Library Log 5/21/09

Kieran’s Notes from the back room :

I have had a few people ask me what I meant at the end of my last column when I said I would “Tweet” when people visited me here in the back room. “Tweet” refers to the website/phenomenon known as Twitter. In a nutshell, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables you to send and read other folks’ updates. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length (very short) which are displayed on your profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). If that made no sense to you, well, the John C. will be having a Twitter class on Thursday June 11 from 8:00am to 9:30am. You will be tweeting and following to your heart’s content, or at least know you don’t want to. If you already have a twitter account, you can follow us – JCFLD. If you do come back into the back room this week, besides me tweeting it, you will notice I am literally surrounded by boxes. I am calling it Ft. Hixon and threatening to put in a moat. The boxes are full of locking DVD cases we managed to get donated from the Pueblo City/County Library District and High Plains Library District – Farr Regional Library. The grand plan is to put the DVDs back into the cases they came in, put those cases into these locking things and put the whole contraption onto the shelf. This means when you go to check out a DVD we won’t have to look in all those file boxes for the actual disc; we just unlock the case and off you go! But before you go off, come by the back room and see the cardboard fort and say Hi.

Library Log 5/14/09

Kieran’s notes from the back room :

I was reading Kenneth C. Davis’s editorial in the Huffington Post, “Libraries are America’s Lifelines. Leave Them Alone”, about the possible funding cuts for public libraries in New York. The teen group was having an end of school year party, in the teen section right outside my office. It was a coincidence that while I read the line, “…the public library is stuck with an antiquated image of stern ladies shushing noisy kids, retirees borrowing the latest bestsellers and — more recently — homeless folk camping out in a heated corner. They are all clichés. And dumb ones at that”, our teens began to play the video game Guitar Hero with Metallica’s “Trapped Under Ice” blasting through the stereo and onto the big screen . I know that some quiet times are necessary in a library, but I also know that the modern library functions more as a community information outpost than a traditionally quiet study center. The public library is not just about borrowing books . It is about accessing information. Computer literacy and information technology have joined the ranks of essential skills. And the library has, by default, become the bridge in the digital divide. For libraries, the literacy divide and the digital divide are interconnected. You cannot promote basic literacy if you cannot promote the benefits of basic computing. They go hand-in-hand. In public schools children are now being taught keyboarding and computer skills in kindergarten. Libraries and schools cannot do this alone. Like the way libraries encourage parents to read to children, libraries promote why sons, daughters and friends should be helping their parents/friends get an email account, set up RSS feeds, do conference calls with Skype and navigate their way through Facebook’s privacy settings. Online communication is now a family and friends thing. As Jessamyn West said about teaching library skills to seniors in rural Maine, “If you put the internet and a computer between a grandma and pictures of her grandkids, grandma will figure out how to use the computer.” Just as books have changed people and societies, technology is too. So yeah, we have books (good ones too!). We also have other means to access information. If education and information are going to provide the means as America digs itself out the great big hole we are in, the public library is handing out the shovels. So next time you are in the library accessing the resources, stop by the back room and say hi, I’ll even tweet your arrival!

Library Log 5/7/09

Kieran’s notes from the back room :

Well, in case you haven’t heard yet, Gypsy Kelso has moved from Assistant Director to Director. (Yes, the noise you hear is the staff cheering in the background.) So get yourself ready for a bigger-stronger-faster version of the John C. We will be pulling out all the stops for the summer ….and beyond. Speaking of beyond, do you like to play chess? Knit? Do crafts? Read? Write? Be read to? Learn? Watch movies? Read manga or watch anime? If so the John C. has a club for you! The cure for what ails you so to speak. And if you are anything like me, you might be having a case of Spring Fever right about now. I have always thought Mark Twain summed up Spring Fever quite well in “ Tom Sawyer” – “Don’t you know what that is? It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want–oh, you don’t quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! It seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away; get away from the same old tedious things you’re so used to seeing and so tired of, and set something new. That is the idea; you want to go and be a wanderer; you want to go wandering far away to strange countries where everything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic. And if you can’t do that, you’ll put up with considerable less; you’ll go anywhere you CAN go, just so as to get away, and be thankful of the chance, too.” A book or movie or music might be able to fill your Spring Fever needs! And if you are looking for a mysterious land on the cheap – the back room is sort of its own wild area… Check it out, and don’t forget to say hi to me – the guy with the wild look in his eyes!

Library Log 4/30/09

Gypsy’s Corner:

Hello all, are you ready for your weekly dose of library happenings? This week I want to personally invite all of you to attend a very interesting program that was suggested to me by several of our loyal patrons. We started out chatting about the economy and how to cut down on the cost of living and eventually we came up with the idea that we should get a bunch of folks together to brainstorm with us and call it a “program” (read we don’t know it all and need some advice!). It’s called “Back to Basics Living” to be held on Tuesday, May 19th at 6:00 p.m. The idea is to get a bunch of people together and start throwing around ideas about how to live more simply (and yes cheaper) in modern times. Home gardening, making clothes, growing food, canning fruit, using heat and wind for energy, and raising animals for food are just a few of the topics that we’ll discuss. People really used to do all these things, and there are quite a few folks that still do. So if you are one of those people that remembers the good old days and how things were done, or if you would like to find out how the heck they did it, then please join us for this informal yet informative discussion group. I hope to see you all there and I’m sure we will all walk away with some great “new” old ideas.

Kieran’s notes form the back room:

Hello from the road! I am on vacation this week and am down in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sort of an errant librarian this week! I only stopped at two libraries on my way down…. yeah this library thing with me is like a passion…or is it a sickness! I have been noticing library buildings a lot lately. Trying to see what the actual structure and lay out of a building adds or detracts from the services provided. Different kinds of useful space seem to be handy, like a quiet area and a not so quiet area. Something to consider anyway as the John C. grows and changes. I am also catching up on some reading while on vacation. As I considered picking a book to take with me, I thought about what friends had recommended to me recently. That, of course, got me thinking… if you ever get the notion to write a little something about a book you have read – please bring it in to the library! We love that sort thing! We stick them in the book so folks can see what others thought of it. Just drop them by the back room… or just stop by and tell me what you are reading – I’d love to know!