Showing posts tagged libraries

Public libraries: The new homeless shelters (from Salon)

katiemariefunk:

More and more, libraries are hiring social workers, nurses and other outreach workers to serve their neediest visitors, with the Sacramento, Tulsa and Salt Lake City libraries being three of the latest. (The Greensboro, N.C. library has even started serving free meals, along with talks with prominent guests, on Mondays through the winter.) More and more, libraries are also setting rules for behavior. Many are banning sleeping, lying on the floors or bathing in the bathrooms. But striking a balance between making the destitute feel welcome and the general library public feel comfortable is proving tricky.

Interesting stuff here.

(Reblogged from themugglelibrarian)

CM Hanky Panky...

I used construction management for most projects until the late eighties, when one or two firms changed Missouri law to greatly restrict competition. C.M. doesn’t mean you have the design covered by the same firm, that’s design build.  These aren’t mutually exclusive a project could be both.  Legally in a CM project, the owner IS the general contractor.  You’ll save on the G.C. markup but risk paying for things not fully defined between component contractors.  I never used design build, but if it works for highway projects, it would probably work for libraries.

The Future of Libraries | OpenSite.org Blog

$99? Chromebox from Acer

How about these for a library environment? Teach the customers to love Google Drive. Big IT savings.

New Report Shows Trends in U.S. Library Service

theatlantic: Inside the Quest to Put the World’s Libraries Online The Digital Public Library of America hopes to create a platform that will orchestrate millions of materials—books from public and university libraries, records from local historical societies, museums, and archives—into a single, user-friendly interface accessible to every American with Internet access. It will launch a prototype in April 2013. Read more. [Image: Reuters] View high resolution

theatlantic:

Inside the Quest to Put the World’s Libraries Online

The Digital Public Library of America hopes to create a platform that will orchestrate millions of materials—books from public and university libraries, records from local historical societies, museums, and archives—into a single, user-friendly interface accessible to every American with Internet access. It will launch a prototype in April 2013.

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

(Reblogged from sarahlee310)

Library Budget Cuts Threaten Community Services Across Country

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/can-the-american-library-_n_1096484.html?ref=libraries-in-crisis Sent from Maxthon Mobile

hclib: Hennepin County Library Headquarters at Minneapolis Public Library, 1960s Founded in 1922 by MPL director Gratia Countryman, Hennepin County Library headquarters was housed at the Minneapolis Main/Central Library until it moved to the Southdale library in 1973.  The move marked a divorce between Minneapolis Public Library and Hennepin County Library.  They had been negotiating a merger but their differences on how a merger would take place were too many.  The move marked a physical separation that was followed by a financial separation in 1974 when the city agreed there would no longer request an annual county payment for city library services to county residents and the county agreed to stop seeking a merger.  The libraries finally merged in 2008 with great work done by both sides to pragmatically accomplish a merger. The Hennepin County Library space in old Minneapolis Central (razed 2003) was later occupied by Special Collections when it was created in 1986. View high resolution

hclib:

Hennepin County Library Headquarters at Minneapolis Public Library, 1960s

Founded in 1922 by MPL director Gratia Countryman, Hennepin County Library headquarters was housed at the Minneapolis Main/Central Library until it moved to the Southdale library in 1973.  The move marked a divorce between Minneapolis Public Library and Hennepin County Library.  They had been negotiating a merger but their differences on how a merger would take place were too many.  The move marked a physical separation that was followed by a financial separation in 1974 when the city agreed there would no longer request an annual county payment for city library services to county residents and the county agreed to stop seeking a merger.  The libraries finally merged in 2008 with great work done by both sides to pragmatically accomplish a merger.

The Hennepin County Library space in old Minneapolis Central (razed 2003) was later occupied by Special Collections when it was created in 1986.

(Reblogged from hclib)

Libraries protest Random House price hike

The American Library Association is urging Random House Inc. to reconsider its steep increases in the price of e-books for library wholesalers

Random House, the country’s largest trade publisher, announced earlier this week that wholesale charges for e-books would rise by more than 20 percent for new adult releases and more than double for new children’s books. Random House noted that e-books can be “repeatedly circulated without limitation,” unlike paper books, which eventually become worn or damaged.

The library association issued a statement Friday saying that libraries were enduring “extreme financial restraint,” which a major price hike would worsen. Other major publishers, including HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, have either limited e-books for libraries or made them entirely unavailable. Publishers are concerned that free downloads could cost them sales.

(Reblogged from thelifeguardlibrarian)

More on the transformation of books...

I’m afraid libraries are losing out by being too slow to adapt…with a nudge from the publishers.

Competition?