Retiring Guy's Digest: 2012-03-25

Saturday, March 31, 2012

How much does Jacksonville value its libraries?

How much do we value our libraries? (Florida Times-Union, 3/29/2012)

Excerpt: Finally, the people of Jacksonville will have to answer these questions:

Do they want an outstanding library system or one that is deteriorating?
Do the people want declining numbers of materials, which mean longer waits for them, with insufficient staff to help them and with facilities that are falling apart?
Does Jacksonville want the library to be able to plan for the future?

The system can’t do that now, Gubbin said.

Frankly, with the major literacy issues in Jacksonville, the city can’t afford to let the library system slip.

Too many adults are functionally illiterate.

Too many students can’t read at grade level.

The libraries are equipped to deal with these issues.

To let the library system deteriorate is to let Jacksonville’s future slip, as well.

Dear Hartford Council Members, I've scratched the worst idea from your list

Hartford Council Considers Ways To Close $56M Projected Deficit, (Hartford Courant, 3/28/2012)

Excerpt: Council members considered 15 ideas — which stemmed from discussions at previous budget workshops — for saving money or generating new revenue. Among them were

raising the mill rate,
reducing employee pension contributions,
drawing from the city’s emergency, or “rainy day,” fund,
layoffs, furloughs, wage cuts for city employees,
selling more advertising through billboards and bus shelters,
consolidating city departments or city and school operations,
selling off city assets, such as a parcel of land adjacent to Batterson Park in Farmington,
~~cutting contributions to the public library~~ [bad idea] and
implementing a voluntary payment in lieu of taxes program.

What are the other 6?

"The Daily Show" to Broadcast @ Imaginon in September?

'Daily Show' deal may be close at ImaginOn. (Charlotte Observer, 3/31/2012)

Imaginon website.

Waiting for RFID @ Your Supermarket

Supermarket checkout systems are still stuck in the past. (Arizona Daily Sun, 3/14/2012)

Excerpt: Ten years ago, shoppers envisioned a day when RFID tags would allow them to whisk shopping carts through a checkout without unloading them -- or bypass the checkout lane and ring up groceries as they walked through the store.

But RFID never got cheap enough for razor-thin grocery margins. And we're still stacking groceries on conveyor belts, a 19th-century invention.

Year after year, retail trade shows buzz with the prospects of new checkout technology. But the pedestrian task of paying for groceries mostly still depends on clerks and shoppers being efficient.

There have been some innovations in checkout lanes, and shoppers will see a few more over the next couple of years. Smartphone scanners and technology that keeps up with the flow of shoppers may speed up shopping trips, but many chains say they're finding that their employees are the best weapon against long lines. More stores are reconfiguring their express checkouts with one line leading to multiple cashiers, which has been proved to be speedier.

Trader Joe's, for example, uses a single line for express checkout. [Metcalfe's, both Madison locations, does this for its self-check lines.] Some Whole Foods stores have self-checkout registers, but for quick trips, the single line leading to several cashiers is considered faster, Whole Foods Market Southwest region President Mark Dixon said.

From 2004.

From 2010.

Es Klingelt in Arizona

Arizona law would criminalize being lewd or annoying on the Internet. (The Raw Story, 3/30/2012)

Excerpt: The bill is currently awaiting Governor Jan Brewer’s signature, and the Media Coalition, which defends first amendment rights in the media, has sent her a letter outlining some of the problems with the legislation.

“H.B. 2549 would make it a crime to use any electronic or digital device to communicate using obscene, lewd or profane language or to suggest a lewd or lascivious act if done with intent to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’” the letter notes. … ‘Lewd’ and ‘profane’ are not defined in the statute or by reference. ‘Lewd’ is generally understood to mean lusty or sexual in nature and ‘profane’ is generally defined as disrespectful or irreverent about religion or religious practices.”

Friday, March 30, 2012

Dom DeLillo's "Underworld" as Pie Graph

LINK

'Underworld': Of America as a Splendid Junk Heap.. (The New York Times, 9/6/1997)
What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years? One of the runners-up.

Pew Research Report: Free Library of Philadelphia Has Challenges - and Opportunities

LINK

Among the findings of the report are:

Philadelphians use their libraries less than their counterparts in most of the 14 other urban communities studied.
One factor contributing to Philadelphians’ relatively low use of their libraries has been the extraordinary number of times that branches have experienced temporary, unscheduled closings in the past few years.
The Free Library has been slower than some other big-city libraries to adapt to the changing needs of its population.
In Philadelphia, efforts to adjust to changing customer demands in a tough fiscal environment are complicated by a complex and often cumbersome governing structure.
Overall library spending in Philadelphia, at $43 per resident in 2011, is slightly below the average for the communities studied.

2 Cadillacs (and the October Goodbye)

A man walks into a bar.....

LINK

GAB Validates 96.8% of Walker Recall Signatures

Wisconsin State Journal 3/30/2012

900,938

30,115

Milwaukee Journal Headline from 60 Years Ago Today: "Most Public Libraries in State Show Serious Lack of Support"

757,000 persons = 22% of the population.

Map 1: Direct library service by county

Counties where all residents have legal access to public libraries (1950)

Columbia

Dunn

Fond du Lac

Green Lake

La Crosse

Langlade

Lincoln

Milwaukee

Oconto

Outagamie

Pepin

Rusk

Taylor

Vernon

Winnebago

Wood

Counties where bookmobile service is provided to rural areas (1950)

Brown

Door

Kewaunee

Marathon

Marinette

Racine

Shawano

Otherwise, you needed to live in a community that supported -- and I guess this verb should be used loosely here -- a public library.

Map 2

>$1.50 per capita support by county:

Milwaukee

Racine

Winnebago

$1.00-$1.50 per capita support:

Columbia

Dane

Door

Douglas

Eau Claire

Jefferson

Kenosha

Kewaunee

La Crosse

Manitowoc

Sheboygan

$.76-.$99 per capita support:

Brown

Dodge

Fond du Lac

Langlade

Lincoln

Marathon

Marinette

Outagamie

Rock

Walworth

Wood

$.51-$.75 per capita support:

Chippewa

Forest

Iron

Oneida

Portage

Sauk

Waupaca

$.31-$.50 per capita support:

Ashland

Barron

Clark

Dunn

Grant

Green Lake

Juneau

Monroe

Oconto

Rusk

St. Croix

Shawano

Trempealeau

Vernon

Washington

Waukesha

$.16-$.30 per capita support:

Adams

Bayfield

Buffalo

Crawford

Iowa

Jackson

Lafayette

Ozaukee

Pepin

Pierce

Price

Richland

Sawyer

Taylor

Washburn

< $.16 per capita support:

Burnett

Calumet

Florence

Forest

Marquette

Polk

Vilas

Waushara

Source: Wisconsin Public Library Service Data

Map 3

Most populous counties (1950) and population growth

Counties that have lost population since 1950

*Pepin County's population was 7,213 in 2000.

Other counties with significant gains in population since 1950.

Copy of Milwaukee Journal article and maps found in this publication.

Considering that there were about 170,000 farms in Wisconsin in 1952, I think the reporter used a pretty effective hook to open his story.

Your Wisconsin librarian is likely to be a farmer's daughter, but you won't find the farm organizations supporting her work, a statewide survey showed Saturday.

In that case, we'll have to let the Premiers (no e, actually) show her some love.

Not too sure what was on my mind 60 years ago.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

And I Quote from "Bringing Up an E-Reader"

Bringing Up an E-Reader. (The New York Times, 3/29/2012)

From the article: In “Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes,” an e-book for children ages 3 to 7, they can

change the color of Pete’s shoes by touching them,
sing along to music with the lyrics that roll along the page,
listen to a narrator or
record their voices as they read aloud.

LINK

I suspect Julia has her fans.

From the article: In an attempt to figure out whether parents should embrace e-books with great enthusiasm or ration e-reader screen time as they do TV time, Julianna’s class is participating in a research project for the Center for Literacy at the University of Akron.

The project is meant to find the best way to integrate e-books into classrooms. It is part of a broader study of kindergartners through second graders using a range of devices and computers.

From the article: Lisa Guernsey, director of the early education initiative at the New America Foundation, says conversations about how events of a story relate to the child’s own life, or asking open-ended questions about what happened, are examples of spontaneous dialogue. But this kind of interaction is often different with e-books, she said, and in some cases, disappears.

"The Smokers, the Drinkers, and the Enraged" @ Bloomington's Downtown Library

Bloomington library battles rising crime rate. (Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 3/25/2012)

Excerpt: Arrests at the Monroe County Public Library in downtown Bloomington have tripled in the past six years, as have the number of reported assaults, The Herald-Times [subscription required] reported. The number of people considered "trespassers" rose from one in 2006 to 14 in the last year, according to Bloomington Police Department data.

Library director Sara Laughlin said the library tries to be a safe and welcoming place for everyone who ends up there — including the smokers, the drinkers and the enraged.

But increased reports of drunkenness and other issues have forced some changes in the library's environment and policies.

New white tile and additional lighting have been installed in the men's restroom to reduce vandalism. A tobacco-free policy that was enforced March 1 has helped improve the atmosphere near the Kirkwood and parking lot entrances.

More changes are coming. Landscaping crews will work to reduce large seating areas where groups gather and to add interactive and educational pieces. Staff also plan to review the library's Internet policy and consider filtering computers to reduce inappropriate websites, mainly in response to the handful of complaints each year about Internet pornography.

[snip]

When an intoxicated person is banned, staff members give them a card letting them know when they can return to the library. That way, when they're sober again, they'll remember they've been banned.

That might be an overly optimistic supposition.

IMCPL Board Votes to Restore Most Branch Hours (with link to ICMPL 2011 annual report)

LINK

Library trustees vote to restore hours. (Indianapolis Star, 3/27/2012)

Excerpt: The Indianapolis Public Library Board of Trustees on Monday unanimously approved a plan to restore most of the operating hours slashed across the system's 23 branches in 2010.

Under new hours taking effect May 13, nearly all branches will open at 10 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays. Some will open at noon on Sundays. All except the Flanner House branch will be open at least six days a week.

The Central Library and seven other branches will be open seven days a week.
The board approved the new hours by a 7-0 vote, said Jon Barnes, the library's spokesman.

Related articles:
Some hours to be restored at IMCPL branches. (3/1/2012)
"Not all good news". (2/25/2012)
2012 budget should allow library to restore reduced hours at branches. (10/17/2011)
An informed, engaged Indianapolis will find the resources for its public library. (7/4/2011)
Bramble's retirement leads to search for 21st-century visionary to lead IMCPL. (6/3/2011)
Library funding a front-burner issue. (6/3/2011)
Empty cup at the finish line? (4/30/2011)
Indiana House passes library funding bill before Democrats take a much needed road trip. (2/22/2011)
Indiana Senate moves more quickly than House on library bill. (2/10/2011)
No rest for IMCPL 'loyalists'. (2/9/2011)
'Library loyalists' provide a remedial lesson in funding priorities. (2/8/2011)
Legislative effort to provide more funding for IMCPL continues. (2/4/2011)
Show of support by IMCPL advocates. (1/25/2011)
Library angel. (1/17/2011)
Indianapolis Star editorial: "Give library a fair share of tax" (1/13/2011)
Sustainability in the form of a share of county income taxes. (1/12/2011)
Township deals comes undone. (1/8/2011)
Vote to restore library hours and rehire staff: Thanking God again in Wayne Township, Indiana. (12/16/2010)
Wayne Township's $200,000 for IMCPL: "Thank God it's a nice purpose". (12/8/2010)
Temporary fix (not yet approved ) to keep 4 IMCPL branches open. (11/19/2010)
ICMPL to lay off 37 employees. (11/12/2010)
Cuts in library hours, materials budget. (9/15/2010)
Library announces 26% cut in hours. (9/14/2010)
Indianapolis resident recommends book to local officials. (9/6/2010)
Library board votes to include 'shortfall appeal' option. (9/1/2010)
Library board to consider 'shortfall appeal'. (8/30/2010)
In close vote, library board cuts hours, staff. (8/20/2010)
Library grapples with its sustainable future. (8/16/2010)
Library projects a $7.3 million deficit by 2014. (7/29/2010)
Library board sez no branch closings in 2011. (7/15/2010)
Library supporters question Pacers deal. (7/15/2010)
High performance government team report. (7/11/2010)
Library board delays decision on libraries. (6/5/2010)
Another big turnout for libraries. (5/13/2010)
Mayor vows to keep library branches open. (5/12/2010)
Residents speak up for their libraries. (5/11/2010)
The neighborhood library as refuge. (5/2/2010)
Indianapolis Star editorial board keeps library funding issue front and center. (4/25/2010)
Efficiency experts look for ways to keep branch libraries open. (4/23/2010)
More than 1400 sign petition to keep Glendale branch open. (4/20/2010)
Editorial: Find resources for library. (4/19/2010)
What's in store for Indianapolis-area libraries? (4/17/2010)
Indiana Pacers bailout talks continue. (4/16/2010)
Postscript. (4/15/2010)
Look what's at the top of Indianapolis's to-do list. (4/14/2010)
A Challenge to Indianapolis-Marion County: Stand Up for Libraries. (4/13/2010)

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Long Ago in a Galaxy Far Away, or, Suburban Madison Public Libraries as Late Bloomers

Prepared by the Library Study Committee of the

League of Women Voters of Middleton (1965)

I first discovered a copy of this 11-page report when reorganizing the library's administrative file drawers, probably around the time of Middleton's 2003-2004 remodeling and expansion project. I casually paged through it but otherwise didn't give it much thought. It seemed like such ancient history.

But then while looking for documents to supplement the "Chapter 43" series, I stumbled across a copy at the UW-Madison SLIS library. This time I decided to give it a more careful reading.

From the title page. A late great sociologist, Edward L. Thorndike, has suggested that we can measure the ambitions, the cultural and intellectual interests, and the social goals of any community by the quality of its library. He noted that a well-supported public library is a universal characteristic of an intelligent, progressive community.

I made a halfhearted effort to locate the actual quote, without success. Anyone else up for the challenge?

The reports recommendations. It is readily apparent that the Middleton library falls short of Wisconsin statutory requirements and ALA minimum standards in many respects. The low circulation figures, the poor quality and number of books, and the low budget are all indications that the library does not presently reflect the "ambitions, interests, and goals of the community". It is equally apparent that community resources -- both human and financial -- are entirely adequate to the task of developing a library that will meet the needs of all of its citizens.

Reformatting the information found on page 2 of the report.

I exclude Stoughton from the suburban Madison category, using this observation from Wikipedia as my reason. For much of the history of the area, Stoughton has been the second-largest and economically important city in Dane County after Madison.

But more importantly.....

14 Jobs Axed @ the Grand Rapids Public Library

Grand Rapids job cuts to push library back in time, critic says. (Mlive, 3/27/2012)

Excerpt: While Grand Rapids Public Library leaders preferred staff cuts to closing branches or reducing hours of operation, a unanimous vote tonight to ax 14 jobs including the Web branch manager will shut the city system’s “virtual front door,” said a college librarian who criticized the $494,000 budget cut.

Library Director Marcia Warner plans to turn responsibility of grpl.org over to her communications staff, but that “is not going to work,” said Lisa M. Rabey, systems and Web librarian at Grand Rapids Community College.

“You’re going to see a stale Web site,” Rabey said. “You’ve essentially just put yourself back in the 20th century.”

Faced with a revenue gap caused largely by declining property tax receipts, Warner proposed a $9.2 million budget that met a board goal of maintaining hours of operation at the library's eight branches. More than half of the job cuts will come from the library’s planned implementation of a radio frequency identification, or RFID, system. Warner said the other job cuts are part of an ongoing effort to make library operations more lean.