Library Links of the Day for 11 January 2008

• On being in bed with Google by Paul Courant (Au Courant, 11/4/07) – a response to the criticism of the University of Michigan Libraries collaboration with the Google Book Project. Some of my earlier posts on this topic include Boston Athenaeum Lecture Series: Libraries and Copyright and Library Trick or Treat.
• Pew Internet & American Life Study has prompted numerous responses
  • Breaking news: the Internet is useful, people still use libraries by K.G. Schneider (Free Range Librarian, 12/31/07) – investigative questioning of the report comparing the survey statistics to the sunnier report.
  • Networking with the 20s and 30s (Library Stream, 1/3/08) – as a positive response to the report, suggestions for ways to market the library to people in their 20’s & 30’s (I was going to say Young Adults, but that means something else in library-land).
• Another controversial topic is library book weeding, such as this article in the the December issue of AHA Perspectives by James W. Cortada: Save the Books! and in the Washington Post Hello, Grisham — So Long, Hemingway? by Lisa Reins (1/2/08). It seems to indicate that libraries have not been as effective as we like in pr since Nicholson Baker’s Doublefold was released, and the general public is still under informed about what libraries can and cannot collect. For example, if there’s to be a collection of every computer book ever published just in case, why aren’t the publishers pressured to keep in archive instead of criticizing libraries for not keeping every single book? :
  • But where do we keep the stuff? (Required Field Must Be Left Blank, 1/6/08) – As always for librarians it comes down to the justifying choices based on space and budget allowances: “Maybe Cortado can make a donation to a university that’s long had a strong computer science program – so they can use those funds to process and house these items. I can’t justify keeping much of it where I work.”
  • Does Library Book Weeding Lead To Less Student Reading (The Kept-Up Academic Librarian, 1/7/08) – this actually connects weeding back to the popularity of libraries described by the Pew study.
  • There’s also good discussion of this issue on the January 9 podcast of Uncontrolled Vocabulary, which includes the following great quote:
    • “I kind of think of Interlibrary Loan as facilitating the long tail of libraries.”
• Whaddya do with LibraryThing? (Librarian in Black, 1/3/08) – what do I do with LibraryThing? I started an account ages ago but despite good intentions haven’t done much with it since. Here a some good suggestions for libraries at least.
• Two articles show the financial benefit of libraries:
  • Bookmark this: Libraries circulate $1.1 billion in Hoosier economy by Keith Benman (The Times nwi.com, 1/6/08) via LibVibe – good news, but this is a funny sentence “Now an industry that barely whispers its name is getting into the game.”
  • How Much is a Free Public Library Worth in Cash (LISNews, 1/7/08) – as opposed to the economic impact of libraries for a state, this tool allows individuals to calculate what they would pay for services provided for by the library
• Links du Jour (Random Musings from the Desert, 1/9/08) – not content in making lists of links on my own, here’s a list of another librarian’s library-related links (including one that finishes with the magnificent sentence “I’m an eating, shitting, drinking, fucking, librarian… I’m not proud, I’m real.”