(c) Andrew Mason on Flickr

Why do we care about e-books versus “real” books?

I, for one, don’t.

“Tree*” books, “real” books or just plain “books” as they’re often called have been around for 5,000 +/- years and now i swear there are more “ebooks vs books” writings than curls on my head. Why is that? Why does anyone care what format our stories, facts, conversations, and fun come in? Why are we so worried that tree books might be going away? Is it because they are “tradition”? Is it because “books” are what libraries are known for and if they go away, we think we’ll disappear too?

I would like to take this moment to remind you that it isn’t the technology that is important but rather the information it is sharing or the problem it is solving. True, a book is very old “technology”, but that’s what it is- it is just another casing through which ideas, stories, facts, conversations, teachings, are shared. And it’s not the method of transmission that’s important- which is only as good as it’s content. Sure, perhaps you like the feel or smell of the book and it’s pages over a device- but don’t you like the story or knowledge ultimately more? Sure, i might be upset if the next generation doesn’t know what it feels like to read a paperback on the beach- sand between the pages and all- but i’m sure my mom isn’t distraught that i have no idea what an 8 track feels like or sounds like.

Perhaps you argue that we’ll be leaving people behind because not everyone will be able to afford an e-reader- well, you’re right. But I’d like to remind you that no matter how fast things seem to go- a 5000 year old technology is going to take a little more time than overnight to disappear- if it ever does. We will always have books- even if they’re in the archives and 100 years old instead of the library for circulation. If the world’s new normal are reading devices that aren’t today’s “book”, libraries will just change their model and loan e-readers. Because in a world of e-readers and no printed materials, e-readers are cheap like books and we wouldn’t care if they’re lost, stolen, or smeared with jelly.

That’s the point, though, isn’t it?- libraries provide ACCESS and COMMUNITY to those who want it. And neither of those things, along with learning, are dependent on a technology, a medium, or a casing. Yes, the hundred-year stereotype of the library is “book”- but that’s just because a book was the primary source of entertainment and education for so, so long. If our current and modern conception of a “book” truly does go away, i’m not worried- I know that society will still thrive on the transmission, creation, and sharing of ideas, facts, stories, and more. And Libraries will always have a place in that world.

e- or not.

==================

Additional Readings:

Bold Prediction: Why e-books will never replace real books. Jan Swafford, Slate.
Books versus documents: what’s wrong with so-called “e-books.” Jon Stokes, ArsTechnica
Buyers of E-Books Still Like Print Too, Survey Shows. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Wall Street Journal.
Will E-Books Really Destroy Libraries?. Charlotte Abbott, Follow the Reader.
The future of libraries, with or without books. John D. Sutter, CNN
Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books: Cushing Academy embraces a digital future. David Abel, boston.com

Footnotes

*first heard at #ALA10 as said by Dr. Marie Radford

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2. Library Day in the Life: Highlighter Day

interesting

to see

our community’s

library usage

in 3D?

In his blog, Doug McCune shared his 3D renderings of crime stats for San Fransisco.
Seeing data in this way can help us make decisions. (Like what neighborhoods to avoid).

Seeing our library usage data could help us see where we need to market ourselves more.

Where are your library card holders?
How often do people visit your libraries?
How does the world look?

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2. September 10th: Slam the Boards Day!

(via Librarian by Day)

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Instead of a ginormous flat screen why not try digital photo frames at your service points? Digital photo frames are CHEAP these days and will allow you to scroll through those static images promoting your program showtimes, upcoming events, new materials, reminders about dvd’s or databases, or even photos from your last exciting event! $50-$100 will buy you a good 7-10 inch frame that you can easily add images to. But you can get fancier than that if you wish, a lot of digital photo frames today are interactive with the internet. Your desktops and bulletin boards will be clear and your customer will still be informed (and maybe even a little wowed). It’s a low investment, high return no-brainer.

Here’s some ideas on what you can put on your service-desk photo frames:

• program showtimes
• upcoming events
• local weather (libraries are also an information center, after all)
• new materials promotion
• location of “quiet” or study rooms
• clues for library treasure hunts
• reminders about dvd’s, videogames, databases, classes, etc
• photos from your last program
• website URL
• list of hours or upcoming holidays
• pointers (ie, “go to the x desk and sign up for a library card,” “people wearing the red ‘Ask Me’ button are here to help”)
• … what else? (share your ideas in the comments!)

Keep your content fresh with new material and make sure you have the scroll time set slow enough that people can read it, but fast enough that they know it actually scrolls.

If you are able to purchase a giant screen, make sure you’re utilizing to the best of it’s ability (read: not static images!). Have your library’s twitter stream scrolling at the bottom (like McMaster University), show current news, or the latest library vod-cast on how to access information about going green. Think outside the… screen. Seattle Public Library has multiple screens that show keyword clouds, recent books checked back in, live data and all sorts of fun LIVE data (the library is a living breathing thing, you know).

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the couch to 5k program podcasts have been on my ipod for ages and i used them a few times when i had a gym membership and was forced to use the treadmill, but my plan is to do this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and continue my current 5:30 basement workouts Tuesdays and Thursdays.

last night i unveiled the plan, quite on a whim, and enlisted the boy to come running with me. he doesn’t do mornings (pre 1pm, to be honest), but he was a good sport about it and agreed to the plan. Thank goodness too, since i needed him to encourage me and set the pace as i found out i do indeed only have two modes: stop or FAST and couldn’t maintain the bat-out-of-hell speed for very long.

the couch to 5k podcast for week one took us through a 5 minute warm-up walk and then intervals of 60 seconds of running/90 seconds of brisk walk, finishing with another 5 minute cool-down walk. the whole process took 30 mins; the exact amount of time i have each morning to workout.

my goal isn’t to become a runner (although that switch might flip in the process) but rather to be able to run. esp, if chased.

to track my route and find out how far i went, i’m using the gmap pedometer, a tool i’ve had bookmarked for ages but have never used more than once or twice. and to track my progress, i’m using google forms. I figured a form will help me keep a consistent log and would be easy so i’m not sidetracked by previous entries.

this way, it’s easy-peasy and i can track what i did and how it went (including any pain, or if i noticed a plateau) which is important to notice any trends (like the stitch in my side) or if i went up to a higher weight. This particular form isn’t ready to track my weight (lifting) data, but i’ll be adding that soon.  And perhaps add a spot for measurements that i can add weekly or monthly. maybe. i hate that kind of thing because them i’m fixated on the number, instead of how i feel, how things fit, and the fact that i can run without problem versus having trouble with it. and if this is going to be a lifestyle for me, it has to be for the thing itself, not the measurements it might lead to.

Here’s the form:

I hope to have a lot of data to analyze at the end of the month and hopefully see any trends emerging so i can tweak and find something that is going to work for me for life.

How do you keep track of goals and progress? I’d also be interested in any runners tips you might have. :-)

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There’s two things i’ve always wanted to do and now that i’ve decided to quit my job, i have the chance to pursue them. I’ve been painting more recently and thought it was time to take it to the next level. I’ve always wanted to paint on a HUGE scale (think 45″ x 87″ versus the 24×30 i normally do). I now have the time and money to rent a studio and go to town. But recently, after riding horses in the deserts of Arizona last week after recently having seen Australia I fell in love with the idea of moving to Australia and herding. I know, it’s totally a departure from everything that people know about me but i got hooked and really want to start from scratch and learn. How bad can life be if you get to sleep under the stars and play with horses? Plus, it’s Australia, and at least i’d have friends there.

But i didn’t know which new life to pick. Obviously, the bf prefers the artist idea because he’d get to stay in Maryland at a job he loves, but the saint he is, he said he’d support me either way. So i did what any girl would do when faced with a serious decision. I let fate tell me. I flipped a coin. And just to be certain, i played rock, paper, scissors.

RPS was a tie. and my lucky coin-tossing shekel stood on edge. The universe had spoken. I had to do  both. We will move to Australia, I will learn to be a cattle herder/cowgirl (yes there’s schools for that!), and continue to paint as a hobby.

I know it sounds completely far fetched, but there’s nothing in this world, in your days, in your hearts, that says you can’t up and change something, anything, or the whole shebang on a moments notice. Sure, it’s going to be hard. We have to sell the house, most of our belongings and move across the world, but it’s an adventure!! One which i hope to be embarking on by the end of the year (it’s going to take some time dismantling this life i’ve spent 27 years building).

The hardest part (other than getting used to the insane Australian wildlife) will be breaking the news to mom, who no doubt will want to move to Oz with me (just to be close). It won’t be as awesome if mommy and daddy follow, but hey, at least they support me, right? :-)

So off i go, to change my stars and dare to lead a different life. I’ll blog my journey as often as i can but i hear there’s no wireless in the deserts of Australia. :-)

// Update //

okay, it’s been 8 hours. time to ‘fess up. today is April 1st. and what you just read isn’t true. Well, not totally. Yes, i do want to learn to ride a horse. Yes, i want to dedicate more time to my art (and have started to do so). Yes, i am getting a little tired of fighting. But no, i am not moving to Australia (i’ll want to visit first). no, i’m not going to become a cattle herder tho sleeping under the stars is awesome. and no, i am not going to stop fighting the good fight that is anything pro-libraries and information access for all.

I will say though, that i did have some delicious fun at ya’lls expense this morning. Twitter was a-buzz with “wait, what?” and “omgwtf you can’t leave!” (similar to the backlash from my 2008 stunt) But after people started looking at their calendars, most of the feedback i received was based on how believable the story was. In fact, Buffy Hamilton said “I could totally see her doing something like that, though!”

the trick to pulling off something like this is to let the story live just slightly to the left of believable. I have to admit, my writing mentors taught me well. I do apologize for any upset i may have caused but you should know something about me: i like to ruffle feathers every once in a while and make sure you’re still paying attention. so thank you for letting me toy with you once every few years. :-)

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• 13,000 libraries offering career assistance vs 3,000 U.S. Dept of Labor One-stop Career Centers
• 2.1 million dvds borrowed from libraries vs 2.2 million from netflix and 1.1 million from redbox
• 12,000 public libraries offering free wi-fi vs 11,000 starbucks and 1,300 b&n’s

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photo by ohine on flickr

I really hate when i’m prohibited access to information. Industry reports tend to bug me the most.

Today I am writing a white paper and a report about texting/mobile and the next steps for MPOW.  Research on the industry trends is obviously a must here. The report i need is the most recent (2009) “CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey.” CTIA, the Wireless Association, formerly the “Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association” offers a ten page summary of the survey which is of absolutely no help to me because it focuses on revenue and subscriber #s instead of usage #s, which is what i want.

The full report (of unknown size) is $450 for non CTIA members. And if you thought being a member would make this affordable, how’s $350? Um no. Data like this should be accessible to everyone! and by that i mean online and FREE. And don’t get me started about the library databases i don’t have access to anymore.

Sure, CTIA will make a lot of money off selling that report (or at least offset the costs of doing the survey) but information like that should be available to the masses. Who knows what brilliance would come out of someone with information in their hands?

I’ve been able to find enough reports (and press releases) of the survey with data i need to get me started but i really want to see the whole report. Pardon me, my librarian is showing – i like to look at the source docs before i trust the data.

Can anyone help?

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It’s a rather heavy muscle that allows us to do everything that we do. Breathe without thinking about it. Think. Create. Solve Problems. Remember the past. Feed ourselves. Move our muscles. The list goes on for days.

Included on the brain’s extensive resume is “able to create and maintain complicated filing systems with explicit and secret recall functions.” I know i’m not the only one who has experienced this one first hand. A common scene in my house is something like this:

Me: The guy’s name starts with a “G”.

Them: Patrick Dempsey?

Me: YES!

Them: There’s no “G” in there.

Me: *sigh* I knew what i meant.

A similar thing happened before the last NJ Librarian’s Tweet-up.  Driving up i was singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The version with all the extra parts like “say it glows… LIKE A LIGHT BULB!” Well at the part where the other reindeer called him names i came out with “LIKE BINOCULAR!” Which besides not being a word, didn’t make sense. It took a table full of hip librarians to figure out that it was “LIKE PINOCCHIO!”

Apparently my brain had filed that part of the song under “things with 4 syllables” and “words with second syllable emphasis.” And make no mistake that this secret filing and recall system also has files named “girl scout camp memories” with a post it note on it that says “only accessible when wet pine is smelled.”

I haven’t figured out what trigger i hit today on the way home but the file contained the memory of a book that i have not had in my possession for at least fifteen years. A book that may have been about a teenager, perhaps a runaway. Definitely had sex and maybe drugs. There may or may not have been a scene with a tub. This book might have been written by a man, or a male-sounding pseudonym. My copy may have been hardcover. It may have been a black and white hardcover. Or it’s cover may be visually confused in my memory with a black and white hardcover photography textbook that i’ve been carrying around with me for about as long as this other memory has sat dormant.

This is a book that, while i have only vague recollections of it’s subject or contents, is one that i distinctly remember passing around to my friends at the large circular orange table in the back of the cafeteria during what was probably 8th grade based on the fact that i think the table was on the left. A classic sign that someone was sharing “elicit” material, our table was a mess of head ducking, giggling preteen girls.

This also happens to have been a book that my mom clearly had deemed inappropriate for a “girl my age” and had taken away from me. I have no idea how i came to be in possession of this book or how it left my possession but i’m fairly certain Mom had something to do with it. Seeing as how she was the only person i recognized in my visual of this event that i still know how to get a hold of, i gave her a ring hoping she’d have some additional clues to help fill in my memory gaps.

When she answered the phone i explained the situation to her and she boldly exclaimed that she “would never have taken away something i wanted to read. But upon further description she starts to recall this incident. Oh good, this wasn’t just my mind turning a movie i saw or dream i had into a memory in the “real life” cabinet.  I didn’t think it was a fake memory as anything based off of movies and books usually are far more vivid as far as the memory goes.

And then in a surprising move, Mom said she’d ask my father if he remembered the book and what the title might have been. Now, my father has the worst memory of the three of us (although i am quickly catching up to him) and while he can sometimes come up with obscure things from a time gone by, I am fairly certain that this bit of information wouldn’t have gotten caught by the filter. But i suppose stranger things have happened. Especially in this family.

Okay, so a bit about memory. It’s got three main bits: Sensory Memory (2 seconds and under),  Short Term Memory (7+/- items at a time) and Long term memory which is that fickle mistress of memories such as this one. Like most recollections of it’s kind, this one is lodged in the Episodic area, or “autobiographical memory” versus Implicit memory which are things like how to tie your shoes, the names of capitals and knowledge of social customs.

The part of the brain that houses memory is the hippocampus, which lies in the back of your head toward the bottom (so technically, Wolverine shouldn’t have lost his memory since he was shot in the forehead. But i digress.) You think you have a lot to do in a day; the brain is taking care of and processing trillions of stimuli and messages at any given moment. How’s the core temp? Breathe in. What’s the keyboard feel like? Breathe out. Oh no! Activate the arm to grab the coffee before it spills. Breathe in.  Your brain never rests and can handle all that stimulation and input, but your MIND can’t, it needs to breathe.

In this minute and a half long video, Author, Speaker, Philosopher and Futurist Peter Russell talks about the difference between the mind and the brain. While the neurons firing like crazy are doing so in my brain, never ceasing, it’s the mind that needs time to rest. We need to give our minds the permission to go wherever they’d like. Giving permission is as simple as not thinking about dinner, or an upcoming meeting, or that you wish this guy would stop driving like an idiot already but just clearing your mind and letting the wind get in there and under some thoughts that have been hiding. You may not even notice you did it, clearing your head, but the moment you think of that brilliant solution, remember something totally random, or have a fantastic idea – that’s the product of giving your mind the permission to go where it will.

I’ve written before about distraction. It’s of great interest to me these days and i’m not the only one; friend and colleague Andy Woodworth recently blogged about disconnecting from the world when it was most literally forced upon him in the form of a power outage during the latest snowpocalypse. The physical brain and the “mind” need time to regenerate and to drift to wherever the winds want to take them. Daydreaming has scientifically proven benefits but we don’t allow ourselves the space nearly often enough.

I really love the strange and seemingly random things my “mind” comes up with. I’m happiest when i’m able to see clearly, combining seemingly random things into brilliance and wonder. [And in a moment of true random connectivity i remember a post i did a few years back about creating magic in customer service.]

So… my point? Take a breath and give your mind time to recouperate from the inevitable toil you put it through. Amazing things will happen if you let the winds blow where they may. Who knows, maybe you’ll come up with that book title for me. (It really is going to bug me).

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our walkways, a little maze, mid-storm saturday morning.

me. in snow. it's deep.

there’s a road under there somewhere.  sunday night.

do i have a customer service message in here somewhere? maybe not. but this storm, which broke Maryland records. just goes to show you that you have to be prepared for emergency situations, even if you think they’ll never happen (like having enough money in your county budget to plow and salt your roads). it’s also a good teaching moment – it’s bad snow etiquette to shovel your show into the street; especially when no one is plowing. and yay for neighborhood camaraderie when everyone, some of whom you’ve never seen, comes out to toil away at the snow and double yay’s for learning that the grumpy old guy who looks like Santa and sits on his stoop smoking is really a nice grumpy old guy who owns a snow plow. score.

Check out more photos from the DC/area snowpocalypse at flickr. and wherever you are, whatever the weather, i hope you’re enjoying it. Because it’s going to change eventually. isn’t that just the way of it. :-)

like for us, another 10 to 20 inches are expected tomorrow through wednesday. good thing i’ve got food. oy!

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