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Someone Has to Win: 2011 CLA Illustrator’s Award Announced

April 15, 2011 //

Winner.

The Canadian Library Association has announced the 2011 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award Winner and Honour Books.

The winner is Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth! (Groundwood Press), written and illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay. Honour books are Book of Big Brothers (Groundwood Press), illustrated by Luc Melanson and written by Cary Fagan, and Owls See Clearly at Night: a Michif alphabet (Simply Read Books), written and illustrated by Julie Flett.

Roslyn’s exuberant and adventurous spirit comes in handy when she decides to dig her way to the South Pole. In Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth! Marie-Louise Gay uses expressive mixed-media illustrations that offer intriguing details, textures and perspectives. The reader is invited to share Roslyn excited determination and to spend time exploring each page. This is the third time that Gay has won the Amelia Award.

Honourable mention goes to Luc Melanson for Book of Big Brothers, a fun and affectionate story told from the point-of-view of the youngest of three brothers. With a touch of humour, nostalgia and joy, Melanson’s retro-style illustrations complement Fagan’s narrative perfectly and bring a fresh approach to the timeless story of growing up with siblings.

Honourable mention also goes to Julie Flett for Owls See Clearly at Night: a Michif alphabet This is a unique linguistic and visual treat. Flett’s striking illustrations are deceptively simple. The use of silhouettes with bright spots of colour, create compositions that are striking in their beauty and elegance. They convey a connection with the natural world and also a sense of loss and isolation. This book has a subtle, gripping power.[read the whole thing]

I’m on the committee (and helped write the press release). It was hard to exclude some books, but after long discussions and some secret ballots we came up with winners. All the illustrators and authors on the short and long lists were amazing, making this job both fun and hard.

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Categories About Me, Book News, Library Bric-a-brac, Library News, Public Libraries, Readers Advisory

Why Canada’s Election Matters to Libraries and Librarians

April 14, 2011 //

(a little graphic I made)

With the “Leaders” debates over, all the parties are gearing up for the march to the finish line.

Over these last few weeks of campaigning, among the many issues at hand, it’s important to consider what this election means for libraries and librarians. Helpfully, the CLA has released a tool-kit for librarians that focuses on some of the key issues:

1. Copyright
CLA appreciates the government’s intent to provide copyright legislation which is both balanced and technologically neutral.

Over 21 million library users are seriously concerned about the shape Canadian copyright legislation continues to take.

Library users are the Canadian public: they are not members of a “special interest group” when it comes to copyright.

Copyright laws must reflect the public interest…

2. Library Book Rate
The Library Book Rate is a Canada Post service that provides a reduced rate for mailing library books between libraries and from libraries to their users.

Members of the library community were disappointed to see Private Member’s Bill C-509 get as far as it did in the legislative process, only to have to start over from scratch due to the 2011 federal election call…

3. Initiative for Equitable Library Access (IELA)
CLA’s landmark report (2005), Opening the Book: A Strategy for a National Network for Equitable Library Service for Canadians with Print Disabilities, outlined how the current inadequate and fragmented resources serving Canadians with print disabilities could be organized into an efficient and equitable nationwide library network.

Leadership is needed at the federal government level to coordinate the various elements of the network, known as the Initiative for Equitable Library Access (IELA)…

4. Digital Economy
Canada’s libraries can and should play an important role in the development of a national digital economy…

Also, I’d add as a government librarian that issues of transparency, accountability, and open access to information are hugely important to the sustainability of a democratic government.

Funding information management projects that modernize information sharing and access are essential to keeping up with the speed of government and the needs of Canadians.

Issues of openness and fairness in government is a theme latched onto by all the opposition parties. Yet, only the Liberals’ platform seems to have identified some of the other issues, particularly the digital divide.Correction – Apr 19: The CLA has chosen to put out a release specifically on the Liberal’s platform as it relates to libraries and the digital divide. I will be posting more the other platforms this week. Update – Apr 19: CLA’s rundown on each platform is here.

But, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be on the case of all the parties. Email. Call. Write. Show-up. Ask questions of you local candidates. Demand answers. Most importantly, vote. Remember, the sidelines are for suckers.

Party websites:
www.liberal.ca
www.conservative.ca
www.blocquebecois.org
www.ndp.ca
www.greenparty.ca

Register to Vote:
www.elections.ca

Apathy is Boring

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Categories Libraries in General, Library Bric-a-brac, Library News

Libraries Under Siege! Maps of Library Woe

April 14, 2011 //

A couple of maps to bring the US Library crisis into perspective :
From Losing Libraries:

(zoom out to get the nation wide picture)

The maps represent various types of cuts, staff layoffs and furloughs, reduced services and hours and more that are happening to public libraries in the U.S. We are attempting to track not only recent cuts, but cuts that go as far back as 2008. If you look at the map by year, you will see that there are more and more markers on the map. For links to how libraries are responding to cuts, check out Success Stories and the Link Roll (on the right side of the site).

(Thanks to @Marilynajohnson for tweeting this.)

A Nation without School Librarians:

View A Nation without School Librarians in a larger map

This map marks the cities, towns, communities, and states that have made the decision to either eliminate certified school library positions (indicated in blue) or require one school librarian to work with two (2) or more school library programs throughout the week (indicated in red).

Categories Education, Libraries in General, Library News, Patrons, Public Libraries, Services

Libraries Under Siege! Poor US School Libraries Just Getting Poorer

April 12, 2011 //

Who will help these Dangerous Minds?

From the School Library Journal:

Middle and high school libraries in high poverty areas of the U.S. suffered the most budget cuts in 2010, according to “State of America’s Libraries,” a report from the American Library Association.
While most school libraries managed to escape the economic trials of 2010 largely unscathed, those in high-poverty areas saw average spending on information resources and collection size decrease by 25.5 percent, or to $10,378 in 2010 from $13,935 in 2009.
The results were initially revealed in the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) 2010 School Libraries Count! survey, which showed that overall school expenditures on information resources were approximately $12,260 in 2010, compared to $13,525 the previous year, a decrease of 9.4-percent.
The survey also found that while schools in low-poverty areas saw slight increases in most areas of collection size, those in low-income areas reported a four percent decrease in books, an 11 percent decrease in video materials, and a whopping 22 percent decrease in periodical subscriptions.[read full post]

The report also points to the unpreparedness of these school libraries to meet future demands for digital media. There has only been a marginal shift towards digital materials. Moreover, there are genuine worries about their ability to provide on-site and remote access to electronic resources right now and down the road.

Hamstringing poorer school libraries now will make it incapacitatingly expensive to catch up. But, it’s not too late. President Obama’s education agenda involves a move away from an addiction to standardized tests and new plans to add more technology into the classroom. School libraries should be an important part of this plan.

Glistening, iPad filled libraries in poorer schools may be a dream. Still, considering the front-line role libraries played in bringing the internet to schools, letting them desiccate is a significant step in the wrong direction.

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Categories Education, Libraries in General, Library News, Literacies, Services, Technology

Just Just Throw in a Teenage Girl with a Raging Electra Complex

April 11, 2011 //

Happily, every Nancy Drew title is an innuendo.

A librarian is in the news. Not because of budget cuts, literacy or eBooks, but for something much more fun – some good ol’fashioned mystery:

A former Brown University museum librarian who once examined a Tiffany-silver sword now at the center of an ownership duel between the Ivy league school and a Virginia collector says in an affidavit “there is no doubt” university drawings match photos of the sword located last year in a Virginia museum.
The affidavit by John H. Stanley is among supporting documents in Brown’s filing. Brown has asked a judge to reject a motion by the lawyer for Donald R. and Toni M. Tharpe, of Williamsburg, Va., to dismiss the university’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Brown wants what it says is its long-missing sword returned. A Sept. 7 trial is scheduled.
At issue is a sword presented in 1863 to Col. Rush C. Hawkins, of a New York Civil War regiment. It was later part of the Annmary Brown Memorial at Brown in memory of Hawkins’ wife, who was a granddaughter of a founder of the university.[read full article]

This story also requires: an abandoned library building, some people who seem creepily yet appear innocent (at first), and a shaky flashlight chase down a dark secret tunnel. The heart races, no?

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Categories Academic Libraries, Amazing News!, etc., Libraries in General, Library Bric-a-brac, Library News, Other News

Licence Culture Wars! May 4 Day of Action Against DRM

April 7, 2011 //

The anti-DRM site Defective by Design has declared Wednesday  May 4, 2011 as the third annual International Day Against DRM.

The Day Against DRM is an opportunity to unite a wide range of projects, public interest organizations, web sites and individuals in an effort to raise public awareness to the danger of technology that requires users to give-up control of their computers or that restricts access to digital data and media. This year, we’ll be helping individuals and groups work together to create local actions in their communities — actions will range from protesting an unfriendly hardware vendor to handing out informative fliers at local public libraries!

DefectiveByDesign.org wants to help you plan or get involved in local actions and then broadcast your stories globally. If you are interested in taking part in this year’s Day Against DRM:

It’s definitely something worth participating in, or at least looking into.

Defective by Design’s crew and libraries have shared the struggle before. As DbD says in that post,

Readers, librarians, and authors need to make their voices heard. DRM leaves readers and librarians helpless and divided. If we do not ban DRM from our libraries and our lives then we can and should expect publishers such as Harper Collins to strangle libraries so as to gain as much of a profit as possible.

We need to watch out for each other and make sure that people are not getting suckered into notions of “fair” DRM.

There’s no better way to do this than through collective action:  sign up, read up, and/or act up.

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Categories Library News, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience, web tools

Licence Culture Wars! Treating Would-Be Borrowers as Would-Be Pirates

April 5, 2011 //

In February, the Globe and Mail ran an article proclaiming the pending demise of eBook piracy. The nails in the coffin were eBook lending sites like Lendle. It took just over a month from that article for Amazon.com to put the breaks on that.

Now, Amazon’s lending restrictions on Lendle basically make lending eBooks an activity for speed readers who prefer random, unpopular books. I suppose in light of those events, eBook piracy will live a little longer. Especially if borrowing eBooks and eAudiobooks  legitimately continues to be unfriendly to users.

My personal experience with OverDrive (the unchallenged content software for eBook excited libraries) via the Ottawa Public Library hasn’t made me (and a lot of other people) optimistic . To download to an audiobook, it required so much hoop jumping and the installation of  software that I gave up. eBooks work a little easier, but it’s still not a smooth process.

Out of curiosity, I found the same audiobook on a popular torrent site in about 30 seconds. It had enough people actively sharing the file that it could have probably downloaded in a few hours. After which, were I so inclined, I’d have unlimited use of the audio files for as long as I wanted and on any platform I wanted.

I imagine the process on a Kindle or Kobo or whatever must be strikingly easier than using OverDrive. Publishers have a clear interest in making lending more difficult for libraries or collaboration minded groups of  individuals. The Globe article had a fairly telling quote on that matter:

Not all publishers are assured [about eBook lending sites, including libraries/OverDrive], including Macmillan U.S., whose president Brian Napack recently defended his company’s go-slow policy at a conference in New York. “The fear is I get one library card and never have to buy a book again,” he said.

If you want to make money, sharing (legal or otherwise) is the worst possible business model. So of course publishers want a few roadblocks.

But, those roadblocks essentially treat would-be borrowers as would-be pirates.  The outcome for users being one of three things, paying for the eBook, putting up with  second class free service/access at dwindling levels of quality, or pursuing less “legitimate” means of access. (I guess you could use a mix of these three.)

If past experience with the music industry has shown anything, it’s that increasingly draconian attitudes do not translate into sales. It seems to me, that those who pay for eBook access were going to pay anyways. Everyone else? Well, there are three choices.

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Categories Book News, Library News, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience, web tools

Licence Culture Wars! What the Long Haul with Harper Collins Looks Like

March 31, 2011 //

by Kaetlyn Wilcox (pic links to her blog)

The Library Journal recently posted a run-down of how libraries have responded to Harper Collins’ eBook policy. Here’s one example:

The Kansas State Library decided this month to suspend adding any HarperCollins ebooks to the statewide consortium platform, which services 330 public libraries in the state.

“We are not trying to punish HarperCollins,” Jo Buder, the state librarian, told LJ. “We are just trying to figure out a way to provide these titles without damaging customer service. What do we do for a person who is 27th in line and has a hold? What does it mean to catalogers? It’s just all very bad customer service decisions,” she said.

Buder is now heading a task force that has been formed by the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) that is debating a response to HarperCollins. The task force teleconferenced on March 9 with representatives from Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Alaska, Colorado, Ohio, Texas, and Tennessee participating.

“We decided that we really want to approach publishers [directly], HarperCollins in particular, because we want to understand the issues more,” Buder said. “The interest is really so high.”[read the full article]

It’s always impressive to see so many libraries taking a concerted stand.

Looking down the road, what will a solution look like? An article in the Atlantic puzzles on this, and points to the approach taken by the NYPL and OverDrive:

Potash, whose Cleveland-based company has thrived in the often contentious atmosphere of dynamic change, believes that the solution is to recognize that even the demand for most bestsellers eventually settles down, and the number of e-books that libraries would have to re-purchase will turn out to be relatively small in the broader scheme of activity. OverDrive’s largest customer, the New York Public Library, is floating an intriguing concept: a form of metering. Once purchased, a book would be available for an extended period, and thereafter a small charge would accrue for further loans. For example, the New York system now has 125 copies of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but in three years it may only need a handful, and the revenue impact of pay-per-use could turn out to be small. Moreover, “dog-eared printed books” as one senior librarian explained to me, have always been replaced, and e-books significantly reduce the time, trouble, and expense of returning books back onto shelves.[read the full article]

The pay-per-use model has cropped up in other ideas for a compromised solution. Like a variable rate mortgage, it’s entirely possible that a pay-per-use model could save money in the long run. It could also end up costing more. It’s difficult to say, and it’ll be important to watch how libraries that adopt the model fair.

Pay-per-use may not be the most ideal solution. But in some form, it might be the best deal libraries will get, since publishers have the content, our users want access, and libraries who don’t have it will be left by the wayside.

If some libraries feel over a barrel, it’s because they are.

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Categories Academic Libraries, Book News, Library News, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience, web tools

On Things Recently Declared Dead: the Web

March 28, 2011 //

Have you heard the news?

Recently, Wired magazine declared the death of the web:

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

This is not a trivial distinction. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend. Producers and consumers agree: The Web is not the culmination of the digital revolution.[full article]

Or in Clue-speak:  it was the User in the Internet with the App.

Declaring things dead doesn’t have the same bombast it used to, and it’s not entirely new news. Web 2.0 has been pushing it’s way into the Internet-user’s life for a few years now, and Wired is talking about the logical extension of that trend.

But, the article makes an important distinction between “browsing” and “getting.” This has to do with the rise apps-based user expectations and an achieved critical mass of online-content. I think browsing was useful in the past because there was no guarantee anything you wanted was out there. Now, Internet-savvy users are  surprised when something is NOT online. So, it’s not about finding, it’s about retrieving.

Libraries should play close attention to this, not because we’re not in the information/content retrieving business. This is what a good library does well, after all.

The issue at stake is competition.

The barriers to entry in the library’s field of online content delivery (eBooks, reference information, audio books, etc.) have been knocked down or scaled by competition that doesn’t share the same value system, operations cost, or even expectations of open access.

Again, this is not new news, just more pressure on libraries to innovate.

Looking for a counter-point? Try What’s Wrong With ‘X Is Dead’, from the Atlantic

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Categories Academic Libraries, Library Bric-a-brac, Library News, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience

A Fun Future Mix of Literacies

March 21, 2011 //

From Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics (1994)

Recently, I came across a post from the Libraries and Transliteracy blog on a neat collaboration called You Media.

YouMedia, for those of you who don’t know, is an experiment between the Chicago Public Library, Depaul University, and the Digital Youth Network…

The YouMedia experiment is a 21st century teen learning space.  It is really a digital media lab.  But it is so much more.  The YouMedia folks recognize that technology alone will not save us.  The success of this experiment lies in the team that YouMedia has built.  Not only do the kids who use the space have access to librarians and library staff, but they also have access to mentors and instructors.  The mentors and instructors have expertise in the tools, in tapping into creativity, or in just listening to the kids.  They all have the goal of helping these patrons find their voices.  It is in these people that the success of YouMedia is built.

… YouMedia recently witnessed a major milestone.  While the research findings on the success or the failure of the experiment will take years to construct, the kids recently began providing solid anecdotal evidence pointing towards success.  One example of that evidence is the recent results of the Louder than a Bomb Youth Poetry Festival.  The winner of the contest was a young man who represents a YouMedia team of teens, and he even gives them credit.[full post]

For those who’re not familiar with the concept, Transliteracy is essentially the idea that literacy is not limited to simply being able to read print texts. It takes, the notion goes, a complex set of interacting literacies to be able to interpret and communicate what we experience, be it by book, movie, YouTube, bus rides, whatever.

Take for example the excerpt from Understanding Comics, above. Reading a comic book involves traditional text literacy, visual literacy (knowing the way comic strips work or what an abstracted human for is), and spacial literacy (understanding movement and action), and more (i.e. you need to sort of generally understand what a Transformers toy is to get what’s happening – Transformers literacy?).

Because of its multi-faceted approach, Transliteracy is an important concept for exploring how pedagogy and communication will evolve. Projects like YouMedia take this and apply it to make a learning and creative environment that combines traditional print books with new multi-media tools. This sort of mixed-media space is well suited for libraries because they are fast becoming mixed-media spaces anyways.

Libraries have already committed to the importance of core literacies (i.e. reading and being able to use a computer). This has never been more relevant. But, if libraries are poised to take this another step. Ideas like Transliteracy will be useful for building bridges beyond simply reading a book or using a computer.

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Categories Library News, Literacies, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience, web tools
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