American Libraries Magazine

A Snapshot of Our Nation’s Bookmobiles

Sanhita SinhaRoy — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:24:45 +0000

Martha Buckner

National Bookmobile Day, April 17, celebrated during National Library Week, is a chance for libraries and patrons to recognize and honor mobile services and the dedicated employees who ensure that patrons who are unable to reach brick-and-mortar libraries can still receive library services. Here are examples of several public libraries that offer bookmobile service and how they are helping their communities:

Aurora (Ill.) Public Library’s Outreach Services Department (OSD) serves residents of the state’s second-largest city with a minivan and a 41-foot-long bookmobile. OSD has bilingual employees who help serve a population that is more than 40% Spanish speaking. The bookmobile makes both school and community stops and is available for special events, including parades and festivals. The minivan makes weekly lobby stops to serve senior citizens (who can also participate in the homebound program, OSD’s fastest-growing service). Additionally, the department provides an express center, deposits collections in nursing homes, has a traveling storytime service, organizes summer stories in the park, provides popular fiction to public middle-school and high school media centers, and has senior programming. It’s a “busy department with enthusiastic staff members,” says Kathleen Butzen, manager of OSD and the library’s satellite Express Center.

The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (JMRL) in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been offering bookmobile service since 1946. The system started with a single downtown library and two bookmobiles that served the surrounding counties; it has since grown to nine brick-and-mortar libraries and one bookmobile. The bookmobile now focuses on preschoolers and senior communities, with a few rural and cul-de-sac stops included. The bookmobile is the only link many JMRL patrons have to the library. Bookmobile Branch Manager Willow Gale says that after one bookmobile patron recently died, the patron’s daughter and grandchildren visited the bookmobile to tell the children on board that reading was important. “One of the best aspects of bookmobile service is the relationship we develop with our patrons,” Gale says.

The Chemung County (N.Y.) Library District’s bookmobile serves the entire county and visits senior centers, day cares, pre-K classes, as well as other stops in the community. The bookmobile also appears at Saturday community events and festivals. Bookmobile driver Kimberly Jones shares two stories from both ends of the patron age spectrum: A preschooler once asked the bookmobile clerk, “Are you my grandma?” and made both Jones and the clerk “feel like we really do reach out and touch some lives.” And an elderly patron confided that she had visited the bookmobile as a child, and now that she is elderly and cannot get around easily, would have given up reading if it wasn’t for the bookmobile.

Theresa Gemmer, former outreach librarian at the Everett (Wash.) Public Library, shares two stories from her days on the library’s bookmobile: At a rural stop, a man in coveralls peeked into the bookmobile and asked, “What kind of rig is this?” Gemmer invited him in, to which he proudly replied, “I haven’t read a book since high school.” However, he began to check out car repair manuals and came to the bookmobile for help when he needed to reroof his house. When he married, he brought his wife in so she could get information about plants for making natural dyes and later for books when they were expecting their first child. Gemmer says, “I am willing to bet he still hasn&#rsquo;t read a book since high school, but through the bookmobile he found out that the library has a lot to offer, and he became a library user and supporter.” Another story she shared involves a stop in a subsidized housing complex with many new immigrants. “A small boy came in clutching a library card application and handed it to me saying only, ‘Book?’ As his English improved, he became a voracious reader and stopped to visit regularly even when he had outgrown the collection on our children’s bookmobile. We gave him lots of support as he worried his way through the college application process. That young man received a Gates Millennium scholarship, which he used to earn his college degree at Stanford.”

Susan Parkins, outreach specialist at the Laramie County (Wyo.) Library System, drives the bookmobile 120 miles round trip to serve her most distant patrons. Parkins says of the elementary school in Horse Creek, 40 miles northwest of Cheyenne, “I believe it is definitely a worthwhile stop, even if there are only three students and the teacher. They all love to have the bookmobile stop by and it gives them a lot more options than their small school library can offer.”

The Rochester Hills (Mich.) Public Library has a fleet of two bookmobiles that cover 72 square miles weekly. They stop at schools, churches, and shopping centers throughout several communities. The second bookmobile (pictured) visits day cares and preschools to focus on children from birth to age 5. Patrons include those with limited transportation, who speak English as a second language, have limited physical mobility, or are job seekers. Karen Wiedman, outreach and bookmobile librarian, shares this quote from a satisfied patron: “I walk to the bookmobile and experience the best that the library has to offer. [Staff members] help me find the hidden gems of books that I would never have considered reading … and their encouragement to branch out from my normal reading patterns has opened me up to new authors and genres.”

Nearly 80% of patrons served by the two bookmobiles at the Wayne County (Ohio) Public Library are Amish. An average of 20,000 items per month are circulated to nearly 3,000 patrons that visit the 75 stops on the three-week schedule. Patti Stevic, bookmobile manager, says, “Our reward is knowing we are bringing a much needed service to a segment of our local population that otherwise would not benefit from all the library has to offer them, as well as others who live in the outskirts of our county who take advantage of connecting to the library through the bookmobile.” She adds, “Just today I had the privilege of checking out to the ‘bookmobile lady’ I knew when I was growing up. I like knowing that I am now ‘the bookmobile lady’ to the patrons I am here to serve.”

To all those who serve and support our country’s bookmobiles, we say thank you. Happy National Bookmobile Day.

MARTHA BUCKNER is president of the Association of Bookmobile & Outreach Services and supervisor for Bookmobile and Outreach at the Ashland (Ohio) Public Library.

ALA Celebrates 50th Anniversary of “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Mariam Pera — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:12:21 +0000

On April 16, ALA staff members gathered for a reading of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as part of a worldwide celebration marking its 50th anniversary.

ALA was one of 207 sites around the world where King’s letter was being read aloud today. Although part of a larger, international event sponsored by the Birmingham Public Library (BPL), the ALA event was organized by its Office for Diversity (OFD) and the Office for Literacy and Outreach Services (OLOS), both helmed by director Michelle Harrell Washington.

“When the Public Library Association (PLA) brought the event to our attention, we knew we wanted to do something to show ALA’s support, and it coincided with National Library Week,” said Washington.

The letter was sectioned and delivered in its entirety by several readers chosen by OFD/OLOS staff in an effort to represent diversity in ethnic background, as well as perspective.

“We wanted to find people from all walks of life. We had people with historical connection to Dr. King, someone in the media, and we of course wanted to have librarians represented. The office staff was instrumental in making these connections, either through networks or making cold calls to people who might be a good fit,” Washington said. “And because of the diversity of our readers, the delivery of the letter was more impactful. I think our team did a very nice job of placing the readers thoughtfully without really knowing them.”

Two of the readers—Haki R. Madhubuti, poet, publisher, editor, educator, and founder of Third World Press, and Bennett Johnson, vice president of Third World Press—had met and worked with King during the civil rights movement. Madhubuti even shared a poem he wrote about the day King was shot.

Other readers included Carolyn Anthony, director of the Skokie (Ill.) Public Library and the 2013–2014 president of PLA; Ben Rodriguez, chair of the Spectrum Scholarship Program Advisory Committee; Keshia Garnett, manager of Chicago Public Library’s West Englewood branch; Satia M. Orange, former director of OLOS; Kim Bellware, associate Chicago editor for the Huffington Post; Felicia R. Shakespeare, library media specialist at Ross Elementary School; and Lian Sze, program coordinator at PLA.

“It was important to continue to remember and celebrate the letter,” Bellware said. “In 50 years, there will be two generations of people that are shocked by what life was like in a segregated America. It’s important to look back at it and understand the trauma it caused for so many people, and for our country. I’m so grateful that things changed. I couldn’t imagine living that way.”

“I had a great time participating in this event and I look forward to more of them happening in years to come,” Rodriguez said.

“I was very pleased with the level of staff support,” Washington said. “I know how busy we all get especially leading up to conference, but it was a lovely sight to see all those staff members attend.” She hopes this is the beginning of an annual ALA event during National Library Week.

IMLS Partnership Announced at LC Citizenship Ceremony

Mariam Pera — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:56:12 +0000

In honor of National Library Week (April 14–20), 25 new US citizens swore their Oath of Allegiance at the Library of Congress in a special naturalization ceremony on the morning of April 15. Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), administered the oaths.

Mayorkas and Susan H. Hildreth, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), also announced a partnership between USCIS and IMLS that will provide public libraries around the country with immigration and citizenship information.

Through this partnership, information about citizenship and the naturalization process for immigrants will be more readily available. For example, USCIS and IMLS will:

Provide library personnel with information on USCIS processes and educational resources;
Distribute citizenship and immigration materials to designated libraries;
Partner to combat the unauthorized practice of immigration law;
Highlight promising citizenship education practices that can be replicated; and
Hold citizenship information sessions and naturalization ceremonies in local libraries.

The new citizens—whose countries of origin included Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Venezuela—were addressed by Hildreth and Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

Persepolis Stays in Chicago Public Schools but Out of Classrooms

Phil Morehart — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:49:21 +0000

Phil Morehart

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett has reversed a directive to pull Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, from CPS libraries, though she maintains the book is not appropriate for 7th graders and should be removed from classrooms. Byrd-Bennett’s reversal comes amid criticisms and complaints from parents, teachers, students, and others about the decision, which was dictated in an email sent to schools on March 14 ordering removal of all copies of the book from school libraries and classroom instruction by March 15.

“We have major problems with this book removal,” said Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and the executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation. “We believe that removing books from the hands of kids is chilling and is an act of censorship. It reflects the totalitarian society that this book is all about.… It does not reflect the democratic institution of learning that the Chicago Public Schools is supposed to be.

“We strongly urge Chicago Public Schools to provide a full explanation of how the decision was made to remove this book from classrooms and libraries in the first place.”

ALA and FTRF have filed Freedom of Information Act requests for all documents relating to the removal order.

The award-winning autobiographical graphic novel details the author’s life as a young girl living in Iran during the Iranian Revolution. The initial CPS order was given without addressing reasons for the removal, but subsequent statements have noted that it may have been prompted by objections to the book’s depiction of torture, particularly a single frame of art showing a torture victim being urinated upon, whipped, and burned with an iron by his captors.

Because of the book’s representation of daily life under a repressive regime and its focus on a young girl’s struggles to find identity, Persepolis was identified as an instructional text in CPS’s Literacy Content Framework (Common Core) Seventh Grade Toolset—a curriculum guide provided to teachers for the 2012–2013 school year.

“It was brought to our attention that it contains graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general use in the 7th-grade curriculum,” Byrd-Bennett stated in an official CPS release. “I have asked our Office of Teaching and Learning to develop professional developmental guidelines so that teachers can be trained to present this strong, but important content.”

Upper grade levels may be affected by the decision, as well.

“We are also considering whether the book should be included, after appropriate teacher training, in the curriculum of 8th through 10th grades.”

No timeline for the book's reinstatement in CPS classrooms has been announced.

The CPS decision prompted a protest at Lane Tech High School on Chicago’s west side on March 15. Approximately 150 students gathered in the rain to object to the book's removal.

Watch video [2:19] of Barbara Jones’s statement.

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Utah Suit Restores Access to In Our Mothers’ House

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:20:20 +0000

March/April 2013

Beverly Goldberg

As of January 14, elementary-school students in the Davis (Utah) School District were once again free to borrow the Patricia Polacco picture book In Our Mothers’ House, which district officials had ordered in May 2012 to be placed behind the circulation counter and made available only to youngsters who presented written parental permission for them to read it. The district’s change of heart toward the picture book—a multigenerational tale about the family life of a lesbian couple with three children, told in the voice of the oldest child—is a saga unto itself.

It all began in January 2012, when an unidentified parent of a Windridge Elementary School student filed a materials reconsideration request after her kindergartner brought the book home. The complainant objected to the book on the grounds that it “normalizes a lifestyle we don’t agree with.” After the Windridge School Library Media Committee voted to move the book from the Easy Reading section to Fiction, which is designed for 3rd–6th graders, the parent, along with 23 others, appealed to school-district officials. A seven-member District Reconsideration Committee voted 6–1 on May 8 to restrict access after committee member Michelle Beus, the district’s legal issues specialist, cited a 2004 state law, Civic and Character Education in Schools (PDF file), which prohibits “the advocacy of homosexuality” in curriculum materials.

Within a few weeks, district officials were asking school librarians to identify other gay-positive children’s books in their collections. “It’s almost like they want to preemptively pull books that might disturb somebody,” DaNae Leu, a media specialist at the Snow Horse Elementary School, said in the June 1, 2012, Salt Lake Tribune. “I feel like Joe McCarthy is asking me to name names.”

Over the summer, the ACLU and the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a series of letters urging school officials to revisit their decision. The lack of progress prompted Tina Weber, the mother of three Davis School District students to file a First Amendment lawsuit in November seeking to end the restrictions. “Our job as parents is to make sure we teach our children about our values,” Weber stated. “We can do that without imposing our personal views on the rest of the school community.”

As part of preparing a formal response to the lawsuit, which has since been settled, the Utah Attorney General’s Office had advised Pamela S. Park, assistant superintendent for curriculum at the Davis School District, to review the grounds upon which the District Reconsideration Committee had approved the restriction. Park rejected the committee’s argument that the picture book violated Utah’s prohibition on “the advocacy of homosexuality” in curriculum materials since it “has never been recommended or used as instructional material.” In a January 11 letter ordering the book’s reinstatement, Park also wrote that she supported several favorable conclusions drawn by committee members about the title, including: “The book could help prevent bullying of kids from same sex families” and “This book teaches acceptance and tolerance.”

“I am happy that all parents will now have the chance to make their own decisions about their own children,” Weber said January 31.

“It is bigoted to reject these books just because some parents can’t tolerate differences,” Patricia Sarles, school librarian for the College of Staten Island (N.Y.) High School for International Studies, told American Libraries. Creator of booksforkidsingayfamilies.blogspot.com, Sarles said that making gay-themed books available to children “is no more about promoting an agenda than depicting a kid in a yarmulke or a kid on crutches is about promoting an agenda.”

Public Library Users Want Both Books and Technology

George Eberhart — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0000

March/April 2013

A new report by the Pew Research Center indicates that free access to technology in public libraries is as important to Americans ages 16 and older as printed books and reference services. “Library Services in the Digital Age” (PDF file), released January 22 by the center’s Pew Internet and American Life Project, showed that 80% of the 2,252 interviewees said borrowing books and consulting reference librarians were “very important” library services, while 77% gave free access to computers and the internet the same rating.

Of those who gave a high rating to technology in the library, African-American and Hispanic users were more likely than whites to feel free access was very important. Women and those with some college experience were also especially likely to feel this way.

The survey was conducted October 15–November 10, 2012, via cellphones and landlines in both English and Spanish. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the survey is part of a larger research effort launched in the fall of 2011 to explore the role libraries play in American communities.

In other survey findings, a notable share of Americans said they would welcome wider uses of technology, such as:

Ask-a-librarian services (37% said they would “very likely” use this service).
Apps-based access to library materials and programs (35% “very likely”).
Access to technology petting zoos to try out new devices (35% “very likely”).
GPS-navigation apps to help patrons locate materials within the library (34% “very likely”).
Redbox-style lending machines or kiosks located throughout the community where people could check out books, movies, or music remotely (33% “very likely”).
Amazon-style customized book, audio, and video recommendation schemes (29% “very likely”).

Larra Clark, program director for the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy, represents OITP on the project’s advisory group. “This is an incredible opportunity to increase our understanding of public perceptions and expectations of libraries in the digital age,” Clark told American Libraries. “Pew does not advocate, but its work provides the ALA, libraries, and library advocates with timely information that can be used to identify gaps and opportunities, as well as communicate our changing roles in the community.”

A majority (53%) of the interviewees said libraries should “definitely” offer a broader selection of ebooks. In addition, more than half would be likely to check out e-readers already loaded with books (58%), take classes on how to download library ebooks to handheld devices (57%), and take classes or instruction on how to use handheld reading devices like e-readers and tablet computers (51%). This represents a significant growth over the past year.

The 53% of Americans who visited a library or bookmobile in person in the past 12 months took part in the following activities:

73% browsed the shelves for books or media.
73% borrowed print books.
54% researched topics that interested them.
50% got help from a librarian. Asked how often they got help from library staff in answering research questions, 31% said they frequently got help, 39% said they sometimes got help, and 23% say they hardly ever got help.
49% sat, read, and studied, or watched or listened to media.
46% used a research database.
41% attended or brought a younger person to a class, program, or event designed for children or teens.
40% borrowed a DVD or videotape of a movie or TV show.
31% read or checked out printed magazines or newspapers.
23% attended a meeting of a group to which they belong.
21% attended a class, program, or lecture for adults.
17% borrowed or downloaded an audiobook.
16% borrowed a music CD.

The Pew Research Center also canvassed some 2,067 library staff members in December 2012 who provided answers to open-ended questions that illustrated what new services they were implementing or considering. Having more digital materials available was high on the list, and many said that they would love to have more ebooks available, as well as tablets and e-readers for checkout. Others wanted radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking systems for books, hands-on projects in makerspaces, digitized local history resources, videoconferencing, and expanded community outreach.

“These findings paint a picture of a public that wants its libraries to be all things to patrons,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project and coauthor of the survey report. “There is no clear roadmap of public priorities for libraries, so different communities will likely come up with different mixes of services as they move into the future.”

ALA President Maureen Sullivan welcomed the report’s findings, saying, “The good news is that our nation’s libraries embrace this broad vision of meeting community needs in person and online and already are working to implement it. The challenge, of course, is determining how to best meet growing information and learning demands at a time when many libraries still face flat or reduced budgets.”

A summary of the survey findings as well as the complete report (PDF file) can be found on the Pew Internet Project website.

ALA and FIL: A Powerful Partnership

Phil Morehart — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 22:21:24 +0000

Peggy Barber

Author Jonathan Franzen, an opening speaker at the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (FIL) held November 24–December 2 in Guadalajara, Mexico, captured the event’s mainstream impact when he exclaimed, “How marvelous that the cultural calendar of Guadalajara is determined by books.”

The 2012 fair marked the 13th year of the ALA-FIL partnership. The event gave the 108 US librarians who attended the opportunity to select books and other media for the ever-growing number of Spanish-speaking people they serve. It also provided attendees a priceless cultural experience.

Established 26 years ago by the University of Guadalajara, FIL is a huge nine-day-long event. Attendance this year reached 701,857. In addition to librarians, publishers from 44 countries, and other professionals from the book world, the fair also attracted thousands of enthusiastic families and busloads of tourists.

Each year, FIL honors a guest country. Chile was celebrated with a huge exhibit at the fair’s entrance, as well as special music, theater, dance, and film programs and performances.

Roberto Delgadillo, a member-at-large of ALA Council and incoming president of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials provided a strong and succinct summary of FIL’s value. “It’s about people, not just books,” Delgadillo said. “The biggest benefit is that you can get so much more than just buying books from a catalog. You can experience different cultures. You can see how our world is changing.”

John Hunter of Woodburn (Oreg.) Public Library attended for the third time. His community has a population of 24,000, of which 60% are Latino. “Attending FIL has made all the difference to our collection,” he said. Hunter has become a self-appointed ambassador for FIL by sharing information with other libraries, hosting an open house at his library to premiere new materials, and making presentations to the Woodburn library board.

Many ALA members who attended FIL 2012 are regulars who have coalesced into an informal “FIL club,” according to frequent FIL-goer Elissa Miller of the District of Columbia Public Library. She said she stays in touch year-round with colleagues from San Antonio, Denver, and Virginia that she met at FIL. Miller praised the scope of the materials and networking opportunities available at the book fair, as well as the fest’s accessibility to the public. “Even the first visit is amazing and you don’t have to speak Spanish,” she said.

The ALA-FIL partnership has produced generous incentives and benefits over the years for US librarian participants. In 2012, FIL provided free hotel accommodations and fair admission, and $100 toward airfare for the first 100 registrants. Additional hospitality came in the form of a gala vendor-sponsored dinner, a cocktail brunch, and the Salon de Novedades—an area in the exhibit hall where new Spanish-language publications are displayed as part of a selection of 3,000 books chosen by ALA members and organized according to Dewey Decimal Classification. ALA provided an additional $100 toward airfare, a FIL guide, and a FIL orientation that was offered both as a pre-fair webinar and an on-site presentation.

Adan Griego of Stanford (Calif.) University Libraries assisted with orientations, presenting useful information about working with available distributors, shipping book selections back to the US, and events. Delin Guerra, program officer for ALA’s International Relations Office, staffed the Association’s booth along with graduates of the University of Guadalajara.

“The country the US should be paying more attention to is Mexico,” said ALA President Maureen Sullivan during her Guadalajara presentation. “FIL is a rich opportunity to learn more about reading, libraries, and [the] productive relationship librarians and educators have with publishers and vendors in this part of the world. I have never seen a trade show so lively, attractive, and full of resources. I encourage librarians to come. It is a wonderful professional experience.”

PEGGY BARBER is former associate executive director for communication for the ALA. She currently operates Library Communication Strategies, Inc.

Libraries Fare Well Overall at the Ballot Box

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:45:03 +0000

Beverly Goldberg and Jordan Brandes

Voters showed their library love at the polls November 6 by supporting a series of millages and bond issues for operations and construction around the nation, although there were also some notable disappointments. What follows is a quick snapshot of library-related election results.

Colorado: Thanks to the passage of Measure 2A in Denver, which enables the city to keep $68 million in property-tax refunds a year beginning in 2013 despite Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights law, Denver Public Library will be able to expand its service hours by 40%, to a minimum of 48 per week. “Denver Public Library will be hiring in 2013! Thank you, voters,” tweeted Children's Collection Specialist Gwen Vanderhage.
Illinois: A whopping 81% yes vote for a $4.1 million library building referendum will fund the repair, remodeling, and expansion of the Broadview Public Library District’s present facility. When completed, the 21,300-square-foot library will be accessible to people with physical disabilities; feature state-of-the-art technology such as smart boards, self-checkout, and an updated computer lab; and offer a dedicated teen space and media creation lab, free 24-hour access to audiovisual materials with a kiosk similar to a Redbox station, and multipurpose study and meeting rooms.
Kentucky: Campbell County’s proposal to build a new South branch was defeated in the polls 62% to 38%. In order to build a new library facility, the county would have had to increase the library millage on property taxes 2 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, which would have amounted to a 27% hike.
Maryland: Prince George’s County passed a $45.1 million bond issue for the improvement of facilities in the 19-branch system.
Michigan: Out of 12 library initiatives, seven were approved (PDF file), including a 10-year, one mill operating levy for the East Lansing Public Library that prompted Director Kristin Shelley to tweet “Thank you, East Lansing!” Among the defeated levies was a $65 million bond proposal that would have funded a new downtown Ann Arbor library building. The initiative met organized resistance: The group Protect Our Libraries campaigned against the proposal with a $21,000 ad buy and web presence whose message was that a new library could cost as much as $130 million over the next 30 years when factoring in bond-debt interest.
Missouri: 58% of voters in the St. Louis County Library District approved Proposition L, which calls for a 6-cent increase in the library district tax rate; the resulting $108 million will be used to renovate existing branches and replace others with new construction. “We are proud that the voters of the library district had confidence in our vision for taking the St. Louis County Library into the future to benefit our children, families, and seniors,” Director Charles Pace said.
New Mexico: Voters approved a $9.8 million general obligation bond to provide acquisitions and capital funding for academic, school, tribal, and public libraries around the state.
Ohio: All 15 millage levies on the ballot passed, including a first-time levy for the Dayton Metro Libraries.
Oregon: Multnomah County voters approved the formation of a permanent financing district that will raise $65 million annually to fund operations at Multnomah County Library. The yes vote ended a 36-year history of returning to voters every 3–5 years to renew temporary operating levies. This measure is intended to prevent reductions in services, programs, activities, and hours.
Texas: All three library propositions passed. In Austin, the approval of Proposition 18 enables the city to provide funding for designing, constructing, improving, and equipping library, museum, and cultural arts facilities. In El Paso, voters okayed Proposition 2, a $228.5 million bond issue to upgrade museums and libraries. The passage of Houston’s Proposition D will provide similar improvements for the city through $28 million in bonds that will go to renovate two city branches—the Freed-Montrose Neighborhood Library and the Robinson-Westchase Neighborhood Library—and to replace two others: the Moody and Meyer branches.
Virginia: In Fairfax County 70% of voters approved a bond that would allocate $10 million of a $25 million bond for the construction of a new Reston Regional Library. The remaining $15 million will fund the renovation of Fairfax County Public Library’s Pohick Regional Library, John Marshall Library, and the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library.
Washington: Proposition 1 passed with a 58.78% majority in the unincorporated area of the Sedro-Woolley School District, enabling officials to form the Rural Partial-County Library District there through a property-tax levy capped at 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation.
Wyoming: A temporary 1-cent sales-tax hike for library construction was passed by 57% of Converse County voters to fund a $23 million expansion of two branches of the Converse County Library, Wyoming State Librarian Lesley D. Boughton told American Libraries. Natrona County Library was not as fortunate, however: An initiative to raise $29.7 million for a new 82,740-square-foot library building lost by 588 votes in a turnout of some 32,000 people overall. It was cold comfort for library supporters to know that the margin of defeat narrowed from the 1,500 margin in 2008 that nixed a more ambitious $43 million proposal for a 96,000-square-foot facility, to be raised through the same temporary funding mechanism.

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Reports still coming in on library flooding from Hurricane Sandy

George Eberhart — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:58:00 +0000

January/February 2013

News coverage and reports from state libraries offered little information about damage to public and academic libraries in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Atlantic Coast five miles southwest of Atlantic City, New Jersey, on the evening of October 29. Many public libraries, including the New York Public Library, remained closed on October 31. As of mid-day, many coastal areas of New Jersey and New York remained without power, preventing damage assessments and the operation of pumps.

The Penns Grove–Carneys Point (N.J.) Public Library was under water on October 30, according to the South Jersey Times. The Milton (Del.) Public Library sustained flooding damage to its carpet and all items on the floor, the October 31 Lewes Cape Gazette reported. An unconfirmed report from a staff member at the Queens Library in New York City suggests that three branches on the Rockaway peninsula of Long Island were flooded.

In many other areas, public libraries served as community centers, providing residents without power at home a convenient place to find a Wi-Fi hub, internet access, an outlet for recharging their phones, and a well-lit, warm place to hang out. Greenburgh (N.Y.) Public Library Director Eugenie Contrata said in the October 30 Greenburgh Daily Voice that Tuesday was the busiest that the library had ever been since it opened in 2008. Assistant Director John Sexton said his duties had primarily been to look for more electrical outlets for patrons to use. The Princeton (N.J.) Public Library was also pressing all of its outlets into service, according to the library’s Facebook page.

Disaster resources for affected libraries are available on sites maintained by:

the Metropolitan New York Library Council
the New York State Archives
and the ALA Library

American Libraries will have further reports on libraries and Hurricane Sandy in the days to come.

Seattle Librarians Elected to Fact-Check the Living Voters Guide

Sanhita SinhaRoy — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:57:18 +0000

A nonpartisan website encourages Washington State residents to opine on upcoming state referenda and get disputed facts researched by indisputably neutral professionals

Jordan Brandes

Librarians at Seattle Public Library are serving as an official fact-checking tool for the state’s Living Voters Guide (LVG), a free nonpartisan service that enables people in Washington State to discuss, research, and ask questions about any of the state’s eight ballot measures for 2012.

Created in 2010 by the University of Washington, LVG works like this: After users log on to the site, they can choose a referendum topic (say, charter schools, same-sex marriage, or university investments), look at a list of pros and cons that other users have posted, and make an informed decision. Each user also has the ability to add his or her own pro or con to the debate by typing it into the main field. If a user wants an item verified, he or she can click on the “Ask a librarian to fact check this point” button. —all within 48 hours of a request. After researching the content of flagged claims, librarians post a response consisting of fact-checking results, with citations, and assign each claim a status of “accurate,” “questionable,” or “unverifiable”—all within 48 hours of a request.

“We want to do it in a way that’s not confrontational,” said Travis Kriplean, a postdoctoral researcher in computer science and engineering who implemented the guide as part of his UW doctoral thesis. “But at the same time we want to be able to provide people with signals as to what’s believable.”

UW created the first version of the guide two years ago in hopes of sparking a civil and objective discussion among voters in the buildup to the 2010 election. The university’s Center for Communication and Civic Engagement won a three-year, $730,000 Digital Democracy grant from the National Science Foundation to introduce civic technologies into actual political contexts, the goal being to improve public deliberation in online communication forums. UW then approached the Seattle CityClub, a civic organization, for additional support. “We knew it would be a great collaboration,” Diane Douglas, executive director of CityClub, told American Libraries.

The guide’s popularity has grown steadily since its first year. In 2010, 9,000 people used LVG; that number jumped to 15,000 the next year. In 2012, she said, “we expect to get at least that.”

The 2012 edition includes a California section that the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, created with funding from the Whitman Institute. “Our goals are defiantly scaling in depth and geography,” said Douglas. “Eventually we would like to become a nationwide thing.”

The goal of the Living Voters Guide, ultimately, is to “have a force that moves toward common ground,” Douglas said. And that’s how the decision was made to incorporate libraries. “They are a trusted nonpartisan resource, just like us. We wanted to create a space where people could have their voices heard as a community.”

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