Before The Internet, Librarians Would 'Answer Everything' — And Still Do

by: NPR Staff

Over the years librarians have fielded all sorts of questions --€” like those above, found in a box of questions posed by New York Public Library patrons from the 1940s to the '80s.

New York Public Library

Before Google there was — that paragon of accuracy and calm — the librarian. The New York Public Library recently came upon a box of questions posed to the library from the 1940s to the '80s — a time capsule from an era when humans consulted other humans for answers to their daily questions and conundrums.

Here's one salacious example: "I went to a New Year's Eve Party and unexpectedly stayed over. I don't really know the hosts. Ought I to send a thank-you note?" asked a "somewhat uncertain female voice" during a midafternoon telephone call on New Year's Day 1967.

Other patrons inquired about the life cycle of an eyebrow hair, how many neurotic people were in the United States, the name of Napoleon's horse, and just how do you put up wallpaper? As one patron tells the librarian over the phone: "I have the paper; I have the paste. What do I do next? Does the paste go on the wall or the paper?"

New York Public Library

The NYPL will be sharing these questions from the archive every Monday on itsInstagram account with the hashtag #letmelibrarianthatforyou.

Librarian Rosa Caballero-Li says that today, more than 100 questions still come into the NYPL's Reference and Research Services desk every 24 hours. It's not just fact checking — it's questions of etiquette, opinion, contact information, even shopping.

i

"Any statistics on the life span of the abandoned woman?"

New York Public Library

"We answer everything," Caballero-Li tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. "Patrons can call us and reach out to us for anything they feel curious about, any service that they need — and I think that surprises a lot of people."

In fact, she says there's a surprising amount of overlap between the questions from the archive and the questions she fields in 2014. "These are questions that we are answering still, today, and we will probably be answering tomorrow, as well," she says.

There are questions of etiquette, questions about the Bible and — especially in the days after Christmas — a lot of people want to know how to download e-books to their brand-new e-readers.

i

"How many neurotic people in U.S.?"

New York Public Library

Caballero-Li says plenty of people call the library because they don't have access to the Internet, but others call after they couldn't find a satisfactory answer on Google.

"You can find a lot of information online, of course, and that's great," she says. "But when you can't, or when you have too many answers, or you can't quite distinguish fact from fiction, that's when you reach out to us."

Librarians are "information specialists," she says, and can help point patrons to resources that aren't available online. Also, sometimes there's just something about speaking to a human being.

And nothing is off-limits — really.

Granted, the librarians have received a fair number of stumpers over the years. "We don't know everything," Caballero-Li says, "but we can always point you in the right direction.""There are no stupid questions," Caballero-Li says. "Everything is a teachable moment. We don't embarrass people; we try to answer any questions they have with honesty and we try to refer them to appropriate resources that they might find useful."

New York Public Library

from: NPR

Nonprofit Fights Illiteracy By Getting Books To Kids Who Need Them

by: Lynn Neary

When it comes to learning to read, educators agree: the younger, the better. Children can be exposed to books even before they can talk, but for that a family has to havebooks, which isn't always the case.

There are neighborhoods in this country with plenty of books; and then there are neighborhoods where books are harder to find. Almost 15 years ago, Susan Neuman, now a professor at New York University, focused on that discrepancy, in a study that looked at just how many books were available in Philadelphia's low-income neighborhoods. The results were startling.

"We found a total of 33 books for children in a community of 10,000 children. ... Thirty-three books in all of the neighborhood," she says. By comparison, there were 300 books per child in the city's affluent communities. Neuman recently updated her study. She hasn't yet released those findings but says not much has changed.

And according to Neuman, despite advances in technology, access to print books is still important because reading out loud creates an emotional link between parent and child.

"There's that immediate connection and that eye-to-eye joint attention," she says. "The parent is not looking at her cellphone or his cellphone; she is focusing on the child and the book. The second reason is the vocabulary that is contained in those books. Even very rudimentary, you know, beginning books, like board books, have vocabulary that tends to be outside the parent's normal, day-to-day interaction. So that child is learning words that he or she is likely not to see in any other place."

Getting Affordable Books To 'Anybody Serving Children'

Kyle Zimmer sits on a tiny chair surrounded by 4-year-olds at the National Children's Center in Washington, D.C. Zimmer is the president and CEO of First Book, an organization that has forged an innovative partnership with publishers to get books into the hands of kids who need them. Andrea Brunk, a physical therapist at the center, points to an array of picture books sitting on a couple of tables in the classroom.

"First Book brought a huge variety of books for our kids," Brunk says. "They're all age-appropriate; they're diverse characters. And all the kids are going to come up after they're read to and they get to take two books home apiece."

First Book began by setting up a book bank and distributing, at virtually no cost, unsold books that were returned to publishers and would otherwise be destroyed. It went on to create a children's book marketplace where it buys books from publishers in bulk at deeply reduced prices and sells them to a variety of nonprofit organizations. Zimmer says the books get sold to "virtually anybody serving children in need, from zero to 18 years of age. It can be a homeless shelter; it can be a formal classroom; it can be [an] abuse refuge; it can be really anyplace where kids are gathered."

According to Zimmer, publishers like the program because it has opened a previously untapped market. Traditionally, children's book publishers catered to a very few.

"On average, a premium picture book is about $18 at retail," she says. "And you imagine who the customer base is that can afford an $18 picture book for their family. What you're talking about is probably the upper 5 to maybe 10 percent of the socio-economic ladder."

And First Book's nonprofit partners like the program because they can buy so many books so cheaply — at about $2.85 apiece. According to Brunk, in the past the National Children's Center was grateful for any books that came its way; now First Book lets the center choose exactly what it needs.

She says, "We actually encourage people to actually just give us the donations, if they're OK with that, and let us do the picking because we can get them at such a reduced rate that their money goes further."

Empowering Parents To Make A Difference With Their Kids

Back in the classroom, the children are focused on their new books. Some sit quietly turning pages and looking at the pictures; some trade books with their friends; others gather around their teacher, listening to a story. Teacher Rose Campbell says that for the kids, the best thing about getting the books is that they can take them home.

"At home parents can actually read to them and they can also read to their parents," she says. "So if we're reading a book here with them they can go home and say to the parents, 'Hey, we read this in class today.' So they're really excited about that."

The National Children's Center has also set up a program for parents to encourage them to read to their children. Brunk says parents who attend a session will leave with a bundle of books.

"The parents kind of know now: OK, this is theirs and they didn't have to do anything to get this — they didn't have to go the store and spend $16 to buy a book or something like that. But it's a high-quality book and the child gets to keep it. They don't have to worry about taking back to the library, that type of thing. And now they have the tools to work with their child. And I think that's really — we've really tried to empower them and say, 'Hey, you have everything you need and you can do this and you can make this difference with your child long term.' "

One parent who has taken advantage of both the books and the program the center offers is Alisa Jackson Gray. She had four children of her own and is now raising her grandson along with a great-niece and great-nephew. Gray says she has always read to her kids, but a lot of families in her community are dealing with so many problems that it's hard to make reading a priority.

"Sometimes they don't even know where the next meal is going to come from," she says. But it helps to get free books from the center. "I was very happy and pleased to get my pack of books. And every night, my children and myself, we sit there and we read. ... I was very delighted to see my 1-year-old get the book and flip through the pages like she really can read. And she's pointing to the words and she's so impressed: 'Book?' [she says.] 'Yes, book!' "

Since 1992, First Book has gotten more than 100 million new books into the hands of kids from low-income homes. Zimmer says that providing books to those families and giving parents the support they need to read to their children can go a long way toward breaking the cycle of illiteracy.

from: NPR

Libraries without physical books find a niche in San Antonio

by: Matt McFarland

Next summer Bexar County (Texas) will open a library in a housing project on the West side of San Antonio. There will be iMacs, iPads, laptops and hundreds of e-readers, but no physical books.

This is the second library to be exclusively digital in San Antonio. Visitors can check out an e-reader for two weeks and pick from a selection of 25,000 books, or surf the Web on one of the library’s computers. The first branch — what Bexar County is calling a BiblioTech— opened in September 2013 and had more than 103,000 visitors in the first 12 months it was opened. Nearly 68,000 e-books were checked out during that period.

“We never have any complaints about ‘why don’t you have any printed books,’” said Bexar County judge Nelson Wolff. There are plans to open a third digital-only library in 2016. The county courthouse currently features a simplified version of a BiblioTech, a counter where someone with jury duty could check out an e-reader to pass the time.

According to Wolff, Bexar County will rent a building in a low-income housing project for $1 a year from the San Antonio Housing Authority. Wolff wants to open the digital-only libraries in poorer areas to expose low-income residents to technologies that they might otherwise not have access to.

“There’s no doubt in my mind if you don’t understand digital worlds, whether it’s social media or understanding the Internet or whether it’s actually knowing how to use technology, you’re way behind the curve,” Wolff said. While many Americans practically live online, almost 20 percent of U.S. adults don’t use the Internet.

The entire project is estimated to cost $500,000. The first BiblioTech cost $2.4 million, as the 5,000 square foot space needed extensive renovations.

While his focus is on digital libraries, he’s not ready to give up physical books himself.

“I think there will always be some role for printed books in libraries,” said Wolff, a self-described bibliophile a collection of 1,600 first editions.

from: Washington Post

The great British library betrayal: Closures bring national network to brink of ‘absolute disaster’, reveals official inquiry

by: Nick Clark

Library services are on the brink of disaster and can only be saved if they become more like coffee shops with wi-fi, sofas and hot drinks, a report will recommend on Thursday.

A combination of funding cuts and declining attendance threatens the viability of the library network unless urgent action is taken, according to the Independent Library Report for England, which was commissioned by the Government.

“We’re at a critical moment for the libraries and if we’re not careful we could lose so many,” William Sieghart, who wrote the report, told The Independent. “I and a lot of people think it would be an absolute disaster.”

His report – which has been hailed as the last chance to halt a decline in which 324 libraries have closed since 2011 – recommends a complete “reinvigoration of the library network” for the 21st century, with every library in the country fitted with wi-fi to attract people who would otherwise spend time in cafés. A drive to make libraries truly digital could also lead to the creation of single national library card and catalogue, allowing readers to withdraw books across the country.

The report also recommends the establishment of a library task force – led by councils but supported by groups including the BBC, Arts Council England and the British Library – to improve national standards. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Communities and Local Government commissioned Mr Sieghart, an entrepreneur and publisher, to produce an independent report into the future of the library service in February.

His seven-strong advisory panel included Roly Keating, chief executive of the British Library, the library expert Sue Charteris, the entrepreneur Luke Johnson and the author Joanna Trollope. But the timing of the report’s publication – on the day before Parliament rises for Christmas – has fuelled suspicions that the Government may be trying to bury recommendations that would require increased spending.

The library campaigner Desmond Clarke hailed the report, saying: “At last we have a blueprint for a national public library service.”

He welcomed the creation of the library task force, saying it would “fill the leadership void and allow libraries to rediscover their purpose”. He added: “This report must not be kicked into the long grass; it is almost the last chance to rebuild a public library service with real value.”

Tim Coates, the former managing director of Waterstones and a longtime library campaigner, said: “Use of libraries is half what it was in 1997. If nothing is done and you follow the line down, there will be only a handful of libraries left in the country in 2022. There’s a very serious crisis.

“It won’t collapse next week because it’s a public service but the whole thing is totally bankrupt. It keeps operating because everybody wishes it wasn’t bankrupt.” The report comes just a week after the Library of Birmingham, which was supposed to provide a blueprint for the library of the future, was told its funding would be cut a year after opening, forcing 100 layoffs and reduced opening hours.

Salvaging the library network “starts with a marked increase and improvement in digital technology, rolling wi-fi out to every library in the country,” the report says. “The wi-fi connection should be delivered in a comfortable, retail-standard environment, with the usual amenities of coffee, sofas and toilets.”

Mr Sieghart pointed to the “astonishing” statistic that a third of libraries do not have wi-fi. “So they’re slated for closure while everyone’s in the Costa opposite, where there’s a loo, hot drinks and internet access,” he said. The report called on the Government to provide funding for local authorities to introduce wi-fi throughout the country.

The report took seven months, in which the group visited libraries around the country and received 200 submissions of written evidence. These include setting up an “emergency library task force to get a new digital network across the country, wi-fi in every library, a universal library card and catalogue and get a consistency of service,” Mr Sieghart said.

There are 4,145 libraries in the UK, according to Public Library News, down from 4,622 a decade ago. At least 324 libraries have closed since 2011, and about 400 are now run by volunteers with varying levels of support, if any, from local authorities.

Library campaigners claimed last year that more than 1,000 libraries could be closed by 2016, describing the industry as facing “slaughter”. Mr Sieghart said: “Not enough decision-makers at national or local level appear sufficiently aware of the remarkable and vital value that a good library service can offer modern communities.”

He pointed out that across England 35 per cent of people use a library regularly, “and among the poorest it’s closer to 50 per cent. It’s a vital lifeline for a lot of people.”

The Government is to back the emergency task force, provisionally called Leadership for Libraries. It will be led by councils and chaired by Paul Blantern, head of Northamptonshire County Council.

Another key recommendation is bringing members of the community into the management of libraries, which the report’s author compared with bringing parents on to school boards.

“This does not mean just handing libraries over to volunteers,” Mr Sieghart said. “It would continue with all the statutory responsibility but add the community’s resources. Locals will not put up with council management overcharging or poor opening hours; they demand higher standards.”

He said in September that the libraries faced a “Beeching moment”, referencing the huge closure of railway branch lines in the 1960s.

Those protesting against the cuts in service believe that rural and deprived areas will be hugely affected by further closures, saying they were a “lifeline” to those without internet access, those in education and older people.

A statement released by DCMS called the report “comprehensive” adding it “identifies a range of opportunities to improve the library service for the future”. It confirmed the establishment of the taskforce and said Government “is committed to taking forward the report’s key recommendations”.

Library report: Key recommendations

Digital library network Mr Sieghart’s report says it is “essential” that all public libraries in England offer the public free access to wi-fi, computer facilities and sufficient workforce training. That and improved computer facilities would also pave the way for a national digital network for libraries.

Library taskforce One of the key recommendations is the creation of a library taskforce to offer “the necessary leadership” and ensure the report is implemented. The group will report jointly to local and national Government. The group, provisionally called Leadership for Libraries, will lobby for libraries and will be supported by organisations including Arts Council England, the BBC and the British Library.

Professional development The taskforce will be given the job of recruiting new staff as well as encouraging and developing current staff. The report pointed to the TeachFirst programme which “has helped raise the profile of the teaching profession”. It added that new recruits would need different training saying the “21st century librarian will need... digital and commercial expertise”.

E-lending The Government should secure changes in European and UK copyright law to enable library users to borrow ebooks remotely in the next legislative term, the report recommended.

Case study: Kensal Rise Library

The plight of Kensal Rise Library in north London is representative of the challenges faced by libraries across the country – but unlike many threatened branches it attracted huge public support.

Angry crowds took to the streets to defend the library after the local council announced plans to close it in 2010.

Leading figures from the literary world, including Zadie Smith, Alan Bennett and Philip Pullman, joined the campaign to save the library, which was opened in 1900 by Mark Twain.

Bennett, speaking at a public meeting, warned that “once a library goes, it doesn’t come back”.

A legal fund enabled the campaigners to take Brent council to court, but in October 2011 a judge refused to allow a judicial review into their claim that closure of six libraries was a “fundamentally flawed and unlawful” move. All Souls College, Oxford, had originally given the building to the local authority to become a library, but when it stopped being used for that purpose it reverted to the college’s ownership.

It was then sold to a developer with the condition that part of the building is leased back to the college for a peppercorn rent. All Souls has pledged to sublet the rooms to the Friends of Kensal Rise so they can establish a community-run library.

from: Independent

Can an Oil-and-Gas Exec Disrupt the Book Business?

Bangkok-based Gordon Ross says disrupting the book industry is a business challenge, and has launched Bleeding Heart Publications to test his instincts.
by: Edward Nawotka

Bangkok, Thailand is not necessarily the first place you would expect to find a new, ambitious English-language literary publishing company from, but that is indeed the case with Bleeding Heart Publications.

The firm is being backed by Scotsman Gordon Ross, an oil-and-gas industry executive with ambitions to experiment with different publishing models in order to test his business acumen and instincts.

“I looked into it and the industry seems to me ready for disruption.,” Ross said to me over coffee in Houston, where he was for business meetings concerning his primary business which is involved in pipeline manufacturing. “After doing a lot of research, I saw an opportunity to try something different. For me, it’s a challenge as a businessman.”

Ross says he was dismayed to find so many authors have found it necessary to turn to self-publishing as a means to reach the market and believes that by properly supporting authors through the publication process, he can offer authors stability and reassurance that the somewhat chaotic publishing ecosystem doesn’t otherwise offer.

That said, he admits to having limited knowledge of the book publishing scene and has enlisted Bangkok-based editor and writer Cali Dawson to serve as the firm’s managing director. “I’m a big fan of the writer Chris Ryan —I’ve read about seven or eight of his books — but otherwise I’m very busy with my other obligations.”

The firm, which is registered as a business in Singapore, officially launched on November 30 with a full-page ad in the New York Times Sunday Book Review announcing an open call for manuscripts.

Disruption. How?

So how does Ross envision disrupting the book market? Well, by returning to some tried-and-true principles of good management: Bleeding Heart will invest heavily in marketing and, perhaps most noteworthy, try to maintain its relationships with authors in such a way that will allow them to develop into brands.

The company’s first two titles are experiments of a sort, wildly different books that should offer Ross and Bleeding Heart some insight into different segments of the market.

The first title Bleeding Heart has slated for publication is The Job Pirate by Brandon Christopher, a humorous, irreverent collection of stories about a variety of 80 different jobs the author has taken over the years. It will be published in February 2015, in both print and digital editions.

This will be followed in March by a dose of serious literary fiction, with The Legacy of Lost Things, by Aida Zilelian, a novel about three generations of an Armenian family as they “self-destruct” over a period of migration and their attempts to recover.

“I believe there is a sweet spot in the market for these sorts of books,” said Ross, who indicated he hopes they can move between 40-50,000 copies of each. “But we will see. That is why we chose the books.”

Bleeding Heart will also publish a twice-yearly literary journal,Transfusion, from which they hope to mine talent; the first two editions are already available.

Though the firm may be based half-way across the world, the focus is very much on the American market, says Ross, and Austin, Texas-based Greenleaf Book Group is handling much of the design, production and distribution for the titles.

At the end of the day, said Ross, publishing should be about facilitating the best possible working conditions for authors and making sure they have a good experience, so they stay with the firm and continue to deliver good work. “We are looking to develop long-term relationships. To facilitate this, we put our authors on a monthly stipend to make sure they can take the time to work. I don’t know of any other publisher currently that is doing this. For me, that’s an investment I want to make and a risk I’m willing to take. Let’s see how it goes.”

from: Publishing Perspectives

Blinkist Reading App To Launch Audio Versions Of Condensed Nonfiction Books

by: Claire Fallon

What’s the worst part of reading nonfiction? Is it having to sit through an entire, exhausting book? Is it having to look at words with your eyes? Maybe both of those obstacles leave you daunted. Blinkist is here to help.

The German startup first brought its app to the American market last year, offering bite-sized distillations of nonfiction books for time-crunched readers. Broken down into short sections called “blinks,” each book’s summary only takes around 15 minutes to read.

Now, Blinkist is going multimedia -- the company is launching an audio version for readers who want a hands-free, eyes-free source of factoids from popular publications. The Blinkist audio editions will also clock in at 15 minutes per book. You can “read”Freakonomics, Outliers and A Brief History of Time in the space of a 45-minute commute -- imagine what you could do on the commute home. What’s not to like?

The startup touts their audio blinks as another solution for an age in which reading is on the decline, citing the average amount of time per day Americans spend reading (19 minutes) versus watching TV (2.8 hours). “Now, with the introduction of audio to the Blinkist app, it’s even less effort for users to fit more reading and learning into their days,” the press release argues.

Of course, the further the activity gets from reading a book, the harder it is to comfortably describe using Blinkist as “reading.” Does listening to nuggets of curated info drawn from popular nonfiction books qualify as reading? Is it really any different from listening to a podcast or radio show? Similarly, is scrolling through “blinks” of data from the book any more substantial reading than 15 minutes of standard web article browsing?

Blinkist cofounder Holger Seim says yes. Well, sort of. Other forms of media, such as radio and podcasts, he argued in an email, don’t allow users to “continuously consume key ideas of a particular book they might have heard about and want to know more about.” The central takeaways of the book, not the act of reading or the digestion of the complex ideas throughout the text, are the key.

Proponents of in-depth reading may question whether this sort of highly pared-down insight from a book can offer real learning or intellectual benefit, given that it strips the “takeaways” of the work from context and eliminates the patient work of synthesis needed to read and comprehend a full book. Moreover, though data on reading methods is inconclusive overall, studies have suggested that both listening to audiobooks and screen reading can lead to poorer comprehension and memory retention, especially in the long-term. Without the ability to mentally map facts onto the page where they appeared, or to easily scan ahead or circle back in the text, it appears to be more difficult for readers to process the knowledge being imparted and commit it solidly to memory. Reading on a small screen and removing helpful context seem likely to have similar effects, as experts in the field have suggested.

But Seim suggested Blinkist doesn’t need to carry all the benefits of reading a full book to be an asset to book-lovers. By giving a brief teaser of full-length books, the app could help users determine which ones they might want to sit down with and read the old-fashioned way. Seim pointed to an internal survey of users which showed 50 percent claimed to use Blinkist to find new books to read in full. "Forty-two percent state that Blinkist helps them to read more books again," he noted. Only 9 percent claimed to use the app to read fewer full books.

Even if readers just use the summaries as quick shots of knowledge rather than as book discovery avenues, this could just mean they’re enriching otherwise lost time -- while driving, exercising, or doing chores -- rather than replacing real reading with the app. As for the learning efficacy of the app, Seim says Blinkist plans to target this area for study in the coming year. For an app geared toward efficient continuing education, solid data on whether education actually occurs will be vital. In the meantime, however, while it's hard to swallow that we're living in a time when books can be repackaged as 15-minute soundbite packages to listen to on the treadmill, let's remember the positive: Any service that encourages us to discover and consider reading more books is a plus for publishing.

from: HuffingtonPost

More than just books: Why libraries matter in Canada

by: Mike Donachie

Take a look at our libraries, and you can read us like a book. Mention public services, and the mind leaps to healthcare or police, or maybe garbage collection, transit or road repairs. Mention a library, and many people will think of a dusty building filled with endless shelves of battered tomes. They’d be wrong, at least nowadays.

But library services need to be at the forefront of modern public services, sweeping away that dusty old image, and here’s why. Libraries are far more important than many people think. They unlock our potential to learn, and modern times have seen them branch out to far more than just books.

In Toronto, for example, public library staff report that 72 per cent of citizens visited a library within the past year, with individual “uses” — and that’s in every imaginable way — hitting almost 97 million in 2013. Interestingly, the city’s engagement with paper books has been dropping steadily. In the decade to 2013, use of collections in-person at libraries dropped by 27.3 per cent. But the use of electronic collections, including e-books, doubled in 2011, then 2012 and again in 2013. They now represent 10 per cent of the circulation of books in Toronto’s libraries.

The trend is not limited to big cities. In neighbourhoods across Canada, libraries are feeding the appetite for information in the information age.

A library is still a way to find information, but you can also make connections, attend events, hear music, access the Internet and more. There are educational programs, art exhibits, reading clubs, talks and social gatherings. You can find 3-D printers, toys and havens for newcomers, new mothers and the elderly. Canada spends more than $1 billion a year on libraries from public funds, at different levels of government, and has done so every year since 2008-09, according to Statistics Canada, and that shows the degree to which we value these institutions.

Calgary’s building a beautiful new central library, at a cost of $245 million, with a four-storey central atrium and a huge skylight to shed light on the more than half a million books the place will hold when it’s completed in 2018.

Halifax’s new central library, costing more than $50 million, opens next week, and the excitement level is high.

Investment in library services is a measure of a society, and Canada’s investment is in the future. With newcomers pouring in every year — in 2013, this country welcomed more than 270,000 new permanent residents alone — the need to learn is greater than ever before.

When the people of Canada improve themselves, Canada improves. So, as municipalities get ready to set their budgets for the coming year, they need to be kind to their libraries.

It’s an investment in us all.

from: Metro News

Books and Browsers: Building the Nimble Library

The biggest challenges for libraries online may not be in the policy questions, nor with web design, but with library management.

by: Peter Brantley

To work in a library in the early 21st century is to live amid a swirl of contradictions, as technological advances frequently outpace our organizational efforts to deliver the very services such advances enable. Delivering on the promise of technology requires us to grasp the future quickly, and to build organizations that can make the broadest and most positive impacts, while curbing technology’s ill effects. And there is perhaps no better example of these challenges than the library website.

Most library websites today are a loosely joined array of silos: catalogue discovery, event listings, kids’ programs, and interfaces for media, music, and e-books. But with the rise of mobile access, web design has seen a fundamental shift, from presenting static information to allowing interaction and helping people define what is most important to them, wherever they are. This is fundamentally changing the ways libraries approach their websites. And it is presenting a challenge to library administrators, as the functionality and interactivity possible today can often clash with long-held library values and ideas about information control.

Screens

It’s a common problem in the digital age: as librarians design new web services, we often quickly outstrip the library’s ability to maintain a cohesive web presence. The results so far have been the creation of digital collections portals, which are usually splintered off from the main library site. But as we leave behind the old website model of layout, hierarchy, and site navigation, we must now consider what information our users actually want, and how to deliver it to them efficiently.

For example, the New York Public Library (NYPL), with 92 branches, has built a new standalone geographically responsive web app called Locations, designed specifically to support mobile patrons. It can alert users to events and offerings at the branch closest to them in real time, wherever they stand in the city. And as we work to provide as many services as possible to users now holding smartphones with vast computing power, it is possible that the Locations app could “eat” all the other features that the library offers.

But the design and development of new, feature-rich web services such as Locations runs headlong into a number of challenges. One prominent example is our struggle to define privacy for patrons of a 21st-century library (a topic that I will be return to repeatedly in this column).

Privacy in the digital age is something quite different than it used to be. Rather than refusing to collect information about what patrons are doing (libraries are always collecting data), the struggle is to give users more control over the data that websites and services collect about them in the first place.

That means preserving anonymity by design wherever possible (for example, in the circulation records of print books) and fostering user awareness and transparent configuration everywhere else. When it comes to online privacy, we must protect the user, but we also want to deliver services, like NYPL does with Locations.

This is why current web design focuses on “cards” instead of pages. Cards are visual design elements that present users with opportunities to interact with specific information, thereby prioritizing the topics of greatest interest.

A card on a future library mobile site, for example, might recognize me when I log in, know that my home branch is in the West Village of Manhattan, and alert me to a reading there this evening by an author whose e-books I have often checked out. Within that card, I could decide to register for that event, or dismiss it. If I choose to attend, the app could handle my registration (since the library holds my profile information) and ask for verification of my payment information if there is a fee or suggested donation.

Once I arrive at the library, the app will know that I have arrived, and it can show me an alert card with a map leading me to the event space, with another card showing an essay in an online journal that the author will be discussing, and yet another card noting that my friends Erin and Allen are also present. I can even send them a text message using the same card, to let them know I’m there. And when I leave, the app can ask if I want to borrow the author’s latest work.

Sounds powerful, right? While such an application would surely generate a few serious policy issues for libraries, make no mistake: it is well within our reach.

Organization

The biggest challenge to such a powerful online future for libraries may not be in the policy questions, nor in the design, but with library management. That’s because for many library managers, “there’s no there, there.”

Managers might wonder: where is the site layout? Where is the navigation? In this sense, a library’s website design is a mirror of its organizational soul. And this basic miscommunication between modern web design and traditional library management is the tip-off that the struggle to define new library services is not just about setting policy, and certainly not about technology, but about organization.

The older framework for managing a library website (like the library organization itself) was centered on information control: that is, controlling which information is presented to the user, and how that information is structured. Today, however, the focus is on enabling users to do new things.

Certainly there can be compromise. But a fundamental question looms: how do you build a library where librarians and staff can think and act collaboratively, working toward services and interactions across silos, focusing on what people want rather than what the library thinks it should do?

Business schools have long maintained that organizations have not done enough to challenge our traditional structures, or the ways we evaluate performance. This is surely among the greatest challenges facing libraries. How do we make our libraries nimble? How do we empower our staff as they strive to empower our users?

It’s a key challenge for libraries. As influential management expert Gary Hamel recently wrote in the Harvard Business Review: “We’ve denounced bureaucracy, but haven’t dethroned it. And now we must.”

from: Publishers Weekly

Amazon goes head to head with Wattpad in battle for fanfic writers

The retail colossus is aiming to recruit fan fiction writers with their own ambitions to sell, but Wattpad is winning users who want to share  

by: Victoria James

It’s a cheerful orange giant stuffed with fan fiction and smileys which can garner a billion reads for an erotic One Direction story – scoring 25-year-old Texan Anna Todd a six-figure publishing deal in the process. But Wattpad also has a serious side as a thriving culture of original writing, with a small but steady flow of authors finding mainstream success with Big Six publishers such as Random House and Harper Collins. Half a dozen of these authors are getting together in the real world mid-December, at Wattpad’s first UK convention. The site has attracted more than 40 million users around the globe. No surprise, then, that Amazon has decided it wants a piece of the action.

The internet shopping site has just launched its own social reading and writing platform, Kindle WriteOn, a move characterised by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as “trying to eat [Wattpad’s] lunch”. WriteOn is currently in invite-only beta mode, but all you need for access is the online equivalent of a Masonic handshake – a code passed to you from someone on the inside.

On first impressions, it looks remarkably like Wattpad, just less orange. But WriteOn is making a clear play for writers of original fiction with publishing ambitions. It bills itself as “a story lab” where “you can get support and provide feedback at every stage of the creative process.” And while Wattpad’s reader comments tend to be short and sweet, WriteOn is designed for in-depth critique. Feedback submissions have a whopping 10,000-character limit. Imagine how many :D and <3 can="" for="" get="" p="" that.="" you="">
So far the fan fiction category appears unloved – “0 reads 0 likes 0 follows 0 comments” is the pitiless tally of a bowtie-themed “crossover” between Dr Who and the Thor movieverse. Perhaps the invitations haven’t yet reached fan fiction fans, or maybe the problem is the space Amazon built for fanfic writers last year: Kindle Worlds.

Kindle Worlds peddles that joyless oxymoron “licensed fan fiction”, whereby fans adhere to rules set by the copyright holder and sell their story through Kindle. All three get a cut of the sale. Yet 18 months after Kindle Worlds launched, only 679 stories are available for purchase. Amazon assumed that fanfic writers wanted a marketplace, when what they love most is a no-rules playground.

With 150m Amazon accounts already in existence, the retailer will be hoping WriteOn builds on the success of its Kindle Direct Publishing platform for indie authors, adding a social element to a publishing phenomenon.

Wattpad faces the opposite challenge: to deliver a return on investment for backers who earlier this year put in $46m (£29m) of fresh funding. For now, it’s focused on doing that the way it knows best: socially. “Our near-term priority should be building a great social product and growing the global community of Wattpadders,” CEO and cofounder Allen Lau tells me. His goal is to take the site to a billion users.

Though ambitious, that might just be achievable. As an enthusiastic Wattpad user myself, I can testify to the speed with which the site draws you in. As investor Tripp Jones of August Capital says by email, it exerts “a powerful network effect … which makes the company extremely difficult to compete with, even for competitors with next-to-infinite resources”. Who could he possibly mean? Or as Wattpaddicts might say: “(¬_¬) LOL.”

from: Guardian

Fresno County librarians leave the branch behind, hit the road

by: Marc Benjamin

The image of the shy librarian who points you to the latest novel or reference materials is getting a makeover by the Fresno County library system. The new-styled librarian is bolting out from behind the counter to meet Fresno County business owners and organizations and showcase library services.

Seven Fresno County librarians are fanning out in brand new Toyota Priuses to meet one-on-one with business owners or nonprofits, attend community events and inform the public about free services the library system offers.

The Library Without Walls (WoW!) program has been under way for about nine months but reached full staffing in September. It grew out of an analysis of library services and users through which county library officials learned that only 35% of county residents use the system. Overall, the system has had a 46% drop in reference questions from 2005 to 2012.

But 100% of taxpayers pay for the library, said Fresno County librarian Laurel Prysiazny, so “if our putting people out in the field moves that needle, then we are doing a good job.”

Library Without Walls is designed to offer a one-on-one approach to show library services to residents so they can see the research and online tools the library has available for free.

The work could be as basic as giving customers a phone number for getting information from the library, or going door-to-door to Fresno County businesses, or speaking with nonprofit organizations. The assignments also could be more complex, such as setting up computers outside a grocery store and making library cards, helping someone with an online business or setting up a makeshift library in socioeconomically challenged areas.

The program costs about $800,000 annually, paid for with revenue from voter-approved Measure B and the library system’s annual taxpayer funding.

It’s a project that’s gaining attention statewide.

Diane Satchwell, executive director of the Southern California Library Cooperative, said Library Without Walls is “treading new ground.”

She said there may be small geographic pockets where similar programs are being tried, but not to the extent of the Fresno County project.

“She (Prysiazny) has taken it up a notch,” Satchwell said, “especially in the rural areas because it gets to people who wouldn’t traditionally know all about library services … and outreach is critical to show the relevance of the library and the tremendous amount of resources at your fingertips.”

Greg Lucas, the California State Librarian, describes Fresno County’s Library Without Walls as among the more innovative programs in California.

“It touches on all the things libraries are and should be in the 21st century,” he said. “Every day I hear we live in an information economy, and this program shows that the most important place for getting hooked up with reliable information is the library.”

On the road

But being outside the library presents its challenges. The librarians make cold calls from the office and canvass door-to-door seeking customers.

“Making cold calls is so much different,” said Terrance McArthur, a librarian for 11 years. “We were really library-centric ... it was a completely different interface with the public compared with what we’re doing now.”

Rejection, at first, was a little hard to take. “One guy told me just keep on walking,” said Mark Berner, a 13-year librarian, who along with McArthur has been walking the Library Without Walls beat for most of the year.

“Sometimes they’re really friendly,” he said. “Sometimes they look at you kind of strange.”

Berner initially wasn’t sure he was cut out for the job, but as time went on he adjusted, learning that certain business owners assume that the person entering their business is usually trying to sell them something.

At first, the Library Without Walls librarians took a team approach to meeting new people. It wasn’t always successful.

“We used to go out in groups,” Berner said. “Four or five of us walking into a business and the guy would say ‘what church are you from?’ and we’d say ‘no, we’re from the library.’ It was really a matter of learning before we started going out individually.”

Another librarian even aroused suspicion in one Fresno County town.

Librarian Jennifer Bethel said she was walking around Caruthers introducing the program and representing the library. It wasn’t long before she learned someone had reported her to the local library branch.

And not everyone made the cut, said Susan Mann, the program’s field services manager.

“We started with a group of librarians drafted out of the branches and, for various reasons, some people moved on to other positions,” she said.

Part of the problem, she said, is that librarian school teaches cataloging, research skills and program organizing, but not lessons in communications and social outreach.

“We never learn how to proactively interact with community members who don’t know what we do,” Mann said. “Library school focuses you on techniques and skills specific to the job, not how you go out in the community.”

Art of the sale

The normal mindset of a librarian is a major reason why Without Walls librarians are participating in community engagement classes — a process similar to sales training — even though librarians aren’t selling anything.

They regularly meet at Sandler Training in downtown Fresno, where they are taught to “develop skills that have not been part of a librarian’s role,” said facilitator Dale Bierce.

In a recent training session, he told librarians to “see yourselves differently, see the role of a librarian differently.”

He said the librarians were required to add new skills that have not been part of their usual jobs. The Library Without Walls program is still trying to find its identity, he said, and it will be the librarians who will guide it through that evolution.

“We started with baby steps, ‘go out and call five people and we’ll talk about it,’ ” Bierce said. “It was pretty slow going until July or August before they got good at it and started getting positive responses. It bolstered self-esteem and they became more active.”

But, it’s also an adjustment for the customer learning the librarian is coming to them, Bierce said, and it may take repeat trips before the customer understands.

“I have to believe people have no idea this approach is out there and they don’t think about it until you’re there for the third or fourth time,” he said.

Much of Bierce’s training advises the librarians not to fear failure and to listen to the customer.

He said the first group of librarians didn’t get fully acclimated until they started getting positive feedback.

“All of them now will tell you they enjoy it, they feel valued and they get a kick out of going out and calling on people,” Bierce said. “They’ve come out of their shells and become more outgoing and they now see themselves as ambassadors/evangelists for the library and all the resources that they offer.”

Business people also could soon be Library Without Walls ambassadors if the experiences of Wholesale Equipment vice president Darren Eskew are any indication. His company sells and rents forklifts and trucks.

He said the reference tools McArthur showed him — which would be costly for him to buy — is helping his company find customers.

“You are able to go to your county library and as long as you have a library card you can access Reference USA,” he said. “The benefits of having the library card is that it gives you access to a very powerful tool. The list of how you can use it is endless.”

Using specific search criteria, his sales staff is learning locations of potential customers and training in Reference USA’s applications.

“We’ve been able to pinpoint companies for selling to that you don’t always find driving down the road,” he said. “You’d be surprised how many of our guys drove by a place and didn’t even know a business was there. You pretty much think you’ve covered everybody and then make a list in your territory and find a couple thousand customers potentially. If you combined all of our dealerships, it could in the thousands.”

For librarians, it’s been a bit of a learning curve, but the customer service theme is starting to rub off, said Emily Campbell, one of the newer librarians in the program.

“When you’re working in a branch, people know what they’re looking for and you know what you have to offer,” said Campbell, one of three newer librarians in the program. “But with what we do, everything is a possibility and we don’t really know what we’re offering when we start the conversation because we have to hear from the customer — what they do and what they need.”

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/11/27/4257990_fresno-county-librarians-leave.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

from: Fresno Bee