are you still going to check out books?

I was asked that question yesterday by our library director after I told her about my new Nook Tablet. I rolled my eyes, she laughed, and said,  "Of course I will still check out books."

Now, just how many books I will be checking out versus their ebook counterparts remains to be seen. Right now the library, along with the other four libraries in their consortium, has a minuscule ebook budget.  I'm talking roughly $10,000 a year per facility. Peanuts. Everyone puts the money into one pot and we have access to each other's titles.

Personally, one of the first things I want to look at on the library board is the big budget. Just how much are we spending on DVDs? How much on audiobooks? Those items are pricey too, and yes they do create revenue, but they are on the way out. Perhaps it is time to reallocate some money.

When I logged into our account on Overdrive yesterday, only 45 titles were available for check out. I found two books I've wanted to read and checked them out. I also placed a hold on two more books. I'm in the queue as 20 on one title and 10 on another.

I have selected a variety of free books on the B&N website. I've looked at the titles on Gutenberg. I've purchased a few lower priced titles.

But, my main source of fodder for my Nook will be the Library's ebook collection. Bolstering that collection is my new mission in life.

All the other ebook readers in my town can thank me later.  Ha ha ha!

the book club in a bag

The library is ready to roll out the new program named in honor of my friend, Anne. The book club in a bag concept has been a huge hit with her family and I received kind notes from her daughters and one granddaughter expressing how much they think she would have loved this project.  I also received a note from a former library board president who felt that it was the perfect way to honor Anne's contributions to the Friends and the community.

I hope the community takes advantage of this new service. I've sent press releases out with a photo and caption. I've facebooked it for the past week. I have a few more ideas on how to spread the word, but some of the promotion needs to come from the library itself. I'm anxious to see what sort of display the head of circulation puts together.

As I read book reviews and see tidbits about novels other avid readers are enjoying, I've even been jotting down names for next year's bags. We've already received donations to fund the continuation of the program. That is very exciting.

The big book sale is next week. It seems that our fears of not having enough books were misplaced, as we are almost back to where we were for the fall sale in regards to our inventory. That is good. I'm eager to see how our new sorting and boxing system impacts setting up the hardback fiction tables. I hope our plan helps what is usually a chaotic and mind-numbing 6 hours of work. We've presorted the books as we packed them and they should be in boxes that roughly match how the books are allocated on the tables. The concept worked for nonfiction and helped reduce that set up time from 2 days to 1 day. I'm hoping to have a similar effect in the fiction room.

We shall see on next Wednesday. In the meantime, I'm off to promote my latest 'baby' in honor of my friend.

the one where I lose my cool.....

Mission Statements. Non profits. Libraries. Books. Volunteerism.

Yesterday we had our monthly Friends meeting and one topic for discussion was a review of the bookstore pricing structure. The prices in the store were set almost four years ago and I felt it was time to review what we charge for each item. As the executive board talked about the issue, several of the gals offered to take time out of their days and make trips to several used bookstores in our area and see how those items were priced.

What they discovered was not unexpected. We charge less than everyone, and are closely aligned with what our fellow Friends group in Gtown charges on some items, but on others we are priced lower.  That group, however, pays their store manager to do the job I did for free for two years.

We brought this information back to our group. Interestingly enough, we actually had a few faces show up to discuss the topic who do not bother to attend meetings any other time. Hmmmm. One of those faces borrows books from the store, sees if she can sell them online, and if so, does that and then pays for the book. She is a regular volunteer at the store and the sales.

The discussion ensued yesterday and several folks brought up the purpose of the store. They feel, strongly, that we need to keep prices where they are as this is more than an effort to raise money, it is also a community resource and outreach service with the money generated being an added bonus.

Now, if these folks were not active participants in the store, I wouldn't take their comments as seriously as I do. I view the store in a different way. The money generated is our PURPOSE. That the store is a community resource is a byproduct.

The store has generated over 100K in revenue for our group to donate to the library. That is a lot of money and we work very, very hard to make that money. Yes, it is a nice thing to have this as a service. Who doesn't love finding a great book at a great price, but we aren't talking about raising prices to equal what the stand-alone store-front stores charge. Those places charge half the cover price on most items.

We are talking about going from $1 to $1.50 and increases of that nature.

I guess I have a different philosophy about our purpose and mission and goal. I volunteer with the Friends to help them raise money for the Library. I don't volunteer with them to give books away. We help buy the books and programs that the Library can allow to be checked out or attended for free. We exist to support the library.

So, when the topic of giving books away was broached and viewed as the 'ideal', I got a bit steamed. My tone changed. I counted to ten. I sucked in some big lungfuls of air. I wrapped up the meeting.

The topic will be presented again next month for a motion, second and further discussion. I expect that will be an interesting meeting as well.

step away from the books

I'm not going to the Library today. I'm going to step away from the books, at least for the day. I have plenty of Friends business to do here at home, including putting together the rest of the PR packet for the book club in a bag project.

We had a good executive board meeting yesterday followed by an informative general membership meeting. We learned the library is going to begin the process of getting e-books. Wow. They are going together with one of the other consortium libraries to start this service. I will be interested to see how it goes, who will use it and whether or not they decide to charge for the service.

Of course this new service will impact the funds available to purchase regular books. The money issue was stated over and over. I can see it coming. The big request for more funding from the Friends to supplement the $10,000 we already give them for materials.

As the average age in our group is well over 50, most of our members do not have e-readers and have no intention of having an e-reader. They will not be happy if the number of available titles for new releases drops because two e-books were purchased.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next several months as the targeted launch date is in July.

Link Soup

I am facebook 'friends' with Anne Rice and she posted a link to this article about libraries. Now, granted, they focus on major metropolitan libraries on the coast, but I can see these changes trickling down, so to speak. I've actually had conversations with library staff about these concepts and how they might be implemented. Change.  Is it good? Is it a no call?

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-libraries-20101112,0,6514361.story

It is raining, raining, raining here today. Makes it hard to clear the cobwebs and sleep out of my head. But, I need to wake up and get ready to move. I have a meeting this morning with the volunteer who manages our website. She spent countless hours building it and has spent even more time taking care of it.  She is ready to start stepping away, so we are in the process of streamlining the site down to two manageable, bare bones pages. The problem is the majority of our volunteers are not interested in learning how to update the site and care for it. They like the idea of having it, but it takes work and that isn't so appealing.

I am also beginning a job search. Yep. I think it is time I became gainfully employed again and bring in a paycheck. Not sure what direction I will take, but 'work' is on the horizon.

champagne tastes on a beer budget

And I'm not talking good beer...no fancy packages with nice glass bottles imported from overseas. I'm talking cans of generic! That seems to be my theme for the week. Frugal. Thrifty.  Ignore those extra letters, those are 'four' letter words.

Yep, I have a Friends executive board meeting today....about money.  How much we spend. Where we spend it. How we donate it.

Here is another 'four' letter word: budget.

Ack. Ugh. Ick.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make everyone happy? To not have to budget? To not have to compromise? To be on the same fiscal 'page' as everyone else?

Oh hell, what is a few thousand dollars between friends, right?!

numbers

Got some numbers yesterday while I was spending an extra long time visiting with a friend at a local watering hole having lunch. Yep, hubby called to let me know he was across the river and heading west and I told him I was in a bar. He of course said, "that didn't take long, celebrating my departure already?" My friend and I laughed, but when he called back two hours later and we were still there....we really laughed. Not that sweet tea is considered a hard drink by most folks.

Anyway, while we were lunching and gabbing, a 'little bird' who shall remain forever nameless mentioned hearing some library card renewal numbers at a meeting. In our last big Friends meeting, the numbers were not given...although to be fair, no one asked for the data either.

I asked the 'bird' if he/she would share them with me. I got them later that day. What it boils down to is that only 25% of the recorded card holders have reactivated their cards since the new policy has been in place. 6% of library users identified as non residents have paid the nonresident $25 annual fee. $10,000 has been generated for the Town as a result.

So, 69% of the library cards out there haven't been renewed. Were they ever used in the first place?? It will be most interesting to see if the numbers continue to inch up or if we reach a plateau and are left with a REAL number of library users instead of an inflated one based on the sheer number of cards out there. What will this mean for staffing, funding etc? This whole effort to shed burdensome users may end up shooting everyone in the foot. Now the Town will know exactly how many folks use cards and can use that number when allocating funds.

Are you shortchanging 30,000 library card holders or only 4000 library card users???? Hmmmm, methinks the size of the constituency has SHRUNK.

chatter and the big squeeze

Went with the hubby to the board appreciation shindig last night at our town hall. Glad I did. It is always a good thing to listen to what people are saying and watch who is talking/mingling.

What I did hear was that the budget will be tight this next year, just like in so many households around the country. Sales tax revenue is down. Building permits are down. The list goes on and on. As a result, town spending will be slimmed to meet the smaller revenue stream.

Of course I've known the Library has been asked to turn in a possible budget cut list. Interesting to me that in a time when library usage may increase, library services and staff could be squeezed.

So, keep using your public library....stats don't lie and they will insure that the appropriate piece of the pie is served.

Of course I'm involved with an amazing Friends of the Library group who make the money to provide the icing on the cake for our library. We may be asked for more in the years ahead.

I had a ball yesterday in the store. Lots of little readers as school was out for Veteran's Day. It is always fun to see what folks buy. I sold a Madeline 'big' book...I have two of them at home. Ones I purchased for my girls when they were very small. We were, and in some ways still are, all about the little girl in Paris who did everything in two straight lines! One of my girls even has a Madeline tee shirt she purchased at Delia's!

I also found a book to read....about an urban werewolf in Austin, Tx. So far, it is quite humorous. I managed to pick up the Stephanie Plum books 2-6 plus one of the 'between the numbers' titles to ship over to my Mom. She is still recuperating from her leg/ankle break.

It was a good, informative and full day.

oh crap

I'm missing one of my Sookie books. I can't remember if I loaned the book out, never bought it or have it stashed somewhere other than my bookcase. Yep, I'm up to "Definitely Dead" and it is definitely not with the other Sookie books.

So, I may be hauling my mending body over to B&N to purchase it. Good thing a discount coupon arrived in today's email. I do love my membership privileges:)

I know my mom has the most recent Sookie as I took it to her this past May. She is returning it in October when we meet up at the oldest kid's out of town soccer tourney.

Kim, I'm still working on the library book ordering post. I promise. I just can't sit for too long and think in any sort of coherent manner.

best to be prepared

Once I learned that my library successor would approach our Friends group to appeal for funds to purchase gaming equipment for the YA department, I started researching. I learned a lot.

Did you know that 100 years ago kids weren't even allowed in libraries? Or that fiction books were not shelved in libraries because they were viewed as entertainment? Or that the Library of Congress catalogs video games? Or that the ALA has endorsed gaming in libraries?

Boy, things have changed. And I'm happy to say that my research did not have to be used to convince anyone, only to reaffirm what many of the ladies had already decided. We need to get those teens in the library and if it takes a Wii or a guitar hero game to do it, then so be it.

On other fronts, I need to finish my article for my friend Kim about how books get onto those library shelves. Haven't forgotten about you, girl, just been swamped with meetings and such.

changing times

The library director forwarded an email from our state library association. The email discussed the trend to include video games in the collection as a way to reach out to the YA crowd. Now, when I was the YA person, we'd had video games at a few events, I think they were Harry Potter games and tied into the event's theme which was Harry Potter! I never planned an event based solely around gaming, but articles in the journals I read started to suggest this as a way to get the teens in the door besides when they had a required reading assignment.

My successor held a guitar hero contest last spring. Best attended YA event the library ever had. She stopped counting at 140 kids. Amazing turnout and we both realized that the vast majority of kids neither of us had ever seen before. It brought them out in droves.

Spurred on by this huge success she applied for a local grant to purchase games, a system and a flat screen tv. The grant request was denied. First time a library request was given the thumbs down by this group.

I hope her next move is to approach the Friends about giving her the money for this. Now we just have to convince them it is a good idea. Hard to change minds sometimes about the evolving nature of a public/community library. Long gone are the quiet days of scowling librarians 'shushing' everyone in sight.

What follows is a brief bit of the email the director sent me.

"To our surprise, the video game trend is endorsed by the Chicago-based American Library Association, which recently got a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation to develop a national model for library gaming. Eighty percent of public libraries allow video games on their computers, according to a 2007 Syracuse University study, and 13 percent have separate game stations such as Nintendo, Wii or Xbox.Libraries are no longer just about literacy, if they ever were. They've evolved into social and recreational centers that mirror the communities they serve. Large- type and audio books for aging Boomers. Computer literacy lessons for seniors. Free wi-fi for students. Multi-lingual resources for immigrants. Cultural enrichment courses for everyone. The video games are targeted at the hard-to-reach young adult demographic that is too busy or distracted (temporarily, we hope) for things like books and newspapers."

On another front, one of the blogs I visited on a very regular basis has gone dark. Dwight Wannabe has hung up the blogging towel. Dwight is a talented blogger and writer. I don't attempt to make my blog anything like what he served up on a daily basis. His presence will be missed.