Sticking my toe in the water again because...well, it's my profession, and it's about a type of institution that some other people here seem to care about.
I tend to agree with those who point out that a big part of the problems that besieged urban libraries now have has to do with libraries being asked to compensate for inadequate social safety nets. Some of our colleagues who've been affected by this demand for librarians to take the place of social workers must feel like hobbits who've been ordered to mount ponies and ride to the aid of Gondor, in place of underfunded Riders of Rohan.
In other communities, librarians have started to feel irrelevant because local public interest in what they have to offer has declined. Much of the public just doesn't seem to think that they're relevant any longer. I wonder whether some university librarians feel this way. In my own visits to college and university libraries in recent years, all I ever see are students using the library as a handy study space.
Quote from: apl68 on June 27, 2023, 10:25:57 AMSticking my toe in the water again because...well, it's my profession, and it's about a type of institution that some other people here seem to care about.
I tend to agree with those who point out that a big part of the problems that besieged urban libraries now have has to do with libraries being asked to compensate for inadequate social safety nets. Some of our colleagues who've been affected by this demand for librarians to take the place of social workers must feel like hobbits who've been ordered to mount ponies and ride to the aid of Gondor, in place of underfunded Riders of Rohan.
In other communities, librarians have started to feel irrelevant because local public interest in what they have to offer has declined. Much of the public just doesn't seem to think that they're relevant any longer. I wonder whether some university librarians feel this way. In my own visits to college and university libraries in recent years, all I ever see are students using the library as a handy study space.
I like to refer to my main university library as an erudite lounge. It's a study area, mainly, but also a place to hang out with friends. The hangout spaces and study spaces are clearly delineated and separated. The main academic library often has pop-up video game areas or live animal petting zoo areas or other similar event programming that fosters the whole student hangout experience. If you're wondering "Isn't this what the student union building is for?"
Yeah, I ask that daily. Our student union building is a ghost town except during lunch time when the food court sees most of its activity. Our student union building now has all those student support services offices in addition to the food court, bookstore, and relevant retail, banking services, etc. But the student life programming that used to be in the student union building, has shifted to the library.
And, now, in addition to the shifting of student programming, we have a lot of general population showing up, including homeless. The library's non-faculty and non-reference staff handle the homeless and general community. They are completely ill-equipped to help this new population. I saw a library staff person trying to help a homeless guy use an open lab computer and help the person with their benefits management . . . holy s**t was what I was thinking. Compassion isn't enough. These librarians aren't trained for social work.
We get inquiries for help with government agencies/insurance claims/job applications fairly often in our public library work. Our patrons are seldom in the sort of acute need seen with the homeless, though. An element of social work has been part of public library service for a long time now. It has certainly increased in recent years in many places. Having to deal with it at a university library must be a real shock.
QuoteIn my own visits to college and university libraries in recent years, all I ever see are students using the library as a handy study space.
Our new(ish) library was designed to maximize this use. We do still have some physical books, but it seems like most undergraduates rely on ebooks, electronic journals, databases, and of course google.
How many professors will still insist that at least a certain percentage of works cited in papers, esp in humanities fields, be actual paper books?
Does anyone ever do that? I've never heard of it.
Quote from: kaysixteen on June 27, 2023, 09:36:15 PMHow many professors will still insist that at least a certain percentage of works cited in papers, esp in humanities fields, be actual paper books?
How would a professor even know if someone used a physical copy or an electronic copy? I guess some reference styles mention the format? In my field, the citation for a book and e-book are the same.
I'm just happy when someone actually cites something!
Two thoughts. First, my university is undergoing massive budget cuts and actually has had a moratorium on ordering new books for several years. When they came into some money somehow and asked for a list of books in my field they should buy, they also asked whether they should be electronic or paper.
Second, I think that that using the library as a physical study space is actually part of its core mission. It certainly was when I went to school, before the library had WiFi and the catalog was still on little cards. I am currently writing an article. I am going to the local research library to work today.
To some degree I will use the library's materials, including their electronic materials. But also I am going to make use of the silent reading room, the big tables, and the fact that I like the ambience. There have been times that I have had to consult the OED, or an Italian-French dictionary, or compare two different translations of a Bible passage, in which case being in a research library was very useful. But often I just want a nice place to work. I would argue this is a good use of a library.
I could of course work at the local coffee shop (or the student union). But there it'd be more crowded, there'd be music and background noise, and I would feel guilty about taking up a seat all day. Also, I would have to buy something, and there'd be longer lines for the bathrooms.
I do also use my local public library branch to work. Most people there seem to be using a computer, using WiFi, or doing some other non-book-related activity. Again, I think that this appropriate. Especially when the weather is unpleasant (summer heat, winter cold.)
Quote from: apl68 on June 27, 2023, 10:25:57 AMI tend to agree with those who point out that a big part of the problems that besieged urban libraries now have has to do with libraries being asked to compensate for inadequate social safety nets. Some of our colleagues who've been affected by this demand for librarians to take the place of social workers must feel like hobbits who've been ordered to mount ponies and ride to the aid of Gondor, in place of underfunded Riders of Rohan.
This has been the situation in our library systems which are now facing massive budget cuts due to the funds being diverted to house the influx of migrants sent here from Texas. Our libraries are facing reduced hours and closures. The library branches, all of them, were closed for the three-day weekend for Memorial Day, instead of the usual Sunday and Monday closings. I always sign the letters whether in the library or through email requesting the city and state for continued support for our libraries. This year, I refrained from my yearly donation because now dogs are allowed in libraries, and patrons including those who might be allergic to dogs are forced to share very small elevators with dogs. I'm not the only patron who has been frustrated enough to stop making monetary contributions to our local libraries.
Quote from: Hegemony on June 28, 2023, 02:34:55 AMDoes anyone ever do that? I've never heard of it.
I have, but I think the prolonged period of all-online COVID learning killed off any remnants of that practice.
Quote from: Langue_doc on June 28, 2023, 05:09:57 AMThis year, I refrained from my yearly donation because now dogs are allowed in libraries, and patrons including those who might be allergic to dogs are forced to share very small elevators with dogs. I'm not the only patron who has been frustrated enough to stop making monetary contributions to our local libraries.
This is another area where libraries sometimes get caught in the middle. There's been a real vogue for therapy dogs of all sorts in recent years. People demand that their therapy animals be accommodated, and some try to abuse this by passing off their (often poorly trained) pets as "therapy animals." This does indeed cause problems for people with allergies. I've also heard of people making scenes and demanding that the whole library be deep-cleaned before they'll consent to return after an animal was present.
The best professional advice is to accommodate therapy animals, but to take a hard line on requiring proof that the animal is a properly trained and certified therapy animal. Only a small number of people can actually provide such proof. If you've been seeing dogs at the library regularly, then most of them are probably not legitimate therapy animals, and the library needs to tighten its policies.
Quote from: apl68 on June 28, 2023, 06:39:09 AMQuote from: Langue_doc on June 28, 2023, 05:09:57 AMThis year, I refrained from my yearly donation because now dogs are allowed in libraries, and patrons including those who might be allergic to dogs are forced to share very small elevators with dogs. I'm not the only patron who has been frustrated enough to stop making monetary contributions to our local libraries.
This is another area where libraries sometimes get caught in the middle. There's been a real vogue for therapy dogs of all sorts in recent years. People demand that their therapy animals be accommodated, and some try to abuse this by passing off their (often poorly trained) pets as "therapy animals." This does indeed cause problems for people with allergies. I've also heard of people making scenes and demanding that the whole library be deep-cleaned before they'll consent to return after an animal was present.
The best professional advice is to accommodate therapy animals, but to take a hard line on requiring proof that the animal is a properly trained and certified therapy animal. Only a small number of people can actually provide such proof. If you've been seeing dogs at the library regularly, then most of them are probably not legitimate therapy animals, and the library needs to tighten its policies.
So many "social justice" issues now represent a real tragedy of the commons. As long as only a tiny number of people need to be "accommodated", it's possible, but as the numbers get larger it's unsustainable.
I've said before that our rural libraries don't tend to face many of the things that some urban libraries have to deal with. But our status as public information providers results in our getting tasked with things we didn't always anticipate.
To paraphrase a colleague in another town that I was recently communicating with: We are the only place locally that still supplies IRS forms. The Courthouse sends people with URLs to look up, print, and fill out forms for the Courthouse to file. It's the library, and not DHS, that helps with Medicare and Social Security benefit forms. Clerks elsewhere send libraries people needing help with divorce and power of attorney forms. Libraries give directions and supply food truck menus, and otherwise provide information about local businesses to help connect them with customers--but the local business may do nothing to support the library in return. Library staff members occasionally have to drive patrons home--children who get stranded, or seniors who can't get home safely.
One of our staff members has been taking a notary public course. I just spent some time today at a local insurance office getting her bonded, and now have to have a stamp made for her. We're doing this because we're routinely asked for notary public service.
Meanwhile, I'm having to figure out what to say at a Rotary Club presentation I'm scheduled to make next week. What should I say about addressing the current status of state legislation affecting libraries. Or should I, since we haven't so far been affected by it? I've got a short, upbeat AV presentation about the library to present, if we can get a projector arranged to use it. I wonder how that's going to be received?
People just have no idea what all goes on here.
Quote from: kaysixteen on June 27, 2023, 09:36:15 PMHow many professors will still insist that at least a certain percentage of works cited in papers, esp in humanities fields, be actual paper books?
It's much easier to drill to a cited source, when it's an electronic source and the link into the database is provided. For this reason, I would never insist on using paper-only materials.
Quote from: kaysixteen on June 27, 2023, 09:36:15 PMHow many professors will still insist that at least a certain percentage of works cited in papers, esp in humanities fields, be actual paper books?
This attitude is so 1980s.
QuoteOne of our staff members has been taking a notary public course. I just spent some time today at a local insurance office getting her bonded, and now have to have a stamp made for her. We're doing this because we're routinely asked for notary public service.
This seems like a really great service for a public library to offer!
Quote from: lightning on June 28, 2023, 10:51:34 AMQuote from: kaysixteen on June 27, 2023, 09:36:15 PMHow many professors will still insist that at least a certain percentage of works cited in papers, esp in humanities fields, be actual paper books?
It's much easier to drill to a cited source, when it's an electronic source and the link into the database is provided. For this reason, I would never insist on using paper-only materials.
I have to admit, as a historian, that I have never heard this. Is this an urban legend?
In fact, when I teach the senior history research course--where the students have to write a long primary-source-based research paper--much of the emphasis is how students can find primary sources online.
I, personally, prefer print sources. This is more and more taking the form that I find something online, download a PDF, and print it out. (This works with articles, but also books, newspapers, pamphlets, and sometimes archival collections.) More and more I am using databases of newspapers instead of microfilm collections. It is much easier. (Although now that I think of it, I might require my students to use a certain percentage of microfilm sources.)
All that said, I don't even know how it would be possible to require a certain percentage of print sources. Yes, I know that the MLA style requires noting what format is used--which I find annoying because I will often use a xerox from a book, a PDF, and the book itself (all with the same pagination) over the course of research.
I've had questions about a public notary at the branch libraries where I've worked over the years. Although we don't have anyone on staff, there are enough places where we can refer folks in the community. At one place I worked, the public notary was at the cleaners across the street, and it was advertised.
At my current library location, I've read messages on the neighborhood listserv from individuals who provide public notary services as a side gig.
Driving patrons home: depending on your state, it may be a strict no-no.
Obviously teaching hs is different from teaching undergrads. I have certainly required print sources in hs papers, and am still sympathetic to doing so in college. I get that some *books* are printed and put on line, heck, some may not even appear in print, but the point of requiring a book to at least be available in print, would be that it is probably been vetted by serious publishing house standards, whereas anything can get online. Remember I also have a library degree and extensive experience teaching bibliographic instruction. One of the explicit tasks I see myself as having when teaching hs at least would be to teach library acquisition skills, appreciation for the use of a physical library, and analysis skills to discern between unvetted slop, vanity press stuff, etc., vs., well real scholarly stuff, and this sort of thing is valuable at the undergrad, esp freshburger level, as well. And another issue would be (although this is of course field-specific), the promotion of actual books as opposed to papers only.
BTW, at the uni whose library has the petting zoo-- who pays for this, and tell me that library funds are not being diverted to do so?
Quote from: Langue_doc on June 28, 2023, 05:09:57 AMThis has been the situation in our library systems which are now facing massive budget cuts due to the funds being diverted to house the influx of migrants sent here from Texas. Our libraries are facing reduced hours and closures. The library branches, all of them, were closed for the three-day weekend for Memorial Day, instead of the usual Sunday and Monday closings.
Our libraries might be spared the proposed budget cuts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/nyregion/nyc-budget-deal-cuts-funding.html
QuoteLibraries Appear to Be Spared in Tense N.Y.C. Budget Talks
Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council hope to reach a budget deal before Friday. Funding for schools, CUNY and parks are at stake.
apl....Meanwhile, I'm having to figure out what to say at a Rotary Club presentation I'm scheduled to make next week. What should I say about addressing the current status of state legislation affecting libraries. Or should I, since we haven't so far been affected by it? I've got a short, upbeat AV presentation about the library to present, if we can get a projector arranged to use it. I wonder how that's going to be received?
People just have no idea what all goes on here.
I live in a rural area so have some idea of your audience. Our library has excellent children's programs, which are non-controversial (at least for the moment) and get good coverage in our twice weekly newspaper. If I were doing a presentation, I might focus on the children's programs with a small segue into how they might be affected in the future. As for the projector, isn't there a gizmo which can be hooked to a computer? I am lagging on technology these days.
Yesterday a colleague of mine in the state sent out something of a cri de coeur regarding several older patrons that her staff have been having to deal with. They all live alone and have family, but nobody nearby that they are on speaking terms with. One is clearly getting dangerously frail, but has been concealing it from family to remain independent. One has developed paranoid delusions and could potentially prove dangerous to anybody who might happen to surprise him at home while taking care of routine business. Another has been showing clear signs of dementia, and has been seen wandering around town in the region's dangerous summer heat.
She noted that library staff members have driven some of these seniors home despite liability concerns, and sometimes perform welfare checks by finding work-related excuses to call them. She was wondering where to draw the line about "getting involved," and whether there were other resources she could contact for such situations.
So where inner-city libraries have to serve as drug treatment, homeless, and mental health centers, small-town libraries are now being tasked with elder care. Our own library's situation is not as alarming as what this colleague reports (our location is not as central, so we don't get as much pedestrian traffic), but we have had incidents similar to some of what she describes. In fact, we had just had one quite recently that required several telephone calls before we could find any relatives to handle the situation. I imagine there's a great deal of this sort of thing going on at libraries around the country.
Quote from: apl68 on August 03, 2023, 09:43:47 AMYesterday a colleague of mine in the state sent out something of a cri de coeur regarding several older patrons that her staff have been having to deal with. They all live alone and have family, but nobody nearby that they are on speaking terms with. One is clearly getting dangerously frail, but has been concealing it from family to remain independent. One has developed paranoid delusions and could potentially prove dangerous to anybody who might happen to surprise him at home while taking care of routine business. Another has been showing clear signs of dementia, and has been seen wandering around town in the region's dangerous summer heat.
She noted that library staff members have driven some of these seniors home despite liability concerns, and sometimes perform welfare checks by finding work-related excuses to call them. She was wondering where to draw the line about "getting involved," and whether there were other resources she could contact for such situations.
So where inner-city libraries have to serve as drug treatment, homeless, and mental health centers, small-town libraries are now being tasked with elder care. Our own library's situation is not as alarming as what this colleague reports (our location is not as central, so we don't get as much pedestrian traffic), but we have had incidents similar to some of what she describes. In fact, we had just had one quite recently that required several telephone calls before we could find any relatives to handle the situation. I imagine there's a great deal of this sort of thing going on at libraries around the country.
If they seem like they are not able to care for themselves or are a danger to themselves, a call to your state's Adult Protective Services (assuming you have one) would seem to be in order.
Many libraries, like many institutions of all sorts, have budget problems. These have now come for us. Several years ago our town's largest employer shut down literally about half of its operations. Hundreds of people were laid off. Then they started demolishing the shut-down facilities so that they would no longer have to pay property tax on them.
This process of "dis-improving" the company's land in town has cost us about 20% of our property tax revenues so far. A small surge of people moving into town from out of state--COVID refugees? California refugees?--and paying good prices for local houses has shored up the local housing market and property values. So at least the layoffs haven't torpedoed residential property values as we had feared. It still remains to be seen whether the declines in property tax revenues have bottomed out.
About the time this was happening, our no-longer-new facility started demanding ever more maintenance and repair. We've paid a king's ransom for building repairs this year. The combination of declining revenues and skyrocketing expenses has put us deep in the red. This week we're having to cash in a certificate of deposit that we had bought to bank surplus money from previous years. If we didn't have that money to draw on, we wouldn't have been able to make payroll until our main property tax revenues come in December.
We have enough operating reserves banked in CDs to keep running without layoffs and cuts in services for the time being. But this money will only last so long. Since the facility will remain hugely expensive to operate--even if it doesn't run up huge repair bills every single year--we're going to be looking sooner or later at cutting staff.
I'm thankful that our reserves banked during good years have kept us out of an acute crisis situation. Not all of my colleagues can say that they've been so fortunate. Still...if things don't turn around within the next several years, we'll have to lay people off and cut hours and service to the community. We've built a good staff over the years. They don't deserve that.
In recent months we've had a staff member semi-retire. She has gone to part-time. This means we're paying for fewer hours of staff time, and this staff member has been dropped from our staff employee benefits. By not hiring another part-timer to cover the hours she's no longer here for, we have saved some money. That will help our budget situation without any lay-offs.
The fact remains that we now have fewer staff hours with which to serve the public. This is putting us in an awkward position at times. We're now trying to put together a plan for the next Board of Trustees meeting to reduce our evening hours during the week slightly. Most evenings there's nobody here at closing time, so we could amputate an hour from most evenings during the week without inconveniencing too many patrons. By adjusting work schedules, we should be able to cover our hours pretty well.
But it's going to require quite a few adjustments in schedules. Some lunch breaks may have to be reduced. We need to put a good deal of thought into the best schedule. I hope we can come up with something that won't antagonize anybody too badly.
I thought we could shorten Saturday schedules by an hour as well, but in studying patron activity on Saturdays I don't find any reliably slow hours at either the beginning or the end of the day that would be an obvious hour to sacrifice. So it looks like we won't be shortening our opening hours on that day.
This was our first week on the new, shorter library schedule. It seems to be working out okay. It takes some getting used to, since certain people are now here on different days. I'm also getting used to having only half an hour for lunch. I doubt most of the public will notice the shorter evening hours.
I'm glad your place is still open.
My university's main library is deserted right now (in between academic sessions), with the exception of library employees and a small handful of homeless people. I hope some fiscal hawk doesn't see the empty library, because I can see them wanting to axe summer hours. It's really nice when there are only about 8 visible people in the entire building. The public-facing librarians out front must be loving this part of the year.
Quote from: apl68 on May 31, 2024, 07:32:55 AMThis was our first week on the new, shorter library schedule. It seems to be working out okay. It takes some getting used to, since certain people are now here on different days. I'm also getting used to having only half an hour for lunch. I doubt most of the public will notice the shorter evening hours.
I am so glad that your library is finding a way to hang in for at least a little longer, in these times. I think the 'de-improvers' of sites should pay a hefty one time tax for doing so, that could all go to form a small financial cushion for town services at risk.
The issue of libraries becoming care centers for vulnerable people looms large in the UK too which has experienced severe cuts to their social safety nets, leaving many people (especially older persons) without means for food or heat, so they spend time in the library - if they can get there, bus routes also having been decimated. Cuts have hit police and other services too so the food banks are strained to the max.
I think libraries and librarians are among the greatest engines of democracy. I wish there was a social media campaign or something to spread the love to more people who may be unfamiliar with what-all these institutions do.
This is a rather minor issue in the big scheme of things, but it has really hit here in recent months:
Like many public libraries, we get book donations. We salvage what we can for our ongoing Friends of the Library book sale. Most of what we get is not anything we can use--it's too old or worn-out or unattractive to have much chance of selling, even at thrift-store prices. Most of it wouldn't even be candidates for recycling, had we a place to do so nearby. But we take all donations that are offered, separating the wheat from the chaff to keep our book sale stocked.
For some reason, this year has been by far the worst year for donations I've seen in my two decades of public library service. The volume has been substantial. But scarcely any of it has been anything we can use. I just went through a dozen large boxes in our latest donation, and found only an armload of material we might use. At least this material wasn't filthy and nasty, as if it had been found in a long-abandoned house or left in a garage for a decade or more. We've gotten an exceptional number of large donations of that sort of garbage in recent months. But it still might as well have been hauled straight to the landfill.
I had supposed earlier in the year that we were just going through an unusually bad patch with respect to donations. But we're now most of the way through the year, and it's still like this. We're having a hard time keeping the shelves in our book sale room stocked with plausible-looking merchandise in several categories.
Is there a way to specify what can/should be donated to exclude the detritus (e.g., someone's lifetime collection of National Geographic)? This won't solve the problem of keeping the For Sale shelf stocked, but would eliminate the hassle of taking someone else's garbage to the dump.
I don't know if there's a connection, but I have noticed a huge decline in my ability to sell used books on eBay. The bottom has dropped out of the market; it's simply not worth my while to list a book at a price that will net me a dollar when others are selling the same book for one cent. We have a used book store in town, but it only buys books for resale that are in specific categories.
For those who are wondering, yes, I do donate books, but often to Savers or Goodwill, because my university and local public libraries generally don't want them (unpopular topics, I guess).
Quote from: spork on August 05, 2024, 02:35:07 PMIs there a way to specify what can/should be donated to exclude the detritus (e.g., someone's lifetime collection of National Geographic)? This won't solve the problem of keeping the For Sale shelf stocked, but would eliminate the hassle of taking someone else's garbage to the dump.
I don't know.... I've tried, and I can't seem to come up with a simple wording that's either too vague ("gently used" books, or some such), or so specific it might discourage donations altogether. Donations are usually a mixed bag of useful and not useful. We accept responsibility for the work needed to sort them. What's gotten to me is just how attenuated the useful part has become. I keep hoping that if we wait we'll eventually see a reversion to the mean, and start getting more good material again.
Quote from: apl68 on August 06, 2024, 07:22:26 AM[...]
What's gotten to me is just how attenuated the useful part has become.
[...]
Do you think this is a sign of a general decline in how frequently people read print books?
I think it's more the case of the tons of old folks around. My siblings and I are now in charge of a house with at least 6 floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books acquired over close to 90 years. I can guarantee no one wants them.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on August 06, 2024, 09:59:08 AMI think it's more the case of the tons of old folks around. My siblings and I are now in charge of a house with at least 6 floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books acquired over close to 90 years. I can guarantee no one wants them.
That's my guess. I think we've had a higher proportion than usual of legacy estate dumps, as opposed to current readers bringing in their surplus. Heirs, who are mostly not readers themselves but still find it vaguely improper to just dump books, are bringing us their unwanted inheritances. It's still unusual just how many extraordinarily poor and deteriorated collections we've been getting in recent months. It's like most of them were left in a shut-up, vacant house for years and years before a decision was finally made to do something with them.
Re the decline in print books: What I've mainly noticed is a decline in mass-market paperback romances. It's striking how few of those we've gotten in recent years. They used to be enormously popular, both in the library and in the book sale room. We've gone from having them cover most of one wall in the sale room to only a few shelves. And we're having trouble keeping those stocked. Other mass-market paperback genres have also declined, to a lesser extent. I've read speculation somewhere that readers of mass-market romances are especially prone to reading in e-formats now, because reading them on an e-reader avoids the stigma of being caught with a romance paperback.
Quote from: apl68 on August 05, 2024, 10:42:16 AMThis is a rather minor issue in the big scheme of things, but it has really hit here in recent months:
Like many public libraries, we get book donations. We salvage what we can for our ongoing Friends of the Library book sale. Most of what we get is not anything we can use--it's too old or worn-out or unattractive to have much chance of selling, even at thrift-store prices. Most of it wouldn't even be candidates for recycling, had we a place to do so nearby. But we take all donations that are offered, separating the wheat from the chaff to keep our book sale stocked.
For some reason, this year has been by far the worst year for donations I've seen in my two decades of public library service. The volume has been substantial. But scarcely any of it has been anything we can use. I just went through a dozen large boxes in our latest donation, and found only an armload of material we might use. At least this material wasn't filthy and nasty, as if it had been found in a long-abandoned house or left in a garage for a decade or more. We've gotten an exceptional number of large donations of that sort of garbage in recent months. But it still might as well have been hauled straight to the landfill.
I had supposed earlier in the year that we were just going through an unusually bad patch with respect to donations. But we're now most of the way through the year, and it's still like this. We're having a hard time keeping the shelves in our book sale room stocked with plausible-looking merchandise in several categories.
The Boomer colleagues at my place, who have retired or are on the cusp of retirement, dump their LP, cassette, and CD collections on the library.
So, at least you are dealing with print books, which suffer only from being unwanted content, unlike LPs, cassettes, and CDs, which are unusable content.
Of course, the library graciously accepts the unusable musical media, and quietly disposes all of it, a few months after the Boomer retires, if not sooner.
I need to make a point in that donating a music collection that has been amassed over a lifetime (and this purchased music is usually an expression of self), mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.
A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.
So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.
Those legacy collections might be gold to an English or American Studies grad student.
I used to haunt the two big charity book sales here every year and would find all sorts of once-popular books, things like du Maurier and Christie and Westerns, but also complete collections of lesser-known authors from the early/mid 20th C. A couple of fellow grad students got several conference papers and articles out of those kinds of finds.
Maybe I'll go back to combing the sales for those things. (As a fan of film noir, one of my goals in retirement is to find and read as many of the source materials as possible. James M. Cain, early Raymond Chandler, and Leslie Charteris, here I come!)
Quote from: lightning on August 07, 2024, 07:35:45 AMQuote from: apl68 on August 05, 2024, 10:42:16 AMThis is a rather minor issue in the big scheme of things, but it has really hit here in recent months:
Like many public libraries, we get book donations. We salvage what we can for our ongoing Friends of the Library book sale. Most of what we get is not anything we can use--it's too old or worn-out or unattractive to have much chance of selling, even at thrift-store prices. Most of it wouldn't even be candidates for recycling, had we a place to do so nearby. But we take all donations that are offered, separating the wheat from the chaff to keep our book sale stocked.
For some reason, this year has been by far the worst year for donations I've seen in my two decades of public library service. The volume has been substantial. But scarcely any of it has been anything we can use. I just went through a dozen large boxes in our latest donation, and found only an armload of material we might use. At least this material wasn't filthy and nasty, as if it had been found in a long-abandoned house or left in a garage for a decade or more. We've gotten an exceptional number of large donations of that sort of garbage in recent months. But it still might as well have been hauled straight to the landfill.
I had supposed earlier in the year that we were just going through an unusually bad patch with respect to donations. But we're now most of the way through the year, and it's still like this. We're having a hard time keeping the shelves in our book sale room stocked with plausible-looking merchandise in several categories.
The Boomer colleagues at my place, who have retired or are on the cusp of retirement, dump their LP, cassette, and CD collections on the library.
So, at least you are dealing with print books, which suffer only from being unwanted content, unlike LPs, cassettes, and CDs, which are unusable content.
Of course, the library graciously accepts the unusable musical media, and quietly disposes all of it, a few months after the Boomer retires, if not sooner.
I need to make a point in that donating a music collection that has been amassed over a lifetime (and this purchased music is usually an expression of self), mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.
A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.
So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.
That's one argument for a liberal donation acceptance policy, all right. Especially when it's the actual collector donating the collection, not an indifferent heir just trying to get rid of it. I usually think about the public service of salvaging still-usable material and offering it for sale for a nominal price. Our book sale room is the closest thing to an actual bookstore for 40-50 miles in any direction. If you want to browse an actual collection of books for sale--and a lot of readers still do--we're it for this area.
Here we've never received donations of vinyl, and not a lot of other audio formats. We did get a lot of books on CD a few years back, most of which eventually sold. Now and then we'll still get videos on DVD. It's been a little while since we got a large batch of VHS tapes. I think most of the VHS tapes in town came here to die over the years. People would actually take them from the free table for a surprisingly long time. Now you literally can't give them away.
Quote from: AmLitHist on August 07, 2024, 07:43:52 AMThose legacy collections might be gold to an English or American Studies grad student.
I used to haunt the two big charity book sales here every year and would find all sorts of once-popular books, things like du Maurier and Christie and Westerns, but also complete collections of lesser-known authors from the early/mid 20th C. A couple of fellow grad students got several conference papers and articles out of those kinds of finds.
Maybe I'll go back to combing the sales for those things. (As a fan of film noir, one of my goals in retirement is to find and read as many of the source materials as possible. James M. Cain, early Raymond Chandler, and Leslie Charteris, here I come!)
I'm that kind of buyer too. I've bought quite a few now-obscure works from the 1950s and earlier that caught my eye over the years. I'm currently reading an early (1905) work by Booth Tarkington that I found on vacation only a few months ago. I've now and then found books that old Hollywood movies were based on, like
Grand Hotel and
A Yank in the RAF. And other forgotten stuff that I, at least, find interesting from an historical perspective.
Most of the old books we get aren't anybody's idea of vintage. They're just plain old. Now and then I'll try putting something older that still looks presentable in the book sale room, but not much of it ever sells. I think somewhere in our mystery section we've still got a copy of
Little Caesar--yes, the one the 1930 Edward G. Robinson movie was based on--that nobody has ever snatched up.
Only minutes ago somebody brought in a batch of Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Talk about stuff you can't give away! I recall looking on a web site for one of those "books by the foot" dealers that sell to non-readers wanting to fill their shelves for decor purposes. Condensed Books were the very lowest-priced grade that they offered. The staff member who accepted the donation diplomatically told the donor that nice, clean Condensed Books were sometimes bought by crafters wanting to use them for material. Honestly, though, I doubt we're going to find a buyer for these.
I would note that in the family situation I mentioned we are all prolific readers. I have batches of already combed through materials (complete O Henry, complete Rover Boys, complete Chip Hilton plus others) in boxes trying to figure out the best way to sell/donate them. Not a lot of good options.
Quote from: lightning on August 07, 2024, 07:35:45 AM[...]
mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.
A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.
So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.
This might sound mean, but that's not my intent.
I think this practice of equating one's self-identity with the material possessions that one has amassed over the years is a particularly American disease. I don't see why libraries should be expected to function as social workers/garbage collectors. People need to stop acquiring so much stuff.
apl, you mean there isn't even a *Christian* bookstore within 40-50 miles of your town? Exactly how many people in your community take out books from your library, and how many even have a library card?
Quote from: kaysixteen on August 07, 2024, 07:41:03 PMapl, you mean there isn't even a *Christian* bookstore within 40-50 miles of your town? Exactly how many people in your community take out books from your library, and how many even have a library card?
Nope. There's a small, locally-owned bookstore in a larger town about an hour away in one direction, and a large chain store in a smallish city about an hour away in another direction. We're the largest settlement for thirty miles around, and we're nearly an hour from the nearest college town. Unless you count the local vo-tech school. We probably have a couple thousand library card holders, of which a few hundred are regularly or semi-regularly active at any given time.
Readership has declined considerably here over the years. Some of it is population decline, due to economic decline. Local employers have cut hundreds of jobs in recent years--we just recently had another plant shutdown. At one time we had a very high level of readership for a mostly blue-collar town, due to a large influx of educated engineers and managers who settled in town to work at our main employer during the postwar era. They were the backbone of our civic life for many years. Getting this large, modern library facility built some years ago, before I came here, was one of their major achievements.
Now that generation has mostly passed from the scene. Their children all moved away long ago to find work compatible with their education, leaving behind their less-academic classmates who just took jobs at the mill. The main employer still brings in educated engineers and managers, but they consider living in a small town beneath them and mostly live near bigger places to raise their families and commute. We've struggled for years to form partnerships with local schools to help raise a new generation of readers. We were finally seeing some success there, when COVID pulled the rug out from under everything. Now you see very few children around the library, and meanwhile school achievement scores are way down. Think there might be a correlation there? We're still trying to convince school admins to stop ignoring this community resource that could help them to fix things. A large portion of our business is now print, photocopy, and fax service. Which are still important, especially in a community where nobody else provides such services.
Plant shutdowns and declining population have hit our local tax base hard, just as our now-aging facility has been demanding heavy spending on repairs. This is our third year of running a structural deficit. We've still got a lot of money banked from our good years to act as a cushion. But we can't afford to keep up this expensive library building forever. Eventually we'll either have to lay people off, and have a largely empty building run by a skeleton crew, or maybe find some way to downsize into a smaller vacant building.
We've had hardly any of the culture war issues involving libraries that have made all the headlines. Our challenges come down to a declining community, shrinking tax base, and growing apathy among the younger generations. Libraries elsewhere in the state where populations are growing are booming. We're not them. When I first came here, almost two decades ago, I had visions of what we could potentially make this library and its resources into. But most of it hasn't worked, and now the resources are slipping away. I guess my career will end up being mostly a matter of helping this library and community to die slowly with dignity. Not the legacy I'd hoped for.
The greedy "one percent" that leaves nothing for everybody else isn't just a matter of individuals. It applies to communities as well. A few favored cities here and there have sucked all the rest of the nation dry.
Quote from: spork on August 07, 2024, 03:13:57 PMQuote from: lightning on August 07, 2024, 07:35:45 AM[...]
mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.
A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.
So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.
This might sound mean, but that's not my intent.
I think this practice of equating one's self-identity with the material possessions that one has amassed over the years is a particularly American disease. I don't see why libraries should be expected to function as social workers/garbage collectors. People need to stop acquiring so much stuff.
No arguments here. I try to limit my accumulation of books by donating items I've read to either our library book sale, or to a library-run free book exchange in a large town that I pass through several times a year. Drop off some good nonfiction or decent-condition older fiction
in small batches in one of those, and they'll generally find takers. I know they're finding takers, because stuff that people don't take is allowed to sit around indefinitely, and the stuff I bring them usually disappears pretty quickly.
That said...over the years I have accumulated quite a few shelves of books--not enough to overrun the house, but more than most people would have. I don't see anybody likely wanting most of them when my time comes. Maybe I'll eventually find some way to downsize gradually.
Quote from: apl68 on August 08, 2024, 07:50:13 AM[...]
Some of it is population decline, due to economic decline. Local employers have cut hundreds of jobs in recent years--we just recently had another plant shutdown. At one time we had a very high level of readership for a mostly blue-collar town, due to a large influx of educated engineers and managers who settled in town to work at our main employer during the postwar era. They were the backbone of our civic life for many years.
[...]
If you haven't read
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer, you should. It does not provide any answers, but it's an excellent account of what you describe.
A few years after completing my PhD, I contacted an R1 university library about some books I had used for my dissertation. They were written in a language that was native to ~ 80 million. The university had an existing collection of books in this language, and also offered courses on it. The librarian who responded said yes, we would love to get these books, so I packed them up in a box and shipped them.
It must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that. Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.
Some of those educated professionals, managers and engineers, recruited to work at the plants may choose not to live in your town because, owing to snobbery, elitism, etc., they feel doing so may be beneath them, but others may choose to undertake the long commute from college town, big city, etc., because, well, they may well feel that, ahem, they are just not particularly *welcome* in your blue-collar community (esp if the professional in question is not an evangelical Christian, a Southerner, etc). I am not at all sure that they would be wrong to think this. The residential sorting in this country along educational lines has grown very very stark.
Quote from: apl68 on August 08, 2024, 11:05:31 AMIt must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that. Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.
We in academic libraries deal with the attempted donations of many collections of retiring or deceased faculty. Larger libraries often already own the same things that are being offered, and just can't justify taking in that amount of duplicative material. Exceptions can be made for especially high-demand titles, or to replace worn-out copies. And, ooh, the print journal runs that represent a career's worth of belonging to an organization...
Faculty papers are another fact of life in our corner of the library world. We get to have "no, thank you" conversations on a semi-regular basis, and we do attempt to find the library elsewhere that will offer the round hole for the round peg.
Quote from: kaysixteen on August 08, 2024, 11:22:31 AMSome of those educated professionals, managers and engineers, recruited to work at the plants may choose not to live in your town because, owing to snobbery, elitism, etc., they feel doing so may be beneath them, but others may choose to undertake the long commute from college town, big city, etc., because, well, they may well feel that, ahem, they are just not particularly *welcome* in your blue-collar community (esp if the professional in question is not an evangelical Christian, a Southerner, etc). I am not at all sure that they would be wrong to think this. The residential sorting in this country along educational lines has grown very very stark.
You are overestimating the biases of highly educated employees. The engineers and managers aren't in small towns anymore because the industrial production isn't in the small towns anymore.
I will add that today it is very difficult to re-establish industrial jobs in areas where they once flourished, because of the overall scarcity of a technologically competent and willing workforce, as this NYT article documents: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/business/tsmc-phoenix-arizona-semiconductor.html.
Quote from: memyself on August 08, 2024, 11:35:59 AMQuote from: apl68 on August 08, 2024, 11:05:31 AMIt must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that. Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.
We in academic libraries deal with the attempted donations of many collections of retiring or deceased faculty. Larger libraries often already own the same things that are being offered, and just can't justify taking in that amount of duplicative material. Exceptions can be made for especially high-demand titles, or to replace worn-out copies. And, ooh, the print journal runs that represent a career's worth of belonging to an organization...
Faculty papers are another fact of life in our corner of the library world. We get to have "no, thank you" conversations on a semi-regular basis, and we do attempt to find the library elsewhere that will offer the round hole for the round peg.
I didn't deal with this sort of thing when I worked at an academic library. I'm sure the relevant personnel in acquisitions faced such situations now and then. I do recall one of my graduate professors having a house completely overrun with books of all sorts. Much of it consisted of a unique collection in a particular sub-field. The university ended up accepting this collection and making it one of its special collections. I knew just enough about it to know that those tasked with cataloging and preserving the new collection were going to have their hands full.
Quote from: apl68 on August 08, 2024, 12:30:56 PMQuote from: memyself on August 08, 2024, 11:35:59 AMQuote from: apl68 on August 08, 2024, 11:05:31 AMIt must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that. Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.
We in academic libraries deal with the attempted donations of many collections of retiring or deceased faculty. Larger libraries often already own the same things that are being offered, and just can't justify taking in that amount of duplicative material. Exceptions can be made for especially high-demand titles, or to replace worn-out copies. And, ooh, the print journal runs that represent a career's worth of belonging to an organization...
Faculty papers are another fact of life in our corner of the library world. We get to have "no, thank you" conversations on a semi-regular basis, and we do attempt to find the library elsewhere that will offer the round hole for the round peg.
I didn't deal with this sort of thing when I worked at an academic library. I'm sure the relevant personnel in acquisitions faced such situations now and then. I do recall one of my graduate professors having a house completely overrun with books of all sorts. Much of it consisted of a unique collection in a particular sub-field. The university ended up accepting this collection and making it one of its special collections. I knew just enough about it to know that those tasked with cataloging and preserving the new collection were going to have their hands full.
I believe that there was a cover story in the AHA Perspectives about this.
My small, non-research university has had this issue, with probably a dozen professors either dying or retiring and leaving offices full of books. Some of the material was given away to faculty and students. Some of it was given away to certain charities that specialize in books. Our (non research) library took a very small number. A community group took some more in a related field. But much of it is either still sitting in empty offices (because there are no lines to replace the departed) or thrown away.
I tried to interest several used books in a 200-mile radius (four states and two metro areas) and had almost no luck with the books of several professors. I know that other schools have had similar issues.
Three years ago, I tried to get rid of 5 boxes of books (trade paperbacks in good shape) and I finally found a charity bookshop that took them. Although I thought I had been honest with them, they were less than happy to find out it was so many boxes.
I joked with an administrator that the school itself should open up a used books shop and I would volunteer to staff it once a week.
I think there is a confluence of a decline in literacy (students often do not read for pleasure), a rise in baby boomer retirements, and the fact that even readers like me do not feel the need to keep many things that can be found online easily.
(I do not keep my own academic journals for more than a year or so: I usually hand them out in class as part of an exercise to look at academic articles.)
Quote from: kaysixteen on August 08, 2024, 11:22:31 AMSome of those educated professionals, managers and engineers, recruited to work at the plants may choose not to live in your town because, owing to snobbery, elitism, etc., they feel doing so may be beneath them, but others may choose to undertake the long commute from college town, big city, etc., because, well, they may well feel that, ahem, they are just not particularly *welcome* in your blue-collar community (esp if the professional in question is not an evangelical Christian, a Southerner, etc). I am not at all sure that they would be wrong to think this. The residential sorting in this country along educational lines has grown very very stark.
Yes, I suppose the local custom of staging occasional torch-wielding pogroms against people that ain't from around here and have the wrong color skin might have something to do with it. Only this morning I watched a mob run a Spanish-speaking roofing crew out of town at gunpoint. But what can one expect, given that we're a small, southern, blue-collar town with no colleges and a lot of people who don't like to read books? When you think about it, it's kind of incredible that we manage to have so many widely-regarded local citizens from a variety of other states and countries here, and a Mayor who's a well-educated woman who didn't grow up here, and a City Council member whose parents were Latin American immigrants.
Uninformed stereotyping aside, the suggestion that potential new residents might not find a particular community a good cultural fit is a fair point. From what I've seen, though, it's more of a generational issue. The members of the postwar generation who relocated here appear to have been content to live near their work, and drive an hour or so on weekends to enjoy more varied shopping and dining options. And they were prepared to work locally to build new cultural institutions, like an art league, a little theater group, and a large new library facility. Current generations seem to prioritize residing near the concentrations of amenities they want, and commute or telecommute to work if they have to. And they don't seem to have much interest in committed group efforts to build or perpetuate community institutions. These are tendencies that have been well-documented all over the country.
Differences in corporate culture may also have something to do with it. Back in the day, the corporation that owned the main sources of employment here did a good deal of outreach work to support local institutions. They encouraged their educated managers and engineers to settle and make their long-term homes here. Today's corporate cultures often seem to transfer their staff regularly in a deliberate effort to keep them from setting down roots. And our region's current corporate overlords gave up even pretending to care about the community a long time ago.
Quote from: jerseyjay on August 08, 2024, 03:02:00 PMI believe that there was a cover story in the AHA Perspectives about this.
My small, non-research university has had this issue, with probably a dozen professors either dying or retiring and leaving offices full of books. Some of the material was given away to faculty and students. Some of it was given away to certain charities that specialize in books. Our (non research) library took a very small number. A community group took some more in a related field. But much of it is either still sitting in empty offices (because there are no lines to replace the departed) or thrown away.
I tried to interest several used books in a 200-mile radius (four states and two metro areas) and had almost no luck with the books of several professors. I know that other schools have had similar issues.
Three years ago, I tried to get rid of 5 boxes of books (trade paperbacks in good shape) and I finally found a charity bookshop that took them. Although I thought I had been honest with them, they were less than happy to find out it was so many boxes.
I joked with an administrator that the school itself should open up a used books shop and I would volunteer to staff it once a week.
I think there is a confluence of a decline in literacy (students often do not read for pleasure), a rise in baby boomer retirements, and the fact that even readers like me do not feel the need to keep many things that can be found online easily.
(I do not keep my own academic journals for more than a year or so: I usually hand them out in class as part of an exercise to look at academic articles.)
It's a widespread issue. Sometimes it's worth a little more effort to find a good home for some books or other media that might still be potentially useful, as you mention above. I'm leaving town for the weekend to visit family as soon as we close this evening, and plan to drop off a batch of personal books I'm done with in those free library outlets an hour from here while I'm in transit.
Expending your old academic journals as part of a teaching exercise sounds like a great way of repurposing them! At lot of our discarded or donated periodicals go out on the free table. We've learned over the years what people around here will take from the free table, and what they won't. We also save children's books for release through a Little Free Library that we maintain at a local school. So a lot of what we receive does get used, one way or another.
I've tried to learn not to be too sentimental about old books. Much as the knowledge in books should be preserved in principle--and physically preserved, not just in e-archives that can disappear in all sorts of ways--most individual copies of them don't really need to be. Books are like most artifacts in having a finite useful life. I never thought, though, that being a librarian would involve ushering so many old books across the rainbow bridge.
Quote from: apl68 on August 09, 2024, 08:04:27 AM[...]
staging occasional torch-wielding pogroms
[...]
This made me chuckle. I doff my hat in respect.
QuoteAnd they don't seem to have much interest in committed group efforts to build or perpetuate community institutions. These are tendencies that have been well-documented all over the country.
Packer's
The Unwinding talks about this.
Regarding the dead professors' office collections of books on arcane topics, unfortunately academics still train themselves to assume that their particular niches are essential to civilization's continued existence. In reality it's a manifestation of delusions of grandeur. No one but you cares that you're the world's foremost specialist in moths as metaphors in 17th century Spanish poetry. Stop making other people clean up after you.
Hmmmm.... have any of those long-commuting-from-city/college town professionals actually *told* you that the reason they do not live locally is that they feel your town is beneath them? My opinion, IOW, is almost without any question no 'less well informed' than yours is.
Probably both are true, maybe often for the same person. My point is unquestionably true, however, with regard to the ever increasing residential sorting alongst educational lines (educational homogamy is also a strong thing now, whereas both of these things did not exist in the post-war period). I myself am stunningly more educated than 95% of the people who actually live here in Rusty City, and, well, it is tough-- people here do not act, think, etc., like I do, and are not interested in the same things. And I am an evangelical... but it is tough enough in my own church to often have to just keep my mouth shut, rather than enter into unedifying arguments. And as a Southerner, you are probably not really all that aware that, even in 2024, many Yankees, esp highly educated ones like myself, still feel viscerally unwelcome in the rural south, which is in many significant respects a different country from urban/ suburban New England. You may not like this, and I do not deny that we Yanks bear some responsibility for it, but it is what it is.
As I've previously mentioned in another thread, the most racist place I've ever lived was Boston in the late 1980s. Later I lived in different locations in North Carolina, a few of which were definitely not urban, while married to someone who was a very visible minority. Other than people knocking on our front door asking what church we belonged to and if we'd like to attend Sunday services at theirs, I never felt uncomfortable.
As for self-important American academics thinking their book collections are repositories of infinite wisdom, I think that is universal.
Quote from: apl68 on August 09, 2024, 08:17:07 AMWe also save children's books for release through a Little Free Library that we maintain at a local school. So a lot of what we receive does get used, one way or another.
I have found that getting rid of children's books is actually the easiest. Much of them I have, of course, donated to relatives and friends who have their own children, just as a got many books for my daughter this way.
My wife's boss somehow accumulated several thousands of children's books a few years back and I donated them to the department of childhood education. Some of them they used for training. Some of them they gave to local schools.
Adult books are much harder, alas.
A while ago I had a colleague who was an adjunct. He died during Covid, but he left an apartment and a storage unit full of books. A community bookstore he volunteered with opened up a another location and now sells his books (and others) for a few dollars each. I think it is a wonderful memorial. I am not sure of the economics involved, and obviously this is not possible for everybody.
Quote from: apl68 on August 09, 2024, 08:17:07 AMI've tried to learn not to be too sentimental about old books. Much as the knowledge in books should be preserved in principle--and physically preserved, not just in e-archives that can disappear in all sorts of ways--most individual copies of them don't really need to be. Books are like most artifacts in having a finite useful life. I never thought, though, that being a librarian would involve ushering so many old books across the rainbow bridge.
This is probably a healthy attitude. I can accept it with mass market or trade books. But where I find it harder is when one recognizes that, for example, my own book collection represents years of work and thousands of dollars and thousands of kilometres. So I understand the sentiment, but I am not just there yet. Perhaps by the time I retire, I will have got to that level, so not to force my own heirs to deal with my books.
Boston ain't like that now, and even then, calling Boston, or anywhere else up here, 'racist', in the same way you would call rural southlands territory that, just ignores what words mean. 40 years back working-class Bostonian white folks were still dealing with the bad forced busing policies foisted upon them by limo libs from the burbs, who never would have stood for those inner-city black folks being bussed into their hoity-toity schools.
40 years ago was 1984. At that point the METCO program,
Quote from: kaysixteen on August 09, 2024, 07:29:06 PM"those inner-city black folks being bussed into their hoity-toity schools"
was 20 years old.
The perception of racism persists.
Here (https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-07-28/why-does-boston-continue-to-have-a-racist-reputation) is one explanation of why that is/might be.
I'd put this in the "Venting" thread, but it's relevant here--we've spent the past week dealing with recurring internet outages and network crashes. According to our IT contractor, who is based out of town, the former keep causing the latter. When we have internet service and can get hold of him, he can remote in to patch up the network. He plans to make a rare on-site visit in the next few days to work on making the network more resilient.
Meanwhile, I've spent a good deal of time trying repeatedly to reboot modems and routers, and enduring our alleged internet provider's automated and overseas "service" systems. What we need is an on-site visit by a technician, which we have yet to receive. When I checked the provider's automated system for the status of our service ticket this morning, it basically told us that they'd send a technician when they're good and ready to. They expect to have the issue resolved no later than a date six days from now.
We're a public library. In today's world internet access and computer service are fundamental to what we do. Members of our community depend on us for internet access, for education, employment, and access to government services. Our automated circulation system won't even work without internet. And we've never been able to get truly reliable and adequate service here. For a time we maintained two internet providers so that we'd always have a backup, but then one of them abandoned this region. The available infrastructure just hasn't been adequate to give us what we need to serve the public.
The culture war issues may get the headlines, but for many libraries it's these mundane, day-to-day matters that eat our lunch.
Do you think it's a provider issue? If so, are there other options?
Or do you think it's caused by hardware?
You completely have my sympathy. If I could wave a magic wand I'd fix this (and your HVAC issues) so you could focus on the parts of the job that you enjoy.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 03, 2024, 09:25:41 AMDo you think it's a provider issue? If so, are there other options?
Or do you think it's caused by hardware?
You completely have my sympathy. If I could wave a magic wand I'd fix this (and your HVAC issues) so you could focus on the parts of the job that you enjoy.
The answer to both questions is probably "yes." We may be looking at router issues.
Alternatives to our current provider are very thin on the ground in our region.
I've often wished I could fix some of the matters that others talk about here at The Fora too. Sometimes you just find yourself stuck.
Smithtown library, Long Island during the rains/flooding a couple of weeks ago:
QuoteFlood devastates library causing $10 million of damage (https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy4y5nkgw7jo)
I don't recall seeing the news in the NYT, but here's the account in the local (https://dailyvoice.com/ny/smithtown/watch-as-floodwaters-burst-through-smithtown-library-causing-millions-of-dollars-in-damages/) (Smithtown) news.
Count your blessings, y'all who work in libraries!
Quote from: Langue_doc on September 05, 2024, 03:52:34 PMSmithtown library, Long Island during the rains/flooding a couple of weeks ago:
QuoteFlood devastates library causing $10 million of damage (https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy4y5nkgw7jo)
I don't recall seeing the news in the NYT, but here's the account in the local (https://dailyvoice.com/ny/smithtown/watch-as-floodwaters-burst-through-smithtown-library-causing-millions-of-dollars-in-damages/) (Smithtown) news.
Count your blessings, y'all who work in libraries!
That's awful to see. Flooding is one of our greatest nightmares. Even busted pipes or a triggered fire sprinkler system could wreck much of our collection and equipment.
We had a minor flood some years ago when sprinkler pipes in our attic burst during a rare freeze. The pipes weren't supposed to have standing water in them. Due to a design flaw they did. Incredibly, there was no damage to either books or computer equipment. We still had thousands of dollars' worth of cleanup and repair. A library in a neighboring town had a pipe burst that same day that put them out of business for weeks.
You never know where water damage might come from. The air handler on our HVAC system draws tremendous amounts of moisture from our humid air in the summer, and is supposed to drain it all away. Now and then the drain develops a clog. Then the floor in the utility room starts to flood, and then a staff member notices that the floor in her work area is getting wet. And I have to blow out the drain so that it works properly. It happened just yesterday, as a matter of fact.
For apl......https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/library-bats-coimbra-wild-life-excerpt?mc_cid=3e9cdfaa4e&mc_eid=0b05b20759
Quote from: nebo113 on September 06, 2024, 10:48:16 AMFor apl......https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/library-bats-coimbra-wild-life-excerpt?mc_cid=3e9cdfaa4e&mc_eid=0b05b20759
Thanks for the link!
A library with not one but two species of bats living in it. Good to know it's well-guarded, I guess. This reminds me of the time I had to shoo a bat out of the microform department at my old job. I thought at first that a bird had sneaked into the building somehow. Then it flew between me and a light, and I saw that its wing was translucent.... Here, I've been called upon to usher out the occasional lizard.
I hear you about water danger. At my very large academic library, a giant chiller unit for campus HVAC sits on top of our central stacks (million+ books), and semi-regularly disgorges cascades of water.
We are all well-versed in first response and "spot the leak", as water has a way of meandering along beams and conduits between floors as it moves downward. A leak in the south corner of one level may reappear in the west corner of the level below...
Libraries have radically changed since I began as reference librarian in the 80s, in every way. We took pride in our reference and nonfiction collections, even pamphlet files and records. The new wave librarians don't care about that, like a past era and without success nor trying promoting print books. I will take a print book any time because I HATE ebooks, and I knew numerous students who avoided them.) Online articles, yes, never books. Students don't learn the misunderstood value of printed books vs. PDF. Public libraries are visited mostly by older adults, kids, I observe. Rarely or never have I seen someone in the stacks, ever. (They don't know the word stacks, reference, circulation)
Donations run the gamut from excellent to awful, but they are not taken because they won't go out
anyway,esp. if circulation is low. I donated many excellent books to libraries that they sold or threw away, stupidly, and I knew the library needed them, as a librarian and patron. Book selection is very subjective, regardless of the methods. Otherwise, they don't care/ It is easier tossing the book than cataloging and shelving it. It is an easy way out, just as Ebooks are far easier and cheaper than ordering print books. My experience over 20 years is that, like most educators, librarians minimize their work, when possible, and maximize their budget, regardless-- and without imput from patrons and students.
We finally got a technician from a service provider in to take a look at what was here. I complained to the head of the local economic development office when I saw him at the weekly Rotary meeting on Thursday. He called a regional representative of the service provider that he was acquainted with, who jacked up the service department into getting somebody to us. The technician diagnosed a failing modem, and replaced it. We'll see what that does.
We also got a rare on-site visit from our out-of-town IT guy. He brought us a wireless hot spot that has enough capacity to operate from in theory. We'll see about keeping both providers so that we have some redundancy. The regional representative also came by, heard our complaint...and then tried to up-sell us on what will no doubt be a very expensive fiber internet proposal. At least he got the service department to come through a little earlier than they had promised.