Lyme Public Library Blog

E-books are here!

2011-11-29T15:06:00.004-05:00

Downloadable e-books and audio books are now available from Overdrive. To access the collection, click on the Overdrive button on our web page or go to http://libraryconnection.lib.overdrive.com. There are also Overdrive apps available for iPhone and Android. You may browse the collection without logging in, but you must have a valid Lyme Library card and must log in with your username and pin# to check out and download items. Your username is your library barcode number and your pin# is the number you use to log into your library account. If you do not know your pin #, please contact the library. You will have to download the Overdrive Media Console and Adobe Digital Editions before you download your first item. E-books may be downloaded to computers, Kindles, Nooks, iPads, smart phones, and other e-readers. Audio books may be downloaded to computers, iPods, mp3 players, and smart phones. The Help menu on the Overdrive page contains all the information you need to get started. If you have problems or questions, feel free to contact the library. Happy Reading!

The Future of Public Libraries is Twitter?

2011-08-03T15:38:00.000-04:00

Last night I attended a program at the East Lyme (CT) Public Library about the future of public libraries presented by John and Louise Berry. John Berry is the former editor of Library Journal (now editor-at-large) and his wife Louise is the Executive Director of the Darien (CT) Library, ranked as one of the top 10 public libraries in the country for its size, according to Hennen's American Public Library Rating. Much of the discussion was about familiar topics: the challenges of funding public libraries, which are busier than ever, in the midst of economic chaos, and the uncertainty posed by rapid technological changes. I was pleased to hear Louise mention customer service, reader's advisory, children’s services, community and cultural programming, and the idea of the library as a “Great Good Place”* as keys to the Darien Library’s success, as these are things the Lyme Public Library already strives to provide and will be able to do even more successfully in a planned new building. I was surprised (and delighted), though, to hear Louise say something to the effect that the future of public libraries is Twitter! The Lyme Public Library has had a Twitter account for several years, and I am always telling people how much I love Twitter but am usually greeted with blank stares or the comment that they don’t get it. Louise went on to talk about Twitter as a tool to engage the community, as a great reference source for local, community information, and as a way to encourage and foster reading through ideas such as #fridayreads.** If you’re curious or interested, why not open a Twitter account and follow us at @lymepl. You’ll get all the latest library news as well as links to interesting articles about authors, books, reading, and libraries, and you can find out what everyone is reading on #fridayreads. Give it a try!

This idea comes from the book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and* Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community by Ray Oldenburg. He defines the concept as safe, comfortable community gathering places.

**#fridayreads #FridayReads is a hashtag on Twitter. Every Friday, thousands of people post what they are reading with the FridayReads hashtag (#fridayreads) Find out more by visiting http://fridayreads.com/about/

A Good Thing

2011-05-04T16:15:00.001-04:00

Word came today that funding for Connecticar, (the statewide delivery system that delivers library materials and Interlibrary loan items to libraries around the state) and Connecticard (the program that allows a library user with a valid public library card from his or her hometown library to borrow materials from any public library in Connecticut), has been restored in the budget that was passed late last night and has been sent to the Governor for his signature. The loss of these two programs would have been a crippling blow to library service in our state. Thanks to all at the CT State Library, the Governor's office, the General Assembly, the CT Library Association, library users around the state who voiced their support, and everyone who worked to save these critical programs.

It’s not entirely good news, though. Because of the state’s dire financial situation, funds to maintain Connecticard and Connecticar were taken from other areas of the State Library budget including Grants to Public Libraries and reimbursement to public libraries for serving non-resident patrons. We in the library community know that we have to do our part to help solve the state’s fiscal crisis, and I for one am willing to accept a smaller state grant and lower Connecticard reimbursement to save the Connecticar and Connecticard programs. But it doesn’t change the fact that these cuts will further burden public libraries that are already struggling to meet the increased usage demands caused by the sagging economy.

One of the things I love about the library profession is that it is a cooperative venture not a cutthroat one. I’ve spent 25 years working with colleagues who are always finding ways to do more with less as budgets shrink, who help each other out, boost each others' spirits, and inspire a love of learning and reading. We’ll keep trying to meet the needs of our communities as best we can, and we’ll keep advocating that funding libraries is one of the most efficient and effective ways to benefit society as a whole. In the meantime, state government, the legislature, and the library community all worked together to save Connecticar and Connecticard. And that’s a good thing.

Midnight Cowboy

2011-01-22T13:05:00.002-05:00

Last night I watched Midnight Cowboy for the first time in many years. I wasn't allowed to see it when it was released in 1969. I was only 13, and it was considered scandalous and was issued an X rating by the MPAA.(It seems rather tame by today's standards.) In spite of that, it went on to win the Academy Award as Best Picture. It established the career of Jon Voight and made him a star, and it was Dustin Hoffman's first movie after The Graduate. Today it is considered a groundbreaking film and a classic. The Library's DVD edition includes interviews with the cast and producers. Watch it again or for the first time. The performances by Hoffman and Voight are powerful and moving.

2011-01-08T14:09:00.003-05:00

As recently as last week, I thought I was done with this blog. I never seemed to have time to post (as you can see since the last post was more than 3 years ago!), and it seemed to have been replaced by our Twitter and Facebook pages. But as I learned when we started our Facebook page recently, Facebook limits your posts to about 400 characters. So this blog might still be useful when I want to write something a little longer.

At a meeting of public librarians last week, it became apparent that many of us have a love/hate relationship with many of the technologies we are offering these days, especially eBooks and downloadable audio books. There are many issues that make it really difficult to satisfy our patrons. Availability is a big one. While patrons are willing to put their name on a waiting list for a new print book or book on cd that is in demand, they seem to want the digital version to be available immediately. Yet most companies that offer the services only allow one person at a time to checkout a title. One colleague at the meeting was bemoaning the fact that as she tried to get a patron excited about checking out an eBook, she couldn't find any titles that were available. (One company does offer always available downloadable audio books, but they are mostly older titles and not the latest bestsellers that people want to read now.) The number of people who own eBook readers is increasing rapidly, and most of us can't afford to buy every book we want to read on our Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPad, etc. The demand for free eBooks from the public library is going to keep climbing, and availability will become even more of an issue if the single user system remains the norm.

Another big issue is compatibility. Because of Digital Rights Management, many downloadable audio books are not compatible with iPods, and they only work on certain models of mp3 players. We get lots of calls from patrons who have downloaded audio books and can't get them to play. With eBooks, the publishing industry hasn't completely come to terms with the technology yet so some publishers will not publish their titles in digital format. Amazon will not allow it's titles to be downloaded to any device except its own Kindle unless it is through their own Kindle app, and eBooks downloaded in .pdf format do not display well on some devices. Some libraries are buying eBook readers and lending them out. But deciding how that will work is also difficult. Do we buy the eBooks that the patrons request when they check the devices out, or do we preload them with titles selected by the library staff?

It's going to take some time to resolve all these issues, and most libraries are struggling just to keep our eBook and downloadable audio book collections going while our budgets are shrinking. Here at the Lyme Library, we offer downloadable audio books and are hoping to offer eBooks sometime this year. Much depends on whether the funding is available. In the meantime, we'd like to hear from our patrons. Do you prefer eBooks or audio books? What do you like best about them and what frustrates you? What percentage of your reading is done by audio or an electronic device? The answers will help us determine which programs our patrons will use and benefit from the most.

Confessions of an Audio Book Addict

2007-11-10T18:25:00.000-05:00

In my first blog post last year, I said I couldn’t make any promises as to how often I would post to this blog, but even I didn’t think it would be sixteen months between posts! I’ll try to do better.

A few months ago, there was an article in the New York Times titled Your Cheatin’ Listenin’ Ways.* The article discussed how many book club members across the country were criticized by other book club members and accused of “cheating” because they listened to their book club titles instead of reading them. The Lyme Public Library has a book club, and I confess that I listen to most of the titles we discuss. Unabridged audio books are word for word exactly the same as the print versions, and I fail to see how this is “cheating” or taking the easy way out. Since I can barely get through ten pages of a book before falling asleep when I’m reading in bed at night, if I didn’t listen to the books, I doubt I’d finish any of them on time. But I was curious as to how our book club members felt about it, so I brought it up at our first meeting after our summer break. I already knew that at least one other member of the group listened to some of the titles on tape or cd, and a few others admitted to doing so occasionally. None of the group members seemed to have any real objections to the practice.

I was a late convert to audio books. I had tried listening to some when they first became popular, but I couldn’t seem to keep my attention focused on them, so I gave up. Quite a few years later, we received All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg as part of our quarterly selection from the regional audio book cooperative. I had heard a critic from the Los Angeles Times characterize it as an American Angela’s Ashes. I wanted to read it but never seemed to find the time. So when it came in as an audio book, I decided to give listening another try. Whether it was the book itself, which is wonderful, or the narrator (Frank Muller), I was entranced. I could have listened forever, and ever since, I have been hooked on audio books. The audio version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince helped me survive a hellish train ride to Chicago and back several years ago. The actor Jim Dale narrates all of the Harry Potter audio books, and he does a marvelous job voicing all the different characters. There are as many or more adults who request the HP book on audio from our library as there are children.

My favorite audio book that I’ve listened to recently is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. I am not a cook or a gardener. Actually, I dislike both of those activities, but Kingsolver’s account of her family’s move from Arizona to a farm in rural Appalachia is funny, touching and informative without being preachy. Her family decided for one year to consume only food that either they produced or was produced locally. She is not a vegetarian, and she does not expect other people to make the same decision her family made, but her story does illustrate how food we produce can enrich our lives and how corporations’ power to control not only the quality of food that is available to us, but what kinds of foods are available to us can diminish them. I wish everyone would read it.

So, if you don’t have enough time to read, try an audio book. You can listen while you drive, exercise, cook, clean or rest. I also invite you to try out the Lyme Library Book Club. We meet on the second Thursday of the month at 7 P.M. You can come to all our meetings or just a few. This spring we will have three local authors joining us. Lyme resident James Benn will join us on February 14 to talk about his book The First Wave. Lyme resident Susan Cole, who works with Wally Lamb and the inmates in the writers’ program at the York Correctional Facility in Niantic, is a contributor to their new book I’ll Fly Away and will speak about it on April 10, and East Haddam resident Bruce McGhie will join us on May 8 to discuss his book Ascent. Our whole book club schedule is available at our web site http://www.lymepl.org/. Copies of the books are available at the library 3-4 weeks before each meeting, and if you decide to listen instead of read, I promise we won’t frown on it!

*Andrew Adam Newman "Your Cheatin' Listenin' Ways." New York Times, August 2, 2007, Late Edition (east Coast), http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed November 10, 2007).

The Connecticut Four

2006-07-06T13:05:00.000-04:00

My first job interview out of library school was for the position of Children’s Librarian at the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library. The Library Director at PGN at that time was Peter Chase. Peter eventually moved on and is currently the Director of the Plainville Public Library. He has been on my mind frequently of late because as you may have seen in the news media, he is also a member of the Connecticut Four. He became a member of this elite club by doing what many librarians do – volunteering his time as an officer of a non-profit library consortium. What he got for his trouble (along with two other officers and the Executive Director of the consortium called Library Connections, Inc.) was a visit from the FBI, a National Security Letter demanding confidential records about library users, and a gag order prohibiting him from telling anyone about it – his staff, board members, the media, friends, family, even his spouse – EVER!

The prospect of being visited by federal agents or other law enforcement officials who demand that you violate the fundamental and most basic tenets of your profession or else risk imprisonment is enough to make a person shake in his or her boots, and librarians I know who have received such visits freely admit to doing just that. I imagine that the Connecticut Four were shaking in their boots as well, but not only did they refuse to turn the records over to the FBI, they contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and filed suit in Federal Court to challenge the gag order.

Librarians are just as eager to stop terrorism as everyone else, and libraries have surrendered confidential records in the past when presented with court ordered warrants and subpoenas that were obtained by providing the required evidence of criminal activity. The provision of the USA Patriot Act that authorizes the expanded use of National Security Letters and imposes a gag order is troublesome because no judicial oversight or court order is required. Federal agents do not have to prove to a court that there is evidence of criminal activity. They can conduct fishing expeditions into citizens’ private lives without cause and for no other reason than that they might get lucky and find something all the while requiring that their investigation be kept secret. It is not only librarians and the ACLU who find this unacceptable. Many states, cities and towns across the country, including Lyme, have passed resolutions opposing any provisions of the Patriot Act or Homeland Security Act that violate citizens’ civil rights. Included in the Resolution passed at the Lyme Annual Town meeting on May 27, 2005 are concerns about “expansion of authority to conduct unregulated electronic surveillance of lawful activities” and “expanded information gathering about persons without any demonstrated evidence of criminal behavior and without court order.” It also states that “the privacy rights and intellectual freedoms of its residents are affirmed and librarians, booksellers and other communications dealers are supported in protecting those rights.”

The Connecticut Four and the ACLU were successful in having the gag order overturned in Federal Court although not in time to allow them to speak publicly on the reauthorization of portions of the Patriot Act. Last week, the FBI rescinded its demand for the confidential records from Library Connections, Inc. Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most revered founding fathers once wrote: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” The Connecticut Four were not willing to sacrifice that liberty for themselves or for the rest of us, and for that they have my admiration, respect and gratitude.

Holy Wi-Fi, Batman! The Lyme Public Library has a blog!

2006-06-16T21:57:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Lyme Public Library Blog! Thanks to continuing education workshops sponsored by organizations such as the Connecticut State Library, the Connecticut Library Consortium, and the Connecticut Library Association, we dinosaurs who went to library school before the computer revolution can keep up with new technologies. The particular workshop that taught me how to set up this blog was called “Getting the 411 on New Technologies: Blogs, Wikis, Mobile Devices and more.”

The purpose of this blog is to keep the community informed of library services, programs, and events, and occasionally to comment on issues that affect this library or libraries in general. Despite disseminating information in our print newsletter, our web site, print and online media outlets, flyers, etc., there always seem to be people who say they didn’t see it, so this is one more tool we can use to try to get the word out, albeit in a more casual way. In addition, if you have any questions about the library or topics you’d like to see addressed in this blog, email us at lplblog@gmail.com. I can’t make any promises as to how often I will post to the blog. Despite my good intentions, I have a feeling it won’t be as often as I’d like, but I hope you’ll check in periodically to see what’s happening at the library. Again, welcome, and thanks for reading.