Rediscovering Gems: Easter Island

Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes is a novel that contains two parallel stories: one set in the period before and eventually including World War I and a contemporary story.

Elsa Pendleton travels with her husband, who is sent by the Royal Geographical Society, To Easter Island where she finds her passion collecting ethnographic information. Greer Farraday is a botanist who specializes in paleobotany and who goes to Easter Island to try to find out why the forests collapsed on the island.

The novel is filled with rich information about ethnography, epigraphy and paleobotany. Vanderbes shows the dogged, grueling work of a scholar that may be enlivened by discovery. However, this is conveyed through engrossing stories of the women and the island during their respective stays.

Who would enjoy this: This would be an excellent choice for book clubs and for readers who are interested in exotic places, anthropology and even readers of Jared Diamond.

iPhones for Students

This article in the New York Times, Welcome Freshman, Have an iPod, indicates that several universities are giving students iPhones or iPods, as they enter the university. The schools believe that the students can use the devices to research in class,use the devices to prepare presentations or download podcasts of lectures. Predictably, there is some concern that students will not use the devices positively but instead will use the devices in class when they are bored. But, hasn't this always been the case that some students will be bored in class and not pay attention (doodling?) but it seems a high price to pay to deny these devices to everyone.

Stanford has asked a student-run company to develop special applications for the devices including a map and a directory. And, this seems to me the better approach--to use the devices to elicit a program from students and faculty for their best use in education. Computer science students can develop specialized applications, the college newspaper can set up an RSS headline feed, the library can send alerts when new items are available and old ones due. Library students can help organize the podcasts or video downloads available. Professors can produce podcasts or ask their students to make oral presentations via podcasts. In other words, the device can be part of the education experience because mobile devices are part of our world and this is excellent preparation for students.

I am in a distance learning program now and when I was accepted I asked whether an iPod was required. My advisor was taken aback by the question--she said that no one had asked it before. But I had assumed that a distance learning program would take advantage of technology to enrich the experience for students.

We communicate via a bulletin board system and post to that or to some collaborative space such as wiki or Google Documents. I have only had one professor (and I have taken 10 courses) use screencasting with audio. There have been no podcasts, no video lectures, no creative use of existing technology.

Earlier, this year, there was consternation among some in the library community because non-librarians (specifically, people without a Master's) were named in Library Journals annual list of Movers and Shakers. Many people were exercised by the folks upset at the naming of non-librarians because they thought those people were treated with disrespect by the degreed people. And, that is true but is missing the larger point--in my previous field we looked outside our own field to find improvements or new services. This was routine. We actively sought ideas from others that we could use--they did not always work but we tried them and analyzed what worked and what did not so we could learn from that experience.

We have been asked to write about the future of library automation (although I am probaby doing the alternate assignment) but it seems to me that libraries lag behind other industries in implementing new technologies and routinely examining other industries would help libraries adopt technologies quicker and more effectively.

Library Automation Class

I am nearing the end of my Library Automation course (a week and a half to go) and we just got a new assignment. We can either use the data on a specific library site to investigate something or we can write about the future of Library Automation.

So far, I am doing both. I spent a lot of time with the data and there is quite a bit that I am not able to access without a login (which we do not have). I had a number of interesting things in mind to test but I cannot access data that addresses it. I came up some things to test but I am not sure whether they are really appropriate for the assignment.

I am working on the Future of Library Automation essay so that has involved reading about technology trends. I have several lists I am working from and once I identify the trends that I think are relevant to libraries, I am gathering more information on them. Yesterday, I researched more about Service-Oriented Architectures and today is my mobility day.

I will only turn one in--just not sure which one I will submit yet.

Rediscovering Gems: Swimming to Antarctica

The Summer Olympics are going on now and every day the newspapers have more stories about swimming. There are human interest stories about the swimmers, information about new suits and how those affect the swimmers cutting through the water and improved techniques used by swimmers. The focus on swimming made me think of Swimming To Antarctica by Lynne Cox as a book that should be re-discovered.

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long Distance Swimmer was published in January 2004 and was written by Lynne Cox, a long distance swimmer who broke records by swimming the Cook Strait, the Bering Strait, the Cape of Good Hope and the Magellan Strait. Through her training she realizes that her body is unusually capable of withstanding extreme cold. She decides to swim a mile in the Antarctic Ocean, a swim conducted in 32 degree water, that she finishes but leaves her with some physical damage due to the extreme cold.

It is a story about discipline and sacrifice. Her commitment to long-distance swimming means that she spends much of her time in the water and is able to spend less time on in-land relationships. It reminds us that obsessions and talent have consequences, that the choices we make affect our lives and relationships.

Cox is matter-of-fact about the problems and focuses on the training, the swimming and all the auxiliary activities she needs to complete them. It is a terrific story and Cox is a terrific writer. She helps you understand why long-distance swimming is so important to her and she works to have the swims mean something to the world hoping that the swim through the Bering Strait will remind people how close in distance Russia and the US really are. Writers often say that they write because they have to, and this is a trait that is found throughout the creative professions. Cox shows that her talent and ability for long-distance swimming became something she had to do and in her book, she shares her successes as well as her challenges. Although this is about swimming, it is indeed a universal story.

Who would like this book: You certainly don't have to be a swimmer to enjoy this book. It is also a good tie-in to the Olympics. Further it is a good book to highlight the importance of discipline and the consequences (the good and bad) of following your dreams.

Visualizing Statistics

I always look at the circulation statistics and wonder about the specifics underneath it. Of the fiction, what are the leading authors, or of the broad category, non-fiction, what are the most circulated sections.

I just saw this neat article on "Self Plagarism is in Style about Dewey blobs. Here is the enlarged version. This is a great way of getting more information about what Dewey classifications circulate the most and this would also be a great start to identity areas for weeding.

Rediscovering Gems: The Singular Pilgrim

The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground by Rosemary Mahoney was published in 2003. It was published around the same time as Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and it was not as popular. Mahoney details several pilgrimages, in Spain, in India, in Britain and in Ireland. It is a tale of walking, and more walking but embodies the classic religious or spiritual need to test the body and through that find faith or peace or in today's world, we may view this as a way to find oneself.

Beautifully written Mahoney struggles with her belief and the search for God. It is also a memoir describing the end of a relationship and her life as a writer. A simply wonderful book.

Who should read it: Readers who loved Eat, Pray Love and were drawn by its discussion of spirituality. The Singular Pilgrim focuses mostly on Christian pilgrimages but Mahoney does describe a pilgrimage by the Ganges.

Kindle for Distance Learning

I read John Gapper's column in the Financial Times with great interest. He described the battle between the Sony Reader and Amazon's Kindle and indicated that he thought that the Kindle had won. The Kindle has built-in wireless capability, it is easy to get content from Amazon for it (now there are over 145,000 items available), you can easily subscribe to newspapers and blogs and of course, it has a keyboard. Although Amazon has not provided sales figures for the Kindle, other groups have estimated that about 240,000 units have been sold.

One of the reasons that I am so fascinated by e-readers and the Kindle, in particular, is that I getting my Master's in Library Science through an online program and I can see what a terrific market the online learning community is for a Kindle or other reader. Of course, now the Kindle can only access what is available through Amazon or books in the public domain and that would have to be expanded.

For my classes,I access a bulletin board in which the professor and the students post and respond. Through this bulletin board, also access my assignments, find papers to be read and access other course tools such as our wiki. A Kindle or Kindle-like device would allow distance students to easily keep in touch with the bulletin board, get their email and research. The wireless capability is the key along with the keyboard because students could use the device not just to read items on the bulletin board but post as well.

A lot of distance students complain about the lack of community and face-to-face interactions. That bothers me less because I managed a development group remotely for several years. What I would like to see to increase satisfaction in distance learning is improved access and a portable device that I can always carry and like the Kindle, is always connected to a wireless network.

Market Electronic Availability

I have been continuing my research for my Library Automation Vendor Analysis and have discovered that SirsiDynix is adding a Books by Mail feature. A patron can specify whether they want to pick the books up in the library or have them delivered to their home or office. Now, clearly there are implementation issues that libraries will need to grapple with, but this feature is a terrific step forward for libraries and should be marketed as being part of an end-to-end electronic capability. Patrons can now request books on-line, track their status, renew them and have them delivered to their home without needing to step inside the library. They can also ask reference questions online and access reference materials from home.

It is not that I think coming to the library is a bad idea, but this recognizes the fact that many people do not use the library because they do not have the time. When I worked at my previous job (a way more than 40 hrs a week job), I seldom used the library because I could not get there often. I travelled a lot and going to the library took time,I often did not find books that interested me and if I did take something out, I had to worry about whether I would be around when it was due so it was easier to go to the bookstore than go to the library.

For years, I have kept a notebook of books that I wanted to read; the notebook was organized by month so I would know when books were coming out and I kept another couple of pages for books that might be older but had attracted my interest. Now, that I can request books online I seldom use the notebook because I can read about something and add it to my library wish list immediately whether the library is open or not.

I often read articles about the importance of marketing libraries and their services and while I agree that is important it has often seemed to me that these articles focus on getting people into the library, but seldom treat those users who do not come to the library but would still be interested in the services of the library--I think of this as the virtual service population.

This is simply a terrific marketing opportunity--you can use all of the services of the library from home now including getting the items delivered to your home. There have been a number of articles about how libraries should work on creating open spaces and be more like bookstores, but I have always thought that the secret to a successful library is in the service and 24/7 electronic access is a winner.

We recently had a discussion in my class about library blogs and whether they make sense for a library. I think that they do but as part of an electronic presence for the library. Patrons like to come to librarians for suggestions about books, they can come to the blog to get those. I have also seem library blogs featuring things like website of the day which is also useful for your virtual service population and it shows that the library is embracing the electronic world. A library blog part of the electronic strategy of the library and an important component of marketing the new virtual 24/7 library.

Fall Quarter Registration

I am taking two courses this quarter, a Practicum and Public Library Service. Since I work in a public library and will be using that as my practicum site, I thought that pairing these two courses would work well together.

I always register early on the first day available to me and usually get the courses that I want. However, this morning there was a problem. I registered and got a strange error message but thought that the registration might have gone through, but no luck. I tried several times again with the same result. I sent email to my advisor and she registered me in the class so all is well.

I have looked at the syllabus for Public Library Service and it looks good. I have a lot of questions about funding and administration and it looks like we will address those topics in the class.

This will be the first time that I have taken two courses at a time. I have not been in a hurry to finish and there are plenty of things that I like to do outside of work and school and taking only one class made that possible. However, I am getting closer to finishing and want to accelerate the process. I suspect that I will spend about the same amount of time on school that I do now, but I will just need to allocate that time over two courses rather than focusing so hard on only one.

Rediscovering Gems: Random Family

Family sagas are popular and here is the twist with this one--it is a family saga and it is real. Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc was written after 10 years of studying a Bronx family. It centers on two young women, Jessica and Coco and follows them as they fall in love, get pregnant and start families. Jessica falls in love with a drug dealer and spends years in prison and to get away from the neighborhood and start fresh, Coco takes her family to Troy, NY.

LeBlanc does not preach or use statistics to make her case--she simply presents these lives as they happen. The women assume their own dignity but for many readers their lives will seem more like fiction than most novels because the women's experiences are so different from the lives of many readers and yet, they started off with many of the same dreams.

While there is much sadness in this book, LeBlanc's depiction of the family and their lives is engrossing, touching and well done. I started out wondering how she researched it but quickly fell into the story of their lives.

Who would like it: People who like family sagas, but more realistic ones. People who are interested in sociology and city life.