Happy Holidays from LAT !!

Dave & Oleg - and all of us - wish you the happiest of holiday seasons !!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I'd better lay off the cologne..........

People ask me what working with librarians is like (I know, I've said this before) and I tell 'em that librarians have even tougher challenges than retail, while having to be tolerant at the same time. This renders your average librarian into a clever alert flexible individual, usually fueled to a degree by humor, or in the case of British librarians, humour.

This rule of conduct from a US library website illustrates a typical flexibility-growing challenge:

"Any person creating or emanating an odor that can be detected from six feet away,
will be asked to leave the library until the situation can be corrected. Before
ejecting any patron who creates such a disturbance, the acting librarian shall
contact by telephone appointed representatives to act in an advisory capacity. If
the representative determines that the person is not making a disturbance, the
patron shall not be ejected. In the event the representative does not arrive within
30 minutes, the patron can be evicted."

So, in short, stinky can't be kicked out until fair play is established. Clothespins for the nose optional.

Now go and hug a librarian - but have a bath, first.

OCLC - Hippie-Like Freedom Killers?

How OCLC is killing cool
A lovely OCLC Power Grab Rant
Feeling tricked? Sign a petition.

Juat a reminder how cool stuff like LibraryThing are

Funny but Sad

From the NYLINE blizzard of emails today:

Perhaps you have heard that Michael Nutter, Mayor of Philadelphia has suggested closing at least 11 branches.

Last night a Philadelphia TV show did a story on the library situation.
The last line was-- "We tried to reach the mayor for comment but ironically, he was accepting an award for literacy promotion and therefore unavailable."

"No Guarantees"

Whoa:
"Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape.

It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers."

As UCLA Graduate Juan Escobar student put it, "I think it's safe to do it in your office. No guarantees."

Just for the record LAT does not manufacture any kind of tape.......

Me, I use glue stick.

Has This Ever Happened To You?

Original Caption:

Milan -- Citizens stroll past the controversial cement, steel and glass public library which has excited various comments. Thousands of Milanese have protested the design by architect Mario Arrighetti. The building's front is made up of windows set deep in a multitude of squares, and plain cement surface, smooth and unbroken by any ornamental design. (1955)

Via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,
There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats

Library Urges - Saucy + Randy

No comment:

Judge a book by its cover — judgeby.com

Judge a book by its cover — judgeby.com

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Two Cool New Library Blogs

Library Finds

If you're like me, it'll make you drool

A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette

If you're like me you'll laugh.

RFP Rant

Hand - worked to bone.

I'm responding to my 6th RFP in a week and a half, and I've drawn a few conclusions that may help librarians get more respondents when they put something out to bid, or if they're not interested in that, make responses arrive faster, in order to keep within decision making deadlines (which, IMHO, are often missed.) These are ways to make the process of responding more practical, and will garner better responses from vendors (excluding those nasty uncaring vendors that just send back prices and a brochure)

#1: ALWAYS SEND AN ELECTRONIC VERSION

Y'know we don't compose these things extemporaneously. You provide a framework. If that framework is purely paper, you double our task - right there - I type like Mickey Spillane, two fingers - and for me to retype your intended configuration of my equipment, or to spend half a day OCRing your "printed only" RFP, you only hurt yourself by curtailing the amount of time for us to get a richer, more meaningful response to you.

Spillane

#2: DON'T SEND .PDF

They are usually intended for read only, and cannot be easily copied and pasted into a response document - hence it's damn close to "printed only". If you want better faster responses, use MSWord, Google docs, or note pad, for that matter.

BUT if you use .pdf to protect yourself from underhanded sneaky evil crafty duplicitous vendors, ask yourself what your purchasing department is for - wait don't bother - I'll tell you - it's to protect you by archiving the original document, which come to think of it, is something YOU can do!

If one of LAT's competitors monkeys around with your words (!), REJECT THEIR PROPOSAL! Theoretically you are so protected, it's like you have giant purchase insulation strapped to every surface, innit?

#3: BULLET YOUR DROP DEAD RULES

Howdja like to work on something for 2 days, print and bind it, just to find in the middle of a hugely legalese laden page, in the middle of a hugely legalese laden paragraph something like "technical responses must be limited to 20 pages". Hello, technical department, how are you? (See #6)

Every proposal I get has something like "So-and-so library reserves the right to reject any submission for.........uh.......whatever ....vendor-monkey!

So you don't have to get all 19th century when artfully describing in lawyer language that(for instance) a proposal is due July 12th. Just bullet what you want.

Bullets.

Like:

-Proposal due July 12th
-42 copies (see #4)
-One copy must be marked original
-Original must be signed by officer of company
-Original must be notarized
-Appendices C and D must accompany submission and be signed (original only)

...as opposed to burying these rules in paragraph after paragraph of 1950's boilerplate.

Don't get me wrong - boilerplate away, just add the bullets.


#4: INCONVENIENT TRUTH "A"

Stop making Iron Eyes Cody cry with all the tree killing. Seriously.



Archive 1 or 2 copies. Read the rest electronically. These things run up to a hundred pages. I recently shipped nearly three reams of paper as a response. I can only hope that 11 or 12 of those librarians have parakeets, so they can line their birdcages with those (possibly-unread) copies.

#5: INCONVENIENT TRUTH "B"



Want a demo? Calculate how many thousands of pounds of Jet-A fuel gets blown into the atmosphere in it's carbonized polluting form to send a rep to see you. Then do that same exercise again for the equipment you want shipped.

To see if it's really gonna do what we say.

Despite you being protected by our integrity, videos we've produced, your purchasing team's rules, and any number of referrals we can provide.

As we do the demo, please remember that the particulate matter showering down upon you is your own.

If you really want a demo, however, we're more than happy to do it. Especially if your town is beautiful, and the food is good. Believe me, I love doing demos, because I am a frustrated star. I'll do 'em, but I'm just thinking of our mother.

#6: DE-DUPE COMMITTEE DESIGNED QUESTIONS

When I get to the sixth "Describe how receipts can be customized" in an RFP I punch the wall- as a result I can now have conversations with technical staff in the next office.

Seriously, I know there's gotta be bad actors out there, but it's 2008! Receipts can be customized. It's dumb technology. Every Home Depot, ATM, Grocery, and LIBRARY SELF CHECK has customizable receipts, and while LAT's may customize a little better (and they do - ask me why!) I don't think any deal I ever lost impinged on whether receipt customization descriptions were filled out 6 times or not.

So next time, when:
Circ
IT
Media Services
Collection Management
Children's Services
The Director
The Assistant Director
The Board
Consultants
and Aggregators
...all want to know about how receipts are customized, please PLEASE just ask the question once.

(on a related note, I always love it when in an RFP a feature is listed under both "MUST HAVE" and "OPTIONAL FEATURE" - nobody's really reading what's going out, are they?)

Now I know I harped on about receipts, but the duplication of all features questions is out of control. Read through what you send, once, de-duplicate features requested, and then send it, K? Love.

#7: TRUST YOURSELVES

Every question in existence does not have to be asked for CYA purposes. Money Back Guarantees can be negotiated, if the vendor in question does not already have one, your city purchasing disclaimers protect you most of the time, and regular old expression of intent to not brook bad performance usually does the trick.

This saves vendors the task of writing (or searching out, copying, pasting and formatting) a paragraph long description of what the power cord on the unit you intend to buy is made of, looks like, and it's projected lifespan.

#8 THINK FEDEX

I know it's sounds cool to say "RFPs will be Opened on Such-and-such a date at 12:00 noon" but y'know what? That means I have one less day to get it there. Even FedEx priority doesn't fully guarantee that - at least not to the degree that it gives me any confidence (having been told "tough luck" by FedEx a few times...)



Open proposals at 4:00 PM. It makes sense. I know "noon" gives you a feeling like you're at a ribbon cutting ("noon" "high noon" "Noon-on-the-dot" "we shall accept no proposal past noooooooon") but from a purely bureaucratic perspective, it's a stupid deadline in a fast paced next-day-delivery America. 4:00. Better.

Sooooo..........

Hey- I said it was a rant! I think the thing you folks should remember is that you're the last bastion in a failing society, fighting for freedom of speech, and making sure Americans lives are enriched, and a guy couldn't ask for a better bunch of customers. Honest. So if I'm like a Dutch Uncle with this rant, it's just to point out some Earth-saving, response-improving, common sense behaviors when sending out an RFP.

Hide Your Challenged Books !!!!

Palin asked Wasilla librarian about censoring books

The Boston Herald did a pretty good job of telling the whole story, in spite of the ephemeral nature of the ">TIME magazine blurb referring to it this week, the reference in Politico and Norman Oder's praising-with-faint-damning in Library Journal (clever, huh?)

But I think a town council member with a clear recollection of the question being asked in a public forum is good enough for me, rhetorical or not.

Shoulders back & helmets on everybody.

I still have a feeling Rindi White will hunt down Mary Ellen Baker, that involuntary bastion of free speech.

And remember: Banned Books week starts September 27th!

From ALA.org:

The “10 Most Challenged Books of 2007” reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Off the list this year, are two books by author Toni Morrison. "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved," both challenged for sexual content and offensive language.

The most frequently challenged authors of 2007

1) Robert Cormier
2) Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
3) Mark Twain
4) Toni Morrison
5) Philip Pullman
6) Kevin Henkes
7) Lois Lowry
8) Chris Crutcher
9) Lauren Myracle
10) Joann Sfar

Hey, we at LAT don't MAKE the rules.......

.......we just help libraries adjust to them through better technology!

This from the land of mustard based barbeque and above average flour:
"Steve Moore spends his spare time skimming the stacks looking for a good read at the library. But books aren't the only thing he looks for, now its DVDs."

So, how best to serve patrons? One guess.

Tight Economy = Increased Library Use

Hey, have you even bought a book lately? They're like 20-25 bucks or somethin'!! 5 books....100 bucks! That's like 4 cases of imported beers!!




"In an effort to stay entertained and informed without breaking the family budget, Americans are taking advantage of the best deal in town.Everything at the library, books, CDs, even video game sessions, is free."


"If library users feel that the local venue is busier than usual, Library Director Toni Kaus says it is not their imagination."

What could possibly be the best way to deal with increased patronage and staff cuts?

Shh - Here's How to Defeat Credit Card RFID - Or Not

Suffice it to say, a tag in a book's gotta be even easier, no? The fear expressed by the credit card companies though their actions implies support for the ease of defeatability........

"Credit card companies successfully nixed a Mythbusters segment exposing RFID's security flaws, according to Arbiter of Truth and Mythbusters co-host, Adam Savage."



Via the consumerist

Who Will You Vote For?

You know what I'm sayin'........



Click the speaker

Zombie attack in Library

From Allen County Public Library's Blog



Cool, huh? I'll answer for you- yes it's cool!

The question remains: Can a Zombie do self-check? The answer is "yes" if it's an easy-to-use LAT unit!

Overdue eh?!?!? Inta the Paddy Wagon with ya! Grrr! GRRRR

Alcatraz library

Story #1:
The incident cost Dalibor about $30 for the two overdue paperbacks. It cost her mother $172 to free her.

Story #2
Karkos has until 4 p.m. on Friday to return the book or be arrested.

Cool prison library blog here

Kindle the Flames of Booklessness

Interesting article from Vancouver: writer Mark Bauerlein reviewing The Dumbest Generation



I asked my son, "Why doesn't your college library have one of our self checks?" His reply was, "Nobody takes out books." Luckily, he's not dumb, I will hastily add. Thank providence that typical US libraries are not yet affected this way, (unless you have feedback to the contrary) and that we also make the allCIRC(tm)

Get the book here.

Breathtaking QTVR of Venetian Libraries

I'm one of those people who feels that the Internet is intended to be a multimedia experience, ultimately. It's sort of the opposite of the convergence idea that cable TV operators had when they first started CableLabs. The TV does not display text well, everybody reads at differing paces and the interface was to unanimously dumbed down to provide any real interactivity. With HDTV larger screens and the public's familiarity with mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts, it could happen now, but cable TV still does not get it. My dream: to be able to pause TCM and go to IMDb to figure out who an actress or director was. Are they close? No.

Enough ranting. The whole multimedia thing has led to this- me guiding you to these QTVR images of The Marciana Library in Venice. If you've never viewed QTVR, just drag your mouse up and down, left and right to look inside the views- shift zoom in and ctrl zooms out. (I've even done a few) If you useta look at QTVR and figured it was gimmicky, you haven't looked lately - expert photographers documenting spaces with better and better equipment.

Anway the link is here and at the image below:



Hey, a nice break from the usual Buy our products line huh?

Don't Fence Me In

Dale Ricklefs, the director of Round Rock Public Library in a recent discussion told us that after instituting Our FlashScan MAX units (shown below in the cool back to back "kiosk" positioning) she instructed her tem to spend time out on the floor introducuing the public to our easy-to-use units. As a result, circulation through these relatively new machines has gone to 30% of all transactions. She agreed with me, and we have seen this happen, that if the staff is not coached to buy in to the advantages of having a self check, and resistant to the idea, self check will not thrive, no matter how innovative the technology.

In environments where staff understands that self check contributes to Patron privacy and efficiency, and does not replace them (a preposterous idea!) self check usage jumps, and librarians find themselves assisting patrons with more meaningful problems other than handing them a book, in a library that is neater and better run.