A library district in suburban Chicago (Schaumberg, Illinois) is implementing rules governing library user’s odor and library sleeping habits, but is stressing that the rules are not aimed at homeless users of the library.

This is a little hard to believe, as they also stress that they aren’t planning to invoke the rule against patrons who fall asleep while reading, but those who go into the library with the intention of sleeping.

A little background:  I started my library career in the Brookfield (IL) Public Library, and during the winter months, we had several homeless patrons who spent many hours each day in the library.  Odors?  Definitely.  One person in particular was so strong that I had to hold my breath whenever I was within 5 feet of him.  Just writing this is evoking the exact memory of the smell.

Initially, I didn’t understand why they were allowed.  I am sure that many of our patrons left the library sooner, and perhaps didn’t return as often during the winter months.  We definitely received complaints.  But the director, someone who I have grown to respect more and more over the years, insisted on allowing them a safe haven during the freezing temperatures.

My suggested solution?  Find a way to get people the services they need.  Resources for the homeless have improved, and everyone in need should avail themselves of those resources.  If those resources aren’t available, or even if the people who need them won’t use them, do not deny to them what may be their one safe shelter.  I occasionally wonder about the people I encountered as a page, and hope that their lives improved; but even if they didn’t, I feel happy that the library I remember so fondly also served as a safe place for them.

article found via LISNews

Many people have a memory of the moment they realized that Barack Obama was likely to become president.  For some, the moment came during the primaries, perhaps when they heard the speech he gave after the New Hampshire primary.

Others, and I know several who were present, will point to his announcement in Springfield, Illinois that he was running for the presidency.

There are others who will go back even further and point to his Keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

My moment was a bit more obscure, but it had to do with libraries.  I recall becoming convinced that he would run for president, and would likely win.  I expected it in 2012 or 2016 (he was early in his first-term as a U.S. senator, remember), but the past two years has been eerily like what I anticipated that day.

In June 2005, Barack Obama spoke at the American Library Association conference in Chicago, Illinois.  I can’t find a video of the speech, but the transcript is here.  I did find a discussion of his favorite book, however.

Previous posts here and here…

I attended the One Big Library Unconference (Facebook too) last Friday, and haven’t had a chance to post about it yet, so here goes:

I arrived in Toronto around 7 p.m. on Thursday after a smooth journey. I stayed in a hotel about 3 walking blocks from the conference venue, mainly so I could park the car on Thursday and walk everywhere. In daylight the neighborhood, part of Toronto’s Chinatown, reminded me of the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago: a wide variety of people in a busy, urban environment that feels very alive. At night it became somewhat worrisome: many homeless people sleeping in doorways and sidewalks, groups of people “hanging out” and looking a bit dangerous, and panhandlers approaching passers-by for change. I never felt directly threatened, but was very aware of the potential.

The conference was sponsored by York University, and held at the Centre for Social Innovation. The building was very warm, but the facilities were comfortable and pleasant. Everyone I came in contact with was fantastic.

How can I describe everything? Take about 70 people, self-selected to be interested in Libraries and Technology, everyone intent on learning and interacting with others of like mind. I have never seen a conference group as positively engaged in all that they were doing. I think this came about from a combination of the Unconference format, the selection of a well-defined yet general topic, and just the right amount of planning and structure (and not too much of either).

The organizers introduced themselves and described the day’s schedule process. The topics that had been submitted via the wiki were laid out on sheets of paper (see the photos in the second post for detail) on tables, along with blank sheets for newer ideas. I suggested what I had been brainstorming about during the previous day’s drive, and voted on the topics I most wanted to attend.

They ended up combining sessions in order to include all ideas, meaning that I co-presented with two other people (kind of strange, since I wanted a roundtable discussion in order to brainstorm). While they were tabulating the votes and arranging the schedule, we all attended the first session.

Zotero: Start watching for the next update of this incredible tool… it is about to become even more powerful. Then, once you have that gem, watch for the next big release. A great summary is located on their roadmap. I am left with an exceptionally strong positive feeling about this tool and the people developing it. Trevor Owens did a great job with the demo and presentation.

Drupal: This ended up being more of a detailed presentation of what it takes to implement a new web presence in an institution when it involves dozens of people in many departments. Politics, control over presentation of content, and seamless functionality were the main points discussed. On alternate days I think it might just be better for a small team (no more than four people) to install, configure and implement the system. The other days I suspect the “many hands” approach might be better. I had hoped for more tips on installing and configuring Drupal (having installed and configured it for the first time only a couple of weeks ago… watch for an announcement), but didn’t get that. Good session, nevertheless.

Lunch was buffet sandwiches and fruit (and a wonderful coffee bar that was open all day). The highlight was the tours offered to the building’s roof, which has a rooftop garden installed. I enjoyed taking pictures of the people in my tour group.

(more in part 2)

BibMe is a great site for locating and generating bibliographic citations in MLA, APA and Chicago styles, which you can then download to your computer, or store on their server (if you sign up for a free account).

In their Help section, they provide detail as to where they get the bibligraphic information to generate the citations:

from BiblioTech Web

A couple things of note are happening in the realm of bibliographic information:

1. The Library of Congress will be holding their second regional meeting of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control on Wednesday, May 9th.  This one will be held in Chicago.  Pay attention to the discussions at these meetings, and watch for the final report from the group later this year.  This group is touching upon the right issues, and the consensus for positive change is gaining momentum.  I posted about the group’s first meeting here.
2. The folks working on RDA and Dublin Core will be working together to make RDA more, well, friendly towards people who want to use library bibliographic information for various things.  This could be important, as we are falling further and further behind when it comes to being able to use the wealth of information contained in our electronic bibliographic records.  If we fall much further behind, we could become irrelevant; we are already fairly analogous to the Deep Web because our information can barely be used outside of our OPACs.  And most of our OPACs are not user-friendly.

My thoughts and ideas about these issues are becoming clearer.  I will write more on these topics later (hopefully soon).

The Library of Congress has formed the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, and will be having their first public meeting tomorrow, March 8th, at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The truly interesting thing is that anyone can attend, no prior registration needed. I would love to be able to drop in at Google tomorrow and delve into the topic of Users and Uses of Bibliographic Data, but it isn’t going to happen for me without a tornado, puppy and ruby slippers. Andrew Pace and Karen Markey are among the speakers; it ought to be an excellent day.

Karen Schneider was inspired to dash off an open letter to the Library of Congress on ALA TechSource. Karen Coyle is planning to attend (as per a post to the NGC4Lib listserv) and will likely post info on her blog about the meeting.

I am entertaining the idea of wandering over to Chicago for their May 9th meeting on “Structures and Standards for Bibliographic Data”, which I think I would find almost as fascinating as the user focus of this meeting. Several things would need to fall into place to allow that to happen, including the LOC keeping the meetings open to all without invitation, and I think I shall see what the feedback from tomorrow is before pursuing it.

WorldCat has now incorporated my favorite RedLightGreen (also this post) feature:  Citations!

Click the “cite this item” link in the results page and you now have MLA, APA, Turabian, Chicago, and Harvard citation styles for that specific item.  Couple this with an ISBN search, and you have an excellent way to create citations from your references.

from WorldCat Update email

March of the Librarians, by Nick Baker, is a fantastic parody of March of the Penguins, set in the environs of Seattle during the ALA Midwinter last month.  It brings back memories of Chicago 2005 (the last ALA I attended).

As an update to this post, it seems that the situation with the EPA library is getting worse.

Presumably in response to a congressional request to halt the closure of its libraries, the EPA is removing thousands of documents from its web servers, and has sold $40,000 worth of library furniture in their Chicago library for a total of $350. The woman who bought the furniture is estimating that she will re-sell it for $80,000 (perhaps when the EPA changes course again and buys its own furniture back).

(Darn! I could use a few good bookshelves right about now at a bargain price!)

from ResourceShelf

This article, dated a few weeks ago, on a Chicago news radio station’s website makes it sound as though libraries are more dangerous than they are.

I suspect that many of the “thousands of files” depicting the crimes were either a question of interpretation (“I know pornography when I see it”) or relatively minor issues that, perhaps like my former place of employment, the staff wouldn’t initiate calling police unless we actually witnessed it ourselves.

If you are not familiar with it, though, check out Illinois’ Library Records Confidentiality Act for yourself. I think it benefits more than harms, and that in a criminal investigation, obtaining a subpoena for things such as telephone and library records would be part of an established process. Why should it have taken 2 days to obtain one in this case?

By the way, the act does not cover a library hiding criminal activity, as the article suggests, just circulation and usage records.

Another web-based option for automatic generation of bibliographic citations is OttoBib, in which you get a MLA, APA, or Chicago style citation by entering a book’s ISBN.

from MetaFilter