LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

On March 10, 2010 appropriations committees in the Florida House and Senate adopted positions eliminating all funding for Florida’s State Aid to Public Libraries program.

We are now looking for Volunteers to protest at the Florida State Capitol Building, 400 South Monroe Street in Tallahassee on Tuesday March 16, 2010. If you are interested in holding a sign in protest of the State Aid to Libraries being reduced to zero dollars please contact me at systemslibrarian@gmail.com.

On Tuesday the Committee (see below) that is in charge of determining library funding will meet. Meet them prepared with your picket signs!

Transportation & Economic Development Appropriations Committee
March 16, 2010 at the Morris Hall (17 HOB) 2:15 PM - 6:00 PM

Here's a Sample Picket Sign (Word 2007 Format)to download - Feel free to modify. Free Word 2007 Viewer

On March 10, appropriations committees in the Florida House and Senate adopted positions eliminating all funding for Florida’s State Aid to Public Libraries program. This devastating action will result in some Florida library branches closing and will seriously cripple libraries’ ability to serve Floridians. Libraries have already taken their share of local and state budget cuts. This will be especially damaging to libraries in Florida’s rural communities, as these libraries rely heavily on provisions in the program that help communities with lower tax bases.

ps - to commentators: would some of you jokers please add some jokes to our Librarian Joke Contest? thanks~

What Two Challenges are Most Critical to Public Libraries?

The ALA election season is upon us (electronic polls open and paper ballot mailing begins) on March 16 and polls close on April 23, 2010. We wanted to find out a bit more about the two ALA presidential candidates, so we asked them to provide us with an answer, for the PLA blog, to the following question: “What two challenges are most critical to public libraries today and how can ALA and PLA help public librarians meet those challenges?”

Both said budgets, one vot for technology and one for "Managing in a rapidly changing environment"

According to NFI Research, these are the top public libraries on Twitter who

Boston Globe:The decision about which of Boston’s libraries to potentially close will be based on far more than just how many books and DVDs patrons borrow.

Library administrators will rank the 26 neighborhood branches by foot traffic, computer use, and how many Web surfers use laptops to log on to Wi-Fi networks. They will count how many programs are offered at each location and tally the number of people who attend storytime and English classes.

Amy E. Ryan, Boston Public Library president, will outline today the intricate measures the city intends to use to close as many as 10 neighborhood branches as part of a sweeping consolidation plan. Ryan will brief the library’s board of trustees at 3 p.m. at what is expected to be a crowded and contentious public meeting at library headquarters in Copley Square.

Full story.

The New York Daily News reports that "there's a scandal in the stacks at the Brooklyn Public Library."

The head of the system abruptly quit last week after a plan to lay off 13 employees backfired and ended in a very public embarrassment. Insiders said the firing fiasco was the last strike against Dionne Mack-Harvin. "The board was not happy with her," a source said. It wasn't supposed to end this way. Mack-Harvin took the post with great fanfare and a fabulous back story - the African-American daughter of a sharecropper who loved books and rose to her dream job.

"My town officials think all we're running here is a babysitting service" a librarian recently shared in a moment of frustration. She went on to mention studies about the proven impact on cognitive abilities when toddlers are actively engaged in library programs like Lapsit versus passively engaged with toys & videos.

This was news to me; my how the educational product companies and toy manufacturers had shaped my understanding! I also hadn't thought of toddler programs as educational initiatives. When I've seen adults and toddlers together at the library, I've usually thought "oh, aren't those kids adorable" and "I'm glad people are getting together to have fun". Though it now seems obvious, the educational and literacy component of Lapsit was lost on me.

This last point was intriguing, so I did some quick research. I googled "Lapsit" and got plenty of results from library websites around the country. I clicked through to the top 20 (all different libraries, by chance) and searched for the terms literacy and education in the page content, in images or as part of the navigation.

• 80% made no mention of literacy or education in conjunction with Lapsit
• 20% contained the term literacy
• 10% contained the terms literacy and education

Clearly these stats don't tell the whole story, but they tell a good one about the help libraries need presenting information to the public.

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HULL, MA - Calliope Pina Parker is a sixth-grader who reads as many as 10 books a week and favors Harry Potter. She dresses as Potter characters for Halloween, plays Potter trivia with friends, and regularly revisits the series - all seven books and 4,167 pages.

Calliope is also an avid user of libraries, borrowing from across the region and frequenting branches throughout the South Shore on her way to and from school, ballet, and karate practice. So it came as a particular blow when budget cuts in Hull not only sheared the local library’s funding and hours but also cost the town its state certification last month.

“Now people from Hull can’t go to any other library,’’ said Calliope, whose card is no longer welcome at many other certified libraries.

Wanting to do something about it, the 11-year-old organized an all-day reading of the J.K. Rowling book that started it all, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.’’ Yesterday’s readathon and bake sale, with wizardly cupcakes and “magic wand’’ frosted pretzel rods, raised awareness about the library’s circumstances and collected money for the nonprofit Friends of the Hull Public Library.

Library site a hot new social media hangout for teens
"Our goal is to draw students in so that they're comfortable hanging out in the library, and then get them to engage with the workshops and technology in the space," Neal said. "We're seeing more and more students who were hanging out, participating in workshops and on the social network. It's been great to see their interests develop."

Students enrolled in workshops may check out digital still cameras or Flip high-definition video cameras for a week at a time to work on special projects.

The Shaler Library is letting Phil Breidenbach, 54, of Glenshaw PA and a handful of other patrons experiment with an Amazon Kindle, a hand-held device for reading online books. Shaler will be the first local library to lend such gadgets to the general public when it introduces them during National Library Week in mid-April.

"If books move to a format that doesn't take up space, that will free up libraries to do other things," said Marilyn Jenkins, executive director of the Allegheny County Library Association, a group of suburban libraries, including Shaler. Story from Pittsburgh Live.