A few articles about ebooks I’ve recently read have sparked my imagination about what libraries can co. This one from Tidbits and this one from the Wall Street Journal show how annoying it is to check out library ebooks via Overdrive, and since Overdrive is what a lot of public libraries are using, they show how annoying publishers are making it for libraries to transition to ebooks. The latest hostile move of HarperCollins trying to sell libraries self-destructing ebooks  just makes the affront to libraries even worse, and also means librarians would be idiots to "buy" ebooks from HarperCollins. Maybe they should stop buying all books from them. It all makes this article about Kindle ebook piracy make piracy much more attractive than going to the library, or even to Amazon. The article mentions an easily downloadable Torrent file with 2,500 Kindle books on it. This quote shows what both libraries and publishers have to deal with: What a surprising number of people have told ...
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When President Bush left, I predicted that some librarians (at least as librarians) would regret it. President Bush himself was of little importance, but his librarian wife was a strong advocate of libraries, and that many librarians were unwilling to overlook their personal politics and cultivate Laura Bush more was unfortunate. This opinion article in the School Library Journal complaining about President Obama’s proposed cuts to federal library spending doesn’t quite fulfill my prediction, but it comes close. President Obama proposes cutting funding for the Library Services and Technology Act by $20 million and eliminating the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program. The author is incensed that any part of the federal budget should be reduced by cutting library spending, with the implication that all federal library spending is worthwhile. Someone from the ALA chimes in as well. "We're disappointed because what should be a close kinship with libraries ...
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Bedford (NH) High School is under siege, if one complaining family that always gets its way counts as a siege. Back in December, some religious fanatics complained that their son was assigned “Nickel and Dimed” as part of a required personal finance class. Their objection wasn’t that the book ignores any evidence that contradicts the ideology of the author, which it does, but that it calls Jesus a wine-guzzling socialist. Getting offended by the politics and selective reasoning of "Nickel and Dimed" is one thing, but getting offended by one line is just silly. They decided to homeschool their son because of it, which should have settled the matter. You don’t want to expose your children to beliefs other than your own, go ahead and warp the child. We’ve got plenty of other children in the country we can raise to be adults capable of ignoring wine-guzzling socialists instead being offended by them. But then the school removed the book from the class, claiming that ...
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Reading a bunch of librarians making predictions for 2011, I opened my eyes wide, smacked myself gently on the forehead, and said, “Oh, no, I’ve completely forgotten to make meaningless predictions so that I draw attention to my blog!” The oversight will now be remedied. Based on current trends and long-range forecasts programmed into the Library Journal supercomputer, I predict the following 11 things will happen in 2011: 1) The vast majority of libraries will remain open. We hear a lot about library cutbacks and threats of closures, but actual library closures have been rare.  I think I'm pretty safe on this one. 2) The vast majority currently employed librarians will remain employed. That's because the vast majority of libraries will remain open and functional. This even takes into account that mythical wave of retirements that will cause such shortages. Those people still can't afford to retire, which is why I'm not predicting lots of open library jobs. 3) ...
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To celebrate Valentine's Day, we could all talk about our love of libraries. It would be sweet. And we do love libraries. It might be more festive than the New Zealand library that is celebrating Valentine's Day by giving people blind dates with books. I find that a bit sad. Instead, let's talk about all the people who don't love libraries, at least in practice. Thinking more about the “great debate” from last week, it seems clear to me that two facts are pretty well established by now: 1) Library budgets are under siege nationwide, and 2) Lots of people have no idea what libraries and librarians actually do. It’s possible these two ideas are related. Take all the nonsense about ebook readers destroying libraries. If all books become ebooks and all publishers refuse to sell or license the content to libraries, then that might destroy libraries and possibly civilization itself. But the Kindle or iPad won’t destroy libraries. The people who believe this talk about the ...
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As some of you are aware, British public libraries are facing hard times, possibly harder than American public libraries, prompting this bit from Auntie Beeb, Are libraries finished? Five arguments for and against. The good news is that the “against” arguments aren’t that great. The bad news.... We can see for ourselves. Here are the five “for” arguments, thing found "only at a library": 1. Specialist research 2. Environment to learn 3. Expert staff 4. Free internet access 5. Engage in local democracy “Specialist research,” as described in the article, really just means that libraries have things available in print that aren’t online, especially historical collections that should be maintained. That’s not much of an argument for libraries as living institutions, though it does have the merit of being true. Libraries do provide an environment to learn, but much of that argument is devoted to “lonely people.” One librarian claims that “some lonely ...
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