Library Goes to the Amish

Amish?  Nah.

One of the more interesting things about the new LaGrange County Library in northern Indiana is the all Amish Furniture.  The solid wood furniture was made and sold by Weaver Furniture Sales, an Amish business since 1989.  Is this odd?  Well, hell yeah it's odd, especially if you have a sheltered view of the Amish like I do.

The Amish are supposed to be all back-to-the-pilgrims, ignorant and innocent of our strange mechanical and electrical ways.  Why the hell do they know what computer desks are for?  Have you seen their website?  There's poker tables and CD trays in there.  What the hell, Amish people?  You make good furniture, but I held you to higher standards than that.  This is gorgeous furniture, but man, I don't need that kind of culture shock!  And why the hell is there a website?!

benzinga

Stealing, Losing Money and Outsourcing: This Week in Library Stuff

A former Yonkers library worker has plead not guilty to stealing over $160,000.  As part of the library's business office, Margret Reed had ample opportunity to allegedly steal the missing money and alter records, so claims the prosecution.  So, let me get this straight... you get away with $26ishK a year of library money and you keep doing it for 6 years cause you're so cool?  What the hell, lady?  I could see if you had a sick cat or something, but you don't.  You are just a messed up fraud that needs a mommy.  LoHud

A cafe in the Laramie County Library of Cheyenne, Wyoming has lost about $43K in the last fiscal year.  The cafe space was once operated by an outside company until they were evicted from the library space for late rent.  Since then, the library has been staffing the cafe.  And how.  I did a lot of restaurant work.  Many library skills apply: attention to detail, ability to make coffee, good with inventory.  Where do librarians almost always suck: money.  Seriously, there's usually only one person in the building that can count down a drawer and they do it with a giant calculator.  The kind with a slot machine arm.  WyomingNews

Well, the ALA has reared its head and talked a little about "privatization," ACBKA (also could be known as) "outsourcing."  In a document called Keep Libraries Public, the ALA points out that outsourcing is not privatization and libraries should keep it all in the family except when they don't have to.  I think Michael Corleone thought that, too.  Just like the people we talked about with the cafe, there are some things that libraries should not do.  Hell, I think I would give my right arm to have Kinko's come in and take over the labs and copies.  I would love to see that.  Meet Bob, he's a Kinko's dude, is better trained and better paid than 90% of our paraprofessionals.  Call him if you need help navigating the strange land of The Google.  They could probably write that off on their taxes.  LibraryJournal

Apple Sued Over eBook Pricing and Kindle Gets Advertising

The face of evil.

Apple and five publishing companies have been hit with a class action lawsuit by the firm Hagens Berman over ebook price fixing.  The lawsuit claims that Apple, HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. conspired to illegally fix prices of ebooks and shut down the competition created by Amazon's lower priced ebooks.

Anybody feel like this is just a big advertisement for Kindles?  Oh, Kindle ebooks are so cheap that the big boys had bring us down.  Why can't we all be friends?  Those big meanies are trying to stop us from giving you the best prices around.  So cheap in fact that we feel crazy.  We must be crazy.  We are giving the site away!  So come on down to Crazy Larry's Amazon eBookland and we'll have us a good old time.

Also, you know the folks over at Google Books are loving this.  Their main completion are having a slap fight while they just put out their first eReader. Of course, they could feel left out.  This is the first major ebook court battle that they have not been apart of.

AppleInsider
ZDNet
DetNews
Wired

Newspaper Company Developing Electronic Newspaper Tablet, or eFail

Pictured: Not Real Paper

Newspaper giant Tribune Co. is developing a tablet device dedicated to reading newspapers.  The company owns some of the largest newspapers in the nation, including the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, and the Delaware WhyTheHellAmIinDelaware, all of which would like to stay in business and not become crunched underfoot by the slowly rolling electronic behemoth that is the Internet. 


In the news article I read online on my phone, a person familiar with the matter had this to say:  "They're having to reinvent many wheels... If it turns out to be a failure, it'll be a fantastically interesting failure."


Well, that sounds optimistic as hell.

Blog Bash 2011: I'm Reaching Out!

This post is for the Blog Bash 2011, a great idea from www.brittanyciara.com and littlemisshannie.blogspot.com to introduce blogs to each other.  Click on them for the rules.  Let's make a community.  Here's my intro: 

doo do doo do doo do doo do doo do doo

You open this door with the hand of 'magination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of books, a dimension of DVDs, a dimension of Innernetz. You're moving into a library of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas that are often wrong.

You've just crossed over into the Banned Library.

The Banned Library is a place for comedy, news and reviews about libraries, technology, and stuff we are interested in.  The point of the blog is to make people laugh, maybe think a bit.  Too many librarians I have met are funny and interesting people that paradoxily treat the profession way too seriously.  This blog is my way of poking fun at something I love, a world of information and people that are dedicated and fun.  As the world changes, the electronic takes over with the likes of clouds and The Google, I also want to document my experiences.  So that is what the Banned Library is.  If I did not care about my profession, I would not make fun of it.

The questions and answers for the Blog Bash 2011 Summer Fun are after the jump!

1.) What's your favorite memory from Summer 2011?
ALA 2011 in New Orleans was probably the most fun I have had as a librarian.  Meeting and sharing ideas, technologies and drinks with my fellow library folks is a precious gift.  And, man, those folks can party.

2.) What's your dream summer vacation?
A porch somewhere in the mountains where they serve cold beer, thick, medium-rare burgers, and steak fries.  In front of me is a stack of books and a broken cell phone.  At night thunderstorms boom and shake while I sit and write.  At some point I slow dance with the most beautiful girl in the world.

3.) What's your favorite thing to do in the summer?
My favorite thing to do in the summer is to sit outside under a ceiling fan, eat a burger, drink a beer and read.  See #2.  I am pretty simple.

4.) What's your "blog goal" for 2011?
My blog goal for 2011 is to make people laugh and see the lighter side of the profession.  I have a couple of projects (including a certain 100 books project that I have procrasinated on) that I would like to finish but my ultimate goal is to put a smile on some public servants face.  I would also like to get some more contributers for the site to get some more perspectives on the profession. And maybe make a lot of money.

5.) Let's hear the story behind your blog title! :)
The blog really started as a twitter account.  I was hearing things about this whole "twitter" thing a year and a half ago, and thought, "Well, I can do that."  I thought it would be funny to tweet the things my patrons said, changing up the words to make them generic but still true to the ideas and not get me fired.  The first name was called heardatlibrary, and after six months I had about 200 followers. 
This made me worry because there is an institution already called the Heard Library at Vanderbuilt University, and I could bet they had a few lawyers that might stop me if this took off.  So, I rebranded as Banned Library because I really liked the name, could get the web address, and it was Banned Books Week.  The name fit with the little essays and information I started putting out on the blog and I came up with a fun logo.  To make a long story short, I made it up and used it before someone else did.

That's what I am all about. Here's some of the most loved viewed posts from the site

 5 Reasons Libraries Should Not Use Ebooks... Yet.
How to Get Banned From a Library
7 Reasons Porn Should Be Allowed in the Library
The Public Library Vs Netflix: DVD Battle Royal
Twitter: Celebrity Endorsed #BPLRAMPAGE #WINNING

Archivist Has Not Learned of TV Show Hoarders; Tries to Collect Every Book

In a move that would make the Library of Congress blush, archivist Brewster Kahle is attempting to collect a copy of every book in print.  Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, has collected about 500,000 books so far.
Dude, think about this.  Alexandria burned.  The Library of Congress went crazy and decided to collect Twitter, of all things.  Sean Connery and Chrisian Slater had to fight evil monks.  Hoarding books like this cannot end well, trust me.  All you are going to end up with is a warehouse full of crates of books that we will have to play campfire with when the robots take over after the greenhouse effect turns half of us into zombies. 

Heyyyyy... maybe you are on to something, Kahle ole pal...

[courier-journal] has some cool pics of this project, too.

Homeless to Be Turned Away from Bethlehem Public Library, Insert "No Room at the Library" Joke Here

Please, sir.  I can haz Internetz?

The Bethlehem Public Library of Bethlehem, PA has had to revise their policies that allegedly targeted their transient (i.e. homeless) population. The library administration feels the transients have begun to drive away regular patron use.  Local transient advocates feel that the rules, including rules regarding sleeping, having sleeping bags, and having offensive body odor, target the transients the advocates bus to the library and drop off.

There are many ways to be banned from a library.  Simply being homeless is not one of them.  A public library is just that, public.  My heart goes out to anyone in this economy that has lost a roof over their head.  The library is a community place where many often spend all day honestly doing nothing and that is okay.  Whether or not the Bethlehem Public Library went too far and far too specific with their "policies" and should have just handled each incident as it came up is not for me to say. *cough*

The problem with this is not the homeless themselves.  I have a problem with the people that treat adults like children.  Picking anyone up and dropping them off at a public location to spend the day without supervision is the act of a negligent parent, not community outreach.  This is like dropping adults off at the playground and getting pissed when they cannot get on the swings.

The library is a community institution.  It is not a day care for anyone.  It is not a daylight motel.  If other patrons complain about another patron's smell, activities, or general behavior, the library must attend to them.  If you have taken the responsibilty of getting a person of any age from point A to B, then you should also make sure they are bathed, well rested and do not have to carry their whole lives on their backs. 

And for God sakes, if your town is named "Bethlehem," don't get into trouble that lends itself to so many easy jokes I can't pick just one.

[lehighvalleylive]