Yesterday, I paid my overdue fines. I’ll be honest. It was a lot. It was enough to warrant the kindness of the staffer who graciously did not say aloud what I owed.
It’s not that the Ottawa Public Library’s fines are too high. They are, from what I can tell, on average. Some libraries, like the Chicago PL charge less. That’s not the point.
I don’t want to do away with fines, as some people would argue. But, is there another way? Read the rest of this entry »
One of my friends woke up to an odd sight: strange lights in the sky. His early morning twitter noise wanted to know if anyone else was seeing the aurora borealis near Barrie (actually over a place called Utopia).
Well, it’s not impossible.
Experience led me to think it wasn’t the northern lights, but something else. I tweeted back, and sadly I was right.
You see, one morning I too saw lights in the sky over Ottawa. To wax poetic, it was like hundreds of candles stretched up to sky and merged into a greenish-red glow spilt across the horizon.
Unaccustomed to the sight, I declared “Northern Lights” on twitter, facebook, everywhere, to anyone who would listen.
That evening’s weather report gave me a bit of a smack down. Turns out, the kind meteorologist said, it was in fact an instance of what is called light pillars.
Light pillars are caused by regular man-made light that is reflected by moisture in the air in odd ways. When a lot of pillars are close together they can look, to a hopeful eye, like the northern lights.
Eerie, true, but, ionosphere fireworks it is not. I was crestfallen when I learned the truth. Plus, I’d left a social media trail that forced me to confess my mistake.
My friend, too, soon tweeted back, his words a little heavy: he was seeing light pillars, too.
That is a mistaken sky phenomenon reference bomb, times two… bam…
Further Reading:
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With all the the excitement around eReaders, eBooks, social media, and all the other innovations libraries are taking on, it’s easy to forget that public libraries are very much under siege.
From the Guardian UK:
Labour politicians and campaigners have condemned the head of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council for suggesting that public libraries are primarily used by the white middle classes.
The controversial comments were made by Roy Clare, the council’s chief executive, who argued that the service should not be preserved in “aspic“… [full article here]
In the UK (and the US, too… and, well, lots of places), where austerity measures are gutting public spending. Public libraries and their patrons have to put up the good fight to keep branches open. Ridiculous, wrong-headed comments from government ministers do no good.
I will not say the old adage is moot, but cover design has become pretty central to the book experience. This is especially the case when it comes to browsing shelves for your next read.
The Book Cover Archive shows off how book makers try to catch readers attention. The site is a huge, searchable database that celebrates the best and brightest of cover design industry right now.
As a design-freak, I love sites like this. It makes my eyes greedy and my soul a little jealous (Wouldn’t it be fun to make art like that all the time?).
In a perfect world, libraries would be able to constantly update book covers to keep up with design trends. Realistically, it’d be impossible.
Online, though, it’s different. Online catalogue records could reflect newer designs for covers of older books. This can help breathe new life into editions passed over by browsers as dated. It’s an easy way to capitalize on marketing trends and cash in on the cues readers expect from book covers.
In the graphic designer part of my life, I’ve had some practical experience in the book cover field.
Pretty nice, right? The poetry inside is good, too.
Next week, I start a new job in a government library. As I bid farewell to the multi-national mega-chain retail cafe, I want to write a few posts about customer service and library user experience.
There was a recent Globe and Mail article about choice and customer experience. It boiled down to this:
A myth I often deal with is: “Our customers want lots of choices, and the ability to customize.”…
Big consumer myth No. 2 relates to customization, specifically to companies believing that customers want to customize products. This myth is tied directly back to the logic around consumer choice limitation as a good thing…
Offering your customers more choices, whether in products or features, and the ability to customize will likely not do them, or you, any favours. Having the courage to limit choice, and taking the time to create a personalization path, can create a more favourable customer experience, and may just increase your sales.[full article here]
Are libraries embracing too much customisation? Is this interfering with user experience?
Space is a strange, magical place! From NPR.org:
Hubble Telescope Sheds Light On Mysterious, Green Space Blob
Back in 2007, as part of a crowd-sourced study program called Galaxy Zoo, a Dutch school teacher discovered a very odd celestial object: It looked like a great, green blob floating in space and at the time it was inexplicable.
Today, thanks to the Hubble telescope, we have an unbelievable picture of Hanny’s Voorwerp, or Hanny’s Object, as it is now known. And we also have a better idea of what it is: Researchers said the blob is not a galaxy but a “twisting rope of gas, or tidal tail, about 300,000 light-years long that wraps around the galaxy [IC 2497].”…
First, that very young stars are forming inside the tidal tail. “The region may have been churning out stars for several million years,” said Keel. “They are so dim that they have previously been lost in the brilliant light of the surrounding gas.”
Keel told us that this is remarkable because this is not the kind of environment in which you would usually find star formation.[source article]
Two things cool about this: crowd-sourcing being used for more than marketing or spamming/winning elections AND strange green space blobs.
Please check out Galaxy Zoo. It’s zany galaxy-classifying fun. And, there’s apparently an iPhone app so you can help chart space on the bus or during meetings or wherever. Hopefully, an android app is not far behind!
From the Iowa City Press:
The Iowa City Council will examine the idea of banning firearms from city property in light of the state’s changes to its gun permit laws.
After Susan Craig, Iowa City Public Library director, asked the city to explore whether the library has the authority to prohibit guns, the city attorney’s office concluded Iowa City legally can do so on all municipal property…
Since Jan. 1, gun owners are no longer required to conceal their firearms in public, and county sheriffs have less discretion when denying permits.
Assistant City Attorney Eric Goers said in a memo that any weapons restrictions must first be approved formally by the entity in control of the property, such as the library’s board of directors. Clear signage also must be posted on all entrances stating that restrictions may be enforced by way of a criminal trespass charge, Goers said.[full article here]
Safety and public access run hand in hand. People should feel safe when they access their local library. But, increased security and screening in public buildings is costly, particularly cash strapped public libraries. What challenges do increased security pose to user privacy? At the same time, if someone is going to walk into a library and fire a pistol, would a law against carrying a firearm stop that person? Would metal detectors and guards?
Do Iowa libraries risk alienating a large portion of their users by banning weapons on their premises? Would Iowans welcome library closures or limited services/collections to have their 2nd amendment rights(such as they are construed) protected? I’d love to see that user survey. Read the rest of this entry »
One of my favourite CBC Radio shows, Ideas, has posted a podcast on the future of the book. It’s a round table discussion with perspectives from publishers, editors, and writers with, of course, a decidedly Canadian outlook.
Ideas host Paul Kennedy moderates a panel from the 2010Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal. Two publishers (Yvonne Hunter from Penguin Canada and Kim McArthur from McArthur Books) and an academic/author/blogger (Andrew Piper from McGill) discuss the uncertain future of an endangered species. [Listen here.]
This episode is a really good cross-section of the issues around the evolving world of eBooks, print books, and the push and pull between them.
A few things have got me to thinking.
And here we go, another addition to my library minimalism project.
The key thing for this one is the human connection. At first, I wanted it to appear more cyclical, like a triangle… but there’s something elegant about the role a good catalogue or database plays in connecting people to things, so I went with the linear flow.
Also, I couldn’t resist the retro library card catalogue type card. I’ll have to do “OPAC”, eventually. I have no idea what that would be.
Between library contracts, I take what jobs I can. Lately, I’ve been working at a multi-national mega-chain retail cafe stationed among several government offices.
Everyday, I serve hundreds of bureaucrats. Sometimes people will complain about wrist pain from using their computers all the time.
Little do they suspect that a humble barista will lay this string of facts down on them:
1) Early typewriters used key arrangements that were more efficient and ergonomic than the now ubiquitous QWERTY format.
2) The ‘better’ formats were abandoned because people would type too fast, causing the mechanical typrwriters to jam. QWERTY was designed to slow typists down.
3) However, a side effect is that reaching for common keys like the space bar, enter etc. causes some of the ergonomic strain on your hand.
4) And, this is my theory, switching to a more ergonomic and efficient keyboard layout, now that computers are uninhibited by mechanical parts, would be so costly that it may never happen. Remember how confusing switching to metric was for people?
Your latte is ready, with extra Reference Bomb. Bam!
Further Reading: A Brief History of Typewriters
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