trump Killing Our Libraries, Our Museums, Our Knowledge

This is not an April Fools. trump's fascist regime is doing everything they can to shut down our nation's libraries and museums (via Andrew Limbong at NPR):

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed its entire staff on administrative leave.

The IMLS is a relatively small federal agency, with around 70 employees, that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United States.

This month, President Trump named Keith E. Sonderling — the deputy secretary of labor — the new acting director of IMLS. This followed Trump's previous executive order shrinking seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

According to a statement from AFGE Local 3403, which represents IMLS workers, the agency's staff was notified by email about being placed on paid administrative leave for up to 90 days, after a "brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership." Employees had to turn in government property, and email accounts were disabled.

How, you might ask, does something at the federal level affect public libraries that are funded at the city/county/state levels?

The IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums across the country. According to the American Library Association, the IMLS provides "the majority of federal library funds." The IMLS says it awarded $266 million in grants and research funding to cultural institutions last year. This money goes to help staff, fund maintenance and create new programs. In comparison, the projected 2025 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts was $210 million.

For instance, in 2023 the IMLS funded projects such as a workforce training program, including internships, at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Florida, a pilot program in Iowa to help library staff address patrons' psychological needs and basic library functions (books, computers, internet) for various Native American tribes. You can find programs that the IMLS has funded to libraries and museums in your state through its dashboard.

That amount of $266 million is a blip in the overall federal budget. It's not wasteful or distracting from other funding needs, and yet these bastards went for that - along with all the other millions in social aid that were going to our communities - because it offends them.

Think of all those field trips you did in science or history classes back in elementary, middle, and/or high school. Think of all those writing assignments that required you to research the public library for topics on countries, or science projects for the school fairs. All gone, or about to go away, because billionaires dare not let public services go to the actual public.

While most of us are paying taxes at the state and county levels to pay for public services like libraries and museums, it's often not enough - especially in Republican-controlled states that try to keep their tax rates on property or income as low as possible to appease the Club For Greed types - to cover large-scale services for summer reading programs in low-income counties or to maintain local museums that promote ecology, history, or other sciences.

Cutting back on IMLS funding - shutting it all down like this - is going to force states and counties to either increase their own tax rates - which some of them can't do without overcoming local partisan anger - or cut services which is the path of least resistance for most local governments.

We are getting punished by ignorant, angry partisan leadership that wants the majority of us in poorer counties and states to sink deeper into ignorance and anger of our own.

Goddamn trump. Goddamn the greedheads like Elon Musk and the anti-government assholes who've been railing against our nation's long-standing efforts to provide public services to our communities.

As a librarian, this hurts me not just in the pocketbook - I dread how this is going to gut some of our state funding that supplements our county money - but in my soul. Providing library services - reading, literacy, entertainment, computer tutorials and one-on-one help - defines who I am as a person in my town, in my county, in my world.

And it's only going to get worse from here.

What the hell, America. For the LOVE OF GOD and for the LOVE OF YOUR COMMUNITIES and your families, defend your local libraries! Defend your right to read, to learn, to enlighten yourselves!

Anniversary Again: My First Full-Time Job

It's now been thirty years since I started my first full-time job as a librarian.

I wrote this ten years ago for my twentieth anniversary: 

I had a part-time Library Adjunct position at the St. Pete Junior College Clearwater campus off Drew St. at the time.  It was nice, working the reference desk, helping students get on the CD-ROM databases and look for books in the two-story building.  I had just gotten my Masters degree in Library and Info Sciences at University of South Florida (GO BULLS) and was hoping to find a full-time spot at an academic-level library.

While it wasn't an academic library, I got a call from Broward County Libraries to interview.  The county system was this large, spread-out system that used regional libraries as nexus points for the smaller community libraries that dotted the packed urban/suburban landscape.  They were going with a novel idea at the time of sharing the large regional libraries with the Broward community college campuses.  They were building a brand new building for the BCC North Campus, and needed full-time staff to cover the expanding Reference desk (BCC provided two existing librarians to staff the desk as well)...

There was the rush of driving around the county with dad to find an apartment complex I could rent out within a month.  There was the hassle of figuring out what to pack and carry down.  There was the confusion of figuring out which roads to take and which led to nowhere (if Broward County had one thing going for it, it was that most of the roads were in a grid pattern: figuring out intersections became the easiest thing to do).

And then it was May.  My parents helped me move down from Pinellas County.  May 8th was my birthday (and also Mother's Day, which we celebrated at a nice restaurant, I forget where now) that Sunday.  I was twenty-four years old.  And then Monday May 9th I started my first full-time job at North Regional Library...

In those thirty years since, I'd learned a lot about being a reference librarian, and then the technology training aspects of it as our public services switched from finding things to helping patrons figure out their emails and smartphones.

When I wrote the 20-year remembrance, I had just been hired by Bartow Library after a four-year stint on unemployment. I had hoped then to make it a steady career when I got there, as the upheavals of going from Broward County to University of Florida to Pasco County didn't work out too well. 

I've been there now 11 years, the longest stint at one place I've done (North Regional was 6-plus years). Many of the staff who were there in 2013 when I joined have retired or moved on to other jobs. I'm the veteran of the place... which is still an unnerving sensation for me.

I still think of myself as starting out, still 24 years old, still learning the skill sets, still thinking I'm a rookie at all this librarianship when I'm really a 54-year-old survivor of the Midnight In the Garden of Good And Evil / Where The Crawdads Sing Shelf Wars.

My role as a reference librarian is coming to an end. There's little call for research assistance at the public library level when everyone can Google(tm) search it; and yet the need for experience research skills are greater because the information out there is no longer accurately vetted.

Where my expertise matter now is dealing with the adult patrons who still have tech issues and need training on the ever-changing personal devices we all have now (no jetpacks, but pocket phone cameras with computer processing power). We've gone from 3.5 inch floppies to CD-Recordable to USB flash to microSD card to straight-up wireless streaming.

We've even gone to where people would line up for hours to get on the public library computers - I can remember using clipboard sign-up sheets to manager 60-minute usage for patrons back in 1994, and people getting into fights over cutting in line - and then a ton of users getting online during the 2007-08 start of the Great Recession trying to get their unemployment benefits signed up. And then by 2015, the number of computer users just... dropping as the job market steadied, and the demand just... settled to normal.

We're still recovering from the COVID shutdown, it's been 4 years and only now have some of the Bartow regulars returned to check out books again. Sadly, some of the older ones - and our Friends volunteers - have passed on over the years. My awareness of my time as a librarian is drawing near to a close. I'm closer to my own retirement than to my own beginning...

If I Had to Build My Own Library

So let's say I win a mega lotto, hundreds of millions of dollars all in one go, and I could do anything and everything with it. How evil would I get with it? 

Well, I *would* set aside a set amount of it - maybe $15 million - to myself, I could live comfortably on that and never work again. I would put a certain amount into long-term investments to make sure I never go bankrupt down the line. That would still leave millions upon millions at disposal.

I wouldn't buy yachts - although there may be a resale market right now with all the Russian oligarchs losing theirs - and I wouldn't go crazy buying mega mansions with 20 bedrooms and 5-car garages, that's just all waste.

I'd put most of that money into foundations and charities, donating out to those issues - refugees, immigrants, homeless relocation to good homes, animal rescues, child care, women's health - I would deem most essential.

I'd also as a librarian - who's been in love with libraries and books since I was a child - put money towards building a good-sized public library serving a needy community.

Which intrigues the amateur architect / interior designer in me. What would my dream public library look like?

First off: It must serve the community. Every feature that makes a library what it is - bookshelf space, reading space, computer lab, teen reading space, children's story time and crafts room, adult makerspace craft room - also has to share public meeting room space and outdoors activity space.

It'll depend on where the library goes, the size of the community. More people = more demands on library services = bigger floorspace. I currently work in Bartow, that's around 20,000 people. I grew up in Palm Harbor, that's currently 60,000 people. A new library in Palm Harbor would HAVE to be bigger than Bartow's, obviously.

Should it be single-story or multi-floors? If I wanted to show off, I'd make it at least a three-story building with the public meeting rooms and special services offices - like a café, art gallery, and Friends of the Library Book Store - on the first floor, YA and adult services/computer lab on the second floor, library admin and children's services on the third. But a building like that will require elevators - side note, libraries ought to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act - and near-constant maintenance of them. That's not even considering the huge amount of HVAC / central air and heat you'll need for all those floors. Oft times, a single-story public library would be best. Only the major metro and county library systems - Hi, Broward Main! - should think about multi-floor libraries.

Collection Management of any library requires a basic core collection of reading materials, DVDs, CDs, and audiobooks for checkout. Some distributors will offer package deals on those, but they ought to get supplemented with local authors and regional interests materials. I'd actually opened a new regional library in Broward County that went with ordering a core collection package, and tried to merge it with the existing collection of the books from the local library the new building was replacing. Thing was, they failed to plan shelf space to merge both collections, so rule of thumb if you're going with a start-off collection it'd best be for a brand-new library.

And from that experience I learned something else: We need as much shelf space as possible. You can't make every inch of a library a shelf area, by the by. You need reading chair areas and study table areas and enough floor space for people to walk here and there. But you can't skimp on maintaining a good collection of new fiction reads and existing subject titles on things like cookbooks and histories. You can't aggressively weed out older titles unless you have to, so you need a lot of shelves to manage it all.

My new library would open with what's called "Compact Shelving" although I've nicknamed it "Accordion Shelving" because it collapses and opens like an accordion. It allows you to deploy extra shelves in a limited floor space, by having just one shelf range open for shelf browsing at a time. You'll see those compact shelves a lot in universities, but public libraries ought to use them too. If we start off with a core collection that takes up only two-thirds of the compact shelves, the library should have a few years building up from that start to fill out enough of those shelves while a regular management process of weeding out older or damaged or unread books keeps it from getting overwhelmed.

The layout / floorplan shouldn't deviate from standard layouts. The meeting rooms have to be separate from the rest of the library as those rooms may be in use for the community when the library itself is closed. So there's often a lobby entrance that merges the meeting space to the library space. Also, the bathrooms have to be in the foyer in order to serve both parts.

The Circulation/Checkout desk has to be at the front entrance, both to handle incoming returns from patrons but to also control what gets checked out and making sure nobody sneaks off with that copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in their back pocket, you naughty book thief.

There used to be a Reference Desk for patrons who came in with questions and research needs, but the advent of online searching - damn you, Google - reduced a lot of demand for that. Instead most libraries have converted it to an Adult Services desk that also oversees the public computers for tech assistance. Some libraries share an all-in-one service desk that reaches from the Checkout workstations to the Adult Services workstation, mostly so that staff can support each other during busy hours.

A joint public desk usually means a shared staff work area, which helps reduce the need for adding more floor space for separate off-desk workstations. It would also be where the cataloging and book processing takes place, along with shipment deliveries and supplies storage.

Oooh, storage. Very important. CLOSET SPACE IS A MUST. Double supply closet floor space whenever possible. Just saying.

It would help to design the floor space so that the children's librarian workstation is with the rest of the staff's. I've been in some places even in single-story buildings where they put the children's librarian in a remote office. It doesn't help with interoffice communication and team-sharing. The children's story time room, THAT can be separate from the main library floor space, but make it easy access for the librarians to reach.

A library director's office should be accessible to both the staff's work area and the public floor. Both as a management principle as well as a public service necessity. The director is going to handle a lot of patron issues, visiting salespersons, civic leaders stopping by, and a safe place to make the occasional 911 call regarding an atypical patron.

Your building custodian is going to need both a workstation and a supply closet, most likely in the lobby area to handle meeting-room-only emergencies.

Having a dedicated Teen/YA Area is good for promoting libraries to the group in most need of literacy and after-school activities. It has to be positioned close enough for the Adult Services librarian to handle any emergencies, but isolated enough so teens can hang out without fear of getting chaperoned every minute of their stay. In this day and age, comfy reading chairs next to floor outlets to recharge smartphones is a good floorplan.

Oh, and you'll need a good-sized parking lot. With sunset-sensitive parking lot light timers.

And an outdoors Book Drop, preferably built into the library with a roof over it for bad weather, with a narrow enough slot that vandals won't shove drinks or trash through it, and with a drive-thru lane so people won't have to get out of their cars if they're in a hurry.

And it won't hurt to build the library on a pre-existing bus route so that the community has transit access to your public library.

Also bike racks. Maybe with built-in locks that patrons can borrow to secure their bikes without fear.

It wouldn't hurt to be near a pizza parlor either, especially with a lunch buffet for staff to walk to from time to time.

You know what, if I'm a multimillionaire I'll BUILD that pizza buffet within walking distance of the library, how about that, huh?! YOU LIKING THIS?! I'M LOVING THIS!

...

You want me to DRAW this dream library?!

...

Gimme a minute, I need to find my D&D graph paper...

Defend Your Libraries in 2022

Well, this is unsettling (Via Nikoel Hytrek at the Iowa Starting Line).

The effort to ban books has expanded beyond the classroom now to public libraries, with a new GOP-backed bill adding librarians to their target for prosecution and civil fines of those they believe give access to materials that are “obscene or harmful to minors.”

A collection of 14 Iowa Republican representatives introduced a bill Tuesday that makes it illegal for a person affiliated with a public school or public library to knowingly spread “material the person knows or reasonably should know, is obscene or harmful to minors.” Colleges and universities are exempted.

The penalty would be an aggravated misdemeanor, upgraded to a class D felony if the person was previously guilty of this.

Aggravated misdemeanors can be punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine between $625 and $6,250. Class D felonies are punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine between $750 and $7,500.

In short, Iowa Republicans want to turn librarianship into a criminal profession. Putting us up there with robbers, drug dealers, and people who talk at the theater.

You want to know how this game will get played if Iowa makes this a law?

Say a mature-looking young adult comes in, claiming they're a college student, asking for a book on sexual identity from the 306 Dewey Decimal (DDC) shelves. As a librarian, I would direct them to the shelf area, show them the titles we've got there. And then WHAMMO the "college student" turns out to be a 17-year-old high schooler on "dual enrollment" with the local community college and they call in the cops to arrest you for "knowingly spreading obscene material" to a minor.

You think that if this law passes, the courts will only rely on the fines to punish librarians, I mean who wants to send a sad little librarian to jail over an obscene book? Thing is you WILL get judges who will punish sad little librarians "to send a message," because those judges may agree with the Far Right religious conservatives who want to ban "obscene" books from the face of the Earth. Even then, those fines aren't cheap: A full-time librarian usually makes between $35,000 to $45,000 a year. Even a $625 fine is cutting into rent or mortgage, not to mention the costs of fighting these charges in court. Want to take care of $1000 fines every month? There goes most of a monthly paycheck for librarians. This would bankrupt most of us.

Oho, you say. If this law passes, perhaps it would be safer to pull all the obscene books off the shelves, right?

You want to know what these Far Right religious extremists think is obscene? Anything about gay and lesbian and trans culture, even when those books aren't graphic in detail. Young Adult books about sexual identity that don't even get as far as kissing scenes will still get targeted.

Anything about sexuality in general, even straight-up medical textbooks detailing human anatomy, and sociology/psychology textbooks. Because even those research-type books will offend those wingnuts.

Anything about "Critical Race Theory" because God forbid we upset Far Right people who believe that pointing out systemic racism is obscene to them.

Anything artistic from the Fine Arts (700s DDC) shelf range that just happens to show human nudity (Note: Most public libraries already self-sensor themselves from anything sexually graphic. But the religious nuts will go after anything that even hints at sexuality).

And it won't be the cheap and tawdry books these wingnuts will go after. Prize-winning authors like Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway - about a hundred writers and about a thousand literary works that make up a public library's core collection - will get labeled "obscene" and make it impossible for us to keep our doors open to everybody else who wants to use the library for their reading (and entertainment) needs.

And this is just the books: Many libraries have DVD movies available - yes, not everybody's gone to streaming yet - and half of those movies will be "obscene" in the wingnuts' eyes.

A good library - school, public, college - is one with a broad range of books from fiction to nonfiction, able to provide research and literary information to the communities we serve. This means we have to cover - even with a handful of titles - a lot of topics and reading interests for a diverse population, some of whom DO WANT to read books that others might find grotesque.

Again, most libraries DO evaluate and self-censor when necessary: For example, most libraries will not stock The Illustrated Joy of Sex because we know community standards won't abide it (Also, it will disappear off the shelf). We also won't stock The Turner Diaries, not only because it's openly racist and Anti-Semitic but it also contains bomb-making instructions violating laws banning such information (also also, that book is poorly plotted with one-dimensional characters, bland sex, and suffers many grammatic errors).

But what this Iowa law will do is make librarians vulnerable to ANY accusation about ANY other book that most would find benign but what the extremists will view as dangerous. Librarians could weed out every "offensive" book we could think of, and the wingnuts will STILL find something on the shelf to offend them and punish us.

And this just won't stop in Iowa. If this law passes, and it survives every court challenge - even the Supreme Court where a 6-3 conservative lineup could well side with the religious extremists - every other Republican-controlled state is going to pass their own version. Half the nation could well see our public libraries shut down due to the threat of prison and bankruptcy facing their staffers.

And who would win then? Without public libraries, children and adult literacy withers. Public access to computers goes away, hurting poor people searching online for jobs or families trying to file for food stamps. No more children's programs. No more community centers.

Libraries matter to people. Libraries define a city, support their counties. We're a public service that people enjoy having, because they often get good results from what we help them with. You can hear people whine about the post office or waiting forever at the DMV, but you don't see those kind of complaints about libraries.

Except from the ones who hate libraries for doing the one thing the religious extremists despise. We give our communities the diversity of experience that shames those who would rather keep us ignorant, uninformed, and fearful.

Well, to hell with those haters.    

You're gonna have to pry my library catalog from my cold dead hands, you bloody wingnuts.

Now is the time for all honest Americans who want to keep copies of Harry Potter stories and books on Tarot and Wicca to join your library's Friends group. Now is the time to defend your library and your community!

To The Shelves! To the Shelves! Defend the books!

In the Running: ALA Councilor at Large

I've mentioned a few times before that I am a professional librarian.

This isn't just about working full-time as a reference librarian: Professionalism requires keeping up with the skills and training, as well as contributing to the job title by engaging in regional, state, and national organizations.

I've been very active with the Florida Library Association, working on committees ranging from establishing Standards And Outcomes for our public libraries to maintain their ethics and professional standards, to the Scholarships committee that rewarded funding to new students to our MLIS programs at public universities (Florida St. and South Florida).

I've also been with the American Library Association, paid member since 1993 (my graduate student years), and had been active within the ALA with Reference & User Services group from time to time.

All this to say that for 2022 I'm hoping to be more engaged with ALA by running for a Councilor-At-Large position.

From the ALA press release, thank you Sheryl Reyes:

CHICAGO - The American Library Association (ALA) announced that 68 candidates are running for 34 at-large seats on the ALA Council.

The following candidates were accepted by the Nominating Committee (listed alphabetically by last name):

(you'll have to scroll down a bit...)

Paul Wartenberg

Reference and Technology Librarian

Bartow Public Library

Bartow, FL

(Public)

I am campaigning on the pledge to 1) uphold library standards of public service, 2) uphold librarianship's three rules of Time And Space, and 3) the judicious application of library ninjas to hunt down overdue patrons.

I kid a little. I am campaigning on promoting effective public service, and to ensure our libraries support our communities so that our communities can support us.

Balloting for ALA elections begins on March 14, 2022 and will run through to April 6, 2022. Individuals must be members in good standing to vote in the 2022 ALA elections. I also need to make sure my membership dues are in to remain a candidate.

For my fellow ALA librarians out here, I hope I have your vote. It'll be a tough election with 88 candidates for 34 openings. We'll see how it goes!

Thank you for your consideration!

Starting that Podcast: Book With the Blue Cover

Well, I taught that class on Podcasting... and I still missed a step or two.

But I started this, a brief introduction to Book With the Blue Cover, and let's see how far this can go.

 

 

Please comment where you can! I'd love the feedback! If you can't post here or at the Buzzsprout location, tweet me @PaulWartenberg kthanx.

If I'm Going To Podcast, I'm Going To Need to Learn

A project in the planning at my workplace, still hush-hush, requires knowing how things like podcasts get made.

So if I gotta learn about podcasts, then I gotta listen to podcasts.

So I'm out here looking at a few worth following, and one of the earliest ones I've spotted is this Drunk Librarians, who seem to do book discussions while... um... encouraged by the finest libations a librarian can liberate from a winery.

(I have known many a librarian appreciate a fine wine or twelve. Just not me, I never developed a smell for wine, apologies)

Anyway, I'll be checking that one out, and I'll mention other podcasts of interest when I find them.

When I start up a podcast to see how I'm faring, I'll share the link here.

 

National Library Week 2021

April 5 through April 10 is National Library Week!

Take the time to visit a library - PLEASE WEAR A MASK INSIDE A LIBRARY AT ALL TIMES - and check out what you like - BOOKS ARE GOOD, WE GOT A BUNCH ON HAND - and support literacy and community resources to the full - WE MIGHT BE NEAR DOG PARKS, YOU NEVER KNOW.

In the meantime, see if you can spot a fool in this crowd:

I know I overdo the arched eyebrow thingee

NOW GO READ! We'll see you in the summer when our family events take place.

 

You Say It's My Birthday: Yeah Actually It's a 50th Birthday

Having gone from this:

To this:

To this:

To this:

To this:

And... that's not all the photos of my 50 years - there's one or two from my college days I can't find at the moment, some from my days in Pasco Libraries, and a few more - but this gives you an idea how long it took for me to get a good beard going and then how quickly it went grey.

Ouch.

As for all the stuff I'd like to do for a birthday present to myself, the one thing I want to do is travel and see more of the world... but now is not a good time to do that. (sigh)

So in the meantime, here's cake:

Also, still trying to write a story or two. Or twelve. And get a damned novel finished. And...

National Library Week 2020

This would have been - April 19 through April 25 - National Library Week.

Sadly, we are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that has closed down our library to the public. We need to promote Social Distancing to reduce the risks of spreading the infection (and this virus is proving very easy to catch).

What I can do from here is to encourage everyone to keep reading through any of the ebook services our libraries subscribe to. Bartow for example has an Overdrive account, so you can either use the direct URL on your desktop/laptop to visit https://pclc.overdrive.com/ and plug in your library barcode and PIN numbers, or install the Overdrive Libby app on your tablet/smartphone and login through there.

We're also sharing connections to various FREE ebook and online resources that have made themselves available to the public during this pandemic, the link to which is on our library website https://www.cityofbartow.net/library and through THIS particular link (the URL is so messy you're better off just clicking the link I made).

I wish we were doing our library services directly to the public, but right now safety and health ought to be our priorities. So I do hope everyone is doing well.

We can always do our Library Week next year.

Plans for 2020 As a Librarian and a Writer

Just a brief list of things I need to do this new decade.

Writing:
Cancel my publications with Xlibris and reprint the short story collection in an updated work with newer stories and better editing. In this regards I need to finish two stories - one needs editing and one needs writing - to round off the collection.
Finish an extra story or two for submission to a particular online press that has certain story requirements. More on when I get those done.
Finish the NaNo novel from this past November 2019 because of the unfinished projects floating around in my head its one I feel best about getting done.

Librarying:
Take care of ongoing paperwork and responsibilities at my library, obviously. :)
But also get things prepared and ready for hopefully a new City Librarian (director) to take over operations
Once that's settled, get back into my reference librarian and tech assistance outreach.
Provide assistance to the FLA Scholarships committee I am currently assigned to. It's a big responsibility.

Personal:
Cope with a major surgery later this month.

So... well, the days are packed aren't they?

It's a Day of Birth 2019 Edition

But it's a day in the middle of the week so I'm at work, doing librarianship, ordering copies, coping with 49 years of wondering about my place in the universe...

And not enough cake. Sigh.

BACK TO WORK.

Librarianship and Social Media

In terms of marketing, libraries need every form of outreach they can think of.

But Facebook can only go so far. Tumblr requires near constant updating, as does Twitter.

Is Snapchat a good way to get teens more interested in using the library for reading or school work?

What other social media apps might work?

Suggestions? Please comment.

Just a Weird Observation About Working at Bartow Library

It's just, in the three years I've been working at Bartow Library as the Reference and Computer Tech Support Librarian, I have gone through four boxes of business cards. In the years that I've had company business cards - since 1997 or so with Broward County up to 2003, up to 2006 at University of Florida, and between 2006 to 2008 with Pasco County - I barely finished off the single box of cards each place had given me.

It's a difference in the audience now. Previously, the business cards were just for professional courtesy between fellow librarians for conferences and conventions. At Bartow, it's the public who take the cards so they can call back later to schedule One-on-One sessions to teach them how to use their computers and tablets, or fix any glitches in the software/operating system (I don't have the tools or supplies to fix hardware, sorry).

Still, it just seems... nicer, to be able to say I'm handing out so many business cards like this.

Now, if I can just hand out my bookmarks promoting the ebooks I've got on sale at the same rate as my business cards...

At the 2016 Florida Library Association Conference

hashtag FLACON2016

Although my Nook Samsung Tablet keeps wanting to autocorrect that to Falcon 2016.

I'm here for some professional development, some socializing, a lot of work with the Standards Committee to follow through on the revisions we made in 2015, and auctioning off book donations from Mystery & Horror LLC for library fund-raising! Thank you, Sarah and Gwen!

Pictures to follow.

The Problems With Blue Book Covers

Are you kidding me?  That's part of the reason I've got that as my blog title...

Anyway, I'm not the only soul accused of hit and run uh the only librarian to notice the request for books by blue covers!

This is happening, people.  IT'S BEEN HAPPENING FOR YEARS.

WITNESS IT, BELIEVE IT.  This is everywhere:

This was actually from Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston.

THERE ARE BOOKS WITH BLUE COVERS EVERYWHERE.

Be afraid.

I will be adding one more.

An Ode to Library Avengers

It's been ages, but one of the earlier websites I remember as a pro-librarian site was Library Avengers.  Thankfully, it's been one that's stayed relatively active, occasionally updated, and still relevant to today.

It still has one of the best badass boasts about being a bibliographic bruiser ever:

WHY YOU SHOULD FALL TO YOUR KNEES AND WORSHIP A LIBRARIAN

People become librarians because they know too much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule. And they will kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise.

From Terry Moore's classic Strangers In Paradise.
I once mentioned to the lady managing Moore's booth
at ALA years ago that Moore should have
posters for sale of that artwork.

Florida Libraries: Standards and Outcomes

I've been on the Standards Committee for the past year for the Florida Library Association, and what we worked on was a revision of existing standards - something in need of updates - to try and establish something that had outcomes that could be useful in getting libraries better funding and public support.

The Standards are up on a blog provided by the Orange County (Orlando) Library System at this link, and you can see for yourself how we're setting up what libraries are doing and can do to where the outcomes are clear and where our needs and support have to focus.

Summer Librarianship: Keep the Kids Reading

Just to note, it's summer.  Libraries use this time to encourage kids and teens to read.  It's helpful: it keeps the youth engaged in a needed skill - reading and literature - during the two/three months between schooling.

The theme this summer is Heroes, which is an appropriate one for meself as a fan of comic books and hero gaming.  Here at Bartow Public we're hosting a lot of superhero-themed events for the youngsters.  I worked with our Children's and Teen librarians hosting an event where kids got a superhero name and they crafted their own superhero outfits (although I would have said no to the capes like Edna would).

As such, I need to get this printed out and hanging on a wall at work:

Libraries run a READ campaign.

I really REALLY miss City of Heroes...

P.S. this is post 300.  Hi, everybody!

Florida Library Association Conference 2015

I attended this past week, learning a few new things about the advocacy of 3D printing and makerspace planning for libraries.

I also attended as part of the Standards committee, where we presented the first draft of the revisions.  We are re-designing the guidelines to focus as much on outcomes as anything, and thinking of how the Public Library Association's planned revisions in 2017 will affect the various states (including our own).  I'd love to add a link to the first draft if I can find it... knew I should have written it down somewhere.

And if anyone's got pictures of the Standards presentation on Friday morning, please pass along.

Oh, and Ellen, I still owe you for the hot-spot Internet usage.