2015 FAST Tech conference, Wed., Sept. 23

Why the Public Library Beats Amazon—for Now

The Wall Street Journal.

A growing stack of companies would like you to pay a monthly fee to read e-books, just like you subscribe to Netflix to binge on movies and TV shows.

Don't bother. Go sign up for a public library card instead.

Really, the public library? Amazon.com recently launched Kindle Unlimited, a $10-per-month service offering loans of 600,000 e-books. Startups called Oyster and Scribd offer something similar. It isn't very often that a musty old institution can hold its own against tech disrupters.

But it turns out librarians haven't just been sitting around shushing people while the Internet drove them into irrelevance. More than 90% of American public libraries have amassed e-book collections you can read on your iPad, and often even on a Kindle. You don't have to walk into a branch or risk an overdue fine. And they're totally free.

Why e-books will soon be obsolete

E-books will be obsolete within five years. Crippled by territorial license restrictions, digital rights management, and single-purpose devices and file formats that are simultaneously immature and already obsolescent, they are at a hopeless competitive disadvantage compared to full-fledged websites and even the humble PDF.

More HERE.

Library to get a hackerspace

The Fayetteville, NY Free Library is installing a hackerspace/fablab with 3D printers, CNC routers and other equipment, available free to the public as a community space for making. The project is led by librarian Lauren Smedley, who is basically MADE OF AWESOME.

More HERE.

Public School Educators: Help Solve Challenges

If you are a public school educator, check out the Department of Education's Open Innovation Portal.
Through the portal, you can help to identify and solve education's most pressing classroom problems. Participating will allow you to connect with other innovators and possibly win a prize.

Broadband Technology Opportuntiy Program (BTOP)

Thirty-five libraries in New York State, including Albany Public Library, have been awarded federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Broadband Technology Opportunity (BTOP) grants to establish Public Computing Centers (PCC's). These libraries will be hiring personnel to direct and work in their PCC's. The libraries listed below are participating in this joint announcement. Particulars on the openings will vary from library to library. Candidates should inquire directly to the contacts listed below. More information on the BTOP program is available at the grant web site.

Follow APL on Twitter

From Stephanie Simon, APL:

If you're a fan of Twitter, make sure you sign up for the library's Twitter feed. We've been sending tweets for several months and have more than 150 followers. It's a fun way to keep up with library happenings on the go. You'll learn about great programs, new books coming out, updates on the renovated and new libraries, and other APL news.

If you don't have a Twitter account, it's easy, and free, to register for one.

Then check out APL's Twitter feed! http://twitter.com/albanypublib

Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google

by Mark Moran, Forbes
Intelligent Investing
http://tinyurl.com/yk8ylea

A year ago The New York Times presented a multimedia, packaged gift to school librarians everywhere. With its profile of Brooklyn, N.Y., school librarian Stephanie Rosalia, at long last, a major newspaper had chronicled the 21st century school librarians role as Web curator and information literacy specialist.
...
Cut to the present, and librarian blogs tell a different story. Many absolutely clueless administrators still believe that a search engine is an adequate substitute for a trained research teacher. With the nation's schools budget-strapped, librarians--and even libraries--are being cut from coast to coast. Even President Obama, whose creation of a National Information Literacy Awareness Month suggests he should know better, left additional funding for school libraries out of his FY 2011 budget proposal.

APL in the News

Swiped again from Stephanie Simon, Albany Public Library:

The March issue of the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce's monthly magazine, Visions, features APL on the cover. Several of our administrators -- Executive Director Carol Nersinger, Assistant Director Tim Burke, and Automation Services Librarian Marcia Middleton -- were interviewed at the new Pine Hills branch in January for the cover story about libraries and technology. The three-page article features APL's new branch libraries and how technology has impacted the way we do business. Several other area libraries -- Menands Public Library, William K. Sanford Town Library, and New York State Library -- are also included in the story. You can read the article online at the Chamber web site.

APL is also featured as the cover story of the Winter 2010 New York Library Association (NYLA) Bulletin. Head of Collection Management Services Mary Coon was interviewed for a story about implementing a Dewey-free classification system at Albany's branch libraries. You can read about the "APL categories" classification system for nonfiction books at the NYLA web site.

International Collaborative Text Reference Service Launches

East Peoria — July 16, 2009

It’s official! People are now sending more text messages than they are making cell phone calls. Librarians are aware of the popularity of texting and are ready to take their professional services to cell phones.

Starting today, patrons of approximately 50 libraries from all over the US will be able to text a question to (309) 222-7740 and a real, live librarian will respond within minutes. The service is free of charge, but standard text messaging rates do apply. Staffed by librarians from around the country, answers are sent to cell phones by librarians in 320 characters or less, or the equivalent of two 160-character text messages.

It’s a different way of helping people get the answers they need, wherever they are at the time, with professional assistance. The service, named My Info Quest is the first collaborative text messaging reference service of its kind. Alliance Library System in East Peoria, Illinois has partnered with participating libraries, Altarama and Web Clarity Software Inc., developers of Peoplewhere to build this exciting new reference service. The pilot program will extend until December 31, 2009. Other partners include San Jose State University Graduate School of Library and Information Science, South Central Regional Library Council in New York, and TAP Information Services.

"Text reference service is the next big 'thing' to hit libraries," said Kitty Pope, Executive Director of the Alliance Library System.

"It is important because it augments traditional core reference services and meets our customers where they are. I would like to thank all the libraries who are so eager to learn this new service and to our great partners Altarama, Peoplewhere, San Jose State, TAP Information and the South Central Regional Library Council in New York; without your enthusiastic support and encouragement this project would have been impossible!"

"The technology is the easy part. The hard part has been months of planning and preparation by dozens of creative and committed library professionals, and we're delighted to be along for the ride," said Arthur Brady, President and CEO of Altarama.

"This exciting project is a great fit for our staff scheduling software, PeopleWhere," states Allison Standen, VP of Business Development for WebClarity Software Inc. "We are happy to take on the challenge inherent in balancing the 50+ participants volunteering 1 to 2 hours a week with the goal of consistent coverage for core hours every day of the week. We also look forward to bringing the knowledge tracking aspects of PeopleWhere online to help the My Info Quest service optimize its resources."

The hours of service will be Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information about My Info Quest and for a list of participating libraries, check out here.

The project is still accepting new library members to join in August. Please contact Lori Bell at lbell@alliancelibrarysystem.com, or 309-694-9200 ext. 2128 if you would like to join or more information on the project.

Roles of public library technology in supporting E-government highlighted in new issues brief

In the fourth of a series of reports related to technology access in U.S. public libraries, the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Research & Statistics (ORS) is highlighting how public library technology supports public access and use of E-government information and resources. The issues brief draws from published national data.

You may view the latest post here.

Technology and books: Is the novel too much for our technology-addled brains?

from the Chicago tribune:

The price of my relentless Internet use became clear the other day when I pulled a well-reviewed novel from a library shelf and all I could think was, “Man, this thing is heavy.”

I knew immediately that no matter how clever the book’s plot or delightful its wordplay, there was no way I would finish it. The part of my brain that once guzzled fiction by the hogshead has lost its thirst.

It’s a depressing realization for someone who majored in English and read the Russian masters for fun. I once prided myself on my ability to conquer the longest, densest text — I devoured the 500,000-plus words of “Les Miserables” during two months of subway commutes — but those days are over.

Too much surfing, scanning and tweeting has given me the attention span of a gnat on Red Bull. Today it’s all Google, no Gogol.

Just an old-fashioned technology

Recent conversation on a library listserv:

*Someone wrote: "Back when I started work there was something called the "Yellow Pages." It was one of my favorite tools."

*Re: finding newspapers in a database (from me) - When I was a page at the Binghamton (NY) Public Library, we had this new-fangled invention called microfilm, where newspapers (such as the NYT, actually) and magazines were stored. In fact, one of my main tasks was to assist the public in the proper use of this high-tech device.

*In the early 1980s, another person had to send a letter, "but all the "Wang" word processors were down, so finally someone just pointed to a typewriter on a nearby desk and said--why not just use that? (Of course, that's no longer an option in an office anymore!)"

Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites

I got one of those e-mails designed to try to entice me to buy a $90 book. Won't happen, but the tease is interesting:

Primary Research Group has published Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites (A Survey of how Libraries Use and Relate to Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, eBAY, Amazon, Facebook, YouTUBE & Other Mega-Internet Sites), ISBN 1-57440-096-7.

This report presents data from more than 120 academic, special and public libraries about how they use and relate to the mega-internet sites such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Amazon, and others.
In many ways the mega-sites have transformed library management, fostering change in information literacy education, library marketing and public relations, cataloging, digitization, collection management and other aspects of librarianship. The report provides hard data on exactly how libraries are dealing with the emerging internet giants, how they are adopting, negotiating, repelling, and embracing them. Just a few of the reports conclusions are reproduced below:

•More than 32% of the librarians responding to the survey considered Wikipedia an “unreliable information source and don’t recommend its use,” while another 65.3% considered it “generally reliable but to use with some caution”, and only 2.48% considered it “as reliable as print encyclopedias”.

•Just over half of the libraries in the sample reported that their library staff and patrons did not really use Google Scholar much. Three in 10 participants answered that they used it “reasonably often,” while just over 8% reported using it “extensively.” Fully 9% of the libraries in the sample were completely unaware of Google Scholar.

•Awareness and use of Google Scholar generally increased as library budgets increased. No library with a budget below $500,000 reported using Google Scholar extensively.

•Over 28% of participants reported that they were currently working with a search engine organization to digitize and make available online elements of their collection. Larger libraries were far more likely than smaller libraries, in terms of budget size, to be working with a search engine to digitize elements of the collection. More than half of the libraries in the sample with an annual overall budget of greater than $4.5 million are working with a search engine to digitize parts of their collection, while only about 11% of libraries with annual budgets of less than $1.5 million are working with a search engine for this purpose.

•Overall, 23.14% of the libraries in the sample had offered workshops that included instruction in use of the Yahoo search engine. Nearly half of all public libraries in the sample had offered instruction in use of the Yahoo search engine.

•11.67% of the libraries in the sample have ever offered a course to their patrons on how to use eBay. More than 41% of the public libraries in the sample have offered such a course, as have 29.63% of libraries with budgets of greater than $4.5 million.

•17.36% of the libraries in the sample had a presence on the social networking site Facebook. Interestingly, 25% of non-U.S. libraries in the sample had Facebook pages, far more than the 16.51% of U.S. libraries in the sample. As might be expected of a social networking site that got its start exclusively focused on academia, academic libraries were much more likely than other types of libraries to have a Facebook page. 22.67% of the higher education libraries in the sample have a Facebook presence.

•31.1% of the libraries in the sample had ever purchased an e-book from Amazon. Non-U.S libraries were more likely than U.S. libraries to purchase an e-book from Amazon. Indeed, more than 45% of the non-U.S. libraries in the sample have purchased an e-book from Amazon, while only 29.63% of the U.S. libraries in the sample have made such a purchase.

•Only seven libraries in our sample have digitized and sold digital print on demand copies of out of copyright works or other works for which they have copyright permission, and then have sold these items through online retailers. Of those that have done this, 16.67% sold through Amazon, another 16.67% did this through Google, and 66.67% through some other online bookseller.

•9.24% of the libraries in the sample have one or more YouTube accounts for the library. 16.67% of the non-U.S. libraries in the sample have at least one YouTube account while only 8.41% of the U.S. libraries in the sample had a YouTube account.

•24% of the libraries in the sample use Yahoo Groups. Non-U.S. libraries were far more likely to use Yahoo Groups than the U.S. libraries in the sample; 58.33% of the non-U.S. libraries in the sample use Yahoo Groups, while only 20.2% of U.S. libraries did so.

•20.66% of the libraries in the sample have staff who use Google Docs special productivity tools, including Google spreadsheets, word processing capabilities and other features.

•10.74% of the libraries in the sample not currently using Google Blogger plan to do so in the near future. A quarter of non-U.S. libraries the sample had such plans, as did 9.17% of the U.S. libraries.

The 100 page report presents more than 300 tables of data defining the relationship between libraries and the megasites. For further information visit the website at www.PrimaryResearch.com