Instead of running a big booth on the show floor or unloading a bombastic keynote speech, Amazon made its presence known at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with decidedly more subtlety. It wedged a vending machine in between a Wells Fargo ATM and a scuffed-up door at the Las Vegas airport.
The vending machine, you see, spits out the company’s Kindle e-reader tablet PCs, which is all it took to catch the attention of showgoers flying in and out of Vegas. It was Amazon’s way of taunting eager-beaver competitors who spent heavily to flog their devices to the CES masses. Like Apple, Amazon knows it will get attention for the smallest of moves. It didn’t even have to show up at CES.
But this isn’t just a nice piece of marketing. Those attendees were right to turn their heads. Though there’s nothing new about electronics vending machines, any foray by Amazon into the world of offline retail is a big deal. When Amazon ventures into the physical world — whether with in-store delivery lockers or grocery trucks or vending machines — the company’s sheer scale and ambition demand that you think in terms of world domination.
In the case of the vending machine, first reported by Geekwire, it’s useful to draw a comparison to the earliest days of Amazon’s business. In the beginning, Amazon was purely an online bookstore. When the company started selling other stuff, brick-and-mortar competitors who didn’t know they had anything to fear from Amazon were caught by surprise — and have been paying for their lack of foresight ever since.
By analogy, it’s hard to imagine that an Amazon experiment with vending machines starts and ends with Kindles. Amazon isn’t struggling for a way to sell the device — the Kindle is one of the best-selling products on its website — and vending machines aren’t likely to become the main sales channel for consumer electronics of any kind anytime soon. After all, they lack the anytime, anywhere convenience of online shopping, and they don’t give you the traditional retail store option of actually holding and touching products you’re thinking of buying.
Amazon on Every Corner
But Amazon has made several moves recently to bulk up its reputation as the “everything store,” trying to persuade shoppers that it really is the place to buy, well, everything. Specifically, through efforts like Subscribe and Save and Amazon Fresh, Amazon wants to convince us it’s the best place to buy not just books and electronics but the everyday household stuff you would typically buy at the grocery store or the drugstore.
And those are exactly the kinds of products that might make sense to buy from a vending machine. When you need toothpaste or soap or kitchen sponges, even Amazon Prime two-day shipping is often way too long to wait. Unless you run an incredibly well-organized household, buying a lot of that stuff online just doesn’t make sense.
At the same time, you don’t gain much by handling a roll of Scotch tape or a bottle of Advil in person before you buy. You just toss them in your basket and go. Aside from being able to walk out the door with what you need when you need it, physical stores don’t offer much more of an advantage when buying such mundane items.
Picture a near-future where high-tech Amazon vending machines are on every corner selling the kinds of things that typically take shoppers to Walgreen’s or CVS. The machines would take up way less real estate than stores, which would keep overhead low. They could go just about anywhere — say, the basements of big-city apartment towers or the courtyards of suburban residential complexes. And they could be refilled by drivers traveling their daily Amazon Fresh delivery routes (or, you know, by drones).
As Amazon has made abundantly clear, it’s never been content to limit itself to any one identity. Its primary business, online retail, is a booming success with customers. But offline retailers from Barnes & Noble to Bed Bath & Beyond to Sears are floundering, and Amazon may see an opportunity. It reinvented shopping with its online store. Why not do the same offline? Perhaps that humble vending machine is where that starts.
Here’s how your favorites stack up against history’s most popular books.
by: Joe Berkowitz
Sometimes literary popularity is subjective. A person could live and work in, say, New York City, see commuters constantly reading the latest from Tao Lin, and assume that it has taken the book-buying community by storm. Objectively popular literature, though, transcends a regional sample and becomes ubiquitous. (Think 50 Shades of Grey, for a recent example, or perhaps never think of 50 Shades of Grey ever again.) But the only way to gauge how popular such wildfire phenomenon books really are is to put them in a historical perspective, and crunch the numbers.
Created by British book blog Love Reading, "The Most Popular Books Of All Time" is an illuminating infographic that measures literary proliferation. This easily digestible collection of data stacks up all manner of classics, both ancient and modern, and shows how they compare to each other in three categories: sales, number of editions, and number of translations. Pretty much every book you’d expect to be there is indeed accounted for, but some of the facts about them might surprise you.
For instance, who knew that Harry Potter sold three times as many copies as The Lord of the Rings, and was translated into nearly twice as many languages? Considering Tolkien’s 40-year head start and the continuing popularity of the film franchise, it seems as though perhaps the disparity would be smaller. Most people looking at this infographic are probably interested in who the big winners are, though. The Holy Quran has printed a half-billion more copies than the King James Bible, making it the most popular book ever (though the numbers don't mark "sales" and these books have been on the market a while). Homer’s Odyssey had the most translations with over 250, while Alice In Wonderland had the most editions at 1,513. Curiously, since Shakespeare’s works were never copyrighted, there’s no knowing for sure how many copies he sold. Probably a lot, though! Check out the other top sellers in the infographic below, and sound off on any big omissions in the comments.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
A rare signed review copy of Stardust keeps being handed back by its generous winners to raise more money for charity.
by: George Berridge
A rare, signed copy of Neil Gaiman’s 1999 novel Stardust is up for grabs in a charity lottery after being re-donated for the fourth time.
The book – number 28 of just 250 advance review copies – was originally donated to the Worldbuilders fundraiser by Gaiman back in 2008.
Since then, the book has been auctioned annually or entered into the lottery and, each year, has been returned by the winner as an act of generosity so it can help raise money for the next year.
The fundraiser was set up by American author Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Kingkiller Trilogy, as a way of raising money for Heifer International. In its first five years, it has raised just over $2 million for the charity.
Heifer donates livestock to impoverished countries and helps them to become self-reliant.
In an extraordinary coincidence, the same winner, called Maayan, was picked two years running.
On his blog, Rothfuss recounts hearing the result: “At the end of the fundraiser, we run our numbers. We cross-reference our list of prizes with our list of winners.
“When I’m told, I look at the assistant holding the handful of papers with grim, fatherly disapproval, telling them in the gentlest of terms that they’ve ****** up and are obviously using last year’s spreadsheets.
“But no. The truth is, Maayan won it again. For the second year in row.”
She promptly re-donated the book. This year's fundraiser ends on February 2 (06:00 GMT) and has already exceeded its original target of $250,000.
Those wanting to donate and enter the lottery can do so via the Worldbuilders website.
Ed Vaizey is crowing about his untrained volunteer army dispensing books to the public. But read the small print before you congratulate him.
by: Catherine Bennett
Describing it only as "very impressive", the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, has been too modest about a recorded explosion in the number of volunteer librarians, up 44% last year, from 23,400 to 33,000. Admittedly, a simultaneous 7% fall in the number of full-time librarians might look like a slender pretext for national jubilation. Yet this massive saving in our libraries is not merely a victory over Big Society sceptics, but evidence that Vaizey is achieving the unprecedented and seemingly miraculous: the delivery, for virtually nothing, of a treasured public service.
The implications of his ministerial alchemy almost defy computation. It is not just the chilling realisation that local authorities have, for years, squandered unimaginable sums on librarians who are manifestly surplus to the operation of a statutory "comprehensive and efficient" library service. How many other tasks, the public will ask, could equally have been performed – and could be so in future – by the kind of civic, amiable, often elderly people, with neither the relevant vocation nor training, who are now coming to Vaizey's assistance? Assuming, as Arts Council England (ACE) does in a recent paper on "community libraries", there can be no principled objection to unpaid management where only inessential, vaguely cultural operations are at risk from local authority cuts, there must be lessons here for museums and galleries, theatres and green spaces, and any other easy targets to which volunteers already make a valued but peripheral contribution.
At the very least, for the sake of joined-up government, the coalition will want to take another look at a page on its National Careers Service website. There, it is misleadingly suggested, a qualification involving stock selection, education, data protection, management, budgeting, lifelong learning, social media, copyright, etc, might have some value in the book-oriented workplace, in which "good spoken and communication skills" are mandatory. So you want to be a librarian? Simply make your way to Lincoln, Leicestershire or Sheffield where, Unison advice notwithstanding, yet more books may shortly be dispersed, pending disintegration, to the care of volunteers, no qualifications necessary.
At this stage it remains mysterious by what curious arts the notoriously reclusive library hater, Vaizey, discovered that hundreds of Britain's public libraries could be harmlessly transferred to amateurs, and whether there are any basic standards or other criteria to which these random operations should conform. But the minister has done some personal research. "All the volunteers I come across say they are running their libraries far more cheaply than the local authority was doing it," was his response to the above volunteer figures, in which some diagnosed a certain disregard for reading, to say nothing of professional sensitivities. If only for a quiet life, Vaizey might want, before opening his mouth in future, mentally to substitute the word "Romanian" for "volunteer".
As it is, so far from regretting the rapidly falling number of already low-paid full-time staff, Vaizey anticipates a day when the free community model is actively preferred, not only as a euphemism for eventual closure. He told a newspaper: "We would at least do the work for them in terms of sourcing the equipment – we can provide them potentially with access to our book stock."
Potentially there could still be difficulties with entirely untrained librarians with no understanding of the books over which they might (stock permitting) preside, but this objection, too, Vaizey has anticipated. "We can provide them with training, and a lot of these community groups would happily pay for them if they were raising money."
Potentially, then, in potentiallyless affluent communities, the absence of such training might be, potentially, to the detriment of users needing book advice, personal support and, quite often, careful management, in a library system that now seems to lack any direction whatsoever. The attraction of warm, friendly reading rooms to lonely, difficult or disturbed people – those public elements that can make libraries so unappealing to their prosperous detractors – might rapidly become a deterrent to some volunteers, not that there appears much guarantee, aside from a CRB check, of their own credentials.
Although there is no record of members of his ever-expanding army of amateurs being more likely than the professional version to respond to, say, lisping requests for Fairy Magic with copies of American Psycho, or to commend to GCSE history students the gospel that is Mein Kampf, there is every reason, as many eminent writers have argued, to worry about missed opportunities to engage readers in ways that are standard in any decent bookshop. Even the strange "Mood-boosting" fiction list promoted by Vaizey's department is an acknowledgement that libraries might, with the potential of their contents to change lives, be about more than cheapness.
"Does he think the job of a librarian is so simple, so empty of content that anyone can step up and do it for a thank you and a cup of tea," Philip Pullman asked, after Oxfordshire county council's leader called for library volunteers. Forget Oxfordshire county council: having fully considered Pullman's point, both ACE and Vaizey would like to know who said anything about tea.
In one of her first statements as children's laureate, in which role she declared that she would "bang the drum" for public libraries, Malorie Blackman recalled how she "lived" in the library as a child, reading The Silver Chair 15 times over. Today, without accountability, no one in this fractured service would be in a position to correct a volunteer who had never heard of CS Lewis, or who suppressed Pullman for religious reasons, or who believed, in common with many from the iPad-owning classes, that physical books are dead. One lead volunteer told a critic of his rural service: "Libraries should provide what people want, and that is IT not books".
But even in IT, no disrespect to community librarians who never aspired to collaborate with Vaizey's increasingly Potemkin service, there are shortcomings, of which they are aware. In Dorset, a volunteer manager detailed problems destined to be exacerbated as the already basic equipment that volunteers inherited becomes obsolete. "Volunteering," she wrote in a letter to Public Libraries News, "by its very nature, is largely undertaken by the retired… Many, like me, are by no means comfortable on computers once we are beyond the boundaries of emails, looking up something on the web and sending the odd photo or two."
In the short term, this might be less of a problem than the embarrassment, anticipated in smaller community libraries, of ordering from a local volunteer with a hazy grasp of data protection a title such as Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Overcoming Binge Eating, or Break Free from OCD. All the above, with many other frank self-help titles, feature on Books on Prescription, a collaboration between GPs and libraries – and 33,000 volunteers. Is the service confidential? Totally, of course. But if in doubt, just ask the untrained and inexperienced librarian at the desk.
Fiction takes flight on Twitter when stories take the social network's connectivity seriously
by: Claire Armitstead
As the second #TwitterFiction festival opens for submissions, it's time to ask if the social networking site has given birth to a new, 140-character genre.
Maybe we should call it the storyella – Penguin US has already snaffled the term twitterature, assembling an anthology of "humorous reworkings of literary classics for the twenty-first century intellect, in digestible portions of 20 tweets or fewer" which perkily promises to provide "everything you need to master the literature of the civilised world, while relieving you of the burdensome task of reading it."
So far so stocking-filler, but what of more serious projects? Those whose memories have not yet been reduced to 140 characters may remember one of the star turns of the first #TwitterFiction festival, back in the mists of 2012. In what could be seen as a nifty piece of marketing for an earlier book, the children's writer Lucy Coats told 100 Greek myths in 100 tweets, including:
'Nobody sees me naked!' Angry Artemis chases speechless stagboy in fatal hunt! Hounds tear Actaeon apart for pervy peeking
Snakes in Cradle Mystery! Baby Heracles strangles serpents with own tiny fists! Chief suspect Hera says 'No effin' comment'
Coats' myths series was funny and smart, but whether any of this year's projects can rise to more than self-promotion will be seen on Twitter from March 12-16 when the selected stories unfurl.
Whether by accident or design, the writer Teju Cole also chose this week for his own latest fictional initiative: a short story called "Hafiz". This 35-tweet tale unfolded over the course of a day, with Cole retweeting texts he had previously asked other users to tweet for him. It tells the story of the eponymous middle-aged man, who suffers a heart attack on the pavement of an unnamed city.
"His right hand was inside his shirt. He clutched at his heart and winced..." To reveal any more would be to strew spoilers before a story which Cole professes to take very seriously indeed. As he explained to the New York Times: "My story … is a creative cousin to works like Shelley Jackson's 'Skin,' a 2,095-word story that was told one tattooed word at a time on the bodies of 2,095 volunteers".
Overblown as that claim might seem, Cole has a point: the best fictions on twitter are forged from connectivity. They don't, however, necessarily involve narrative in a conventional sense. One gem last summer purported to link great writers of past and present into a daisy-chain of literary association. The giveaway was that each name ended with "LPS".
What fangirl's heart would not flutter to read the following from @mayaangeloulps: "Currently sitting with my new and dear friends :) @BeecherStoweLPS @EdithWhartonLPS @KateChopinLPS."
It's a network which offers an alternative to the sometimes mystifying connections of the interactive Literature-map, which has Angelou consorting with writers as diverse as Dante and James Herriot. LPS is arguably neither as original, nor as fantastical as Literature-map (Maya Angelou and James Herriot? Perlease!), but it is fun to leap eras and cultures through a fictional string of follows, and the quotations you encounter along the way chime pleasingly with each other.
Perhaps the last word should go to the twictional Robert Frost, quoting himself: "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life; it goes on." Now that's what I call a storyella.
After a hiatus of a couple of decades China’s love affair with England’s greatest consulting detective is apparently back on. The BBC’s hit show Sherlock is a smash with Chinese viewers – Youku, a Chinese video-hosting website similar to YouTube, is screening the series and within hours of it screening in the UK on New Year’s Day, some 4.72 million Chinese had logged on to watch the latest installment, eager to find out how Holmes dodged death after plunging off the roof of London’s St. Bart’s Hospital at the end of the previous season. Weibo, China’s Twitter, was filled with chatter about the show by fans of “Curly Fu” and “Peanut” (the nicknames given by Chinese fans to Holmes and Watson, because they resemble the Chinese pronunciation of their names).
Holmes mania however is not new in China…It may have been a bit muted of late, owing to the range of books to read and programs to watch dealing with other characters since the burgeoning of popular culture consumption options in recent decades, thanks both to liberalization and piracy. The Chinese love affair with the famous residents of 221B Baker Street, now renewed, goes back much further than crazes for other imports, from sitcoms like Friends to more recent shows like Breaking Bad, which have carved out sizable viewing niches in China.
I can illustrate this clearly via a personal anecdote from the mid-1990s. A colleague and I found ourselves wandering along a deserted back street in Beijing in what were then the wild desolate areas of the city beyond the Second Ring Road (nowadays considered quite central, since the city extends out past the Sixth Ring Road!). We were on a quest to solve a mystery – did a couple of tough looking Beijing guys we’d met in London a year before really want to set up a joint venture with a British firm to disseminate Chinese statistics to the world? In London the two had seemed a bit shabby, with ill-fitting suits, scuffed shoes, and a fair bit of dandruff and in the course of a meeting they had smoked more cigarettes than London has tube stations. Nobody had taken them seriously and they’d been politely shown the door at every big market research firm in town. We thought they might be interesting to work with.
Their office didn’t inspire confidence – a jerry-built rookery covered in white lavatory tiles, with blue-tinted windows, rickety furniture, extremely large telephones, overflowing ashtrays and not a computer in sight. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we did a sort-of deal and then retired, inevitably, to a restaurant to seal our new shaky partnership. The place served Tibetan food and after all the talk of percentage splits, royalties and company formation details we entered the dangerous waters of small talk. We got off to a bad start by mentioning Tibet. The Chinese were ready for that and countered with British policy (as it then was) in Northern Ireland. We changed tack – soccer. Our new Chinese best friends were all Crystal Palace fans. (Note to American readers: that’s a rather obscure –it’s not at all obscure! – British team based in South London that had for some reason signed a Chinese player and so had a disproportionately large number of hard core Beijing fans.) That kept us going for a bit, but not all that long.
Soccer trivia exhausted, things finally picked up when one of their party – a large, jovial man who looked more like he’d come to fit you a new water boiler than one of China’s chief statisticians – leaned across the table and informed us that he was the Chairman of Beijing’s Sherlock Holmes Society. Everyone at the table nodded effusively as if he’d just announced he was China’s new Ambassador to the UK. As former English schoolboys we felt that at last we were on safe ground – Holmes, Watson, Mrs Hudson and Victorian crime solving. What didn’t we know about England’s greatest consulting detective, the good doctor and the canon of Conan Doyle? Well, quite a lot, as it turned out. The guy was a Holmes genius – every story, character, detail memorised. But he was sad – during his trip to London their itinerary had been so busy he hadn’t had a chance to visit Baker Street and pay homage to his idol (to be honest, he didn’t seem altogether clear that Holmes was fictional).
On a trip back to London a couple of months later I stopped by the rather tacky Sherlock Holmes gift shop on Baker Street and picked up a bag of Sherlockian (as Holmes fans are known) souvenirs – key rings, fridge magnets and, at the time, a wonderful new invention: a mouse pad with a picture of a deerstalker hat on it. A return visit to the boondocks of Beijing ensued, the bag was handed over and our exciting statistical joint venture was sealed with copious amounts of beer in a bar with a bunch of random members of the Beijing Sherlock Holmes Society who quizzed us (in those days before Chinese outbound travel became a hot topic) on how bad London fog was these days and whether we’d got round to paving the streets yet. Quite honestly it worked far better, and was a lot cheaper, than a Rolex and a Montblanc pen!
Ultimately my outlay of about the equivalent of US $20 at the Sherlock gift shop got us nowhere. A couple of months later the two guys disappeared; their offices were empty, their phones disconnected and I’ve never heard trace of them since. Still, I like to think that Sherlock mouse mat still gets a bit of use and that my old business partner of about fifteen minutes was tuned in to Youku to watch Curly Fu the other night.
As my brief business partner could have told you, Sherlockian deduction first came to China in 1896 – about a century before my Baker Street key rings arrived! That’s when Holmes was first introduced to Chinese readers in translations of four stories published in the Current Affairs newspaper. So popular were they with readers that in 1916 the Zhonghua Book Company published The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, which included 44 stories that rendered Conan Doyle’s prose into classical Chinese (wenyanwen).
Holmes was a hit! Conan Doyle’s late nineteenth century English logical reasoning was popular with an early twentieth-century Chinese government’s desire to encourage more empirical investigation of issues within a country that in 1911 had changed from dynastic to republic rule. Conan Doyle’s characters moved to the screen, too, when director Li Pingqian directed (and starred in) The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes in 1931 – a film that wasn’t pure Conan Doyle by any means (it swapped London for Shanghai as a setting) but featured a lot of pensive thinking and logical deduction. In the 1920s and ‘30s Holmes was reinvented, copied, and adapted in various ways. Cheng Xiaoqing was a bestselling author who created Huo Sang, a Shanghai Sherlock Holmes complete with a sidekick, Bao Lang who, like Dr Watson, narrates the stories and provides a useful foil. There’s a nemesis of Moriarty-like proportions too – “The South-China Swallow.”
Holmes was also to survive The Curious Case of the Falling Bamboo Curtain and went on being published after 1949. The Maoist spin was that Holmes often battled evil brought about by capitalist greed and bourgeois injustice, which he sort of did, sometimes, if you think about it. In a time of relative hunger for foreign literature, as well as much else, Holmes and Watson retained their Chinese fan base. The men and women I was later to meet for beer in the Beijing Sherlock Holmes Society all began their love affair with Conan Doyle’s stories in the dark days of Maoism.
And Holmes never really left China. A new economic era in the 1980s saw a raft of new translations and re-issues as well as, once we got into the internet age, the emergence of Sherlockian fan fiction, much of which evidently focuses on one possible aspect of the Holmes-Watson relationship not usually played up in the West: the homo-erotic.
The often somewhat lumbering behemoth of the BBC has shown itself rather deft and fleet of foot in China with Sherlock. Faced with The Case of the Pirate DVD Seller and the Mystery of the Illegal Download Site, the Beeb has done some logical thinking and shrewd deduction of its own by screening Sherlock (with official Chinese subtitles) via Youku (which paid a licensing fee to the BBC) just hours after its British screening. Had they waited a few minutes more, they knew, the illegal downloads and bootleg DVDs would have hit the streets. Thankfully it seems today’s new crop of Chinese Sherlockians couldn’t wait even that long for their fix of the further adventures of Curly Fu and Peanut.
Why wait a few hours rather than make it available in China right when it first aired in Britain? Well, unlike a good Holmes mystery, China’s TV panjandrums don’t like surprise endings. The censors had to check for any anti-China content. This was a big issue, as this was Holmes’s return from the dead, and as any good Sherlockian knows he’d spent the years after his tumble over the Reichenbach Falls in that rather contentious spot of Tibet. Does our modern day Sherlock opt for a trip to Tibet and some “me time” in a monastery? Sorry, American viewers (without illegal DVD sellers on every street corner) will have to wait till January 19 for PBS to screen series 3 of Sherlock.
Hearing this from a patron’s mouth after completing one of my Punk Rock Aerobics workouts made me beam like Iggy Pop was signing autographs and I was next in line. Having worked in the programming department of Sacramento Public Library, CA, where we were encouraged to innovate in order to create programs that would draw in nonusers, I became accustomed to bringing my own passions to my job. As a roller derby skater (Lipstick Librarian of the Sac City Rollers) and fitness fanatic, this led to the genesis of Punk Rock Aerobics.
Inspired by Maura Jasper and Hilken Mancini’s book Punk Rock Aerobics, I figured that ten years of workouts had to be good for something. Under the guise of alt+library—which offers programs for people in their 20s and 30s—I decided to make a library fitness program happen. I developed an online playlist, combined different strength and cardio moves, and did the requisite publicity. Then, boom: I had eight to 35 people, twenty- and thirtysomethings, stretching, bending, and flexing in the library. This is a completely free program that only requires the time and willingness to get red-faced and panting in front of colleagues and patrons.
How to make it happen
Here are the steps to take to make it happen.
1 Liability waivers. Make sure you have every participant sign one. I also like to add a tagline (that I say aloud at the event) about my not being a fitness professional, that the routine is just for fun, and participants need not push anything that doesn’t feel right. Ask your system’s legal counsel or use reputable online legal forms databases.
2 Playlist. I love punk. I met Jello Biafra recently and tried not to drool on my Converse when I was introduced. So naturally I created a playlist of classic 1970s punk that ran about 55 minutes long. I used Grooveshark.com, but there are a variety of options. Aim for about 53 to 59 minutes of music. You could choose just a single CD if so inclined. I like to listen to Pandora to find new bands in the genre I’m considering. To date, I’ve hosted several Punk Rock Aerobics, Alterna-Pilates (all that 1990s Pacific Northwest music), Brutal Yoga (black/death metal), Holidaze Yoga (rock covers of holiday songs), Zombie Survival Aerobics, Glam Metal Yoga, Hair-obics (rocking that Poison and G ’n’ R), Bollyrobics (I have a fondness for Aishwarya Rai), Partner Yoga (all duets!), and Come Out for Aerobics (part of an LGBT programming series). I’m working on Riot Grrrl Plyo for women’s history month and Industrial Strength with some :wumpscut: and Skinny Puppy.
3 Routine. Check out a variety of DVDs from your branch and watch them, noting what looks easy to demonstrate to someone else. Check out books on fitness to get suggestions for what to look for in form. There are also websites, YouTube videos, blogs, and more, but using your own collection means that you can have those items available to drive circulation after your program. Match the moves to the songs, and put the songs together for a logical flow, with different tempos for warm-up, cooldown, and cardio bursts. Practice the routine with the music to get the timing right.
4 Publicity. Go into local gyms and introduce yourself to trainers—I was lucky enough to form a lasting relationship with a local fitness community that ended up providing a whole year of free monthly programs in the library, and they brought their members with them! For alt+library programs, we have found that online publicity is our best and cheapest way to promote. Most of our attendees found us via social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook and other virtual resources like WordPress and Meetup.com. If you decide to do print materials, make sure the graphics are eye-catching and appeal to the right audience. Make sure that you publicize in nonlibrary venues; programs like these will attract nonusers. Also, be shameless in forcing your friends to attend; they’ll likely bring someone else along and increase your numbers.
5 Make it happen. Empty out your community room so no flailing limb will whack into a stray chair. Set up your laptop and speakers and be sure you are able to stream your music, the Wi-Fi is connected, and the music is loud enough to hear but soft enough that the group can hear you. Dress the part. Wear your theme gear—I have an autographed (by Jerry Only of the Misfits!) denim vest with punk pins all over it that I wear for Punk Rock Aerobics. Provide water. If you don’t have a drinking fountain nearby, buy minibottles.
Finally, have fun. Library fitness programs are a great, free, fun way to get your community engaged, upend traditional notions of library service, highlight an often-missed portion of your collection, and get your heart rate going at the same time. Enjoy!
Jessica Zaker is Supervisor, Sacramento Public Library’s Arcade branch, CA; cocreator of alt+library; and head coach/skater for Sac City Rollers as “Lipstick Librarian”
TWO Czechs have breathed new life into telephone booths made obsolete in the mobile phone age, converting them into mini libraries with the first one installed at a Prague hospital on Thursday.
On the shelves of the red booth, patients of the IKEM hospital will find a plethora of genres, including works by US crime writer John Grisham, Czech and Russian titles and biographer Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story.
Library mastermind Monika Serbusova, 27, said she and a friend drew inspiration from a similar project in Britain.
They won backing from a local phone operator, then built the libraries with the help of colleagues and friends, painting the booths and installing wooden shelves.
"My cousin who studies at a technical school told us how to mount the booth, my grandma brought us a bagful of books from a scrap yard,'' said Ms Serbusova.
She said they intend to set up other libraries at a shopping centre and elsewhere. They currently have 700 books, but the selection will grow as people have promised to donate large collections.
"The plan is to install nine booths in Prague and then see how successful the project is,'' said Lucie Jungmannova, a spokeswoman for phone operator Telefonica Czech Republic.
She said the company runs over 13,000 booths across the country, down by half from 10 years ago as people increasingly use mobile phones.
Peeking into the new hospital library, IKEM radiologist Radomira Hnutova called it "a wonderful idea''.
"Patients can borrow a book and bring it back when they come for the next scan,'' she said.
But Alena Ulcova, selling flowers down the corridor, voiced concern over the city's high theft levels.
"I only hope people won't steal them. It would be nice if some of the books stayed on the shelves,'' she said.
Majid MaqboolMuhammad Latif Oata inside his library in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, in December, 2013.
On the banks of picturesque Dal Lake in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, sits the only library in the neighborhood, run by a man who loves books but cannot read.
In a single-story wooden house, carefully maintained shelves are filled with around 600 books in several languages, the prize possessions of Muhammad Latif Oata, a 44-year-old handicrafts seller who dropped out of school at age 10 to work.
Over two decades, Mr. Latif, a Kashmir native, has accumulated all these books through exchanges and donations from people who visited his shop, first in Goa, then in Karnataka and now here in Dal Lake, a popular tourist destination. His collection includes books written by authors from many countries, like the United States, Britain, Sweden, Italy and Korea, reflecting the donors’ nationalities.
Since the vast majority of those who visit the library are tourists, he has named it the Travelers Library. Anyone can take a book; all Mr. Latif asks is that borrowers describe the stories contained in the pages of the books they return. Many visitors, who are Indians from other states and foreigners who come to see Dal Lake, leave behind their own books to add to his collection.
“I like to exchange books with the visitors,” said Mr. Latif, who can converse in English, having picked up the language by regularly interacting with foreign visitors over the years. “I trust those who take books from my library, and I tell them if they leave behind bad books here, their children will one day come here and read them,” he said with a smile.
Mr. Latif’s love affair with books began in the early 1990s when he was in Goa, where he sold handicraft items in a small shop. One day, a foreigner stopped near his stall, holding a book written in English by a south Indian author. He didn’t want the book anymore, so he handed it to Mr. Latif.
Because Mr. Latif couldn’t read, he asked the foreigner to tell him what the book was about. The story was about a young girl from a poor family in Kerala who achieved success despite all the struggles in her life.
“When he told me the story of that book, it inspired me and drew me toward the stories contained in books,” said Mr. Latif. “I wanted to know more stories from people who had read them in books as I couldn’t read them.”
Mr. Latif kept that book on his shelf in the shop. Some time afterward, a foreign couple who stopped by his shop asked to buy that book. Mr. Latif told them that he didn’t want to sell it but that he would be willing to give it to them if they left another book for him. The couple gave him two books.
By exchanging books in this manner, his collection on the shelf grew, and visitors would often narrate the stories in the books they left behind.
When Mr. Latif moved to Karnataka in 1997 to set up a small stall in a market to sell handicrafts to tourists, he took his books with him, numbering around 50 at the time. Often customers would stop by his stall after seeing his modest collection of books, and more book exchanges ensued. By 2003 Mr. Latif had collected around 400 books.
As tourists began to visit Kashmir Valley in increasing numbers, Mr. Latif decided to return home in 2007, again bringing all his books with him. At home, he said, his parents and relatives badgered him to get rid of his books or sell them to trash collectors, but he had other plans.
On the banks of Dal Lake, he set up a modest handicrafts store in the house his family owned and installed small wooden shelves. A foreign tourist helped him stack his books on shelves with the titles in alphabetical order. When tourists stepped into his shop to buy handicraft items, he said, many expressed surprise at seeing the extent of his book collection.
Among the titles in his library are best sellers from Nicholas Sparks and Michael Crichton, but there is also a new copy of Edward Said’s 1993 book “Culture and Imperialism,” recently gifted to him by a visitor. Mr. Latif, who has learned to identify his books by their unique publisher marks, pulled out an original hardbound edition of “Goldfinger” by Ian Fleming.
“I have many original, old and rare editions of books which cannot be found anywhere in the valley,” he said with pride, dusting the book off with his hand before carefully putting it back on the shelf.
Local residents don’t seem to know about his library, Mr. Latif said. But he’d like for more Kashmiris to borrow and exchange books with him, he said. He’d also like to get more books in English, Urdu and the Kashmiri language, especially books written by Kashmiris.
“When tourists from many countries see the books in the library, they often ask for books written by Kashmiri authors. They want to read stories about the culture and history of Kashmir,” he says. “We need to encourage our writers and our authors need to write more books and tell the many stories of Kashmir.”
As the father of a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter, Mr. Latif said he wanted to make sure his children received the education that he didn’t get. To his delight, sometimes his son will accompany him to the library without being asked to and picks up an illustrative book or a dictionary from the shelves.
“I hope they read many books from my collection and take care of these books after me,” he said.
Although he can’t read any of the books he owns, Mr. Latif said their very presence remind him of the many people who exchanged books with him over the years, keeping his library alive.
“Just looking at these colors keeps me happy,” Mr. Latif said, pointing at the colored spines of books sitting next to each other on the shelves. “When I have nothing to do, I spend time here looking after my books.”
Majid Maqbool is a writer based in Kashmir. Follow him on Twitter at: @MaqboolMajid
Scientists knew last spring that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was closing seven of its 11 regional libraries housing decades of aquatic research.
But it was not until they saw the shelves being cleared, the books and journals being scooped up for free by private companies, and the scientific reports being hauled off to the dumpster that the magnitude of the purge hit home.
“It’s a loss,” said Burton Ayles, a former DFO regional director and the former director of science for the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg, the site of one of the libraries that have been shut down. “It’s a loss of historic material, it’s a loss of the grey [not widely published] literature.”
The department says it will save $430,000 annually by consolidating material that “remains pertinent to the department’s mandate” in two primary locations – the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C., and the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, N.S. – and two specialized collections.
“The decision to consolidate our network of libraries was based on value for taxpayers,” Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said in a statement on Tuesday.
“An average of only five to 12 people who work outside of DFO visit our 11 libraries each year,” the statement said. “It is not fair to taxpayers to make them pay for libraries that so few people actually use.”
The primary users of the libraries were DFO scientists, who prefer to obtain their information digitally, said Sophie Doucet, a spokeswoman for Ms. Shea.
Peter Wells, an adjunct professor and senior research fellow at the International Ocean Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said it is not surprising few members of the public used the libraries. But “the public benefits by the researchers and the different research labs being able to access the information,” he said.
Scientists say it is true that most modern research is done online.
But much of the material in the DFO libraries was not available digitally, Dr. Wells said, adding that some of it had great historical value. And some was data from decades ago that researchers use to determine how lakes and rivers have changed.
“I see this situation as a national tragedy, done under the pretext of cost savings, which, when examined closely, will prove to be a false motive,” Dr. Wells said. “A modern democratic society should value its information resources, not reduce, or worse, trash them.”
Dr. Ayles said the Freshwater Institute had reports from the 1880s and some that were available nowhere else. “There was a whole core people who used that library on a regular basis,” he said.
Dr. Ayles pointed to a collection of three-ringed binders, occupying seven metres of shelf space, that contained the data collected during a study in the 1960s and 1970s of the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline. For a similar study in the early years of this century, he said, “scientists could go back to that information and say, ‘What was the baseline 30 years ago? What was there then and what is there now?’ ”
When asked how much of the discarded information has been digitized, the government did not provide an answer, but said the process continues.
The department says material was offered to other libraries and third parties. It was also offered to the DFO staff on site, then the general public, and recycled if there were no takers, Ms. Doucet said. Scientists at the Freshwater Institute say a Winnipeg consulting company hauled away anything its workers thought might be useful – material that the scientists say is now lost to them.
“On my last visit, there were bound journals and maps strewn all over the place ... ,” said a scientist who asked to remain anonymous because he still does work for the department. “And it was just appalling.”
Coming in early 2014 to both the Reference Library and the new Fort York branch are digital learning and work spaces complete with Macs, video cameras (and green screens!), professional-grade software—and, of course, 3D scanners and printers, which can do some pretty amazing things. Although the printers aren’t up and running quite yet, they have now arrived—and yesterday, TPL staff got the chance to learn about and play with their shiny, and extremely useful, new hardware. And starting in February, you’ll be able to take a tour of the Reference Library’s Digital Innovation Hub, and get hands-on with its technological holdings.
The Guardian talks to a young woman struggling without a computer or internet access, while her generation lives online.
by: Jana Kasperkevic
It's common to hear executives, lawmakers and venture capitalists talk about our "increasingly connected world", as they pour millions into tech startups and apps. What they don't often say is that the world is connected for those who can afford to pay for broadband.
The rollout of the Affordable Care Act, promising healthcare to every uninsured person online, leaves out a major group: those without regular internet access. The promise of easy internet enrollment is only for those who can afford at-home internet, the cost of which is forbiddingly high for working-class Americans. The digital divide is a major problem in the US, with no regular internet access for over 46% of households that have incomes below $30,000. Lacking internet access, it's difficult to do homework, apply for jobs, or apply to government programs, including unemployment benefits and food stamps.
Just ask Destinyjoy Balgobin, a 19-year-old living in East Harlem. She is a member of the most connected generation in history, which never knew a world without email, and yet she grew up without a computer or internet access at home. She is no stranger to computers, which she has used in school to learn to type and complete assignments. Yet homework, which often required typing or internet research, required a trip to the public library.
Balgobin, who recently graduated from high school, is not alone. Libraries are becoming hubs of research in many places not because of their books, but because of their banks of public computers. According to a 2013 Pew report on library services, 77% of those surveyed said that free access to computers and internet are a “very important” services of libraries. What's more, 66% of those who used internet at a library in the past year did so to do research for school or work. Even while smartphones become more prevalent, their smaller screens, expensive data plans (costing up to $100 a month), and slower connection speeds make them unsuited for tapping out 10-page papers or research beyond Wikipedia.
This past month, Balgobin has moved back in with her mom, who has internet and a laptop provided by her employer. Balgobin is hopeful that soon she might be able to save for a computer of her own. In the meantime, she has an iPhone for her immediate needs.
In this edited transcript of our conversation, Balgobin describes what it's like to grow up without internet. Libraries have become increasingly important to students for their computers and internet. Photograph: Peter M. Fisher/CorbisWas there ever a time when you felt that you didn't need internet? When you thought to yourself, "I can go to the library" or has your reason for not getting it always been cost?
No, it's always been cost. I've never felt like I didn't need it. Especially when wanting to further my education, I have always felt like I needed it for everything: to log onto college applications or to write your college essay or even to research anything. I've never been able to look into anything unless it was on a need-to-do basis, like homework that's assigned right then and there.
Did it ever come up in conversation? Do you ever feel judged? Are people surprised?
They kind of overlook it, [as if] I am just saying it. It probably doesn't matter to them, because they have internet. So they don't …
… realize how hard it is?
Yeah. And I am over here [thinking], "But how am I going to print that? And if it's due tomorrow? But I have to type it first, too?" And everybody is like, "Well …" And I am like, "Can I email it to you and then you print it and bring it back to school?" It’s hard. You don't want to rely on someone else, and you know you could have it done, but you just don't have that accessibility to do it.
Do you feel that if you had internet before, your life would be a little different right now?
Yea, I feel like it would be a little easier. I would have more done. I would feel more self-confident. I wouldn't have to reach out to others to help me do things or when they show me a website, I would already be familiar with it, and at least be halfway done. But [as it is] I always feel brand new, as if they were teaching me something that I should have already known.
What do you do in order to get online?
I try to use it on my phone.
Did you always have an iPhone?
No. I got an iPhone two years ago. Before that I had myTouch, but it was the first one so it was hard to configure the Word documents. I would just try to tell my teachers, "I'll handwrite it perfectly on looseleaf. Or I can come in early and type it while we are in class." Because I didn't have a way to print it, either. Plus, I could've used the library, but with working and everything, I would never be able to do it.
What school was this in?
My high school, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School. I'm starting college in March.
Were most teachers forthcoming?
I feel like I had to be more responsible. I couldn't slack off in order for them to understand me. I couldn't just have fun in school, I had to pay attention and show them that I knew what I was doing, in order for them to realize that I can't write it at home. When they [would] say, "Oh, everybody come in tomorrow with a printed article or print out this article" – at the time I wasn't on good terms with my mom, but when I was I would call her in between classes and ask, "Mom, can you print out this article? All I have to do is bring it in as homework assignment." But if I don't have it physically printed out, I can't show them.
It was hard for me to tell everybody else how important it was when it really isn't that important to them. And for me to access it in a computer lab, they would be just say, "Well, go home and do it." I don't have a printer at home, how can I do it?
It was more rushing around, trying to prove that I did want to do the homework and did want to get it done, I wasn't trying to slack off. I guess I had to show them my personality the whole time, that I was determined about it.
Do you have a computer now?
No. I should work on [getting one], though.
Did you ever have a computer?
No.
Does your mom have a computer?
Yes, but it's for her job.
What if you had to do a research paper? How would you do that? Did you ever use the public library?
Yes, I used the library. But then with the time frame it was hard, because I would just take notes of everything really quickly, skim through the research, read it, not print out the pages and just write my own essay based on the notes that I took down. New Yorkers without internet access at home, use computers at their local public libraries such as the Bronx Library Center. Photograph: Denis Finnin/APWhat's the time frame for that like? 30 minutes?
Yes. To get all information down, write body paragraphs, write everything in 30 minutes. You know, I just want to print it out. I wish I was at home [and had] my own flexibility to do it.
Are there ever lines at your library?
Yes. Sometimes I just walk out and come back. I sign my name, then people skip you. For the most part, I wait. It's discouraging in a way. You have to wait in a long line, you just got out of school, time's going by, and then you have to go home and do more homework.
Do you ever worry about privacy and your data on public computers?
I do worry about that sometimes. I delete all my documents. I have also noticed on some computers they don't let you save it anymore. I mean, maybe that's good but it was kind of bad when I update a whole resume and wanted to send it to myself. Some of the privacy settings are good. Some are bad.
You're about to start college now. Was applying to schools without a computer difficult?
Yes. For instances, yesterday LaGuardia [Community College] emailed me and told me to go on their VIP page. I tried to click the link through my iPhone and it didn't bring me to the right page. I tried to set a new password for it and it didn't work. When that happens, I just forward the email to my college adviser, I go there and she uses her computer for me and we access everything together. And I told her that when she gets back into the office, we can work on whatever this email is when I see her.
Where does your college adviser work?
It’s called Options [College Counseling], it's on 110th street and Manhattan Avenue.
That's another issue, too. I can never handle it all by myself without asking somebody for help, who actually has internet and a desktop that runs well and a printer.
But your college advisor has been helpful? She has printed out your college application?
Yes. Then I'll say, "I need five copies of my resume. Can you help me with this CUNY application?" She sits there and helps me with everything.
Once you start school, you might need a computer. Can you afford to buy one?
Not right now. But I'm looking into a way of how I can possibly save some money, or I know I can always go to the Options office or a library, but that's tedious, [because] after class, I doubt they'll be open. I am working also and doing both is … eh.
What are some of the hardest things you've dealt with not having internet?
Applications when looking for better work. A lot of the good jobs you have to go through the application process online first, and then speak to them and give them [reference numbers] for after they verify your background check. That's been a hassle.
Is looking for jobs hard as well? Have you tried applying through Craigslist?
I have tried to do Craigslist from my phone, and then when I try to respond by email, the link takes me to somewhere else where I can't include my resume as an attachment. So I'm reaching out and they can barely see what type of person I am. So it's kind of hard because I just emailed all these places, I know I'm qualified and that I would be really good if they saw me in person.
I use internet for everything ≠ to look up where I'm going to go eat, to find directions, to find movie times. Do you do all of that on your phone?
Yes, I do all of that on my phone.
Do you have an unlimited plan on your phone? Did you ever use up all your data?
Yes, I have an unlimited plan because of that, 'cause at first I was paying like $200 for my phone [plan].
Did you not realize that you were going over your limits?
Yeah, going over the usage, because of apps I was opening. But now I have a lower price. It's $65 a month for unlimited everything. But still, using a search engine from an actual computer is way better than from your phone. Your phone doesn't open the same way. It doesn't let you access the same websites, the same links. It's hard.
And plus, I would want to write on it and not on my phone. I would want to open Word, save documents in favorites, open the next link, and have more sources for the paper. I would just prefer for my work to be better.
I bank online. It's how I make sure I don't go over and everything is paid on time. How do you bank?
I have a debit card and a checking account. I use an app on my phone but it only helps me with so much. Sometimes when I call and tell them I need to speak to customer service, they tell me to go on the computer. You can't access everything from a cellphone, I guess because of privacy settings. So I end up having to go to the bank. Luckily, it's right down the stairs from me, so I just speak to one of the representatives there. A screenshot of New York State Department of Labor website, where New Yorkers have to register in order to claim unemployment benefits. Photograph: /NY Department of LaborHave you ever had to apply for a government program like food stamps or unemployment?*
I haven't, but I've thought about it. Because I know you can get free food through it. And I'm thinking, "Well, I wonder if I qualify."
[*You can apply for food stamps by mail, fax or in person.]
Have you ever tried to look it up?
I have tried to look it up. I looked up the address of where you're supposed to go, from my phone.
Do you think that if you had a computer, you would look it up and apply for it? Would that make it easier?
Yea, I would have already applied for an [affordable housing] apartment, because I know you can do it through nyc.gov – at least do the raffles in the city. I have wanted to do that for a while. Even though I am paying rent with my mom, I wouldn't mind paying rent on my own place.
What about applying for unemployment?
I haven’t, but I do think of it when I've gone over six months and then left my job, and then I think,"Ok, well I need to just rush and go find [a job]." I know for the unemployment process, you have to go online even after the first time, and you have to go online and register [to claim weekly benefits*]. I've seen people do it. And I'm just like, if I had to do this, I would be shit out of luck. I would have no way to control it and maintain it.
[*While one can initially apply for Unemployment Insurance by phone, the New York State Department of Labor websites advises that "it is best to apply for UI online."]
We often hear about people too much time online. Do you spend think you spend a lot of time on your phone – as much as some people do on their computer?
With the phone I get frustrated. Maybe if I was on the computer, I would be spending days online, too. But not like using a social website or something. The only thing I have is instagram. I don't have Facebook or Twitter. That's why when I was doing my college essay recently for my placement test, they spoke about Facebook. And it was so easy for me to write about it, because they were saying how everybody has bad time management skills, based on how they don’t do good research because they're too caught up on a social network. Many Americans, young and old, watch TV online. Photograph: Johner Images/AlamyDo you watch movies online? Or do you just watch it on TV?
Yeah. People watch movies online? [laughs]
Wait, you knew about this, right?
I knew you could put a CD-Rom in [the computer].
Have you heard about Netflix?
Oh, yeah, but I thought that was only for the PlayStation. I didn't know it was on the computer also.
Yes.
[Laughs] Oh my god. Learn something new everyday.
Do you watch YouTube videos?
Um, sometimes. But for my phone it takes a long time to load so to listen to music and download stuff it's a longer process. I have an iPhone, but I have no music on it.
Do you read news online?
No.
Where do you get your news from?
The TV. I will just sit there at 10 o'clock and watch the 10 o'clock news. If it's interesting and I want to know more about the topic or whatever is going on, then I will try to research it. But I don't know. As I said before, the internet service on your phone is not as good as on an actual desktop.
Take another look at that powerful headline: "Public Libraries Are Better Than Congress, Baseball, and Apple Pie." What better gift could libraries be given at this time when budgets are being cut? Granted, it's not too hard to be more highly regarded than Congress these days, but—beating baseball and apple pie, those two American icons? That says libraries are amazingly awesome!
We need all the help we can get to convince others that the internet is no replacement for libraries, so having that message in a respected magazine really is a gift. But, as with the gift of love, or of a bright flame, it's nothing unless we share it with others. So now, it's up to each one of us to share that gift with everyone we know. (Not just with fellow library people—with everyone.) Post it on all of your professional and personal social media accounts. Email a link to the head of your newspaper, magazine, radio station, or TV channel and invite them to do a local follow-up story.
Now, for the 1st gift: The info that enabled this "Better Than Baseball" piece came from a study by the good folks at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The report, "How Americans Value Public Libraries in Their Communities," includes convincing data about how important citizens feel their libraries are. And when you can tell politicians, who want to be popular, that a majority of people find library services either "very important" or "somewhat important," that can sway votes.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is like Santa Claus: Year after year, it gives us perfect gifts. I mean, what better to give librarians than a nice package of well-crafted data from a trustworthy source? You know that's exactly what you always want. Now you can open it, play with it, and share it with your friends & family. (If you care about library funding, you're kind of obliged to do so.)
So thank you, Santa-Pew, for delivering data that can help save libraries. And thank you, Robinson Meyer, for writing the article with the bold headline that we can show to all the naysayers and funders who think that nobody uses libraries anymore. And thank you, Atlantic editors, for publishing the article free online so it's easy to share.
Now, readers, will you do your part? Will you spread this data and headline far and wide? (Remember: It could affect whether you have a job next year or not.) Let's work together, across the country, to use the gifts we've been given. Thank you, in advance, for supporting libraries. May we all prosper in 2014, and far beyond.
Last year was a year of innovative ideas and technology upgrades at the Tulsa City-County Library system.
The biggest testing ground for the library's ideas was the Librarium, a temporary branch that opened downtown in September while Central Library undergoes a 2-year renovation.
"We're trying out all kinds of things at the Librarium," said library CEO Gary Shaffer.
Many of the experiments revolve around technology, including new automatic checkout machines that are easier to use than those located at other branches. The new machines allow library users to check out multiple books at a time. Shaffer said the library system plans to gradually roll out the new device to other branches.
An automatic book return machine is also being piloted at the Librarium, as well as at Broken Arrow Library. Books are dropped onto a conveyor belt, their radio-frequency ID tags are scanned and then they are sorted into bins based on whether they are staying at that library or going to another branch.
"It's very convenient for staff and customers," Shaffer said.
The library is looking at installing a few more of the machines at high-volume branches, as well as a similar but bigger machine at the service center. Such technology helps the library with circulation, which Shaffer called a "large logistic operation." More than 6 million items were circulated throughout the system last year.
"It will allow us to deliver books in a more timely fashion," Shaffer said.
Another piece of technology that the library has decided to keep around are book lockers used to hold specialized items, such as research material, for customers. Shaffer said the lockers, which open up using the library card that put the item on hold, will be placed in the after-hours area planned for the newly remodeled Central Library, so patrons can access their materials even if the library is closed.
In terms of innovative ideas, Shaffer said the Librarium's 80/20 service model -- or designing a library that is easy enough to use that 80 percent of people can navigate it on their own, so library staff can assist the other 20 percent of people -- has worked well. The Librarium's division into easily identifiable "zones" has helped with the model, and Shaffer said the system is looking at implementing similar layouts at other branches.
Karen Brignac, who used Central Library frequently and now uses the Librarium, said she likes the model.
"I've begun to rely more on the electronic resources," she said, merely because the design of the library makes it convenient to do so.
Outside the Librarium, the library system rolled out several new services last year.
In October, the library began to offer free movie streaming. The movies are streamed through a service called Freegal, which the library also uses to offer free downloadable music. Movies are available for 48 hours and can be watched through an Internet browser or mobile app.
Also in 2013, the library began offering more digital access to magazines and newspapers. The latest issues of more than 125 magazines can now be downloaded for free using a library card, and more than 2,100 newspapers in 50 languages can be downloaded inside any library location.
An updated library mobile app is now also available in Spanish and offers new services such as the ability to scan book barcodes at any retailer and be directed to the library's record of the book.
"With the incredibly high use of smartphones today, Tulsa City-County Library recognizes we can reach customers and help them find information and entertainment beyond the walls of the libraries throughout Tulsa County," said Charlotte Frazier, deputy director of support services.
Shaffer said the library is always on the look out for "the latest and the greatest" to help it reach more people.
"We're always keeping an eye out toward the future so we can continue to offer more," he said.
The first sale exception is a popular topic these days for librarians, consumers and policy makers. It is so trendy right now that it almost outshines fair use, and that’s saying something. This is likely due to some recent events. The Supreme Court decision in Kirstaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. happily was decided in our favor—yes, any lawfully acquired work can be loaned, rented, or sold even if it was manufactured outside of the United States. Recent media and press interest in the notion of “digital first sale”—or whether consumers (and libraries!) can own or sell an ebook—has (re)surfaced. There is a coalition of first sale proponents, including the Owners Rights Initiative (of which ALA is a founding member), planning their next move after the successful outcome on Kirstaeng. Legal scholars have published new articles on first sale. In addition, the US Copyright Office has declared that they are interested in reviewing first sale, print and digital. Lastly, the United Nations agency responsible for harmonizing copyright law around the world—the World Intellectual Property Organization—has had a long and interesting conversation about first sale (not digital) at a recent meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).
Five years ago, I attended a meeting with a group of librarians from various countries, where we discussed international copyright law reform. It was then that I learned how unusual the United States first sale model was to the international library community. In fact, many thought that U.S. first sale was improper and certainly out of reach for other countries. First sale or “exhaustion” is the exception that limits the exclusive right of distribution. Once a copy is lawfully acquired, the right of distribution for that copy is exhausted. Obviously, this is the bread and butter of public libraries. Without exhaustion, libraries could not lend books. A secondary market for protected works would be illegal—so long to used bookstores, eBay, and the Salvation Army. Why the opposition to first sale from a bunch of librarians?
Many libraries across the world do not have first sale, or they have what is called a “public lending right” which is a very curious term. It means that the library has the right to lend books if they pay for lending. Thus, you have a right to pay for lending. Every year. Might be a percentage of their acquisition budget or a charge based on the number of circulations.
In a recent conversation with a librarian in Pakistan, I asked if their libraries could loan books. No, not really. There is no copyright exception, and librarians are afraid to lend because the book might not be returned. In addition, librarians that do lend books that then go missing have the cost of the book deducted from their salary.
Back to WIPO, the transcript of the discussion regarding a first sale exception was telling. It was hard for some country delegates to even understand what was being talked about—making copies to give away, or loaning a hard copy and expecting that the book would be returned? The United States delegation explained that sharing has both social and economic benefits, but Greece was convinced that if a library loaned books (for free!) no one would buy books. (Where have we heard that before?)
Why is our copyright law so different from others? Because the purpose of our copyright law is the advancement of learning. Don’t let anyone tell you differently because it’s in the Constitution! The country’s founders were sincere about the idea of democracy. They thought that a successful democracy demands that all people know what’s going on, and should have every opportunity to access information in order to learn. Thus, the limited, statutory copyright monopoly is utilitarian and exists to encourage authors and other creators to make their works available to the public. Sharing works (after lawfully acquired) enhances this dissemination of information.
The Seattle Public Library's Central branch will be a lot noisier than usual this Saturday, and librarians won't be trying to quiet things down.
The library will be showing the Seahawks playoff game against the Saints on the big screen in its main auditorium.
"We expect to get, not just a little noisy, but a lot noisy," says spokesperson Andra Addison. "Staff will be wearing their Seahawks jerseys. We're going to have cookies shaped like little footballs and the Seahawks gave us some great stuff to giveaway."
It's the first time the library has shown a sporting event.
"This is part of what the library's all about and we're hoping that folks who don't have a TV or place to watch the game will come down and watch the game here," Addison says.
The auditorium can hold about 275 fans comfortably, and the library has no idea how many people to expect. Addison says it's a great way to introduce, or reintroduce, the flagship branch to more people.
"It's a great opportunity for folks who maybe haven't been to the Central Library, maybe they haven't thought about using some of our resources. So it's a good way to get folks into the library to check it out."
The library plans to show upcoming playoff games and hopefully the Super Bowl as well. Addison reiterates fans shouldn't worry about keeping the noise down.
"The rules of conduct regarding noise and disruption will not be enforced in the auditorium on Saturday. No one will be shushed for cheering."
