Tunisians are being encouraged to read by turning taxis into libraries
Most of the yellow cabs racing through Tunis are decorated with air fresheners, glittery pendulums, and framed baby pictures. Sometimes you’ll find a complimentary box of tissues. But taxi driver Ahmed Mzoughi, 49, has taken a more cerebral approach to his vehicle’s decor. Scattered on the seats and lining the dashboard are slim volumes of poetry, fat novels, and psychology books. Stuck on a side door is a decal that says, “Attention: This Taxi Contains a Book.”
That’s the tagline for a literary initiative launched in October by online book-sharing platform YallaRead (“Come on, Read” in Arabic). In collaboration with E-Taxi, an Uber-style cab-hailing service, YallaRead has put books in a select number of cabs like Mzoughi’s, giving passengers the chance to skim a few pages of Paulo Coelho or Naguib Mahfouz from the comfort of the backseat.
Traffic jams are common enough in Tunis that you can read at least the first few paragraphs of a book in one trip, while a journey across the city lends itself to a full chapter. Before disembarking, passengers are encouraged by advertisements, or even their driver, to visit YallaRead’s website, find the book, and continue the story.
Arabic literature and poetry have a rich and varied history, dating back 16 centuries. Such is the cultural import of Arabic letters that the language’s word for literature, adab, is derived from the same root as etiquette, and used to signify personal enrichment. Scholars point to the Islamic Golden Age (8th-13th century) as the great period of Arabic poetry and prose, and a resurgence of Arabic literature in the early 20th century brought us literary greats like Kahlil Gibran, the world’s third best-selling poet.
Yet despite this rich literary history, actual, sustained readership in Tunisia is low, according to Emrhod Consulting, a North African research institute that has done polling on readership. It’s not necessarily a question of literacy: More than 80% of the adult population is literate, and many Tunisians are fluent in both Arabic and French. But 75% of households have no literary material aside from the Qur’an or newspapers, and only 18% of Tunisians bought a book in the past year.
The ministry of education says it’s uncertain as to why Tunisians are reading so little, though spokeswoman Zoubeida Selah acknowledged that it’s a problem they are trying to address by building more libraries. Tunisia is already home to the biggest library in North Africa (link in French).
YallaRead’s 24-year-old cofounder, Ahmed Hadhri, thinks Tunisians are abandoning books in favor of time online, a cheaper option. “Books in Tunisia are expensive and unavailable,” he says. “There isn’t Amazon, and we don’t find a lot of books in bookshops—people are obliged to ask their friends abroad to make purchases.” A weakened Tunisian dinar has also made overseas book buying prohibitively expensive.
Hadhri launched YallaRead last spring; the platform lets readers post the contents of their personal libraries online and meet up with other bookworms. It follows in the footsteps of programs like Australia’s Books on Rails, which has left 300 books on trains, buses, and trams in Melbourne. Last year, book-wielding commuters in one Romanian city were given a free bus ride.
More than 16,000 cabs serve greater Tunis’ 2.5 million residents, according to the ministry of transport. YallaRead has placed books in Arabic, French, and English; ranging from poetry to self-help; in five taxis so far. The only rule is no religious books, Hadhri says. YallaRead is actively seeking funding and book donations so they can expand to all cabs in Tunis.
“Most Tunisians have abandoned reading,” Mzoughi says, but YallaRead’s program at least “encourages everyone to open up a book, to read a few words or sentences.” The initiative is still in its infancy, but it’s already reached more than 500,000 people on social media. Some clients have called E-Taxi specifically to request a YallaRead cab, Hadhri says.
A selfie in a taxi with a glossy book cover? Now that’s guaranteed to get likes in Tunis.
Source: Quartz
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Friday, November 25, 2016
CBC: Yukon libraries now offer some (artificial) sunshine
Yukon libraries now offer some (artificial) sunshine
Full-spectrum lights offered in Dawson City and Whitehorse
By Philippe Morin
Two Yukon libraries are sunnier places these days — even as the days get shorter.
The Dawson City and Whitehorse libraries now offer full-spectrum lights, often called S.A.D lamps, which are intended to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder.
The lights were bought by Yukon's Francophone Health Network. The group's director, Sandra St-Laurent, says the idea has been tried in other Canadian cities.
"Winnipeg and Edmonton were starting light therapy at the library and we thought, 'this is really good for us,'" she says.
St-Laurent says the goal is to make the library a more welcoming public space and also help people deal with lack of light.
"About twenty per cent (of the population) is sensitive to the seasonal depression syndromes and we thought with the limited exposure to light in Yukon it might be even higher here. So it was really relevant to give it a try here," she said.
Whitehorse has two lamps which can be plugged in anywhere, while Dawson City has one.
"It just has lots of mental-health benefits," says Taryn Parker, circulation supervisor in Whitehorse.
"It provides some good light so it's as if the light is coming in from the window or from the sun."
Source: CBC.ca
Full-spectrum lights offered in Dawson City and Whitehorse
By Philippe Morin
Two Yukon libraries are sunnier places these days — even as the days get shorter.
The Dawson City and Whitehorse libraries now offer full-spectrum lights, often called S.A.D lamps, which are intended to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder.
The lights were bought by Yukon's Francophone Health Network. The group's director, Sandra St-Laurent, says the idea has been tried in other Canadian cities.
"Winnipeg and Edmonton were starting light therapy at the library and we thought, 'this is really good for us,'" she says.
St-Laurent says the goal is to make the library a more welcoming public space and also help people deal with lack of light.
"About twenty per cent (of the population) is sensitive to the seasonal depression syndromes and we thought with the limited exposure to light in Yukon it might be even higher here. So it was really relevant to give it a try here," she said.
Whitehorse has two lamps which can be plugged in anywhere, while Dawson City has one.
"It just has lots of mental-health benefits," says Taryn Parker, circulation supervisor in Whitehorse.
"It provides some good light so it's as if the light is coming in from the window or from the sun."
Source: CBC.ca
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Torontoist: How Libraries Are Helping Newcomers Adjust to Life in Toronto
How Libraries Are Helping Newcomers Adjust to Life in Toronto
This free program offers job assistance, workshops, and interpretation referrals.
By Nikhil Sharma
Three years ago, Gong Zan Cang entered through the doors of the Parliament Street library for the first time. He lived nearby—it took him just a few minutes to get there in his wheelchair.
The 79-year-old immigrated to Toronto from China in 2002 to join his daughter who already lived here. He speaks Mandarin and little English.
Cang went to the library that day to attend one of its workshops, Tai Chi for Well-being. It wouldn’t be the last time, he’d be a frequent client of the library in the coming years.
When Cang lost his Canadian citizenship card last February, he went there again looking for assistance. A woman named Sarah Shi stepped in to help him. They had met before when she taught the Tai Chi workshop.
Shi is one of the Toronto Public Library’s settlement partnership workers.
She speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, and she helped Cang fill out government forms so he could get a replacement citizenship certificate. She also helped him renew his Canadian passport.
“Sometimes he receives letters from the government he can’t understand,” Shi says, translating Cang’s responses to Torontoist’s questions. “But he comes to the service and the social worker can help him to interpret and translation. It (the program) is more convenient for people such as him who come from other country and have a language barrier.”
Shi has been a settlement worker for the TPL for over eight years. When her clients need help, they come to the library. There are no limits on how many times a client can meet with a settlement worker in a week for assistance.
The Toronto Public Library began its partnership with five settlement agencies as part of Toronto’s settlement and education partnership in 2002. From then on, summer settlement services were offered at branches, with workers assisting newcomers across the city when schools were closed for summer vacation.
But in 2007, the library and agencies worked together to deliver a proposal for settlement workers to be present at libraries year-round. The proposal was successful; today, the program is a three-way partnership between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Toronto Public Library, and seven settlement agencies. The initiative is entering its ninth year.
Multilingual workers provide free one-on-one information and referral services, as well as customized programs to assist newcomers to Toronto in integrating into Canadian society and overcoming challenges such as finding employment and accessing heath care services.
Connecting new residents with employment and health care services is one of the program’s priorities. It offers classes and workshops on topics such as dental and oral health, mental health and migration, career awareness for women, and understanding their rights in the workplace.
The program is funded by IRCC. Settlement agencies receive the funding and hire the settlement workers.
Then the TPL provides physical space for the workers in the branches and resources such as ESL collections, materials on resumés and job interviews, and electronic business resources.
Sixty-seven per cent of immigrants use Toronto Public Library branches once per month or more, compared to 46 per cent of non-immigrants, according to a November 2012 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
While there are 100 public branches across the city, the library settlement partnership program is only offered at 16 of them, which raises the concern of limited accessibility.
Under the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement, signed in 2005, $920 million in federal funding was invested over the next five years for settlement and language training programs and services in Ontario.
But in 2010, $44 million cuts [PDF] were made federally for immigration and settlement programs in Ontario by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, as the federal department was then known. CIC also slashed coordinator positions for the library settlement partnership program, as well as the federal Host program, which helps match newcomers with a volunteer who spends time with them weekly.
Over the last four years, IRCC has provided approximately $1 million annually for the program.
One of the program’s focuses is job assistance.
Elsa Ngan, senior services specialist of multicultural services with the Toronto Public Library, says some newcomers experience challenges in finding employment comparable to that which they had in their home countries. She recalls when a teacher from China visited the Scarborough branch, trying to figure out a way to get into teaching here in Canada.
“For someone who is new, who is starting fresh, having that kind of pressure and barrier adds to distress,” Ngan explains.
The number of visits to the library rose last year. According to the TPL’s 2015 key performance indicator dashboard [PDF], the library saw a 2.3 per cent increase in its overall visits, which include virtual and in-branch visits, from 48.3 million in 2014 to 49.4 million in 2015—despite serious slashes to the budget over the past several years.
Provincial funding as a share of the city’s libraries’ budget plunged to 3.1 per cent in 2011 from 6.3 per cent in 1992 [PDF]. A total of 107 librarian and support worker positions were eliminated in the 2012 budget.
The report says it “is a reasonable and responsible funding request necessary to maintain existing services and service levels.”
With a growing digital demand among its users, the Toronto Public Library is also looking to adjust to the market.
According to the TPL’s Strategic Plan 2016-2019 [PDF], the system will explore “advancing our digital platforms, breaking down barriers to access, driving inclusion, expanding access to technology and training, establishing TPL as Toronto’s centre for continuous and self-directed learning, creating community connections through cultural experiences, and transforming for 21st century service excellence.”
The challenge with the library settlement partnerships program is finding new ways to reach out to immigrants who may not be aware of it. The services offered by the program are promoted on TPL’s website and on social media platforms, but not all newcomers may be well-versed in digital technology, just as all born-and-raised Canadians aren’t. There is still that digital divide.
Another challenge is that TPL settlement workers can only do so much. Shi can only assist clients who come through the library doors. Services need to expand more broadly across the city, outside of a library setting.
She is able to help clients prepare for tasks in their daily life outside of the library, though, by providing referrals.
For instance, if Cang needs an interpreter for a medical appointment, Shi will find an agency that can offer interpretation staff to accompany him. However, if there is no interpreter available, his wife will assist him in using the health care services.
“If it’s possible in the future, especially when they need to see the doctor, the social worker or community worker can accompany them when they go outside,” Shi says, translating Cang’s response to the question of what should be improved about the program.
“It will be more convenient, especially for seniors who need to see the doctor and have language barriers.”
Shi says if an interpreter is not available when Cang needs to go to the doctor, it can be stressful for him.
“Right now, in addition to helping them with health and employment, some of the workers are steering towards also helping the newcomers to feel a sense of belonging,” Ngan says.
All the TPL settlement workers speak different languages, and some are able to speak multiple languages. If there is ever a language barrier for a client, he or she will be connected with a settlement worker to help them either interpret or translate.
“In the library we also have a service called Language Line that helps customers who have library-related questions, and if we have communication barriers, we can use that for a real-time interpreter,” Ngan says.
For Cang, the diverse assistance offered by the program went a long way to help him feel at home here.
“He’s thankful for a lot of social services and social workers who can speak different languages; this helps him a lot,” translates Shi. “Living in Toronto, it’s multicultural. It’s a big need for the people from other countries if they have a language barrier.”
Cang says he hopes that government services have more staff who can speak different languages. This will benefit him and other newcomers.
Source: Torontoist
This free program offers job assistance, workshops, and interpretation referrals.
By Nikhil Sharma
Three years ago, Gong Zan Cang entered through the doors of the Parliament Street library for the first time. He lived nearby—it took him just a few minutes to get there in his wheelchair.
The 79-year-old immigrated to Toronto from China in 2002 to join his daughter who already lived here. He speaks Mandarin and little English.
Cang went to the library that day to attend one of its workshops, Tai Chi for Well-being. It wouldn’t be the last time, he’d be a frequent client of the library in the coming years.
When Cang lost his Canadian citizenship card last February, he went there again looking for assistance. A woman named Sarah Shi stepped in to help him. They had met before when she taught the Tai Chi workshop.
Shi is one of the Toronto Public Library’s settlement partnership workers.
She speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, and she helped Cang fill out government forms so he could get a replacement citizenship certificate. She also helped him renew his Canadian passport.
“Sometimes he receives letters from the government he can’t understand,” Shi says, translating Cang’s responses to Torontoist’s questions. “But he comes to the service and the social worker can help him to interpret and translation. It (the program) is more convenient for people such as him who come from other country and have a language barrier.”
Shi has been a settlement worker for the TPL for over eight years. When her clients need help, they come to the library. There are no limits on how many times a client can meet with a settlement worker in a week for assistance.
The Toronto Public Library began its partnership with five settlement agencies as part of Toronto’s settlement and education partnership in 2002. From then on, summer settlement services were offered at branches, with workers assisting newcomers across the city when schools were closed for summer vacation.
But in 2007, the library and agencies worked together to deliver a proposal for settlement workers to be present at libraries year-round. The proposal was successful; today, the program is a three-way partnership between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Toronto Public Library, and seven settlement agencies. The initiative is entering its ninth year.
Multilingual workers provide free one-on-one information and referral services, as well as customized programs to assist newcomers to Toronto in integrating into Canadian society and overcoming challenges such as finding employment and accessing heath care services.
Connecting new residents with employment and health care services is one of the program’s priorities. It offers classes and workshops on topics such as dental and oral health, mental health and migration, career awareness for women, and understanding their rights in the workplace.
The program is funded by IRCC. Settlement agencies receive the funding and hire the settlement workers.
Then the TPL provides physical space for the workers in the branches and resources such as ESL collections, materials on resumés and job interviews, and electronic business resources.
Sixty-seven per cent of immigrants use Toronto Public Library branches once per month or more, compared to 46 per cent of non-immigrants, according to a November 2012 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
While there are 100 public branches across the city, the library settlement partnership program is only offered at 16 of them, which raises the concern of limited accessibility.
Under the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement, signed in 2005, $920 million in federal funding was invested over the next five years for settlement and language training programs and services in Ontario.
But in 2010, $44 million cuts [PDF] were made federally for immigration and settlement programs in Ontario by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, as the federal department was then known. CIC also slashed coordinator positions for the library settlement partnership program, as well as the federal Host program, which helps match newcomers with a volunteer who spends time with them weekly.
Over the last four years, IRCC has provided approximately $1 million annually for the program.
One of the program’s focuses is job assistance.
Elsa Ngan, senior services specialist of multicultural services with the Toronto Public Library, says some newcomers experience challenges in finding employment comparable to that which they had in their home countries. She recalls when a teacher from China visited the Scarborough branch, trying to figure out a way to get into teaching here in Canada.
“For someone who is new, who is starting fresh, having that kind of pressure and barrier adds to distress,” Ngan explains.
The number of visits to the library rose last year. According to the TPL’s 2015 key performance indicator dashboard [PDF], the library saw a 2.3 per cent increase in its overall visits, which include virtual and in-branch visits, from 48.3 million in 2014 to 49.4 million in 2015—despite serious slashes to the budget over the past several years.
Provincial funding as a share of the city’s libraries’ budget plunged to 3.1 per cent in 2011 from 6.3 per cent in 1992 [PDF]. A total of 107 librarian and support worker positions were eliminated in the 2012 budget.
In its 2017 operating budget submission, presented to the TPL board in September, the library is seeking approval for a base budget of $178.7 million, a $1.5-million increase over the 2016 budget.
With a growing digital demand among its users, the Toronto Public Library is also looking to adjust to the market.
According to the TPL’s Strategic Plan 2016-2019 [PDF], the system will explore “advancing our digital platforms, breaking down barriers to access, driving inclusion, expanding access to technology and training, establishing TPL as Toronto’s centre for continuous and self-directed learning, creating community connections through cultural experiences, and transforming for 21st century service excellence.”
The challenge with the library settlement partnerships program is finding new ways to reach out to immigrants who may not be aware of it. The services offered by the program are promoted on TPL’s website and on social media platforms, but not all newcomers may be well-versed in digital technology, just as all born-and-raised Canadians aren’t. There is still that digital divide.
Another challenge is that TPL settlement workers can only do so much. Shi can only assist clients who come through the library doors. Services need to expand more broadly across the city, outside of a library setting.
She is able to help clients prepare for tasks in their daily life outside of the library, though, by providing referrals.
For instance, if Cang needs an interpreter for a medical appointment, Shi will find an agency that can offer interpretation staff to accompany him. However, if there is no interpreter available, his wife will assist him in using the health care services.
“If it’s possible in the future, especially when they need to see the doctor, the social worker or community worker can accompany them when they go outside,” Shi says, translating Cang’s response to the question of what should be improved about the program.
“It will be more convenient, especially for seniors who need to see the doctor and have language barriers.”
Shi says if an interpreter is not available when Cang needs to go to the doctor, it can be stressful for him.
“Right now, in addition to helping them with health and employment, some of the workers are steering towards also helping the newcomers to feel a sense of belonging,” Ngan says.
All the TPL settlement workers speak different languages, and some are able to speak multiple languages. If there is ever a language barrier for a client, he or she will be connected with a settlement worker to help them either interpret or translate.
“In the library we also have a service called Language Line that helps customers who have library-related questions, and if we have communication barriers, we can use that for a real-time interpreter,” Ngan says.
For Cang, the diverse assistance offered by the program went a long way to help him feel at home here.
“He’s thankful for a lot of social services and social workers who can speak different languages; this helps him a lot,” translates Shi. “Living in Toronto, it’s multicultural. It’s a big need for the people from other countries if they have a language barrier.”
Cang says he hopes that government services have more staff who can speak different languages. This will benefit him and other newcomers.
Source: Torontoist
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Toronto Star: Don’t mix in the libraries with the ‘gravy'
Don’t mix in the libraries with the ‘gravy'
It's peculiar to bash Toronto’s libraries and call them by a Rob Ford name.
By Heather Mallick
It’s a given. Some people scorn libraries, presumably because they can buy their own books, thank you very much. Or they think reading is effete, or dull, or that they themselves cannot be improved upon.
When people cut library budgets — as is being attempted by Mayor John Tory — they crush the life chances of children with careless or unknowing parents, of students sneaking into libraries after being bullied for bookishness at school, of people who need the library’s computers to look for work, of new Canadians trying to learn English.
A library offers everything to everybody. As Star columnist Edward Keenan recently wrote of the Toronto public library board’s refusal to give Tory the 2.6 per cent cut he wanted — though he wants it from every department and may still get it — it was a unanimous statement of defiance.
Some things can be cut. But transit needs a great deal more money. So do libraries. Not all city functions are equally necessary or similarly structured, despite what Tory says. Some are apples, some are oranges. Some are glass and laminate, some are cotton.
Yes, there are ways to cut library costs. The Star’s Sara Mojtehedzadeh has described the same bloat of highly paid administrators in libraries that is seen in universities, where precarious adjunct professors teach on the cheap. In 1999 there were six library managers making $100,000 or more. By 2014, there were 63.
I don’t want layoffs but certainly don’t want branches across the city closed on weeknights, as had been proposed, or less work for an army of precarious part-time library workers.
And then I read a peculiar column by Matthew Lau in the Financial Post calling Toronto’s entire public library system by a Rob Ford name, “gravy train.”
Where’s the gravy? It claimed Toronto’s libraries were less efficient than those in other smaller cities and that in fact, libraries are totally unnecessary. Surely if they wished, “anybody with an Internet connection can access an endless supply of virtually costless words.”
How writers demean themselves.
The columnist himself had free library access at university but doesn’t want it for the rest of us. He earned a commerce degree but wants lower taxes, which will cut higher education. He does not understand city planning, architecture, soft power, self-teaching, the publishing industry, encouraging student graduation or the existence of ethnic enclaves that would welcome more Canada via beautiful libraries.
Christopher Bird of Torontoist.com got wonderfully irate about this. He crunched Lau’s numbers and found they didn’t make enough corn flakes to crust a tartlet. He said numbers were combined wrongly, that Toronto workers are paid more because it costs more to live here than, say, in London, Ont., and that Torontonians in fact use their libraries at a higher rate than do citizens in other cities and towns.
But this doesn’t interest me as much as how anti-tax, anti-library, anti-union people like Lau end up sounding like the Ford brothers. Maybe Lau shouldn’t have mentioned “gravy.”
I see status anxiety bubbling in the pot. Well-read people seem a threat, and the dread word “elite” always pops up, though that’s weird in the case of Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch, who is highly educated and inarguably elitist. She must hate herself but appears not to.
Toronto’s libraries give power to the people. I have never understood why populists like the Fords wanted “regular folks” not to have a multiplicity of libraries, in the same way I wondered why they disliked even basic rules of public decorum. They sensed books and courtesy were considered desirable but had been raised to sneer at both. It is an uncomfortable position for an adult to be in.
But an adult has freedom to decide what he wants to be. Children do not.
“The association between books for children and autonomy for children is very strong,” wrote Francis Spufford in The Child that Books Built: A Memoir of Childhood and Reading.
Books are an escape for children who have difficult lives, as Spufford did. His sister was very ill; his parents were frantic, and for years it was distressing to see. He survived by immersing himself in reading so deeply that it became druglike.
The comedian Stephen Colbert endured the plane-crash death of his father and two of his 10 siblings by immersing himself in Dungeons and Dragons, in Tolkien, one place to distract him, another to hone his good brain.
British feminist Caitlin Moran, the eldest of eight children growing up poor in Wolverhampton — it’s dire there — was saved by libraries, but they’re now being closed across the nation.
“A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival,” she has written. “They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead.”
I want more libraries, more hours open, computers and books, softer chairs, more children’s corners, more security guards and librarians. Any cut at all will be a kick in the teeth to the ambitious people of Toronto.
Source: Toronto Star
It's peculiar to bash Toronto’s libraries and call them by a Rob Ford name.
By Heather Mallick
It’s a given. Some people scorn libraries, presumably because they can buy their own books, thank you very much. Or they think reading is effete, or dull, or that they themselves cannot be improved upon.
When people cut library budgets — as is being attempted by Mayor John Tory — they crush the life chances of children with careless or unknowing parents, of students sneaking into libraries after being bullied for bookishness at school, of people who need the library’s computers to look for work, of new Canadians trying to learn English.
A library offers everything to everybody. As Star columnist Edward Keenan recently wrote of the Toronto public library board’s refusal to give Tory the 2.6 per cent cut he wanted — though he wants it from every department and may still get it — it was a unanimous statement of defiance.
Some things can be cut. But transit needs a great deal more money. So do libraries. Not all city functions are equally necessary or similarly structured, despite what Tory says. Some are apples, some are oranges. Some are glass and laminate, some are cotton.
Yes, there are ways to cut library costs. The Star’s Sara Mojtehedzadeh has described the same bloat of highly paid administrators in libraries that is seen in universities, where precarious adjunct professors teach on the cheap. In 1999 there were six library managers making $100,000 or more. By 2014, there were 63.
I don’t want layoffs but certainly don’t want branches across the city closed on weeknights, as had been proposed, or less work for an army of precarious part-time library workers.
And then I read a peculiar column by Matthew Lau in the Financial Post calling Toronto’s entire public library system by a Rob Ford name, “gravy train.”
Where’s the gravy? It claimed Toronto’s libraries were less efficient than those in other smaller cities and that in fact, libraries are totally unnecessary. Surely if they wished, “anybody with an Internet connection can access an endless supply of virtually costless words.”
How writers demean themselves.
The columnist himself had free library access at university but doesn’t want it for the rest of us. He earned a commerce degree but wants lower taxes, which will cut higher education. He does not understand city planning, architecture, soft power, self-teaching, the publishing industry, encouraging student graduation or the existence of ethnic enclaves that would welcome more Canada via beautiful libraries.
Christopher Bird of Torontoist.com got wonderfully irate about this. He crunched Lau’s numbers and found they didn’t make enough corn flakes to crust a tartlet. He said numbers were combined wrongly, that Toronto workers are paid more because it costs more to live here than, say, in London, Ont., and that Torontonians in fact use their libraries at a higher rate than do citizens in other cities and towns.
But this doesn’t interest me as much as how anti-tax, anti-library, anti-union people like Lau end up sounding like the Ford brothers. Maybe Lau shouldn’t have mentioned “gravy.”
I see status anxiety bubbling in the pot. Well-read people seem a threat, and the dread word “elite” always pops up, though that’s weird in the case of Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch, who is highly educated and inarguably elitist. She must hate herself but appears not to.
Toronto’s libraries give power to the people. I have never understood why populists like the Fords wanted “regular folks” not to have a multiplicity of libraries, in the same way I wondered why they disliked even basic rules of public decorum. They sensed books and courtesy were considered desirable but had been raised to sneer at both. It is an uncomfortable position for an adult to be in.
But an adult has freedom to decide what he wants to be. Children do not.
“The association between books for children and autonomy for children is very strong,” wrote Francis Spufford in The Child that Books Built: A Memoir of Childhood and Reading.
Books are an escape for children who have difficult lives, as Spufford did. His sister was very ill; his parents were frantic, and for years it was distressing to see. He survived by immersing himself in reading so deeply that it became druglike.
The comedian Stephen Colbert endured the plane-crash death of his father and two of his 10 siblings by immersing himself in Dungeons and Dragons, in Tolkien, one place to distract him, another to hone his good brain.
British feminist Caitlin Moran, the eldest of eight children growing up poor in Wolverhampton — it’s dire there — was saved by libraries, but they’re now being closed across the nation.
“A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival,” she has written. “They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead.”
I want more libraries, more hours open, computers and books, softer chairs, more children’s corners, more security guards and librarians. Any cut at all will be a kick in the teeth to the ambitious people of Toronto.
Source: Toronto Star
Monday, November 21, 2016
Torontoist: The Financial Post and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad anti-Toronto Library Op-ed
The Financial Post and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad anti-Toronto Library Op-ed
Matthew Lau argues Toronto should close half its libraries. Here's why that's a stupid idea.
By Christopher Bird
Periodically, one gets the opportunity to see the pundit equivalent of a caterpillar emerge from its chrysalis, typing unsupported or simply wrong and factless drivel in the same way that a veteran of Toronto newsrooms would. The difference is that these caterpillar pundits are much younger, giving us the opportunity to see how your Margaret Wentes and Joe Warmingtons enter the pundit world.
Enter Matthew Lau. Lau began publishing poorly written libertarian/conservative screeds while at the University of Toronto, and appears to have graduated, hack-wise if not degree-wise, to the Post, where he has written about how the Laffer Curve shows that Canada’s taxes are too high and how the gender pay gap isn’t a problem, thus ensuring he has a future writing hateclickbait.
Lau’s latest screed, however, is about how the Toronto Public Library is fiscally wasteful, and at a certain point one must stop indulging the follies of youth and slap them across the goddamn face.
It’s a terrible piece of writing, so you have to assume that Lau is going to be writing shitty columns for conservative Toronto papers for a long time.
Similarly, the “16 percent greater circulation of materials” figure actually speaks to how comparably used Toronto’s library is—after all, as Lau points out, those six cities have 26 per cent more people and accordingly you would assume that their circulation would be 26 per cent higher as well. Toronto’s library users are, in fact, using the library at a higher rate than people in those six cities.
This is actually fairly impressive, because as libraries get larger, their circulation rates generally grow less quickly with population, because larger library systems have larger collections, which in turn means “a larger amount of items most people never read.” There’s nothing wrong with popular items being in a library’s collection, of course, but the entire point of a larger library—and the reason circulation does not typically increase directly with population—is that it has a wider variety of materials in it, which in turn increases its maximum variable usability. Most people will never go search through the microfiche archives of the Toronto Telegram, or read through an 19th century operatic score composed by the wonderfully-named Giacomo Meyerbeer, or read a Dan Brown novel (well, we hope they won’t read a Dan Brown novel), but the Toronto Public Library has all of those things if you need them. TPL’s engagement and circulation rates show that Toronto library users are more wide-ranging in their use than average.
What’s more, it doesn’t just have those things for Torontonians, either, because all of the libraries Lau mentions have interlibrary loan agreements with the Toronto Public Library, meaning that if someone in Brampton or Markham or Ottawa needs to review Toronto Telegram microfiche archives and their library doesn’t have them (which they likely don’t), borrowers of those libraries can, through their libraries, borrow from the Toronto Public Library. (TPL fulfilled approximately 4,000 such requests in 2015.)
This is more or less the point of libraries in the first place. Lau’s argument that there should be “economies of scale” is just dense, because libraries aren’t goddamn McDonald’s franchises. As a population grows and gets more diverse the challenges that exist for libraries grow rather than shrink. The Toronto Public Library maintains collections in nearly 70 languages other than English, as well as collections in Braille, large print, and AV works for the hearing impaired. It provides support to Centre for Equitable Library Access for people with print disabilities. It subscribes to a impressive number of international newspapers. It needs to be stressed that smaller libraries do not do this sort of thing, because they simply don’t have the resources or mandate to do so.
Toronto doesn’t have “more library branches” than New York City or Los Angeles. What Lau has done here is assume that the New York Public Library and the Los Angeles Public Library are the only public libraries servicing those two cities. But New York has three separate public library systems: the New York Public Library (which services Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island), the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Public Library. All together, New York’s three public libraries have 216 branches. Similarly, Los Angelenos are serviced by both the Los Angeles City Public Library and most of the branches of the Los Angeles County Public Library; in Los Angeles (not counting the suburban and exurban cities the County library also services) Los Angelenos are serviced by about 130 library branches.
Chicago, admittedly, has only 90 public library branches to the TPL’s 100 (plus a few libraries operated by Cook County rather than the City of Chicago), but it is worth remembering that Toronto is slightly larger than Chicago is now.
Finally, anybody writing about how they favour public library budget cuts probably doesn’t want to discuss the New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago library systems. The combined annual budget of the three major New York public libraries is approximately $471 million USD. The combined annual budget of the Los Angeles City and County Libraries is approximately $260 million USD. The most recent Chicago city budget puts the total library budget at $110 million USD. The Toronto Public Libary’s 2015 budget, in comparison, was $171 million Canadian—or approximately $127 million USD. Any comparison of library expenditures of large cities on a per-capita basis shows that Toronto is arguably underspending on libraries.
But when you really think about it, isn’t it also possible that the system itself might be unnecessary gravy? Is there any evidence that the same markets that keep us well served with winter boots, cars and groceries (including, of course, delicious gravy) couldn’t also provide us a solution for shared reading material if that’s what people wanted? It seems especially possible in the age of the digital sharing economy, where anybody with an Internet connection can access an endless supply of virtually costless words.
And of course, Lau ends his sad little screed with the appeal of libertarians everywhere regarding libraries, which is a less-refined version of the “what if we just gave everybody iPads instead of having a library” argument so popular with Silicon Valley hacks. (To answer that question: real-life books survive changes in digital and technology standards, allow kids to develop a sense of patience necessary to turn children into lifelong readers, and create tactile associations with books that enhance both affection for reading and the ability to remember what has been read.) I also note that anybody who suggests that the internet provides “an endless supply of virtually costless words” is a fool who knows literally nothing about the costs of e-book licensing and who does not realize that Google is simply not a one-to-one replacement for actual reference library services when it comes to searching for data. And “virtually costless” is not the same as “actually costless,” which matters when you are, for example, homeless and thus unable to afford any cost.
The answer to Lau’s question is that we came up with a solution for shared reading material, and they were called “libraries.” Remember, the entire concept of libraries initially conceived them as privately owned resources. The concept of the public library arose because societies recognized that public access to educational and informational resources was benefited everybody, and when your anticipated user base is “everybody” it makes sense to organize the programs publicly anyway.
Of course, none of this seems to matter to Lau, who clearly hasn’t spent much time in Toronto’s public libraries or else he would at least have better research skills. It doesn’t matter to him that the Toronto Public Library generates $5.63 in value for every dollar spent on it. It doesn’t matter to him that Toronto delivers children and youth programs more efficiently than his agglomerated group of six libraries either. Lau arrived at his conclusion before he ever started writing his piece; it might make for a good pitch, but it’s terrible journalism.
CORRECTION: 6:00 PM The Toronto Public Library does not run CELA, as the article originally stated. CELA is an independent not-for-profit, and the TPL provides ongoing support. We regret the error.
Journalism costs money. Help support local journalism that you believe in by sending Torontoist a couple dollars a month.
Source: Torontoist.
Matthew Lau argues Toronto should close half its libraries. Here's why that's a stupid idea.
By Christopher Bird
Periodically, one gets the opportunity to see the pundit equivalent of a caterpillar emerge from its chrysalis, typing unsupported or simply wrong and factless drivel in the same way that a veteran of Toronto newsrooms would. The difference is that these caterpillar pundits are much younger, giving us the opportunity to see how your Margaret Wentes and Joe Warmingtons enter the pundit world.
Enter Matthew Lau. Lau began publishing poorly written libertarian/conservative screeds while at the University of Toronto, and appears to have graduated, hack-wise if not degree-wise, to the Post, where he has written about how the Laffer Curve shows that Canada’s taxes are too high and how the gender pay gap isn’t a problem, thus ensuring he has a future writing hateclickbait.
Lau’s latest screed, however, is about how the Toronto Public Library is fiscally wasteful, and at a certain point one must stop indulging the follies of youth and slap them across the goddamn face.
Just the other week, the Toronto Star complained in an editorial that municipal politicians were still convinced they had to “stop the gravy train…. But there is no gravy train.” The editorial was decrying a request from Mayor John Tory that city departments, including the Toronto Public Library, cut a paltry 2.6-per-cent from their budgets. City spending, the Star insisted, “has already been cut to the bone.” Oh, please. Anyone who looks at the library’s budget will find more gravy there than at Swiss Chalet.This sort of writing just sets my teeth on edge. That Swiss Chalet line in particular is the sort of Toronto pundit quip that is completely tone-appropriate for Toronto newspaper punditry, because it is a Canadian cultural reference that manages to be hackneyed, unfunny, and not even really the right answer because Swiss Chalet isn’t known for their gravy but for their delicious barbecue sauce.
It’s a terrible piece of writing, so you have to assume that Lau is going to be writing shitty columns for conservative Toronto papers for a long time.
Toronto’s public library system cost 22-per-cent more to operate, and its staffing costs alone were 33-per-cent higher, than the public libraries in Brampton, Hamilton, London, Markham, Mississauga, and Ottawa combined. This suggests that, contrary to what the Toronto Public Library Workers Union would have us believe, Toronto’s library workers are not overworked and underpaid.Before we start discussing all the other ways Lau is wrong, it is worth noting that the cost of living in Toronto is higher than it is in Brampton, Hamilton, London, Markham, Mississauga, or Ottawa, and in particular housing costs are much higher. This is why library workers in Toronto get paid more: because Toronto is more expensive. (Besides, librarians particularly need to understand the needs of their community in order to ensure that their library serves it well, and that means living in the community, rather than commuting in from Barrie or what have you.)
All this additional spending might be justified if Toronto’s library was significantly more efficient and productive than the library systems of those other six cities. But that’s not the case. Those same six cities combined serve 26-per-cent more residents than Toronto does. Together they offered 56-per-cent more by way of programming than Toronto’s library did that year. And they had a 16-per-cent greater circulation of materials than the Toronto Public Library did in 2013. Those numbers, again, are combined. But Toronto’s library, being the largest, should actually be enjoying some efficiencies. It is certainly odd that it should actually be less efficient than a half-dozen smaller Ontario libraries combined.Some of Lau’s statistics here are misleading. Stating that the six other library systems offer “56 percent more by way of programming” is stupid, for example, because what he seems to have done is add up total program attendance, child program attendance and youth program attendance as shown here, which effectively double-counts child and youth programs. The actual figure is that the six cities have 14 per cent more programming—which means that, since they have 26 per cent more population (or at least did per 2011 census figures, a fact which Lau neglects to mention), Toronto is actually putting on programming more efficiently.
Similarly, the “16 percent greater circulation of materials” figure actually speaks to how comparably used Toronto’s library is—after all, as Lau points out, those six cities have 26 per cent more people and accordingly you would assume that their circulation would be 26 per cent higher as well. Toronto’s library users are, in fact, using the library at a higher rate than people in those six cities.
This is actually fairly impressive, because as libraries get larger, their circulation rates generally grow less quickly with population, because larger library systems have larger collections, which in turn means “a larger amount of items most people never read.” There’s nothing wrong with popular items being in a library’s collection, of course, but the entire point of a larger library—and the reason circulation does not typically increase directly with population—is that it has a wider variety of materials in it, which in turn increases its maximum variable usability. Most people will never go search through the microfiche archives of the Toronto Telegram, or read through an 19th century operatic score composed by the wonderfully-named Giacomo Meyerbeer, or read a Dan Brown novel (well, we hope they won’t read a Dan Brown novel), but the Toronto Public Library has all of those things if you need them. TPL’s engagement and circulation rates show that Toronto library users are more wide-ranging in their use than average.
What’s more, it doesn’t just have those things for Torontonians, either, because all of the libraries Lau mentions have interlibrary loan agreements with the Toronto Public Library, meaning that if someone in Brampton or Markham or Ottawa needs to review Toronto Telegram microfiche archives and their library doesn’t have them (which they likely don’t), borrowers of those libraries can, through their libraries, borrow from the Toronto Public Library. (TPL fulfilled approximately 4,000 such requests in 2015.)
This is more or less the point of libraries in the first place. Lau’s argument that there should be “economies of scale” is just dense, because libraries aren’t goddamn McDonald’s franchises. As a population grows and gets more diverse the challenges that exist for libraries grow rather than shrink. The Toronto Public Library maintains collections in nearly 70 languages other than English, as well as collections in Braille, large print, and AV works for the hearing impaired. It provides support to Centre for Equitable Library Access for people with print disabilities. It subscribes to a impressive number of international newspapers. It needs to be stressed that smaller libraries do not do this sort of thing, because they simply don’t have the resources or mandate to do so.
Perhaps others might have once considered it unthinkable that Toronto would someday have more library branches than New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago. But it does.Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.
Toronto doesn’t have “more library branches” than New York City or Los Angeles. What Lau has done here is assume that the New York Public Library and the Los Angeles Public Library are the only public libraries servicing those two cities. But New York has three separate public library systems: the New York Public Library (which services Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island), the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Public Library. All together, New York’s three public libraries have 216 branches. Similarly, Los Angelenos are serviced by both the Los Angeles City Public Library and most of the branches of the Los Angeles County Public Library; in Los Angeles (not counting the suburban and exurban cities the County library also services) Los Angelenos are serviced by about 130 library branches.
Chicago, admittedly, has only 90 public library branches to the TPL’s 100 (plus a few libraries operated by Cook County rather than the City of Chicago), but it is worth remembering that Toronto is slightly larger than Chicago is now.
Finally, anybody writing about how they favour public library budget cuts probably doesn’t want to discuss the New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago library systems. The combined annual budget of the three major New York public libraries is approximately $471 million USD. The combined annual budget of the Los Angeles City and County Libraries is approximately $260 million USD. The most recent Chicago city budget puts the total library budget at $110 million USD. The Toronto Public Libary’s 2015 budget, in comparison, was $171 million Canadian—or approximately $127 million USD. Any comparison of library expenditures of large cities on a per-capita basis shows that Toronto is arguably underspending on libraries.
Rather than the 100 branches it has now, a more appropriate number for a city of Toronto’s size might be 40 or 50.The source for this “more appropriate number” appears to be out of Matthew Lau’s ass. Perhaps he should look at Toronto’s map of locations and explain which 50–60 locations should be axed and how he would do this without impacting services?
Indeed, closing branches is not a new idea: In 2011, a businessman who was on the Toronto Public Library’s board of directors suggested slashing 38 branches to save money.The businessman in question is noted Rob Ford appointee Stephen Dulmage. He resigned after six of the most bizarre months on the board in recent memory.
But when you really think about it, isn’t it also possible that the system itself might be unnecessary gravy? Is there any evidence that the same markets that keep us well served with winter boots, cars and groceries (including, of course, delicious gravy) couldn’t also provide us a solution for shared reading material if that’s what people wanted? It seems especially possible in the age of the digital sharing economy, where anybody with an Internet connection can access an endless supply of virtually costless words.
And of course, Lau ends his sad little screed with the appeal of libertarians everywhere regarding libraries, which is a less-refined version of the “what if we just gave everybody iPads instead of having a library” argument so popular with Silicon Valley hacks. (To answer that question: real-life books survive changes in digital and technology standards, allow kids to develop a sense of patience necessary to turn children into lifelong readers, and create tactile associations with books that enhance both affection for reading and the ability to remember what has been read.) I also note that anybody who suggests that the internet provides “an endless supply of virtually costless words” is a fool who knows literally nothing about the costs of e-book licensing and who does not realize that Google is simply not a one-to-one replacement for actual reference library services when it comes to searching for data. And “virtually costless” is not the same as “actually costless,” which matters when you are, for example, homeless and thus unable to afford any cost.
The answer to Lau’s question is that we came up with a solution for shared reading material, and they were called “libraries.” Remember, the entire concept of libraries initially conceived them as privately owned resources. The concept of the public library arose because societies recognized that public access to educational and informational resources was benefited everybody, and when your anticipated user base is “everybody” it makes sense to organize the programs publicly anyway.
Of course, none of this seems to matter to Lau, who clearly hasn’t spent much time in Toronto’s public libraries or else he would at least have better research skills. It doesn’t matter to him that the Toronto Public Library generates $5.63 in value for every dollar spent on it. It doesn’t matter to him that Toronto delivers children and youth programs more efficiently than his agglomerated group of six libraries either. Lau arrived at his conclusion before he ever started writing his piece; it might make for a good pitch, but it’s terrible journalism.
CORRECTION: 6:00 PM The Toronto Public Library does not run CELA, as the article originally stated. CELA is an independent not-for-profit, and the TPL provides ongoing support. We regret the error.
Journalism costs money. Help support local journalism that you believe in by sending Torontoist a couple dollars a month.
Source: Torontoist.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
TB News Watch: Thunder Bay Public Library looks to future
November 15, 2016 | Gary Rinne
People are taking out fewer and fewer books at the Thunder Bay Public Library, but staffing levels remain the same as they were a decade ago.
Chief librarian John Pateman says that’s because the library continues to provide people-based services, and is also changing the services it offers in order to reflect changing needs.
Some of those changes are reflected in the steadily-increasing use of library materials through electronic circulation: the borrowing of ebooks, e-audiobooks, movies, magazines and more, through various online applications.
Electronic circulation ballooned by more than 500 per cent between 2011 and last year.
By contrast, data supplied by the library to tbnewswatch.com shows traditional book circulation dropped by 27 per cent between 2005 and 2015, and the number of in-person visits declined by 21 per cent.
In the year 2000, the public library employed 56 people full-time, while part-time and casual staff accounted for 22 full-time-equivalent positions. This year, the comparable figures are 56 and 19.
“We’ve kept the staffing base as-is but we’ve changed the nature of the work that they do, to make them more outward-facing and to give them the capacity to go out into the community and do good things there,” Pateman said.
But Pateman added the ultimate goal remains to get people to come back into the library, where there is “a fantastic range of resources, that are all free” rather than having to potentially pay for them somewhere else. He pointed out that Thunder Bay residents support the library through their taxes, “so you might as well come and get the benefit of what you kind of pay for up-front.”
He feels a third and most important reason to utilize the library is that it represents democratic public space. “It’s a great opportunity for getting people together, for generating community activity, for getting people in contact with each other who may not have the opportunity to do so outside the library, whether that’s a generations thing or whether it’s communities that don’t normally collide.”
The chief librarian wants to maintain a healthy balance between in-building services and remote services, even while acknowledging that “there is an insatiable appetite” for any kind of on-line resource that the library provides.
“People just can’t get enough of it, so that’s just going to go up and up and up,” he said, although he conceded the use of e-books has flattened off. “If anything, it’s about the same level as traditional book-borrowing, so those two, I think, are going to find their own equilibrium.”
Pateman said that currently the biggest market for hard-copy books, particularly fiction, is the teenage market, notably teenaged girls. He noted that this is despite the fact that younger clients have been brought up with new technology.
“To me, that speaks very clearly that the book has got a future … no matter what all the other technological changes may be.”
To help cement its value to the public in the coming years, Pateman said the library will re-position itself as a community hub. He said the library has a powerful brand, but for people who haven’t used it for awhile, there may be a limited vision of what it is.
“You’ll find a very good library service, but also you’ll find a range of other community services that will assist in giving you a very good quality of life.”
He described the effort as a one-stop-shop concept that goes beyond the boundaries of the traditional library. As an example, at the Waverley library branch, small-business operators can rent a work area designed for and dedicated just to them, where they can tap into resources already in the building.
“We’ve got all the kind of key census data that will tell you what your market might look like, things like that.”
To view the original article, please visit TB News Watch.
People are taking out fewer and fewer books at the Thunder Bay Public Library, but staffing levels remain the same as they were a decade ago.
Chief librarian John Pateman says that’s because the library continues to provide people-based services, and is also changing the services it offers in order to reflect changing needs.
Some of those changes are reflected in the steadily-increasing use of library materials through electronic circulation: the borrowing of ebooks, e-audiobooks, movies, magazines and more, through various online applications.
Electronic circulation ballooned by more than 500 per cent between 2011 and last year.
By contrast, data supplied by the library to tbnewswatch.com shows traditional book circulation dropped by 27 per cent between 2005 and 2015, and the number of in-person visits declined by 21 per cent.
In the year 2000, the public library employed 56 people full-time, while part-time and casual staff accounted for 22 full-time-equivalent positions. This year, the comparable figures are 56 and 19.
“We’ve kept the staffing base as-is but we’ve changed the nature of the work that they do, to make them more outward-facing and to give them the capacity to go out into the community and do good things there,” Pateman said.
But Pateman added the ultimate goal remains to get people to come back into the library, where there is “a fantastic range of resources, that are all free” rather than having to potentially pay for them somewhere else. He pointed out that Thunder Bay residents support the library through their taxes, “so you might as well come and get the benefit of what you kind of pay for up-front.”
He feels a third and most important reason to utilize the library is that it represents democratic public space. “It’s a great opportunity for getting people together, for generating community activity, for getting people in contact with each other who may not have the opportunity to do so outside the library, whether that’s a generations thing or whether it’s communities that don’t normally collide.”
The chief librarian wants to maintain a healthy balance between in-building services and remote services, even while acknowledging that “there is an insatiable appetite” for any kind of on-line resource that the library provides.
“People just can’t get enough of it, so that’s just going to go up and up and up,” he said, although he conceded the use of e-books has flattened off. “If anything, it’s about the same level as traditional book-borrowing, so those two, I think, are going to find their own equilibrium.”
Pateman said that currently the biggest market for hard-copy books, particularly fiction, is the teenage market, notably teenaged girls. He noted that this is despite the fact that younger clients have been brought up with new technology.
“To me, that speaks very clearly that the book has got a future … no matter what all the other technological changes may be.”
To help cement its value to the public in the coming years, Pateman said the library will re-position itself as a community hub. He said the library has a powerful brand, but for people who haven’t used it for awhile, there may be a limited vision of what it is.
“You’ll find a very good library service, but also you’ll find a range of other community services that will assist in giving you a very good quality of life.”
He described the effort as a one-stop-shop concept that goes beyond the boundaries of the traditional library. As an example, at the Waverley library branch, small-business operators can rent a work area designed for and dedicated just to them, where they can tap into resources already in the building.
“We’ve got all the kind of key census data that will tell you what your market might look like, things like that.”
To view the original article, please visit TB News Watch.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
CBC Radio: Growing up in the hidden apartments of New York City's libraries
By Brent Bambury | Friday November 04, 2016
Thirty Carnegie libraries once had apartments within them, but over the years many of the dwellings have been repurposed. Only 13 of the apartments remain today.
"It just made me want to tell their story because there are so many people who don't know that these places existed."
For any booklover, living in a library might sound like a dream. But for Sharon Washington, it was a reality. Her father was a library custodian, and she grew up in three New York public libraries.
As she tells Day 6 host Brent Bambury, she has always loved to watch people's reactions after telling them she grew up in a library.
"It was always with a wide-eyed look of, 'Really, what was that like?'," she says. "It's one of those hidden secrets, and so I loved watching the look on people's faces when I actually told them the story."
Washington lived in a library from age 5-12, with most of that time spent at the St. Agnes branch on the Upper West Side. Her family's apartment was on the library's top floor.
"My family had keys to the front door of the library," she explains. "We had to go through the library, the main floor, past the reference section on the second floor, past the children's library on the third floor, and then there was a little wooden door with a plate that was marked 'private.'"
"We went through that door and up two more narrow flights of steps and you were in our apartment."
While some of the apartments were grand in appearance, Washington describes their apartment as a very large, beautiful, Upper West Side apartment. There were three bedrooms, a living room large enough to hold a baby grand piano, as well as outdoor space on the roof.
After hours, when the library was closed, Washington had access to the library and all that it held.
"I think part of the reason why I'm an actress today is because it fueled my imagination. We would create these elaborate play stories," says Washington. "I think that's when I realized how special it was."
Washington also points out that the library was a safe haven during a time when New York was at its crime peak.
"New York at the time was really scary, I mean this is when [there was] Needle Park and there were a lot of drugs and crime, and so having a safe space for me to play and be inside that locked library, where my parents knew I was safe, was a huge relief to them."
Washington explains that not many people knew about the library apartments, and that she would often get curious looks from library patrons.
"Carrying groceries upstairs, sometimes people followed. You know, I had to go into that little door that was marked 'private' to get into our apartment," she says. "People would try to come in behind me … I'd try to explain that no, it's the custodial apartment."
The interior of the now-unused apartment within the Port Washington Branch of the New York Public Library. Though they are uninhabited, 13 of the apartments remain. (Jonathan Blanc/NYPL)
The actress also explains that few of the families who lived in the library apartments knew one another.
"There was no custodian's union meeting where we met each other," says Washington. "It just made me want to tell their story because there are so many people who don't know that these places existed."
Washington has written a one-woman play called Feeding the Dragon, and it's all about her childhood days, growing up in the St. Agnes library.
On the set, Washington is surrounded by books and bookshelves. She says the title is drawn from her memory of envisioning the library's coal furnace as a dragon.
"I used to love watching [my father] stoke the furnace, because it really was very hard manual labour … but to watch him do that, it was like watching a knight feed a dragon."
Feeding the Dragon had its world premiere at the City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh on October 28th. Pittsburgh has a tie to Andrew Carnegie as the city where he made most of his money.
The coal furnaces have long since gone from the libraries, and the apartments within have, for the most part, been repurposed as storage spaces or renovated into spaces to be used by library patrons.
Of the 13 remaining apartments, none are inhabited, and most are badly neglected. When the New York Public Library has the funds, those apartments will also likely be renovated and repurposed for modern-day use.
"They're all being utilized for either WiFi routers or storage space or the modern uses of the library," says Washington.
"I think we need to know that history, I want to make sure that history is still there and still alive."
Thirty Carnegie libraries once had apartments within them, but over the years many of the dwellings have been repurposed. Only 13 of the apartments remain today.
"It just made me want to tell their story because there are so many people who don't know that these places existed."
For any booklover, living in a library might sound like a dream. But for Sharon Washington, it was a reality. Her father was a library custodian, and she grew up in three New York public libraries.
As she tells Day 6 host Brent Bambury, she has always loved to watch people's reactions after telling them she grew up in a library.
"It was always with a wide-eyed look of, 'Really, what was that like?'," she says. "It's one of those hidden secrets, and so I loved watching the look on people's faces when I actually told them the story."
Washington lived in a library from age 5-12, with most of that time spent at the St. Agnes branch on the Upper West Side. Her family's apartment was on the library's top floor.
"My family had keys to the front door of the library," she explains. "We had to go through the library, the main floor, past the reference section on the second floor, past the children's library on the third floor, and then there was a little wooden door with a plate that was marked 'private.'"
"We went through that door and up two more narrow flights of steps and you were in our apartment."
While some of the apartments were grand in appearance, Washington describes their apartment as a very large, beautiful, Upper West Side apartment. There were three bedrooms, a living room large enough to hold a baby grand piano, as well as outdoor space on the roof.
After hours, when the library was closed, Washington had access to the library and all that it held.
"I think part of the reason why I'm an actress today is because it fueled my imagination. We would create these elaborate play stories," says Washington. "I think that's when I realized how special it was."
Washington also points out that the library was a safe haven during a time when New York was at its crime peak.
"New York at the time was really scary, I mean this is when [there was] Needle Park and there were a lot of drugs and crime, and so having a safe space for me to play and be inside that locked library, where my parents knew I was safe, was a huge relief to them."
Washington explains that not many people knew about the library apartments, and that she would often get curious looks from library patrons.
"Carrying groceries upstairs, sometimes people followed. You know, I had to go into that little door that was marked 'private' to get into our apartment," she says. "People would try to come in behind me … I'd try to explain that no, it's the custodial apartment."
The interior of the now-unused apartment within the Port Washington Branch of the New York Public Library. Though they are uninhabited, 13 of the apartments remain. (Jonathan Blanc/NYPL)
The actress also explains that few of the families who lived in the library apartments knew one another.
"There was no custodian's union meeting where we met each other," says Washington. "It just made me want to tell their story because there are so many people who don't know that these places existed."
Washington has written a one-woman play called Feeding the Dragon, and it's all about her childhood days, growing up in the St. Agnes library.
On the set, Washington is surrounded by books and bookshelves. She says the title is drawn from her memory of envisioning the library's coal furnace as a dragon.
"I used to love watching [my father] stoke the furnace, because it really was very hard manual labour … but to watch him do that, it was like watching a knight feed a dragon."
Feeding the Dragon had its world premiere at the City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh on October 28th. Pittsburgh has a tie to Andrew Carnegie as the city where he made most of his money.
The coal furnaces have long since gone from the libraries, and the apartments within have, for the most part, been repurposed as storage spaces or renovated into spaces to be used by library patrons.
Of the 13 remaining apartments, none are inhabited, and most are badly neglected. When the New York Public Library has the funds, those apartments will also likely be renovated and repurposed for modern-day use.
"They're all being utilized for either WiFi routers or storage space or the modern uses of the library," says Washington.
"I think we need to know that history, I want to make sure that history is still there and still alive."
To view the full article, please visit CBC Radio.
Friday, November 11, 2016
IFLA Trend Report
By IFLA
15 August 2016
The IFLA Trend Report is more than a single document - it is a selection of resources to help you understand where libraries fit into a changing society. Before you go any further, make sure you:
15 August 2016
WHAT IS THE IFLA TREND REPORT?
In the global information environment, time moves quickly and there's an abundance of commentators trying to keep up. With each new technological development, a new report emerges assessing its impact on different sectors of society. The IFLA Trend Report takes a broader approach and identifies five high level trends shaping the information society, spanning access to education, privacy, civic engagement and transformation. Its findings reflect a year's consultation with range of experts and stakeholders from different disciplines to map broader societal changes occurring, or likely to occur in the information environment.DISCOVER THE TRENDS
Our information environment is constantly changing. How will we access, use and benefit from information in an increasingly hyper-connected world? The IFLA Trend Report identifies five top level trends which will play a key role in shaping our future information ecosystem:
- TREND 1New Technologies will both expand and limit who has access to information.
- TREND 2Online Education will democratise and disrupt global learning.
- TREND 3The boundaries of privacy and data protection will be redefined..
- TREND 4Hyper-connected societies will listen to and empower new voices and groups.
- TREND 5The global information environment will be transformed by new technologies.
- See what topics and questions people are discussing on the Discussion Forum
Thursday, November 10, 2016
OCLC: Four interlibrary loan trends to watch in 2016
By Christa Starck
17 February 2016
At least once a year, we query the WorldShare ILL database and see how the trends in interlibrary loan are developing. We count titles a little differently than other lists. Rather than splitting into fiction/nonfiction we look at loan requests vs. copy requests (loans of an entire book vs. a request to copy a single article or part of a larger work). The list of top copy requests is, as you might expect, heavily weighted toward the medical, psychological and scientific realms. It’s the loan requests that are more interesting.
17 February 2016
At least once a year, we query the WorldShare ILL database and see how the trends in interlibrary loan are developing. We count titles a little differently than other lists. Rather than splitting into fiction/nonfiction we look at loan requests vs. copy requests (loans of an entire book vs. a request to copy a single article or part of a larger work). The list of top copy requests is, as you might expect, heavily weighted toward the medical, psychological and scientific realms. It’s the loan requests that are more interesting.
The top 10 ILL’d titles for 2015
(Shown in order, 1-10. Click to see the book in WorldCat)
Trends…and questions
Since 2010, we’ve seen some themes and trends in the top loan requests (see the “Top 10” lists below)…some of which lead to a few questions we’d like to ask you:- More young adult titles. Are more adults requesting YA titles in your library? Or are young people discovering ILL?
- Fewer textbooks. Three in 2010, but only one in 2015. Is your library becoming more reluctant to request/lend textbooks? There are often conversations on listervs about textbooks…to loan or not to loan. Where do you fall?
- Lots of movie/TV tie-ins. Out of the 60 titles we have listed, 29 have been made (or are being made) into TV shows or movies. We hear a lot about the “second screen” experience for viewers. Does the book for a show fill a similar need?
- Overlap with book clubs. There is a great deal of overlap between our ILL lists and the top Goodreads book clubs. Twenty-five of the top items requested through ILL show up there. Does your library borrow books as well as buy when you’re involved with book clubs?
Resource sharing is important for popular works.
Which of these, if any, ring true for your library? Are you seeing other ILL trends you can share? Let us know at next@oclc.org or on Twitter, #OCLCnext. Which leads to our last, biggest question.
Why do libraries ILL best sellers?
Many of the books featured in our list are not just popular…but are best sellers or have been highly publicized, such as:- Quiet, Susan Cain (2012)
- The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling (2013)
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates (winner of the National Book Award) (2015)
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo (2015)
- It’s a different budget. Acquisition dollars may be gone, ILL money is still available.
- It’s a different department. Someone might have authority to do ILL but not make purchases.
- Reluctance to buy for short-term needs. If it’s a run on one title, purchasing a copy or two for something that may be a flash-in-the-pan might seem wasteful to those of us trained to be economical in all things.
Top ILL titles for previous years
2014- Dead Doctors Don’t Lie
- Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- Hardwired
- The Fault in Our Stars
- The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children
- Orphan Train: A Novel
- The Goldfinch
- Trim Healthy Mama
- Gone Girl: A Novel
- Allegiant
- Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
- Gut and Psychology Syndrome
- Inferno: A Novel
- Game of Thrones, the Complete Second Season (DVD)
- House of Darkness House of Light: The True Story. Volume One
- Natural Solutions to Things that Bug You
- Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
- Gone Girl: A Novel
- The Fault in Our Stars
- The Cuckoo’s Calling
- Fifty Shades of Grey
- The Hunger Games
- Catching Fire
- Gone Girl: A Novel
- Mockingjay
- Cloud Atlas: A Novel
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
- The Harbinger
- Tales of a Rascal: What I Did for Love
- Gut and Psychology Syndrome
- Heaven is for Real
- The Help
- A Game of Thrones
- The Hunger Games
- Bossypants
- Catching Fire
- Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
- Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
- The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, And Redemption
- Mockingjay
- Freedom
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
- The Help
- Computer Networking: A Top-down Approach
- George Washington’s Sacred Fire
- Introduction to Algorithms
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
- Room: A Novel
- APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Thursday, November 3, 2016
PBS Newshour: Do We Need Librarians Now That We Have the Internet
By Robert Graboyes
October 24, 2016
Observe librarians, and you’ll learn quite a bit about 21st century physicians. Digital technologies are hurling both professions into disintermediated worlds where they are no longer sole providers of vital services. Both must change their skills year by year and prove their value day by day. Both must choose whether the change is liberating or suffocating.
My wife, Alanna, recently retired after 40 years as a librarian. Her job changed radically during those years. When she began, librarians were monopolists who gathered, organized and dispensed precious resources to a dependent clientele. At Columbia University, where she worked when we met, students couldn’t survive without rapid access to the contents of the cavernous stacks. Librarians were gatekeepers who determined when a given student could possess essential resources. They issued fines and sanctions for those violating the rules.
Alanna had the desire and luck to shepherd multiple libraries into the digital age. At Columbia, she helped oversee the shift to online catalogs. Miraculously, students and scholars could then navigate library resources without asking faces behind the counter. As years passed, the internet further eroded aspects of the traditional library. Alanna played key roles in transporting a Fortune 500 company, a suburban public library and two high schools into this new era.
Her final project was overseeing the design and construction of a high school library, to be used in ways unimaginable when her career began. As the project started, my brother Arnold — an emergency room physician — casually asked, “Why do we need libraries now that we have the internet?”
Alanna responded, “Why do we need doctors now that there are computers?”
Pondering that two-sentence exchange, she concluded: For centuries, the librarian’s job was providing scarce information to dependent patrons. Now, the job is helping patrons navigate superabundant information of wildly varying quality and uncertain provenance. The new job, unlike the old, requires marketing — librarians must persuade patrons that a navigator is worth the time and trouble. For better or worse, the digital age forces experts to make the case that a Google search doesn’t replace the librarian, and WebMD doesn’t replace the doctor.
Alanna found this evolution exhilarating. Some librarians hate it. Some are frightened of it. And others don’t grasp its sweep.
At the turn of this millennium, a close friend, Rich Schieken, retired after a 40-year career as a pediatric cardiologist and medical school professor. He told me that he was sort of glad to be stepping down.
“Why?” I asked, “I thought you love what you do.”
Rich’s answer went something like this: “I do love it, but my world has changed. When I began, parents brought their sick and dying children to me. I said, ‘This is what we’ll do,’ and they said, ‘Yes, doctor.’ Nowadays, they bring 300 pages of internet printouts. When I offer a prognosis and suggest treatment, they point to the papers and ask, ‘Why not do this or this or that?’” He added, “Don’t get me wrong. This new world is better than the old one. It’s just quite a bit to get used to.”
Cardiologist Eric Topol writes extensively about how converging technologies are democratizing medicine. With inexpensive smartphone apps, patients can check their children’s ears for infections, differentiate between bronchitis and pneumonia, and perform myriad other services that were once the exclusive domain of physicians. A patient with atrial fibrillation can use a smartphone and a tiny AliveCor peripheral to take an electrocardiogram in 30 seconds. (I have one on my own iPhone.)
Ponder this for a moment: Topol argues that the smartphone will soon be the most important device in medical history and that, relieved of rote tasks, physicians will be free to use their minds and talents where they are truly indispensable.
Alan Greene, chief medical officer of diagnostic device startup Scanadu, said of IBM’s Watson supercomputer: “I believe something like Watson will soon be the world’s best diagnostician—whether machine or human. At the rate [artificial intelligence] technology is improving, a kid born today will rarely need to see a doctor to get a diagnosis by the time they are an adult.”
Greene’s techno-optimism is probably a bit more powerful than mine. But I’m confident that some version of Topol’s democratized medicine and my wife’s democratized libraries will prevail and dominate in this century — and that ultimately, physicians, librarians and their clienteles will all be the better for it.
_____________
Robert Graboyes is a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he focuses on technological innovation in health care. He authored “Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care,” teaches health economics at Virginia Commonwealth University and is a recipient of the Bastiat Prize for Journalism.
Source: PBS Newshour
October 24, 2016
 |
| For better or worse, the digital age forces experts to make the case that a Google search doesn’t replace the librarian, and WebMD doesn’t replace the doctor, writes Robert Graboyes of the Mercatus Center. Photo by Atef Hassan/Reuters |
Observe librarians, and you’ll learn quite a bit about 21st century physicians. Digital technologies are hurling both professions into disintermediated worlds where they are no longer sole providers of vital services. Both must change their skills year by year and prove their value day by day. Both must choose whether the change is liberating or suffocating.
My wife, Alanna, recently retired after 40 years as a librarian. Her job changed radically during those years. When she began, librarians were monopolists who gathered, organized and dispensed precious resources to a dependent clientele. At Columbia University, where she worked when we met, students couldn’t survive without rapid access to the contents of the cavernous stacks. Librarians were gatekeepers who determined when a given student could possess essential resources. They issued fines and sanctions for those violating the rules.
Alanna had the desire and luck to shepherd multiple libraries into the digital age. At Columbia, she helped oversee the shift to online catalogs. Miraculously, students and scholars could then navigate library resources without asking faces behind the counter. As years passed, the internet further eroded aspects of the traditional library. Alanna played key roles in transporting a Fortune 500 company, a suburban public library and two high schools into this new era.
For centuries, the librarian’s job was providing scarce information to dependent patrons. Now, the job is helping patrons navigate superabundant information of wildly varying quality.
Her final project was overseeing the design and construction of a high school library, to be used in ways unimaginable when her career began. As the project started, my brother Arnold — an emergency room physician — casually asked, “Why do we need libraries now that we have the internet?”
Alanna responded, “Why do we need doctors now that there are computers?”
Pondering that two-sentence exchange, she concluded: For centuries, the librarian’s job was providing scarce information to dependent patrons. Now, the job is helping patrons navigate superabundant information of wildly varying quality and uncertain provenance. The new job, unlike the old, requires marketing — librarians must persuade patrons that a navigator is worth the time and trouble. For better or worse, the digital age forces experts to make the case that a Google search doesn’t replace the librarian, and WebMD doesn’t replace the doctor.
Alanna found this evolution exhilarating. Some librarians hate it. Some are frightened of it. And others don’t grasp its sweep.
At the turn of this millennium, a close friend, Rich Schieken, retired after a 40-year career as a pediatric cardiologist and medical school professor. He told me that he was sort of glad to be stepping down.
“Why?” I asked, “I thought you love what you do.”
Rich’s answer went something like this: “I do love it, but my world has changed. When I began, parents brought their sick and dying children to me. I said, ‘This is what we’ll do,’ and they said, ‘Yes, doctor.’ Nowadays, they bring 300 pages of internet printouts. When I offer a prognosis and suggest treatment, they point to the papers and ask, ‘Why not do this or this or that?’” He added, “Don’t get me wrong. This new world is better than the old one. It’s just quite a bit to get used to.”
For better or worse, the digital age forces experts to make the case that a Google search doesn’t replace the librarian, and WebMD doesn’t replace the doctor.
Cardiologist Eric Topol writes extensively about how converging technologies are democratizing medicine. With inexpensive smartphone apps, patients can check their children’s ears for infections, differentiate between bronchitis and pneumonia, and perform myriad other services that were once the exclusive domain of physicians. A patient with atrial fibrillation can use a smartphone and a tiny AliveCor peripheral to take an electrocardiogram in 30 seconds. (I have one on my own iPhone.)
Ponder this for a moment: Topol argues that the smartphone will soon be the most important device in medical history and that, relieved of rote tasks, physicians will be free to use their minds and talents where they are truly indispensable.
Alan Greene, chief medical officer of diagnostic device startup Scanadu, said of IBM’s Watson supercomputer: “I believe something like Watson will soon be the world’s best diagnostician—whether machine or human. At the rate [artificial intelligence] technology is improving, a kid born today will rarely need to see a doctor to get a diagnosis by the time they are an adult.”
Greene’s techno-optimism is probably a bit more powerful than mine. But I’m confident that some version of Topol’s democratized medicine and my wife’s democratized libraries will prevail and dominate in this century — and that ultimately, physicians, librarians and their clienteles will all be the better for it.
_____________
Robert Graboyes is a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he focuses on technological innovation in health care. He authored “Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care,” teaches health economics at Virginia Commonwealth University and is a recipient of the Bastiat Prize for Journalism.
Source: PBS Newshour
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