PVLD Director's Blog

A next-generation e-book

An amazing look at how digital technology is transforming the experience of "reading"....now to figure out how libraries will participate.... 

From the "world wide web" to a "web of one"?

This TED talk by Eli Pariser is a scary view is happening as the role of filtering information shifts from humans to algorithms:

Librarians have long played the role of "information curators", helping ensure that our communities have access to a balanced and broad array of information.  The question now is "What does that mean in a world of filter bubbles?"

To me it means -

• Continuing to fight like hell to maintain our place in the school/education community where we can help give future generations the skills to navigate and evaluate the sea of information bubbles in which they will be swimming.
• Find a way to embed ourselves into the commercial entities that are developing the algorithms that determine who finds what so we can nudge that development in ways that foster transparency and a diversity of viewpoints.
•   Become the creators of algorithms - offer something better, without a commercial agenda.

None of these pathways are easy, and they require skills that we may not have today...but what an opportunity to cement ourselves into the foundations of the new digital infrastructure.

Libraries as the measure of a society

Cultural Offering had a nice little round-up on libraries today, but I especially liked the link to his own earlier post about his county's effort to pass a library levy last year, including his reflections on the role libraries have played in his life.  The closing paragraph is a real gem:

"I forget who said: "If you were to know how a man treats his wife and children, see how he treats his books."  But the same holds true for society.  If we want to know how we treat each other, look at how we treat our libraries."

P.S. Kurt - if you see this I'd love to know if the Chamber of Commerce endorsed the levy, and if it passed!

From clerks guarding dead paper to passionate raconteurs of information

As usual, Seth Godin says it better than I ever could - his vision of the future of libraries?

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

The next library is a house for the librarian with the guts to invite kids in to teach them how to get better grades while doing less grunt work. And to teach them how to use a soldering iron or take apart something with no user servicable parts inside. And even to challenge them to teach classes on their passions, merely because it's fun. This librarian takes responsibility/blame for any kid who manages to graduate from school without being a first-rate data shark.

The next library is filled with so many web terminals there's always at least one empty. And the people who run this library don't view the combination of access to data and connections to peers as a sidelight--it's the entire point.

Wouldn't you want to live and work and pay taxes in a town that had a library like that? The vibe of the best Brooklyn coffee shop combined with a passionate raconteur of information? There are one thousands things that could be done in a place like this, all built around one mission: take the world of data, combine it with the people in this community and create value.

We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime.

When I got to the end of the post I felt like cheering....what about you?

The story of a library and its people

Click here for a truly lovely illustrated story about the San Francisco Public Library and by extension libraries everywhere.  Libraries truly do make a difference!

(And thanks to Rosario Garza for sharing this via Facebook!)

What don't we see coming?

Words of wisdon from Nicholas Bate...as true for libraries as for commercial entities:

...The key to business success is agility as you will not have seen it coming, it is not in your plan and you cannot buy your way of the problem.

Wonder what the next curveball will be?

What did YOU learn in school?

On a day when California's school Academic Performance Index (API) were published, this post from Seth Godin seems particularly a propos:

Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following:

• How to focus intently on a problem until it's solved.
• The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
• How to read critically.
• The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
• An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
• How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
• Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
• Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
• An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
• Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

From what I see of our local Palos Verdes Schools, the teachers are really trying to do this...but in the face of shrinking budgets, growing class sizes, and the drumbeat pressure of standardized testing it's a daunting task.

The Secret Life of Libraries

Thank you to Ilibrarian for sharing this delightful article by Bella Bathurst.  I got a laugh out of the  somewhat naughty anecdotes, many of which would be familiar to anyone who has worked in a public library...although I have to say that for the most part PVLD is blessedly free of the types of incidents described.

Thanks to some dark corners, an abundance of adolescent customers, and youthful lack of inhibition, we at PVLD are most like to have encounters of the type that Dewey describes in my favorite Unshelved comic strip:

 

Both Ms. Bathurst and the creators of Unshelved (Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes) recognize what librarians have long known -not all of the value that libraries offer is obvious.