MOBIUS Libraries

Very interesting concept. I don't know if I really want people calling me at 2 am to chat about Webpacs. By Felicia A. Smith on I recently read an interesting article titled Make Room for Daddy...And Mommy: Helicopter Parents Are Here, which states, "Helicopter Parents hover over their children interceding as soon as the child faces an unpleasant situation or uncertainty. The parents are 'over-involved' in their child's life."

A positive four part blog entry about how libraries are evolving to meet new needs, strengthen communities during bad economic times, and are centers for sharing. Overall I think this article is the most realistic one I've read in some time. It still acknowledges that libraries are doing more with less, and that perceptions of libraries are slow to change.

I think I have a Tumblr account (?) but obviously I don't use it. Anyone have one? Tumblr got me a job. Being intimidated by the prospect of a "full-size" blog, I joined Tumblr in February 2011. Since then I've shamelessly promoted my "name" and stalked down as many libraries/librarians on the site as I could find. I've connected with libraries, librarians, library students, publishers, writers, readers, Doctor Who fanatics, and cat lovers.

A bit too much of a fan piece but a general description of how librarians can use Tumblr as networking. The basic function is similar to Twitter--namely microblogging, but post aren't limited to 140 characters of text and can include image, videos, and audio clips.

LendInk was a site that facilitated legitimate ebook lending by putting people with books to lend in touch with people looking to borrow. This was all done at Amazon and Barnes & Noble's websites LendInk merely put the people in touch. The site was shut down because of their host receiving hundreds of Cease and Desist letters from ebook publishers who didn't even take the time to see what the site actually did or who didn't understand that their books were even lendable. 

Review of Google's new Knowledge Graph search.

I think this is a cool and worthwhile improvement, but where the article makes a comparison to Wolfram Alpha I have to disagree. Google's knowledge engine is exactly the type of thing you get to do with the semantic web - and it's awesome - but it's not a *computational* knowledge engine like WA. If you google "The moon" you get some useful information about it including it's distance. But the distance there is just some number pulled from some resource. WA /calculates/ the distance to the moon at the exact moment of your search. Not to say WA is better - it's just different. WA has an entry for Leonardo da Vinci, and has a lot of the same facts as Google does - but it doesn't really have much of a capacity to show you anything related to him. Anyway, cool new feature that I'd noticed and used already but hadn't actually heard mention of. One of those things that Google just kinda slipped in that works.

The city of McAllen, Texas converted a Wal-Mart into a spacious public library and won the 2012 Library Interior Design Competition in the process.

Google has a new site called Google Search Education with different lesson plans for picking the right search terms, understanding search results, narrowing a search, and evaluating credibility of sources.

"You're not familiar with the Incunabula? Are you a librarian?"" If not, that's okay. "Our profession's new demands require librarians who can write regular expressions, tweak stylesheets, and manage databases."

This is a quick walkthrough meant for librarians who are not sure how to evaluate, plan, and implement technology for their libraries' use.  I'm curious as to what our implementation or IT and Web services folks think of this.

"Every generation rewrites the book's epitaph; all that changes is the whodunit."

"So much for Gen Y stereotypes. Turns out they aren't sun-deprived geeks sitting alone in the basement, with only a controller, joystick, or keyboard, and the final level of Skyrim to keep them company. There's a pile of books next to the game console, too."

"Starting this fall, the 220-member library cooperative Califa Library Group will begin rolling out a $325,000 project with the goal of buying from the smaller publishing companies thousands of e-books that the libraries will own forever."

That's really cool! I wonder if he would work for MOBIUS? Ha ha!

Also mentioned in this article is the leak from a few months back of LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn account the same advice applies. Hopefully you were using a unique password for all of these services and have nothing to fear ;)

[People who multitask] are not being more productive-they just feel more emotionally satisfied from their work.

This headline caught my attention: "NYU Library Imprisons Students in a Video Game to Stop Them from Killing Themselves." The atrium of the school's main library has been enclosed with perforated aluminum screens, in an effort to curb suicides.

"If the library has its way, this Beaux Arts-style building on Manhattan's 42nd Street - the one with the giant lions out front - will soon see some changes. A hotly debated renovation plan would demolish the seven stuffy floors of stacks. Some of the books would be stored under nearby Bryant Park, and up to 2 million books would be moved to climate-controlled storage in Princeton, N.J."

So this is an interesting way for libraries to find funding...