The Kirkendall Public Library in Ankeny, Iowa wanted to install a self-checkout system.  The $23,000 price tag meant that, at best, they would need to wait until they could raise the money to purchase the system.

Eric Melton, circulation librarian and tech support for the library, came up with a solution:  he built a self-check system for $1,500, less than 7% of the quoted cost for a purchased system.

Enterprising Ankeny librarian builds money-saving kiosk

How many opportunities can be discovered to save money in how we operate our libraries?  For most libraries, this is becoming more critical than ever.

found via AL Direct

In a brief essay titled Orphan Works:  A Rant, posted on ©ollecanea, Kenny Crews presents an interestingly common example of how a common encounter results in an orphan work.

“…I kindly handed the camera to a total stranger, requesting a photo of the whole gang. The stranger complied, took a picture, and handed that camera back to me. I might own the camera and stored image, but the tourist who just drifted back to Iowa composed the picture and evidently under the law owns the copyright.”

It is extremely unlikely to become an issue for those of us who are on either side of the camera in this situation, but the potential is there.  An absolute stickler for copyright would need to have a release form handy, or limit their use of the photo to that allowed under the fair use section.

Now we understand that these situations reflect a favor without any expectation of payment, but it is interesting that in the current legal environment we would need to recognize these possibilities.  What if it were to turn out that one of the people was (or is about to become) famous, and the photograph is later featured on the cover of a national magazine?  Then the photographer might become interested in the fine points of copyright law.

I am a bit of a political junkie… and it generally won’t spill over onto this blog. However, one resource that I have found very interesting when examining Ohio and New Hampshire results has been Google Maps coverage of the primaries. They haven’t committed to doing all 50 states, but the service has been popular, and I suspect that they will continue at least as long as the nominations are in play. As for November… who knows??

• Google LatLong Blog entry
• Iowa page
• New Hampshire page

found via Search Engine Land

Big news from the Google Book Search Library Project today:

The number of libraries participating in the Google Book Search Library Project just got a whole lot bigger with today’s addition of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). The CIC is a national consortium of 12 research universities, including University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

There are a lot of libraries in that list, and having lived in Northern Illinois for most of my life, I am familiar with many of them (and in fact am planning to visit another one, Ohio State University, within the next couple of weeks to look at a hard-to-find book).

thanks to Ryan Eby for an e-mail post to Web4Lib

Dewey Readmore Books, the mascot cat for the Spencer Public Library in Iowa, died on November 29th.

Dewey was many things to many people, and I like the idea of library mascots.  We had a Jack Dempsey Fish in the children’s section of the public library where I first learned to love libraries, and you always counted your fingers after feeding him.

from AP Top Headlines