Brian Mathews, the Ubiquitous Librarian, had a very interesting post today, about Library pride and Library spirit. I find Brian's take on the User experience in libraries to be spot on, even though we work in different library realms - his academic environment vs. mine in public libraries.
He was talking about what he wants to accomplish by engaging his students and what his marketing and outreach efforts are really about - generating a brand and inspiring a sense of pride in the library. (And I have to admit that his reference to college football and bowl season resonated with me, avid football fan that I am.)
In many ways, that is what I want for the Huntington Beach Public Library too. I want everyone in our community to be proud of their library - proud that they live in this amazing place, with a fabulous library.
So how do you generate library spirit? How do you generate pride? These are some very interesting questions to ponder as we look ahead into the new year.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Holidays, Ebooks and Google Books
The Holiday season is here, and I feel like I am suffering from a strange form of attention deficit disorder. My thoughts and energy are all over the place, as I am sure it is with most people. So I apologize for any strange tangents or jumps of subject matter in this post.
This holiday season, I expected that there would be a lot of buzz and talk about Ebooks and Ebook readers, and there is. As you know, I have a Kindle and I do take it with me out in the community - it is often my reading choice for lunch time. This is garnering more and more interest - it used to be that I'd get odd looks and the occasional "Excuse me" inquiry. Now, it is an attention magnet. People come up (sometimes more than 1 or 2) and immediately ask how I like it, what I think about it, etc. And like Kathy Gould, the Director at the Palos Verdes Library, I am asked what do I think about Ebooks and is the book going away?
I have developed a kind of standard response - I like my Kindle, especially for travel, where it is much easier carrying the one device that gives me access to a bookstore anywhere I am, that I think there are still things that can be improved with the reading experience and that sometimes I still like the feel of a real hardback. And how I don't think paper books are going away anytime soon.
Since interest is growing, I thought it would be important for all of my staff to know more about the hot new reading devices, so we've done a couple of mini "crash courses" on the iPad and the Kindle. This gives our staff the opportunity to look at the devices, learn the basics and ask questions about the gadgets - so they can answer more questions from the public.
Just to make things more interesting, Google Books opened this week. Google has scanned LOTS of titles and you can now buy this e-content for a variety of devices. Google's bookstore is different than Amazon and iTunes, and they are actually working with Independent booksellers, like Powells Books of Portland OR. So it is another interesting addition to the whole Ereader/Ebook landscape.
Still no discernible library model out there - though I did read about an idea for "ungluing" ebooks and creating a kind of open ebook collection at the Go to Hellman blog. The more I think about the idea of "unglueing" digital content, the more I like it. Sooo... how do we get this started?
This holiday season, I expected that there would be a lot of buzz and talk about Ebooks and Ebook readers, and there is. As you know, I have a Kindle and I do take it with me out in the community - it is often my reading choice for lunch time. This is garnering more and more interest - it used to be that I'd get odd looks and the occasional "Excuse me" inquiry. Now, it is an attention magnet. People come up (sometimes more than 1 or 2) and immediately ask how I like it, what I think about it, etc. And like Kathy Gould, the Director at the Palos Verdes Library, I am asked what do I think about Ebooks and is the book going away?
I have developed a kind of standard response - I like my Kindle, especially for travel, where it is much easier carrying the one device that gives me access to a bookstore anywhere I am, that I think there are still things that can be improved with the reading experience and that sometimes I still like the feel of a real hardback. And how I don't think paper books are going away anytime soon.
Since interest is growing, I thought it would be important for all of my staff to know more about the hot new reading devices, so we've done a couple of mini "crash courses" on the iPad and the Kindle. This gives our staff the opportunity to look at the devices, learn the basics and ask questions about the gadgets - so they can answer more questions from the public.
Just to make things more interesting, Google Books opened this week. Google has scanned LOTS of titles and you can now buy this e-content for a variety of devices. Google's bookstore is different than Amazon and iTunes, and they are actually working with Independent booksellers, like Powells Books of Portland OR. So it is another interesting addition to the whole Ereader/Ebook landscape.
Still no discernible library model out there - though I did read about an idea for "ungluing" ebooks and creating a kind of open ebook collection at the Go to Hellman blog. The more I think about the idea of "unglueing" digital content, the more I like it. Sooo... how do we get this started?
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