long time passing... (apologies to pete seeger and his song "where have all the flowers gone."
no, specifically "the know-it-alls." you didn't know there are (were) actually a group of librarians in philadelphia affectionately known as the know-it-alls? me, either. probably because i'm not from philadelphia, and also because i am not the most savviest of library employees.
apparently, the know-it-alls worked in the free library of philadelphia. they are (were) a group of reference librarians who worked at the library and answered any and all questions from any and all comers. and they even kept track of the most-asked questions to save you (and them) time and trouble.
i know what you're thinking, dear readers. you're thinking, if she didn't grow up in philadelphia, didn't know of the existence of the free library in philadelphia, why is she asking about a group of librarians that worked for a library in philadelphia?
well, the answer to that is in this article by daniel rubin,columnist for the philadelphia inquirer (yes, they still have those) titled "libraries experts on call: a dying breed."
i think you can see where i'm going with this. here's the gist, in a nutshell:
- the year 1991 - 14 librarians (all with MS degrees) - 50 calls an hour - callers limited to 3 questions due to volume
- the year 2012 - 1 librarian - 9 assistants - "a couple" of phone calls per week
the article goes on to say how reference services are being provided over the internet, how patrons have more access to technology of their own, and how the librarian has an iPad and her 2nd generation e-reader because, "I can't help people unless I know these things myself."
of course, this got me thinking about what i thought a naked library would be, which is without physical books. i never really thought of it being without people who were smarter than me. people who not only knew stuff, but knew where to find stuff.
does that mean google has made a research librarian out of all of us? or just that we "think" we are smarter than we are? quantity vs. quality? do i need to know that loc.gov (library of congress) exists when i'm looking for information on abraham lincoln's assassination or just leave it to google to point me in the right direction, and maybe never know?
if patrons no longer care about WHERE the information they want comes from, will they care about WHO knows it's out there?
magic 8 ball says: reply hazy, try again.
thumbs up reading: inspector singh investigates: the singapore school of villainy. an entertaining detective series, usually set in singapore, similar to my other favorite detective, vish puri, the best detective in india. the inspector singh series is a british import so i hope i can put my hands on another.
hello dear readers,
as much as i know you are used to clicking on the link to this blog with the anticipation of giddy school boys and girls awaiting the candy store to open, this blog post may disappoint in its entertainment value. but it surely will entertain your thought-provoked neurons (if there are such things, and i think there are).
maple street. location of a thought-provoking event in a famous episode of that old show, "the twilight zone," called "the monsters are due on maple street." there are humans. there are aliens. every conflict has to have two sides. if you haven't watched it, you should. hysteria ensues, kinda like the story i'm about to discuss.
i have no idea how i missed this story, but i am all over it now because it clearly, in one fell swoop, covers one of the biggest fears associated with e-books, authors and publishers . . . piracy!
now i know you are thinking, what story is she talking about? THIS ONE! okay, i'll tell you the title: "piracy witch hunt downs legit e-book lending website."
whoa. first off, let's look at some of those terms... "piracy," "witch hunt," "legit," and "e-book."
i'll try to break it down in a few bullet points:
- indie author writes book
- indie author allows barnes & noble and amazon to sell said book
- barnes & noble and amazon allow lending privileges for said book (one-time, 14 days)
- guy creates website to facilitate lending, called lendink (wikipedia site).
- indie author mistakes lending facilitation for piracy, creates twitmob, indie authors send C&Ds to website guy and his ISP (C&D=cease and desist; ISP=internet service provider)
- website guy's ISP downs website
- website guy cries (okay i made that part up)
- indie authors realize mistakes, some say "i'm sorry"
- website guy out of business
that, in a nutshell, is a potent combination of ignorance + confusion + fear with a little greed thrown in for flavor.
FULL DISCLOSURE: i used to work for one of the big box retailers referenced above and in that capacity i worked with a lot of authors, indie and mainstream.
now, i'm not one to cast the first stone (usually, the second), so i read through a few articles about this story before i became outraged and put up this post. my rage is two-pronged and both aimed at the authors. one is the totally ignorant, misguided, mob mentality that resulted from alleged authors FAILING TO READ. AUTHORS FAILING TO READ!!!! ironic? failing to read their agreements with amazon and barnes & noble that THEY signed, failing to READ the information on lendink's website, failing to ASK questions, EPIC FAIL!
the second prong is aimed at authors who apologized. i know, sounds counterintuitive. but, hear me out. the amount of effort and misguided anger they put forth to protect their own property simply is not matched by a simple, two-word apology. there was a commercial years ago, where one of the characters said, "sorry doesn't feed the bulldog." one author actually said, in her revised comment to lendink's owner, "Now that I know the truth, I'd be happy to have my books up on your site." well, OF COURSE YOU WOULD!" isn't that why you publish to begin with?? so you can feed the bulldog??
*sigh* on a side note, i also blame publishers. they have continued to foster this notion that, somehow, e-books are bad for publishing, bad for authors because it can't be controlled (of course it can) and it can't be priced competitively (well, that's for you to fight out with jeff bezos). an author of one of the articles below says publishers spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). unfortunately, at the end of the day, who suffers? in this case, the small business guy and us, the consumers.
well, i'll get off my soapbox now and leave you with a reading list of articles on the lendink debacle. another side note: in my feeble attempts to use google, i did try to find articles that might have fallen on the side of the misguided aggrieved authors. i couldn't find any. and i looked. really looked. i really did. if you find something, let us know.
Harvey Christensen works on the Oregon State College
Electronic Analog Computer, ca. late 1950s
hello, dear readers
well, a promise is a promise, even if i didn't really promise.
in a previous blog post, welcoming my own return to the blogosphere, i mentioned that i would be following up on some past blog posts from the infancy of this experiment i call the naked library.
hold on as we go back, back, back in time to...2009. initial blog posting title: winthrop prof uses kindle to spark new age of learning. pretty ambitious, wouldn't you say?
the winthrop professor is dr. mark herring, who also happens to be the dean of library services at winthrop university, here in good 'ol south carolina (rock hill, specifically).
his grand experiment? give each student in his class a kindle dx and see what happens. sparks? flames? inferno?
i emailed dr herring to ask him for an update on his kindle experiment and he was kind enough to respond. i think we might all know where that kindle experiment went, but wait until you see where winthrop's library went, and dr. herring's thinking along with it.
read all about it by clicking this link. it's a microsoft word document i'm sharing with you on google drive.
google drive? there's something we haven't talked about yet that didn't exist in 2009 - cloud storage for the masses. hmmm...future blog post? probably.
happy reading...no matter the format!
reading?
thumbs up - a discovery of witches (first in a planned trilogy) by deborah harkness. it's about a witch who doesn't want to acknowledge she's a witch who falls in love with a vampire while looking for an obscure monograph also being searched for by other witches, vampires, and werewolves. NO! it's not twilight. besides, the protagonist is a librarian. trust me on this one... it's good. really!! seriously!! stop laughing!!
thumbs down - the borrower by rebecca makkai - librarian winds up on road trip with kid, accidentally. i couldn't pretend a librarian wasn't smarter.
