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So, do I really think public libraries are doomed? No, not really. “Doomed” is too strong a word for it. Or to be more precise, if libraries don’t change with the changing times, I think they’re doomed, but I have every reason to believe they will change. But as both a library employee and a [...]
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Looks like I’m not the only one. Maybe it’s a (dare I use the word?) zeitgeist thing*. On the very same day, Skagirlie laments that her OPAC sucks because it doesn’t do what Amazon, iTunes and LibraryThing do and Libraryman wonders why libraries don’t do what Pandora [...]
This has been preying on my mind for some weeks now, and I feel it’s finally time to get it off my chest: I hate the Dewey Decimal System. Wait, let me be more precise. I think the Dewey Decimal System works just fine for cataloging materials in a library. From a librarian’s point of [...]
Inspired by David Lee King’s series of posts on “Inviting Participation,” I wrote a post for MPOW’s public blog in which I raised issues about our library and libraries in general, openly inviting people to respond. Being the hotspur that I am, I went ahead and published the post…and then thought, “Maybe I should’n’a done [...]
Casey Bisson won the Mellon Award for his WPopac. The first time I saw his proposal for a library OPAC based on WordPress, my mind was fairly blown. So it’s great to see him getting an award for that. (Getting an award for creating the WPopac, that is, not for blowing my mind. There’s no [...]
I’m a fan of rants and manifestoes (especially when I agree with what’s being said) and I’m a fan of LibraryThing. Throw both of those in a blender, add some chocolate syrup, and I’m one happy camper. And so, Tim Spalding’s latest post on the Thing-ology blog: “Is Your OPAC Fun? (a manifesto of sorts).” [...]
I was going to call this post “Knee Deep in the Hoopla,” but decided a Starship reference would be a crime against good taste. Anyhoo… MPOW’s general public blog has gotten a couple of comments. From patrons. Yes, patrons are actually reading our blogs and making comments. This makes me very very happy indeed, because [...]
I have some questions for the library professionals out there: 1. Why did you decide to make a career for yourself in libraries? What is it about libraries that made you not just want to patronize them but work with them and be involved in their continuing development? It’s obvious from reading professional library journals, [...]
I recently upgraded my laptop’s operating system from Ubuntu‘s “Dapper Drake” release to the latest release, “Edgy Eft.” The upgrade went more smoothly than the last time I upgraded (from “Breezy Badger” to “Dapper Drake”), when I had quite a few problems. I’m not anywhere close to being a topnotch Linux guy, so when I [...]
