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Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)
Reading to children is a huge boom thng for libraries. I notice it at our little library in Bedford
Hills. The horse-farm set's kids mix and mingle with the working-parents set's kids. The aupairs
bring the rich kids and then all sit outside smoking on the patio. The other kids get bussed over
from daycare. Basically, it's just tax-subsidized babysitting. I hate to sound old (again) but back
in the day, parents read to their kids at home.
The big advance for libraries, at least as far as my use goes, was getting everyhing networked so I
can arrange a grab-hold-and-send-to-local-place online, get an e-mail when it's ready and just walk
in and pick it up. I don't have to fuss with Dewey Decimal card catalogs (totally user-hostile
invention if there ever was one) or prowl the thin stacks in the little local library, or ask
questions of a librarian who may well be super-smart and very helpful or could be an ancient/cranky
or young/stupid volunteer. Instead, it's all there at a computer -- easily searchable, easy to get
into my hands and super-convenient. That innovation in itself should preserve libraries for a long
time.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Durenberger" <Mark4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)
Interesting comments, Tom. The snip below was published recently in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
It may be of interest to your wife-mate:
Mark Durenberger
===============
Library boom is book lovers' boon
Established libraries are expanding and new ones are popping up across the metro area, as demand
surges for their services.
Kevin Giles, Star Tribune
In Forest Lake, graders are contouring a field for a new Washington County branch library that
will be four times larger than the current one's cramped quarters at city hall. In Stillwater,
workers are scurrying to complete an $11 million expansion of the river city's 1903 Carnegie
library just weeks before its reopening. And next summer in Plymouth, construction begins on a
new, bigger library because the western suburb has outgrown its current site just 11 years after
it was built.
While the new Minneapolis Central Library grabbed headlines this summer, a massive investment in
libraries is also underway around the Twin Cities metro. Driven by changing consumer demands, and
blessed with usage rates that in some suburbs are twice the national average, new libraries are
opening and older ones are getting huge additions.
"The demand for services is definitely growing," said Patricia Conley, library director in
Washington County. "And the types of services being requested or offered is changing. Growth is
all around," Conley said.
Figures from the state Department of Education show that an estimated $89 million is being spent
for remodeling and new construction at 11 libraries in the metro area. That number doesn't include
costs at several libraries completed in the past few years, such as the new one in downtown
Minneapolis.
These new libraries come on the heels of a smaller building boom over the past few years. Chisago
County, for example, recently opened three new libraries. Carver County renovated Chaska's library
in 2002 and built a new one in Chanhassen in 2003.
Books still in demand
The expansion of the metro area's public libraries bucks predictions that computers would make
books obsolete. Libraries are still seeing growing demand for books, their traditional offering,
and for newer electronic products that library users have come to expect.
Hennepin County libraries checked out 12.7 million books, CDs and DVDs last year, an increase of
half a million from the year before. Ramsey County's circulation grew nearly 1 million in four
years through 2005. In total, libraries around the metro circulated more than 33 million books and
audio-visual items last year, up more than 6 million from 1999.
Story times for children also doubled to 10,000 from 2004, MELSA said, and it estimated that
100,000 children will participate in this summer's reading programs.
"People still love their libraries," said Joe Manion, public services division manager for
Washington County Libraries. "It's impossible to close one. Everyone wants one in their
neighborhood."
As part of the building boom, the seven-county metro area's 105 libraries and bookmobiles are
reinventing themselves to meet borrowers' expectations and keep them coming back.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)
You guys are still missing my point, at least some of you. I'm not saying put the contents of the
book online. I'm saying the publisher (ie copyright owner) should put accessory ("bonus")
material online -- like good-resolution versions of photos that are badly reproduced in the
typical non-fiction book. This is asking alot -- I'm advocating the publishers make a GIFT to
their readers (a deserved gift with cover prices of new hardcovers pushing $35 in some cases).
But, at the same time, they can employ technology to make them and their products look a tad less
antique. My wife is a high school English teacher. Trust me, most kids don't read books these
days. They do, however, spend endless hours reading chatroom dialog and Myspace websites. Yeah,
yeah, it sure ain't like them old days, but it is what it is and publishers can adapt or die off
slowly -- kinda like record companies.
Music companies, by the way, have had all sorts of fits and starts with this concept. CD+ format
had web-link content in some cases, sometimes to the artists' websites, sometimes to bonus tracks
(typically in low-rez WinMedia or Quicktime formats), sometimes to preferential opportunities to
buy tour tickets. DVDs are also more and more including web-oriented bonus material.
Even audiobooks, which only recently have dropped the cassette format en masse, are getting with
the 21st century and usually offer illustration material or other non-audio content, or sometimes
and author interview, on the final disc of a set. By the way, audiobooks do their format a huge
service by killing off cassette releases. The general rule was bottom-basement tape quality and
duped by cavemen in a cave. Audibility was always an iffy proposition. CDs, the quality is better
and consistent. And, they got around the "resume quandry" (ie many CD players don't have a resume
function, although that's been solved in recent years) by putting track cuts every 3 minutes or
so. Thus, worst case, you'd have to re-listen to 2:59 the next time you put the CD in the player.
And the iTunes coders got into the act and put in the option to stitch all cuts on a CD together
for more convenient loading of audiobooks into an iPod. I'd suggest the final convenience for
audiobooks would be to include an unlock code on one of the CD's that allows the user to download
the book from the iTunes store, already crunched to digi-compressed format and ready to load into
the iPod.