cleaned up, framed as necessary, and added to the auction inventory.

The two LLAA committee co-chairs also agreed to solicit high-quality art and craft items from the personal collections of library users and volunteers and from local art galleries and artisans. Friends and volunteer committee members also agreed to solicit cash donations and advertisements for the auction catalog from individuals and businesses.

The tools we employed to solicit included four solicitation letters from the committee. There was one for artists, another for art collectors, one for potential sponsors, and another for food and drink donors. We also employed direct personal visit solicitations to art galleries and followed up with letters, visits, and telephone calls.

Auction Refreshments

St. James Episcopal Church generously agreed to provide the refreshments for the Friday night preview party to celebrate this first event in their new warehouse community center. We had set the auction night ticket price at $25 (or two for $40) and felt that for this amount we needed to provide some refreshments that were more than just snacks. We decided on heavy hors d’oeuvres, which would satisfy those who came to the late afternoon auction without having supper. The arrangements and refreshments subcommittee chair sought donations of food and drink from local restaurants, breweries, and wineries. We planned to serve beer and wine with the hope that relaxed and happy auction-goers might bid more. This required us to obtain a state-issued, special occasion liquor permit for the preview and auction dates at $30 per day. Although we allocated a $1,000 budget for food and beverage expenses, we found that this was tight. Fortunately we were able to obtain donations of food from Isaacs, a local deli chain. Two local microbreweries, Iron Hill Brewery and the Lancaster County Brewing Company, also donated a variety of craft beers. The owner of Isaacs Deli, Phil Wenger, who is a noted art collector, also provided a cash donation to obtain wine and specialty food dishes not available from his deli.

Promotion

Promotion was necessary for the success of the event. We sought to promote the auction as early as possible. A press release was sent as soon as a few key pieces of art were donated and the event details were finalized. The local newspaper covered the event with a nice feature article in the pre-weekend entertainment section. The event was also promoted on local websites and online calendars as well as Facebook. We took advantage of our large email list and sent several electronic announcements. Images of the artwork were uploaded to the library’s Flickr account and linked to the library website. The auctioneer also included images of the art as it was received on his website. LLAA posters were prominently displayed around the library and elsewhere.
The only paid advertising for the event was through a local arts organization,LancasterARTS. There was a $200 fee to be a featured member of the local Artwalk weekend. As a featured stop on the Artwalk, the auction was promoted in all of LancasterARTS’ advertising for the weekend. This was especially important because the LancasterARTS audience was exactly the type of people whom we hoped to reach.

Designing a Unique Logo

We were fortunate to have Ryan Martin and Ryan Smoker, the two owners of a local graphic design firm, The Infantree, offer their logo design services for the auction pro bono. They created an original logo to capture both the library and art elements of the auction. The result was an award-winning logo that was used on all promotional materials, including posters, invitations, and the catalog. The logo was prominently displayed on our LLAA poster and event invitation (see figures 2 and 3). In early 2012, we were both surprised and pleased to discover that our Library Lovers’ Art Auction logo received one of HOW’s 2012 International Design & Interactive Graphic Art awards. The logo is one of only six selected for publication and it shares space with some fabulous conceptual work. Although all auction volunteers cherished and proudly displayed their souvenir logo T-shirts and posters, the fact that they portrayed an award-winning design made them all the more collectable.

Capturing the Event on Video

Another example of an emerging artist coming forth to help the library was Andrew Bailey, a local Lancaster filmmaker, artist, and also the son of our LPLWest-Leola branch manager, Cindy Bailey. He captured the event with a two-and-a-half-minute video that is available on YouTube.

Catalog Design and Printing

The catalog layout proved to be a very time-consuming project that would have benefited from earlier and stricter deadlines. Again, because of the lack of upfront funding we relied on staff and volunteers to compile and design the catalog for the event. Fortunately, another local artist offered to assist us in creating a folio design for the catalog using the new logo.

This same graphic artist also created an original woodcut (see figure 4) from which he created fifty numbered and signed prints to be sold to benefit the library. He gave 100 percent of the proceeds to the library. This commemorative poster was featured in the catalog and sold at the preview event for $50 each.

Invitation Design and Lists

We compiled an invitation list to include all current library donors, local elected officials, and recommendations from LLAA committee members including known local art collectors. Major donors of art and cash were offered complimentary tickets. The invitation was designed to use the new logo and be compatible with the LLAA poster and catalog. Invitations were printed and then stuffed and mailed by library staff and volunteers.

Preview and Event Hosting

The date chosen for the event was selected to be coordinated with other related events in the city of Lancaster. As mentioned previously, the weekend of the auction was also the weekend of the city’s fall Artwalk event. The committee felt this would be a good weekend since many people would already be in town with the intention of buying art. On the evening of the day before the event, we held a preview that was open to the public at no charge. During the preview, hosted by St. James, light refreshments were served and some silent auction items were available for bidding (see figure 5). Proxy bids were also taken at the preview and auction tickets were sold.
As a highlight of the preview event, a locally based art school, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, provided fifty pieces of student art to be sold to attendees at a fixed price of $25 with proceeds to the library. Proud parents of the art students purchased many of these pieces.

The Main Event

The event was held on a Saturday evening with doors opening at 4 p.m. and the auction beginning at 5:30 p.m. Though we sold tickets in advance for the event, tickets were also available at the door.

Honorary Chair and Emcee Appointment

Meredith Jorgensen, a local television station news anchor, was the celebrity emcee for the event. The committee also selected a local restaurant chain owner, Phil Wenger, to be the honorary chair in deference to his generous sponsorship of the event. These were both great for adding to the prestige of the event.

Organizing the Auction

In advance of the event, an ad hoc group consisting of the auctioneer, art jury, and church facility manager met first to determine the most advantageous way to display and label the pieces to be auctioned and then reconvened to hang the art on the warehouse walls. The auctioneer provided some scaffolding and the rest was improvised. Auction committee members served as ushers, servers, auction runners, clerks, and cashiers. They were identified by their “uniform,” a T-shirt adorned with the LLAA logo. Souvenir T-shirts were also sold to auction attendees and quickly sold out. As people entered the LLAA warehouse, they provided their admission ticket to a clerk who registered them and entered their identification data into the auctioneer’s computer system’s bidder database. They then received a unique bidder’s number card and auction catalog.

Bid Control, Collecting Payment, and Distribution to Artists

As each item was sold by the auctioneer, the item’s catalog number, the winning bid amount, and the bidder’s number were entered into the computer file by the auction clerk. At the end of the auction, a bidder needed only to show their bid number to the cashier who then retrieved and compiled all of the bidder’s purchases and printed out an itemized and totaled invoice (including sales tax) for everything purchased by that person. We accepted payment by cash, check, and credit card. Having the ability to accept credit card payment (especially for big-ticket items) was essential as the majority of items were paid for in this way.

Following the auction, we printed a comprehensive list of all sold items showing winning bid prices for each and compared this with artist consignment agreements specifying percentage due the artist. The amount due each artist requesting a percentage of a sale was then calculated and checks were cut and mailed as required. This was very time consuming and we are seeking a way to automate the process.

Live and Silent Auction Inventory and Bidding

In addition to sixty-five live auction art pieces, there were also twenty-five donated silent auction items. Silent auction pieces were those items deemed inappropriate for the live art auction and included pieces of sculpture, pottery, jewelry, craft items, and gift certificates. Each of these was displayed with a bid sheet. People bid on each item by entering their bidder’s number and a bid amount on the item’s sheet. The highest bidder won the item at the prescribed ending time. Silent bidders could return as often as they wished to enter increasingly higher bids if initially outbid.

We allowed for proxy bids from people who could not attend the auction or were uncomfortable with live bidding. A proxy bidder indicates in advance the item they want and the maximum amount of their bid for it. An auction volunteer then serves as the bidder’s proxy by bidding on the item in question for them until it is won or the maximum specified by the bidder is exceeded.

Delivering the Goods

Upon paying for an auction item, the winning bidder’s invoice was marked paid and this was used to retrieve the item from inventory and deliver it to the successful bidder. In cases where the high bid was by a proxy bidder or the winning bidder left early, the item was held for the successful bidder to pay for and pick up the following week. A secure storage site was required for these held items.

Auction Total Final Results

• Total Income: $1,000 in-kind, $9,703 in cash donations, $14,258 sold auction items, $4,334 misc. (sponsorships, posters, raffle, and so on) for a grand total of $29,295
• Total Expenses: $10,978
• Net Proceeds: $18,317

Yielding this much with a first-year library benefit auction is unusually good based on our collective experience.

Problems and Successes

As with any first-time event, there were some unanticipated difficulties. Missed deadlines, lack of a central file for all art/artist information, shortage of focused and dedicated committee members, better control of physical tickets, lack of consistency of catalog information collected, catalog design issues, overly high reserve levels, confusion about setting reserves, and an overly complicated method of accounting for consignment fees are a few of the problems we encountered that will be handled differently in future library auctions.

In addition to achieving its fundraising goal, one of the most positive outcomes of the LLAA event was that it really increased awareness of LPL as a community resource and its need for broad community support. This resulting collective response was overwhelming and gratifying. So many different population segments came forth to volunteer to donate art and to donate in-kind aid and cash support. It became a true grassroots community and fun benefit event. It also provided a wonderful opportunity to forge new, valuable, and lasting relationships. These will pave the way for future Library Lovers’ Auctions, which will now be an annual event at LPL.

The post The Library Lovers’ Art Auction: A Community-Driven Public Library Benefit Event first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

OverDrive recently announced that it will update its popular audiobook download services to include new options for readers to instantly “See Book—Hear Book.” Scheduled for launch later this year, streaming audiobooks will be available on a wide range of Internet-connected devices, including smartphones, tablets, and computers. Streaming technology will eliminate long downloads. A “Listen Now” option will complement the download options already in use with OverDrive Media Console apps. OverDrive will incorporate the streaming option into the free Over-Drive Media Console apps, enabling readers to access complete audiobooks or to immediately sample excerpts without first downloading the title. This new feature will complement the current download options, which allow readers to transfer titles to a variety of iPod and MP3 audio devices or burn to CD. Streaming audiobooks will enforce copyright and support-permitted lending models, and access to each streaming audiobook will expire at the end of the borrowing period. Streaming audiobook samples will also be available to patrons and students inside the library with the recently announced OverDrive Media Station. OverDrive Media Station enables in-library access to digital content on touchscreen monitors and public Internet workstations. A preview of OverDrive Media Station is available.

ALA Introduces Mobile Commons Service

The American Library Association (ALA) has partnered with cell phone marketing provider Mobile Commons to provide text message alerts for library advocacy issues. The new, free service makes it easy to make just-in-time calls to Congress on specific issues. Subscribers can expect to receive two to three text message alerts per month from the ALA Office of Government Relations, with the option of making a toll-free call to legislative offices. Alerts will include talking points on specific issues. Register for the new service by texting the word “library” to 877877, or register online at www.districtdispatch.or/textalerts.

Recorded Books and Zinio Debut Digital Magazine Stand

Recorded Books recently announced that it will begin distribution of the popular Zinio digital newsstand to public libraries in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. “Zinio for Libraries” will allow public library patrons to read, interact with, and explore the largest selection of magazines by just using their library card. Zinio provides a quick and easy way for library patrons to read digital copies of their favorite magazines. Using their Mac or PC, reading fans will be able to access the library’s catalog of selected digital magazines. Zinio’s unique digital platform recreates a magazine page-for-page, including highly visual full-color pictures, while taking the reading experience even further through intuitive navigation, keyword article search, and interactive rich media elements such as audio and video. The program supports simultaneous use of titles. Per-title pricing is in addition to a tiered platform fee that is tied to annual circulation. Zinio for Libraries offers titles in twenty-three languages. The Zinio platform provides global access to more than 4,500 magazine titles covering every major genre, industry, specialty, and hobby, across a wide range of devices.

CIVICTechnologies Releases CommunityConnect

CIVICTechnologies, the leading national provider of market segmentation and geographic information system (GIS) data and solutions to libraries, recently announced the availability of CommunityConnect. CommunityConnect is a software-as-a-service solution that helps public libraries allocate money for resources, services, and collection development by predicting people’s needs and interests, neighborhood by neighborhood. By combining market segmentation data with a library’s patron and checkout data, CommunityConnect helps libraries find new customers, increase services, address low literacy rates, compare service areas, and perform market research, among other features. CommunityConnect helps libraries do three important things: (1) understand their community, (2) predict what people are interested in, and (3) deliver relevant services. This customer-driven approach to library service is based on analyzing and combining different data sets, including census data, library data, and market segmentation data. The result is an interactive web-based software solution that helps library staff assemble the right mix of collections and services to meet customer needs. CIVICTechnologies provides web services, customized applications, and consulting services to libraries and businesses.

Google Enables Indoor Maps for Libraries

The post New Product News – Sep/Oct 2012 first appeared on Public Libraries Online.