Back with some mild ranting

I'm still wondering about the whole "Y is the new X" thing. Who thinks up stupid things like that? Very non-creative people I suppose.

Today I ran across our copy of New York Magazine, the one with Lindsay Lohan recreating the Last Sitting. Naturally, one of our patrons felt the need to cut the pictures out with scissors, thus defacing the magazine. Granted I am assuming it was a patron and not someone who works here because after all aren't librarians supposed to believe in freedom of expression? Now back to the rant...

I'm not so certain I care that the pictures were cut out. Go to New York Magazines online site and you can see them, plus a couple that did not get put in the magazine. Big deal. I don't like the vandalism, but I think it proves something I believe. IF you want to prevent crimes like theft, vandalism, etc. you have to establish a visible presence at your work area. This means that librarians have to (ohmigawd don't say it) WALK AROUND! Get off your lazy butt and take a walk around your reference area when you're on the desk. It's just like any other business, if people see you, you make eye contact, maybe talk to them a little, offer to help, they are much less likely to damage/destroy/steal material. Why? Because as you walk around and do those little things they get UNCOMFORTABLE. Duh!

Trendwatching for 2008

Recently received a link to a list of things (http://influxinsights.com/blog/article/1724/jwt-has-80-things-for-us-to-watch-in-08.html) to watch for in 2008. Obviously I'm a little behind since it's late February and the list was created in December, but I feel the need to make comments on a few of these issues.

2. Antibiotic Backlash - this has been in the news before mainly due to antibiotic resistant strains of diseases cropping up. Is this a new issue? I think not.

4. Beijing 2008 - They're holding the Olympics in China so we'll go through the inevitable fads of so-called "culture" that usually have nothing to do with the country in question - Crocodile Dundee anyone?

7. British actress Kira Knightley - already overexposed in the entertainment world.

49. Nollywood - can we come up with something better than another Hollywood knockoff - Metro Goldwyn Nigeria, Nigerian Artists, SOMETHING????

69. Tequila as the new wine - tequila connoisseurs will have a field day with this. Simple facts about distillation - any liquor can be distilled/aged into a fine sipping beverage suited for cocktail hours, dinner, or after dinner drinks. This has already happened with scotch (single malt), rum and whiskey (single barrel or single batch or small batch). Does this mean next year watch out for Gin or Vodka as the new tequila?

Further rant on #69 - what is it with calling everything the new X (the new black, the new wine, etc.) It's an absurd premise and a lousy comparison device. Simply put, call the item the new trend in it's field - Tequila will be the big news in alcoholic beverages rivalling wine for it's versatility and be done with "the new" fad.

Funny stuff

So it must be the full moon, early spring and something else I can't quite put my finger on because I am getting the weirdest issues at work this week. First was the regular patron who came in and sat down at a table already occupied by a studying student. The student came to me and asked if I would have the other patron move as the student was doing school work and was being disrupted by the regular patrons loud phone conversation. Upon asking VERY POLITELY if the intruding patron would move, I was called racist and told that the FBI would be checking up on me.
Second fun incident: I woke a sleeping patron to give her a copy of the library rules and explain that she could not sleep in the library. Patron's response "What kind of library is this?" before storming off...
I can't help but laugh at both incidents because they are so typical of our patron base. Working downtown in a large public library has it's moments of genuine weirdness and this is shaping up to be the week for them.
I also ran across a couple of neat library memes that I will probably be participating in soon. I have some great ideas for both of them.

Libraries and E-government part 2

To follow-up to yesterday's post about libraries and e-government. The point I'm trying to make is that libraries are being asked to assume a great deal of extra responsibility with no extra funding. Basically what is happening is that many government entities are streamlining their services in an effort to cut costs. One of the ways they do this is by putting information they used to provide in print form into an electronic format. While there is no doubt that this streamlines their workload, the work doesn't just disappear. In fact, the work load has to be picked up by someone else, and in this case it's the public library.

There are other solutions to the problem. One of them would be to just refuse to help and send them back to the government agency. While this would be extremely poor service by the library, it would get the message back to places like DCF that we are not going to pick up their slack.
Another option is to allow the customer internet access - which we already do - and show them which web site they need, then walk away and refuse to offer any additional help. Again this is a customer service problem, but it protects the librarian from a huge responsibility and liability for the patron personal information.
A third option is to arrange for a training session from someone working for a government department. DCF in Florida does have a liaison for most counties and is apparently willing to send people out to conduct training sessions. I feel this creates the problem of our enabling DCF to continue shirking their responsibility by taking over a portion of their job. Again, librarians are not and should not have to be social workers. On the other hand, if DCF is going to kick back to us some of the $30 million they are "saving" each year by not offering services, then perhaps we could make a deal.
The big picture here is that libraries need to find their niche for the 21st century. The only way to do this is by offering needed services for the public and being able to prove that we have value. This will mean having direct statistical evidence that we are providing services - number of applications for food stamps we helped with this month, number of e-government website visits, number of job applications assisted with, etc. If we can bring those kind of numbers to the state legislature via our lobbyists, then perhaps we can start seeing more money to offset the costs associated with being government's safety net.

Libraries and E-government

As governments attempt to streamline their services and cut down on their spending they have once again managed to shift the burden of responsibility for some issues onto other parts of society while patting themselves on the back for allegedly saving money.
A glaring example of this shift is the e-government issue. In an effort to cut down on paperwork and staffing, many governmental departments have shifted to an electronic application format. This sounds good on the surface because it means less paperwork, fewer staff and a significant amount of saving. However there is another issue that this shift brings up. Namely, does someone else have to take the burden for state or local government's efforts to save money.
In this case, it's your local library. By and large, librarians are suddenly finding themselves having to assume additional duties - particularly in areas they are untrained for like social work - because government departments have moved needed documents to an electronic format and are sending the patrons "...to the library. They have people there that can help you."
In reality, librarians by and large do not have degrees in social work, yet we are being asked to fill that role while places like the Department of children and families congratulate themselves for saving millions of dollars by putting everything online. This shifting of the burden of responsibility is a travesty. Librarians should not be put in the position where one wrong answer on a form could potentially affect a client for more than a year.
One of the other problems with this shift to "e-government" is that the target audience for many services are on literate in the use of the computer. This is particularly true for those library patrons who may need food stamps or other welfare-related items. These patrons will need the most assistance, and they are increasingly having to rely on librarians who are ill-trained to help them.
Maybe what needs to happen is some data collection and billing. For example, the library could track all their e-government requests for help, track the time those tasks took out of a librarians day and send a bill monthly to the affected departments or (better yet) the governor's office in the hope that when budget time comes the legislature will see fit to free up more money for the public library.

Just heard about

So I just heard about this issue with the iPhone battery and felt the need to write about it. Now, I'm not going to claim to be an expert about electronics, but does it really make sense to solder a battery into a phone? As cell phones have gotten smaller and more powerful over the years, one thing that was easy to count on was being able to replace the battery when it died. In fact, this holds true for cordless phones as well. Now here comes Apple with a stupid mistake like this. Perhaps they are expecting the battery to last for 2-3 years until they have a second generation phone available, I don't know.
I do know this much, there is no way I would pay $499 for a phone in the first place and even if I could afford such a thing, what happens if I get a bad battery that dies within a month or two..???

Musing on Learn 2.0

So now I'm thinking about what to do with my MP3 player. I think it will be full of music for working out - it's smaller than my last Walkman - and I'll probably get an adapter for the cassette player in the car so I can stream books or music.
I'm looking forward to putting some of the music off my computer onto something other than a CD which skips in the car stereo....