Redbox Jabs Big Guys

RG's Neighborhood Kiosk

Link to September 6 New York Times article, "Movie Studios See Threat in Growth of Redbox".

And what an amazing growth it is. From 12 kiosks in 2004 to a projected 22,000 in December 2009.

Here's an instructive snapshot of the movie rental marketplace:
45% traditional stores
36% rent-by-mail serrvices, such as Netflix
19% vending machines, led by Redbox

Taking a page out of the Washington playbook, Hollywood goes "family farm" on us. Studios, aware that consumers are unlikely to pity their plight and muzzled by the lawsuits, are keeping quiet. Fox, Universal, Warner and Disney each declined to comment for this article. But Hollywood’s powerful public relations machinery is in motion behind the scenes to connect the news media with a group that is equally threatened by Redbox but much more relatable: mom and pop rental store owners.

A little late, I'd venture. Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and Family Video have already trampled on the majority of these guys.

LA Times Book Critic on the lost art of reading

Link to August 9 Los Angeles Times article, "The lost art of reading".

Excerpt: In his 1967 memoir, "Stop-Time," Frank Conroy describes his initiation into literature as an adolescent on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "I'd lie in bed . . . ," he writes, "and read one paperback after another until two or three in the morning. . . . The real world dissolved and I was free to drift in fantasy, living a thousand lives, each one more powerful, more accessible, and more real than my own." I know that boy: Growing up in the same neighborhood, I was that boy. And I have always read like that, although these days, I find myself driven by the idea that in their intimacy, the one-to-one attention they require, books are not tools to retreat from but rather to understand and interact with the world.

So what happened? It isn't a failure of desire so much as one of will. Or not will, exactly, but focus: the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else's world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine. Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

Harry Potter: Parents (and Librarians) Beware

September 7 letter to the editor, Marshfield News Herald.

Editor: Parents, be aware Harry Potter books and movie toys lead kids into devil workshop and should be removed from the library and your homes. Good rule: Anything that leads a person toward evil should be removed from the parents' home.

A complete list offending items would have been most helpful.

Cushing Academy: Headmaster Ignores Yesterday's Lessons

Link to September 4 boston.com article, "Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books."

Excerpt: This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks - the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’

James Tracy, meet Paul Saffo.

"Media is not a zero sum game," says Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California. "Just because a new medium arrives doesn't mean an old medium dies out. We still have writing in an age of word processing, we still have reading in an age of video. That will continue, but the nature of reading will change as it has changed all along." (From "In So Many Words: How Reading Reshapes the Reading Habit", by Rebecca Piirto Heath, American Demographics, March 1997.)

The article then goes on to note: After Gutenberg's invention of the moveable-type printing press in 1455, some predicted it would mean the end of handwritten text, writes Alberto Manguel in A History of Reading. Instead, the opposite happened. The printing press brought vast quantities of uniform, inexpensive reading material to the masses. As the printed word spread in the 16th century, more people learned to read and write, and the calligraphic arts flourished.

Web Addicts: No Cheap Alternatives?

Link to September 5 New York Times article, "Center Tries to Treat Web Addicts".

Success not guaranteed, the headline implies.

Excerpt: Ben Alexander spent nearly every waking minute playing the video game “World of Warcraft.” As a result, he flunked out of the University of Iowa.

Mr. Alexander, 19, needed help to break an addiction that he called as destructive as alcohol or drugs. He found it in Fall City, where what claims to be the first residential treatment center for Internet addiction in the United States just opened its doors.

The center, called ReSTART, opened in July, and for $14,000 it offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use.

The New York City Subway System: Reading Like It's Yesterday

Link to September 3 New York Times article, "Reading Underground".

Excerpt: Reading on the subway is a New York ritual, for the masters of the intricately folded newspaper like Ms. Kornhaber, who lives in Park Slope and works on the Upper East Side, as well as for teenage girls thumbing through magazines, aspiring actors memorizing lines, office workers devouring self-help inspiration, immigrants newly minted — or not — taking comfort in paragraphs in a familiar tongue. These days, among the tattered covers may be the occasional Kindle, but since most trains are still devoid of Internet access and cellphone reception, the subway ride remains a rare low-tech interlude in a city of inveterate multitasking workaholics. And so, we read. (RG's emphasis.)

Even without a seat, even while pressed with strangers into human panini, even as someone plays a keyboard harmonica and rattles a cup of change, even when stumbling home after a party.

Hansen fights for bill to teach history of organized labor

Link to September 6 Green Bay Press-Gazette article.

Excerpt: The revised bill incorporates "the history of organized labor and the collective bargaining process" into the state's model academic standards for social studies, making it a suggestion rather than a requirement.

"I'm agreeable to that," Hansen said. "I'll accept the amendment to get it passed."

The Senate Committee on Education held a public hearing on the measure July 9 and could take a vote sending it to the floor this week, he said.

"Unions are 'the folks who brought you the weekend,' as one famous bumper sticker puts it," Hansen said in explaining his persistence about getting this information into the classroom.

"You have to remember the labor movement is what gave you the eight-hour day, the 40-hour work week, unemployment compensation, workers compensation, safety standards — improvements that have benefited non-union workers as well as unionized workers."

In a changing global economy, Hansen said it's more important than ever for new generations to understand organized labor's contributions

Village of Hobart Develops Fee Structure for Fire Department

Link to September 6 Green Bay Post-Gazette article, "

Excerpt: Hobart is one of a small but growing number of Wisconsin communities to charge property owners and businesses when fire crews respond to accidents and fires.
Advertisement

The Village Board recently approved an ordinance that establishes fees for residents, nonresidents, private businesses and tax-exempt entities that request the fire department to provide traffic control at the scene of an accident or fight a non-naturally caused fire with suppressant.

Proposed fees range from $50 to $500, determined by the type of call and who makes the request. Village officials estimate the fees will generate $10,000 to $15,000 in revenue.

Taking Preventative Action Against Library Theft

Greenfield Public Library: 'Monte' Belmonte to the Rescue

Link to September 5 Greenfield Recorder article, "Donations pour in from all quarters: Greenfield library theft prompts DJ to call on supporters; fund replenished within the day".

Excerpt: A day after the public library announced that someone had taken 21 pounds of quarters it had been collecting in a one-gallon glass cider jug since mid-January, a local radio personality has helped to replace the missing cash.

On the same morning the story appeared in The Recorder, Chris 'Monte' Belmonte, program director at WRSI The River at 93.9 FM, put a call out on his radio show to listeners, asking them to donate their quarters.

The Friends of the Library had begun collecting the quarters on Jan. 11 as part of the library's 100th birthday celebration.

Bringing Broadband to Northern Wisconsin

Link to September 4 Rhinelander Daily News article, "Wiring the Northwoods".

Excerpt: In the 1870s the federal government, the state government, the railroad companies and a handful of land prospectors were hammering out deals that would open up the Northwoods timber resources to the national marketplace by laying a system of railroad tracks.

Today a similar coalition of entities are brokering a decision that could provide broadband access to the region and deliver the information infrastructure many believe it needs to stay relevant in today’s economy.

Will the decision result in exploitation or sustained development? A coalition of Northwoods-based government, business and tribal entities spearheaded by the Forest County Potawatomi-owned business One Prospect Technologies has the answer, but they don’t know if the federal government is listen

Missing: 21 Pounds of Quarters

Greenfield, Massachusetts. Be on the lookout for bulging, jingling pockets.

Link to September 4 Springfield (Mass) Republican article, "$400 to $500 worth of quarters stolen from Greenfield Public Library".

Excerpt: During regular afternoon library hours, someone stole a large glass cider jug with about 21 pounds of quarters, valued at $400 to $500, that had been chained to a bookcase.

"It literally happened right under our noses," said Sharon A. Sharry, library director. The chain was cut and left behind, she said.

She said about 700 people go through the doors of the library each day. "Obviously we can't pay attention to every person that comes through the door."

The jug had been placed across from the circulation desk near the front entry.

The Friends of the Greenfield Public Library had placed the jug in the library to collect 100 pounds of quarters in honor of the library's 100th birthday last January.

No Card is More Important Than Your Library Card

Link to September 4 Great Falls (Montana) Tribune editorial, "'Smartest card' a free ticket to reading, recreation".

Excerpt: If you're like us, you've got a wallet or purse bulging with cards.

Credit cards, debit cards, insurance cards, discount cards, gift cards, coffee cards, hardware cards, grocery cards and even key cards to open doors.

But there's one card that shouldbe at the top of the stack, because it opens the door to the entire universe: a library card.

The city of Great Falls has a beautiful and well-stocked public library, and by signing up for a free library card there, you get access to it all — movies, music and, most of all, books — at no cost to you. You can't beat that deal, even at a garage sale.

Neil Gaiman's Home Library

See September 3 Shelfari post for details.

1983 ALA graphic

From the dank days

Link to September 4 cnn.com post, "The future of library, with or without books".

This trite opening -- The stereotypical library is dying -- and it's taking its shushing ladies, dank smell and endless shelves of books with it -- makes me wonder when John D. Sutter last visited a public library.

Otherwise, an instructive overview for the general reader.

The article is divided into 4 sections.

Library 2.0. People used to go online for the same information they could get from newspapers. Now they go to Facebook, Digg and Twitter to discuss their lives and the news of the day. Forward-looking librarians are trying to create that same conversational loop in public libraries. The one-way flow of information from book to patron isn't good enough anymore.

Community Centers. Jason M. Schultz, director of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley Law School, said libraries always have served two roles in society: They're places where people can get free information; and they're community centers for civic debate.

Librarians. In a world where information is more social and more online, librarians are becoming debate moderators, givers of technical support and community outreach coordinators.

They're also no longer bound to the physical library, said Greenwalt, of the library in Skokie, Illinois. Librarians must venture into the digital space, where their potential patrons exist, to show them why the physical library is still necessary, he said.

Funding woes. In the United States, libraries are largely funded by local governments, many of which have been hit hard by the recession.

That means some libraries may not get to take part in technological advances. It also could mean some of the nation's 16,000 public libraries could be shut down or privatized. Schultz, of the Berkeley Law School, said it would be easy for public officials to point to the growing amount of free information online as further reason to cut public funding for libraries.

Omaha: Private Fundraising Saves Branch (For Now)

Florence Branch

Omaha Public Library

Link to September 4 omaha.com article, "Libraries still may face cuts".

Excerpt: When donations streamed in last week to Omaha public libraries, it appeared that several impending cost-cutting measures at Florence and other branches had been prevented.

Now that happy ending is less certain.

Under any scenario, the Florence Library would stay open, thanks mainly to an independent fundraising effort by area residents. But programs and hours at Florence and other city library branches remain at risk.

At an emergency meeting Thursday, the Omaha Library Board noted that much of the $340,000 raised or pledged last week was contingent on city officials passing a 2010 budget that fully funded library services.

Although the City Council approved a budget Tuesday that appears to do that, Mayor Jim Suttle has questioned whether the council’s anticipated revenue streams were realistic.

Suttle, too, supported full funding of the library system next year. But, he said, if the revenue sources fall short in 2010, the city could wind up repeating this year’s round of cuts to city services, including libraries.

Statement Relating to Lead Products in Children's Books

Full text of statement by Inez Tenenbaum, Chairman, Consumer Product Safety Commission, found here.

Excerpt: The Commission also recognizes that testing and certification of books published prior to 1985 is not required for libraries and resellers because they do not typically manufacture or import children’s books. Because older children’s books did not use the modern CMYK printing process and some have been found to contain lead, the Commission was unable to make a determination that older books or their components do not exceed the CPSIA’s lead limits. The Commission continues to recognize that used children’s books that are sold as collectors items to adults would not be considered to be “children’s products” as defined by the CPSIA because as collector’s items for adults such books would not be “designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger.”

Any public or school library that has a significant number of children's titles published (NOT reprinted) prior to 1985 must have one of the lowest collection turnover rates in history. Purchasing replacement copies is a standard operating collection development practice in children's services.

The Wisconsin Way

Project Up-Date (September 2009) found here.

Here's how The Wisconsin Way describes itself. The Wisconsin Way is a unique partnership of statewide organizations with the goal of finding a new and better way to fund public services. Our members come from different backgrounds, but we all want the same thing—lower property taxes without lowering our quality of life.

Book on Local History by Arrowhead Library System Director

Collection development suggestion for south-central Wisconsin libraries.

Link to September 2 Janesville Gazette article, "Images of Evansville: Montgomery puts history of Rock County city on display".

Excerpt: The history of Evansville unfolds throughout the pages of a new book by local historian Ruth Ann Montgomery.

The photos and captions tell stories of everything from Dr. John M. Evans—after whom the city was named—to the Rock County Fair, which was held in Evansville from 1899 to 1927.

“I really hope that it will start conversations about those stories that people remember about these places and people, that they will pass those stories on to others in the community that may not be as familiar with Evansville history,” Montgomery said.

“There’s a lot of stories that can’t be told in a book of that size.”

Montgomery, a native of Richland Center, has long been a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Evansville’s history. Her latest project is available for purchase Monday: the “Evansville” edition in the “Images of America” series.

The 128-page book from Arcadia Publishing features more than 200 photographs captioned by Montgomery. Many of the photos came from Montgomery’s own collection of about five albums of photos and postcards that she’s collected over the years at auctions, on eBay and from people who gave them to her.

Wisconsin: New phone fee goes into effect September 1

From the Associated Press
A new 75-cent monthly fee for all cell phones, landlines or other devices capable of calling 911 starts Tuesday in Wisconsin.

The fee was approved by the Legislature earlier this year to help balance the state budget.

The money collected will go to county and local governments to help support police and fire protection services. If phone companies separately list the new fee on bills, it will appear as the "Police and Fire Protection Fee."

The $50 million a year raised originally was designed to help pay for 911 call centers.

But as the budget problem grew, the Legislature instead decided to divert the money to local governments to reduce pressure on raising property taxes.

Library on Sept 2 Cedar Rapids City Council Agenda

Link to September 2 Cedar Rapids Gazette article, "Council to discuss future of library, City Hall tonight'.

Excerpt: Input from the public was obtained during two open houses two weeks ago, and the Wednesday report and the council’s discussion following it might shed some light on a few giant questions facing the city.

Will, for instance, City Hall return to the Veterans Memorial Building on May’s Island or will the city build a new City Hall? And where will a new public library be built?

Link to draft of Cedar Rapids Public Library Main Library Building Program (1.31MB)

Link to Planning for a New Library (2.09 MB)

West Allis Proposes Tying Employees Raises to Revenue

Link to September 1 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article,

Excerpt: The union leadership in each of the five unions is recommending that members back the proposal.

Leaders of the police union, which took up the proposal after the other unions, have not yet taken a position but could schedule a vote by members later this month.

The proposal would base raises for 2011 on three factors:

• The city's income from its investments.

• The city's revenue from selling permits.

• The shared revenue the city receives from the state.

A formula would determine whether employees would get any raises and, if so, how much.

The city would pledge to keep staffing at current levels, with no layoffs or furloughs.

There is no truth to the rumor that officials considered changing their municipality's nickname to West Allis: City of Fines, Fees & Forfeitures.

Nekoosa Library Completes Renovation Project

Link to September 2 Wisconsin Rapids column by Nekoosa Library Director Darla Allen, "Library more user-friendly after renovations".

Excerpt: After months of planning, our renovation is complete. We invite you to come into our "new" library and check out all the changes we have made for you, the patrons.

I have beenthe library director for a little more than a year and during that time, I have been taking notes on what was working well in the library, and what things needed to be "tweaked." After a lot of people watching, question asking and problem solving, we have accomplished our goal of a more open, user-friendly library.

Menasha Default: What Does It Mean for City Services?

Link to September 2 Appleton Post-Crescent article, "Menasha defaults on $24 million steam bond payment".

Excerpt: The default means the city's credit rating will certainly drop further from its current B1 negative outlook rating, eliminating it from traditional borrowing in financial markets for several years.

Without the ability to do traditional borrowing, tight budgets might require the city to reduce services, which may lead to lower property values in the community.

The last two paragraphs of the article summarize a municipal case study in how not to do business.

The steam plant cost $41 million to build — more than three times the original $12.8 million estimate — due to questionable engineering, faulty projections and hasty decisions to proceed on a design-build basis without a spending cap or securing an important fourth steam customer.

Net plant revenues are unable to cover the massive debt despite significant taxpayer subsidies.

Friends of the Dallas Public Library Board Chairman Speaks Out

Link to August 31 op-ed piece in Dallas Morning News, "David Kusin: In defense of our city's 'information brain'".

Excerpt: Unfortunately, the current draft of the Dallas city budget would effectively lobotomize the institution by cutting its already lean materials budget by 66 percent. More alarming still is the poor budget prognosis for the following budget year, during which these cuts would be sustained. Such a reduction will induce what amounts to institutional coma.

Even though some of the initially proposed cuts to library hours have been restored, that improvement will provide cold comfort to patrons when valuable materials – online job search databases, for instance – are no longer available. While such budgetary tinkering may provide "feel good" politics, it fails to preserve the core function of our free public library.

The fate of our greatly beloved library now lies in the hands of the Dallas City Council. Fortunately, it seems that some council members are beginning to understand what sustaining this treasure is worth versus the long-term cost of letting it wither. Will all their colleagues on the council join them? We'll know soon, won't we?

Friends of the Dallas Public Library on Facebook.

New Madison Central Library: Let the Positioning Begin

Link to August 31 Wisconsin State Journal article, "Mayor needs to sell $37 million library to public, council, some say".

On this side we have north-side Alder Michael Schumacher. "At this point I am not yet ready to support it." He wants to hear first from area residents. (Not just his constituents?)

And over here we have Mayor Dave. "In building this new library, we’ll be able to take advantage of some of the lowest construction prices in decades, create hundreds of jobs and grow our tax base by opening up the block for development."

And somewhere in between is Lauren Cnare, Far East Side alder. "Personally, I like it. It’s important that we, as a community, have these civic landmarks." But she wants to hear from her constituents before making a final decision.

Council President Tim Bruer thinks a case case be made for a new (and "long overdue") central library, even when facing one of the tightest city budgets he can recall.