Far too many leaders believe that what they do and why they do it must be obvious to everyone in the organization. It never is. Far too many believe that when they announce things, everyone understands. No one does, as a rule.
- Peter F. Drucker
(Thanks to Michael Wade of Execupundit for the reminder)
Ever wonder what washing machines have to do with reading? Watch Hans Rosling and the wonderful washing machine
Today marks the end of a week in which I've little time to blog but plenty of opportunity to count my blessings as we pulled off a very successful library fundraiser (thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of people and a lot of community support), I had a number of opportunities to be reminded just how great our PVLD staff is and how fortunate I am to work here, and as the events in Japan made clear how quickly your life can be changed by events totally beyond your control.
Nicholas Bate, as he so often does, hit the nail on the head a couple of weeks ago when he wrote:
You're lucky. Really lucky. Doesn't always seem so. And stuff sure does happen at times. But overall, all things considered, the balance sheet considered: you're lucky. Be grateful.
I am!
Great stuff via Stephanie Beverage, Director of the Huntington Beach Public Library:
This article from Make magazine offers a fascinating, non-librarian's perspective on a new future for public libraries.
For those of us who were raised in a libraries=books and reading world it is pretty radical, but I love how the author, Phillip Torrone, articulates the essence of what a public library is about -
"...the collective commitment of a community to their future. They symbolize what is most important, a commitment to educating the next generation."
After giving an excellent overview of the current state of public libraries in the U.S. Torrone asks "In the sense that books are tools of knowledge, the library is a repository for tools, so will we add “real tools” for the 21st century?"
In his vision libraries could become community spaces for collaboration and creation...of art, music, content, and even physical stuff...and by so doing could position themselves as part of the solution to some of the very important questions that we face as a nation -
It may not be a particularly comfortable vision for those of us who see our role as curating (rather than aiding the creation of) content and answering questions, but it is an intriguing one. As Torrone points out libraries already have the space (increasingly so as more content moves online), the locations, and the community connections to make a model like this work...what we may lack is the courage.
Read the article (and the comments!) and let me know what you think.
Thank you to Cultural Offering for sharing these great tips on "what to do when you can't figure it out" from 5th-grade teacher Rob Firchau...and for introducing me to Rob's wonderful blog The Hammock Papers .
What it says?
What to do if you can't figure it out:
1. Take a deep breath and refuse to be confused; go back over the problem one step at a time.
2. Organize what you know.
3. Act the problem out in your mind.
4. Doodle - move things into new combinations.
5. Make a graph or a table.
6. Work the problem backward.
7. Solve part of the problem.
8. Look for a pattern.
9. Ask "What if. . .?" and follow that reasoning through.
10. Brainstorm. Even silly ideas can lead to a helpful solution.
11. Don't give up. Don't ever give up. "If you think you can't, you're right."
In all of the discussion of e-books vs print books one fact is seldom stated - that with the rise of digital technology some kinds of books are becoming obsolete as the information they contain is freely available online in "non-book" form.
This reality has become apparent at PVLD as the Librarians have been taking a hard look at our "Reference Collection" - the fact- and data-rich, non-circulating, items that historically have been the "go to"resource to answer the array of questions that get asked at the Reference Desk or for which some combination of high cost and high demand mean that it made most sense for them to be readily available within the library rather than circulating. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs are good examples of the former, while the Value Line Investment service is a good example of the latter.
The Reference collection has proven fertile ground for cost-savings as with close scrutiny it has become apparent that many of the items in it contain information that is readily available online (either freely on the Internet or via the library's subscription databases) and simply aren't being used. We are saving thousands of dollars annually by no longer purchasing these items.
Even with that knowledge I was surprised by this post from The Clutter Diet blog suggesting that one day to reduce household clutter is to get rid of books that contain information readily available online. It wasn't the idea that you don't need to keep hard copies of some of these items that surprised me, it was the types of books included in the list.
On the one hand, I know from my own behavior that when I want to look something up - whether a fact, directions, a definition, a recipe, or how to do something the first place I turn is the Internet. That's how I found the recipe for the asparagus risotto I cooked last night, and a video showing how to prune our peach tree, and the directions to my last out-of-town meeting. The Internet works great when I have a specific question or a I know what I want to know, and I can easily see print almanacs, medical reference books, and repair manuals becoming obsolete.
With its user reviews and sophisticated algorithms that help provide recommendations tailored to my interests, I can also see the Internet making movie guides obsolete.
At the same time, I love browsing through cookbooks and the serendipity of coming across a recipe that I never would have thought to go look for but that sounds just delicious or flipping through a gardening book for ideas for my yard, and I have many childhood memories of turning to the encyclopedia for specific information for a homework assignment and discovering lots of other fascinating information in adjacent articles. I can't help but feel that life will be poorer if we think of information resources as just places to get the answers to specific questions.
Maybe e-books will offer the same kind of serendipitous browsing experience that flipping through a paper cookbook or opening an encyclopedia offers today, but I am having trouble imagining it. In the meantime my bulging shelves of cookbooks and gardening books will continue to be a source of great pleasure.
That said,if you want to take the advice to rid yourself of "obsolete" books just remember that our Friends of the Library would be happy to have any that are in usable condition for their book sales!
As tablet computers and Ebook Readers proliferate and the knashing of teeth in the publishing and library worlds about how to deal with this new technology becomes louder, this article from Fast Company provides some refreshing perspective.
The article reports on a survey of reading habits and preferences from the United Kingdom in which, even though 40.8% of teens reported having read a book on a computer and smaller but still sizeable percentages had read books on cell phones, tablet devices like the Ipad, and e-readers, "when asked which media they preferred both adults and teenagers selected the print book ahead of news, magazines, blogs, comics and even e-books."
Is it a case of "The book is dead, long live the book"?
I thought Fast Company's summary of why the book still rules was particularly good:
"If it's indeed true that the kids are gravitating more to the printed book than the e-book, it's not hard to imagine why. The beleaguered book is still a hot, innovative technology. Even the largest tomes are cheaper than an e-reader. You'll never even think about their battery life. Many have sleek displays (though you shouldn't judge a book by its cover), plus full-color illustrations. Pages load instantaneously, may be dog-eared, and are fully enabled for in-margin annotation. Plus, a book, unlike an e-reader, can actually appreciate in value over time, rather than become obsolete. A first-edition Hemingway will fetch thousands of dollars. Who, now, wants a first-edition Kindle?"
Who indeed?
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