Between a Book and a Hard Place

Finished January 5

Between a Book and a Hard Place by Denise Swanson

This is part of a series of books set in the small town of Shadow Bend, Missouri. The main character, Devereaux (Dev) Sinclair runs the local five-and-dime store, which also has a soda fountain. She moved back to town for family reasons leaving a career in the investment industry. When Dev was sixteen, her father Kern went to jail (for a crime he didn't commit) and her mother Yvette left town, dropping Dev at her paternal grandmother' Birdies house as she left. 

Now Dev's dad works at her store and both of them live with Birdie. Dev has a few close friends: Poppy who runs a local nightclub called Gossip Club, and who is estranged from her own father, the local police chief; Ronni, who owns the local bed and breakfast; and Boone, who is on the town council and hopes to find funding to reopen the local library.

Dev also has a couple of boyfriends, and is struggling to choose between them. One is Noah, a local doctor who was her high school boyfriend, but who dumped her when they both went off to college. The other is Jake, a former US-marshall, who now lives on a neighbouring farm, helping out his aging uncle. 

Now Yvette is back in town with her latest husband Jett, it looks like the local library will be getting funding, and a strange professor claims to see lights from UFOs in the local area. But when Jett turns up dead, Dev must not only protect her family by finding out who the killer was, but also take on other local issues. 

A light read with a lot of side plots that will likely lead to more possibilities for future books in the series. 

The Book Collectors

Finished October 16

The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War by Delphine Minoui, translated by Lara Vergnaud

The author, Delphine Minoui, is a journalist who has covered the Middle East, and lives in Istanbul. She also directed a documentary on the same subject as this book. During her work, she heard about a group who had created a library from books they found in the rubble of their town, Daraya. Daraya is a town outside of Damascus which fell under a siege in 2012 and became cut off from the outside world for four years. 

The young men who found the first batch of books and began actively collecting them in one place, where they built shelving and provided studying, reading, and meeting space, had a collection of fifteen thousand books within a month of their start. The collection had range, from poetry to plays, history to science. 

First Minoui tracked down one of the library's founders, Ahmad Muaddamani, twenty-three, who was studying civil engineering before the war. He told her the story of the library, but also the story of this small community, its history of discourse and democracy, the effects of the siege, and the others who supported and used the library. Residents from children through seniors visited and borrowed material, and they even arranged Skype lectures from a variety of speakers. Other men that she spoke to were Omar Abu Anas, a soldier in the Free Syrian Army, who kept a small collection of books protected by sandbags at the front lines; Shadi Matar, who joined the media center of the town and documented the war through photographs; Hussam Ayash, who launched a small local magazine during the siege; Abu Malek Al-Shami, who painted graffiti and murals on the ruins to keep spirits up; Abu el-Ezz, another co-founder of the library; and Ustez, a slightly older man who served as a mentor for the others.

As Monoui tracks the ongoing siege, she also documents the types of attacks they endured, including barrel bombs, sarin gas, and napalm. 

With limited access to internet, most of the communication was through media such as Whats App, with reliance on short messages, and video. 

A book that brings this group of men to life and highlights the situation that they lived in during this difficult time. She also includes a list of the most popular books in the collection and ones mentioned in her conversations with the men. 

The Paris Librarian

Finished October 7

The Paris Librarian by Mark Pryor

Having recently read The Paris Library, and noticing this on one of my shelves, I pulled it out. This story is also set around the American Library in Paris, but in the modern day. It is part of a mystery series featuring Hugo Marston, the head of security for the American embassy in Paris. His roommate Tom is in the FBI, and they are both single.

One acquaintance of Hugo's is Paul Rogers, the director of the American Library.  Hugo has a friend whose friend is doing research on an aging actress who is said to have been active in espionage during World War II, and the American Library has recently obtained her papers. Paul is working on a novel and Hugo arranges to meet with his late one morning to discuss both, but he finds Paul in a locked room in the basement, dead. It seems like a natural death, but something about it bothers Hugo. 

When another death happens soon after, more questions arise.

Hugo has a contact in the French police and brings her into the case early, before it is even established that a crime has occurred and that helps them gather information that otherwise might have been lost. 

One aspect of this case that intrigues Hugo is a death in the past, long before, that has an interesting connection to Paul. 

I enjoyed the character of Hugo, with both his professional knowledge and instincts and his personal life. The various staff at the American Library are minor characters here, but still somewhat interesting. The library is in many ways just a backdrop for the larger story. 

The Paris Library

Finished October 5

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

This novel has two timelines, one in Paris starting in 1939 and going until 1944 and the other in small town Montana starting in 1983 and going until 1989. The link between the two is Odile, a French woman who married an American just after the war and settled in the town, Froid, in Montana. 

In Paris, Odile is interviewed and gets a job at the American Library, a place she is in awe of and has aimed to work at for years. We see Odile as well as the other staff at the library over this time period, getting to know the situations and some of the personalities.

Odile's father is a high-ranking police officer who doesn't understand Odile's need for a career and just wants to see her happily married, bringing home junior officers to Sunday dinner to try to make a match. Odile's twin brother Remy is interested in politics and trying to change the world. 

Odile makes friends with her coworkers as well as some of the regular staff, including a lonely wife of an American diplomat who becomes a volunteer at the library.

Odile is young and impulsive and at times her actions end in regret. We see how one of these actions compelled her to make her choice of an American husband and run from her life in Paris.

In the modern day story, teenage Lily is close to her mother Brenda, and finds herself unmoored when Brenda becomes ill. Lily has long been fascinated by Odile, a woman who has never really fit in in their town, and has recently called on her to find out more about her and Paris, using a school assignment as leverage. With Brenda's illness, Lily spends more time at her neighbour Odile's house and even begins to learn French from her. As we see Lily go through her high school years, dealing with the changes that happen in her family and the normal angst of growing up, we see how Odile is a positive influence in her life, guiding her in a way to learn from and avoid some of the mistakes that Odile herself made in her youth. 

This story is a sad one, although it has many joyful moments. Odile's choice to run from her life, cutting off all ties is one that to me is heart-wrenching, both for her and for those she left behind whose stories after that we don't know much of at all. There is so much they won't have understood about her never returning, and it seems like they may not have tried which is even sadder.

Lily's story is more hopeful, despite her own losses, partly because of Odile's influence in her life. 

This was an interesting story which compelled me and made me reflect. 

The Widening Stain

Finished June 16 

The Widening Stain by W. Bolingbroke Johnson

This novel has a very interesting backstory. First published in 1942, the novel takes a humorous stance on academia and librarianship. It was published under a pseudonym that was never officially revealed, but gradually became known as the only work of fiction by Cornell historian and literature professor, and New Yorker regular Morris Gilbert Bishop. The closest he came to acknowledging it was in a limerick. 

The introduction to this new edition, by Nicholas A. Basbanes gives us this background with all its fun and intrigue. Bishop was a well-respected academic with a large body of professional publications and fluency in at least five languages. Much of his work was in the area of Romance languages or history of the Middle Ages. This novel exposes his more whimsical side, and also shows another of his whimsical expressions, that of limerick writing. In The Widening Stain, Professor Parry takes on this skill with limericks. Bishop thought that the serious analysis of poetry and the serious poets had taken away from the enjoyment of the format by the average reader. He celebrated those who wrote "light verse." Bishop never commented publicly on what led him to write this tongue-in-cheek novel. 

The library described in these pages matches that of the Uris Library at Cornell 

The first death in the novel is thought at first to be an accident, but not everyone is convinced, and librarian and chief cataloguer Gilda Gorham is one of the questioners. The second death makes it clear that the first wasn't accidental. 

The Wilmerding Library has recently acquired a new head librarian, Dr. William Sandys. Other players here include several professors, including a number of bachelor professors who lived in a set of apartments on the upper floors of the Faculty Club. These include Assistant Professor Angelo Casti of the Romance Language Department, a young man who seems intent on borrowing a manuscript even though he has a copy of the microfilm; Professor Belknap of History, a tall dour man who often bought books at auction and donated them to the library; Professor Hyett of the Classics Department, an older man who often engages in patter with the young librarians; and Professor Parry of Dramatics who makes suggestive comments and creates limericks for all occasions. Other key characters here are Assistant Professor of French Lucie Coindreau, a young attractive woman with a tendency towards sulkiness and an interest in the art of divining; and the well-travelled and observant janitor Cameron. 

Just after the President's reception Miss Gorham comes upon the first body and soon after she begins making lists and thinking about who and why the victim would be murdered. 

This was a fun read, with lots of humour, and I really enjoyed Gilda, the main character and amateur sleuth. 

The Library Bus

Finished November 30
The Library Bus by Bahram Rahman, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

This picture book was written by a Canadian who immigrated here from Afghanistan and was inspired to document the struggle for education faced by not only the women in his family, but for thousands of others. 

The main character here is a young girl, Pari, who helps her mother run a library bus that operates in and near the city of Kabul in Afghanistan, and focuses on the literacy of young girls. We see Pari going with her mother on one day. Their first stop is a small village where the girls are eager to learn and exchange their books. Pari's mother does a storytime during the stop as well. They then move on to a refugee camp where Pari is delegated to hand out notebooks and pencils to those that need them while her mother helps them with books before a storytime. Pari notices the outward difference in the girls clothing and surroundings, but finds them all eager to learn. She is glad she is able to help her mother in this task and looks forward to being able to attend school herself and expand her learning. Her mother explains that the girls they served don't have access to schools, so this library bus is one of the only educational resources available to them. 

The book ends with a note from the author and a brief side note on refugee camps.

The illustrations were lovely, with the girls seen as individuals and the eagerness clearly portrayed. I loved the colours used here as well. And, of course, how could I not love a book about libraries and their importance.

The Library of Lost and Found

Finished April 17
The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

The main character here is Martha Storm, a library volunteer, single woman in her early 50s living in a small English seaside town. Martha was a bit of a rebellious child, not always giving in to her father's domineering ways, as her mother too often did. She felt that her father loved her younger sister Lilian better, Martha looked after her parents until they passed on, and has been a helpful person in her community most of her life. She volunteers to do things for a wide variety of people from the local schoolteacher, to business owners to her own sister, but never feels fulfilled by her own life. Several times she has applied for a job at the library she volunteers at, but even though the library manager Clive has her planning events, doing tours, ordering material, and manning the service desk, he always seems to have an excuse not to actually hire her. Martha gets on well with the staff at the library, particularly the newest library assistant Suki. Her sister Lilian has two children, and she is often called upon to mind them when Lilian has plans. One person that Martha still grieves for is her grandmother who died suddenly when she was just a child. Martha hadn't even been allowed to go to the funeral.
When she finds a book left at the library door for her, Martha is confused. The book is not new, but damaged, but it is dedicated to her and seems to be written by her grandmother, but the publication date is after her grandmother's death. As Martha takes the first steps toward her own independence and makes decisions in her life, she finds that there are things about her own past she didn't know, and things about her future she must make choices about.
An interesting read.

BiblioTech

Finished September 16
BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google by John Palfrey

Unlike most books looking at the role of libraries, this book is written by someone not trained as a librarian, but who has come into the library world through work. Palfrey is the Head of School at Phillips Academy in Andover, and led the effort to reorganize the Harvard Law School Library. He is also the founding chairman of the Digital Public Library of America.
While Palfrey acknowledges the world of information we now live in, he makes good arguments for the library being more important than ever before.
He looks at libraries in their role as equalizing access to information, education, jobs, and technology. The library is a safe place, one of the few where people from many walks of life come together. He also acknowledges the threats to libraries, the struggle to adapt to rapid change, lack of funding, and lower government support. The book is divided into themed chapters, each looking at a different aspect of libraries and using examples to make the point.
The first chapter, crisis, outlines the situation and the threats facing libraries. The second chapter looks at who uses libraries and how they use libraries. The next chapter looks at the spaces that libraries occupy and offer, both physical and virtual. The fourth addresses platforms and how the move to the cloud impacts libraries.
Then we move to those libraries trying something different, in a chapter titles Hacking Libraries. There are many forward-looking librarians moving their libraries into new and interesting territory. The following chapter looks at the human network of librarians, a sharing community like few others. Then the topic is preservation, with a focus on preserving culture. Following this is a chapter on the important role libraries play in education. Finishing up the topics is a chapter on law and libraries, looking at copyright and privacy in particular.
He concludes with a chapter emphasizing the importance of libraries and what we stand to lose if they don't adapt to meet the needs of their communities. As yet another well written book on the importance of moving to a community-led model, this outlines many important aspects to consider for those libraries serious about planning their futures.

Better Library and Learning Space

Finished May 30
Better Library and Learning Space: Projects, Trends, and Ideas edited by Les Watson

This book has contributions from 25 authors including Watson and covers public, academic, and school libraries. While the focus is on space, not services, several contributors touch on service issues. Part 1 looks at projects and trends with chapters focusing on libraries in the UK, US, China, Hong Kong, Europe, and Australasia. UK trends included open plans, technology-rich environments and increased opportunities for self-help. US case studies focused on renovations to older buildings, and trends included the need for flexible space, technology storage, modular furniture, connectivity and power sources, adjustable lighting, and security systems. The Chinese case studies discussed the different cultural history, and the gradual movement away from a book focussed environment. In Hong Kong the focus was the move towards outcome-based curriculum, technology, and interactive spaces. In Europe, libraries in the Netherlands and Germany were looked at, with strong conceptual designs as the focus. In Australia, the case studies included both urban and remote libraries and focused on social cohesion and gathering spaces, the relationship to the environment and technology, and the acknowledge of indigenous cultural.
Part 2 is a focused look at trends. The first chapter here looked at technology and change and asked the interesting question "What is the next form of technology that is the library?" a twist from the traditional way of thinking about technology and libraries. Topics included BYOD, big data, and robots as well as the move from technology in operational needs to technology in terms of user needs. The second chapter looked at digital and media literacy and discussed a participatory culture of learning. Chapter three looked at issues around library spaces. A survey reported that the top space issues were HVAC issues and noise. There was a nice quote from John Ruskin here "We seek two things of our buildings. We want them to shelter us. And we want them to speak to us." leading to a discussion on the need for areas of silence and solitude as well as areas for communal and collaborative activity. Noted here were the use of colour and graphics in addition to book stacks and furniture to define spaces. In discussing the now common reference to libraries as a third space, they noted that this is a combination of first and second places in creating a space of work, leisure, and learning with the feeling of home. The final chapter in this section looked at using a combination of rational and intuitive decision-making when designing spaces, consulting as widely as possible, and building for the future rather than the past. Mentioned here is a PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) which was new to me. They suggested doing "day in the life" analyses for each type of user and staff member to show how they used new features. They also advocated for using temporary solutions as experiments. I was happy to see that we'd done a lot of these things at my library as we took new looks at our space and how to use it.
Part 3 is a collection of essays on different views of the future library. I found this section a real mix with some very academic writing and some more approachable. There were many different ideas raised here. One spoke of activity-led space usability approaches with a connection to library's USP (unique service proposition. They defined this USP as build and curate collections and disclose objects in those collections to people in support of public policy, specifically to disclose knowledge to users to enable learning in its many forms. Their view was that everything libraries do should derive from this. One writer brought up the issue of dynamic conservatism, the fight to remain the same and how it can slow change in libraries. Public service has seen move evolutionary change than revolutionary change, and this issue was illuminated with a 1980 quote from Peter Drucker "The greatest danger in times of turbulence, is not the turbulence, it is to act with yesterday's logic." Another writer looked as some examples from the Netherlands to show how architecture and community worked to connect with books in different ways at the Amsterdam Public Library and through the Architecture of Public Knowledge initiative. Another writer looked at the concept of P21 (Partners for 21st Century Skills) with a focus on information and media literacy, taking image as a starting place and using mashups and creative partnerships to move in a new direction. I liked the Steelcase scape table here. They did note that you need to be careful not to repackage analog associations in a digital form. Another view was that of the transformation from a 2D age to a 3D age. In 2D, the textbook is at the center with creativity curtailed by books, guidelines, and curricula like a giant human copier without passion. A 3D age has people learning from each other, bringing passionate talent with access to information. This age is about lifelong learning as an integral part of life. Other views included reconfigurable spaces to serve a multiplicity of functions, varied spaces, collaborative and social spaces, the importance of observational research, the concept of community, and acknowledgement of sightlines and circulation routes. Of prime importance was customers' interaction with staff, minimizing the front of house to eliminate old style fortress desks and move to integrated help points. Flexibility seems to be a common theme from space to furniture to displays.
I found the book had lots of interesting ideas that will lend themselves to any library space project.

Putting the User First

Finished January 6
Putting the User First: 30 Strategies for Transforming Library Services by Courtney Greene McDonald

This short guide is written for academic librarians, but many of the ideas are transferable to a public library environment. It begins with a clear observation that you need to understand to truly put the user first, which is to understand that you aren't the user. Despite having a library card and using library materials and services, because of your inside knowledge you can never really see things from the user's viewpoint. It is good to recognize this and then discover the various things you can do to make sure you do put the user first.
This guide uses icons to mark each of the 30 strategies to show characteristics of each strategy. They represent: no cost, low cost, technological, physical spaces, personal practice, and organizational culture. There are 3 additional icons that are attached to follow up activities for most strategies to show what kind of activity it is.There are: actualize, contemplate, and investigate.
One example is #13 Prioritize. In summary it says you can't be all things to all people, so pick a population to prioritize. What I really liked was how it talked about collaboration as opposed to consensus. The term used here is "disagree but commit," which I really like. Prioritizing means that you will be undertaking an uncomfortable process. When you elevate some populations to be priorities, that means others are designated as less important, perhaps even unimportant. You have to know your priorities to advocate for them.
Another example is #25 Defuse. The author talks about her experience giving up complaining for Lent one year, and what effect that had on her during that time. Negativity is unnecessary and counterproductive. She proposes asking three questions: How important is this, really? Can I do something about it? and Do I need to have an opinion about this? Losing negativity saves a lot of time and energy, something we are all short of these days.
There are 28 more of these helpful strategies in this book. And many of them have referrals to other books or articles or websites that provide more ideas and insights.

Teaching Social Media

Finished October 12
Teaching Social Media: The Can-Do Guide by Liz Kirchoff

This book starts with an introduction that includes an overview of social media, why we teach about it, how to get organizational support if you don't already have it, and where to start. It outlines the preparation and planning that pertain to this type of teaching, ideas around format for the teaching, and the arguments for either live teaching or canned powerpoint teaching.
There is discussion of tone, and this is important as a casual tone fits well with this content. People have a lot of questions and they should be made to feel comfortable to ask those questions. For each class, you need to assess your audience and adjust your teaching for any difficulties particular to that group.
The following chapters deal with individual social media programs and follow similar outlines, covering common questions and concerns, variations for teaching, notes for the instructor, ways to use that program, sample handouts to use, and a list of some users of that social media that you may want to follow. Not all social media programs have all these sections, as they may not apply.
Chapters that dedicated to a particular social media include Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Then there is a chapter that gives shorter overviews of some other programs, including Goodreads, MyFitnessPal, TripAdvisor, Reddit, Tumblr, Ravelry, Pandora, Prezi, and GoogleDrive. It is interesting to note that some popular ones are missed, such as Instagram and Flickr. Of course, there are so many social media programs now they couldn't possibly cover them all. Here's a link to a Wikipedia list.
The Conclusion wraps things up nicely, talking about how to tailor these classes to your community, ways to evaluate whether the learning is happening, and how to stay effective and relevant.
This is a useful guide for those libraries just starting out teaching these programs.

Successful Social Networking in Public Libraries

Finished August 9
Successful Social Networking in Public Libraries by Walt Crawford.

This book examines the use of social networking sites by public libraries, mostly in the United States, and is based on research and surveys. Crawford examines the definition of success in this context looking at reach, frequency of posts, currency of content, interaction with the community and republishing of posts by community members. As he says, "it's working if you think it is". He groups libraries into categories by the size of their community.
Most of the libraries used either Facebook or Twitter, or both of these social networking tools. While he makes mention of other social networking communities, the focus is on these two platforms. For each of Facebook and Twitter, he looks at what successful posts look like, and how to strategically aim for similar successes for your library. He talks about the importance of each individual library examining what their purpose is in using a social media platform, and examining whether it is the best use of that platform.
He has a nice section on best practices. These include: have a personality, ask questions and interact, act like a person, make your followers feel like the in-crowd, keep an eye on what the most people interact with, and expand to other platforms.
Crawford talked about the challenges of his research, and how he went about gathering information. There is a chapter that goes through his research results for each state he has data from (38), giving a snapshot of the statistics and sample posts.
He ends with a chapter looking to the future. As he says, this book is a snapshot in time, with posts over approximately a four month period in 2011. Things change a lot in a short time, and he foresees the increase in use of social media as well as talking about the measure of success for libraries in terms of effort versus output.

Expect More

Finished July 18
Expect More: Demanding Better Libraries for Today's Complex World by R. David Lankes

This short volume is aimed at the general public, rather than librarians, but it looks at the future of libraries and the things that communities should look to their libraries to provide. Lankes includes all types of libraries here, public libraries, school libraries, academic libraries, corporate libraries, and special libraries. Each has a community they serve and the way that their interact with that community is key to the services they provide.
He states early in the book that what libraries and librarians do is facilitate, and what they facilitate is knowledge creation. There are four ways that they do this: provide access; provide training; provide a safe environment, and build on your motivation to learn. He breaks this down. Providing access isn't just referring to books, databases and other collections of information, but also knowledge, something dynamic and created by the individual and the community. He puts this well by quoting a very graphic metaphor.

Joan Frey Williams, librarian and prominent library consultant, put it best when she said that libraries must move from grocery stores to kitchens. A grocery store is where you go to consume, to buy ingredients for your meals. A kitchen, however, is where you go to combine these ingredients with your own skills and talents to make a meal. Kitchens tend to be social spaces, the place where everyone ends up at a party because it is the place where there is action occurring. Libraries need to be kitchens -- active social places where you mix a rich set of ingredients (information, resources, talents) into an exciting new concoction that can then be shared.

Training gets librarians involved in active learning. They aren't just showing members how to use a resources, but showing them how to see the bigger picture, determining which tools are the right ones to use to solve a given problem, and doing training at the point of need.
Providing a safe environment isn't just about the physical, but also about the intellectual, creating an environment where it is safe to explore all kinds of ideas, offering appropriate privacy and lack of censorship.
Building on motivation to learn is about librarians asking questions of individuals and the community and figuring out what they want and how the library can help them get there. It's about letting them drive the programs and services libraries offer. As he says,

This is more than talking about the community ultimately owning the library by funding it through tax dollars or tuition. this is allowing co-ownership of library services.

What great libraries do is engage in conversation with their communities, "an exchange of ideas where both parties are shaped by the conversation and shape the other conversants". There has to be willingness to learn from all those involved in the conversation. Libraries need to be of the community rather than for the community.
Lankes shows that what kind of library your community has is really about the people that work there, the librarians. Do they engage and evolve with technology? Do they have the skills to impart technology knowledge across all age groups? Can they create and maintain a virtual presence that is engaged with the community? Do the use technology to engage collaboratively with their community? Are they skilled in asset management, not just inventory skills, but preservation and building collections that meet community needs? Are they able to actively reach out to all sectors of their community? Do they understand their community's social mores and cultures? Do they know how to build bridges between the diverse groups in their communities? Do they understand how to make projects and services sustainable? Do they know how to assess impacts of library services on their community? Can they guide their community through a continuous change process? Do they have the skills of transformative social engagement, that is able to help the community organize around its needs in light of larger community agendas? He describes librarians as "the intersection of three things: the mission, the means of facilitation, and the values librarians bring to the community." He talks about intellectual honesty, transparency about being key to trust.
Lankes talks about the differences between bad libraries, good libraries, and great libraries. Bad libraries are collection-driven, good libraries are service-driven, but great libraries are community-driven. He is careful to note that this doesn't mean great libraries don't have collections, only that the collections they do have and what types of resources are in those collections are driven by community need, not by librarian prescriptives. Libraries need to spend more time on connections to their community and less time on book collections. The emphasis needs to be on connections between people, not connections between items. "You build a new library when the old one is too small to accommodate the community, not when it is too small to accommodate the stuff." Librarians need to be learning too, from all members of their community, all ages, all education-levels, all cultures. The mission of the library is to improve society, not maximize use of library services.
My library's mission statement speaks to enriching the community and based on this book, I think we're heading in the right direction.

Developing Community-Led Public Libraries

Finished April 20
Developing Community-Led Public Libraries: Evidence from the UK and Canada by John Pateman and Ken Williams

I've been immersed in this book for months as I determine how our library will be moving forward with this new model of service. The authors take a lot of their information from two large multiple library projects that focused on the community and its needs. In the UK, the Open to All? project focused on the issue of social exclusion and on creating library services that addressed the needs of specific communities. In Canada, the Working Together project involved Halifax, Regina, Vancouver, and Toronto Public Libraries and focused on understanding and developing library specific community development, learning about different approaches.
John Pateman's library experience is mostly in Britain, but he joined the Thunder Bay Public Library as its CEO a few years ago. He was heavily involved in the Open to All? project in the UK.
Ken Williment is a branch manager for Halifax Public Libraries, but he was the Community Development Manager during the Working Together project.
The book begins with an overview of the two projects, and a summary of the learnings from each. Each following chapters focuses on a different aspect of the learnings, and offers helpful hints on how to move forward for that particular learning, challenge, or aspect.
The first chapter talks about the variety of approaches that can be used to connect with the local community. Libraries have to figure out what approach will work for them and the community they are targeting.
The next topic is Needs Assessment and Research, which looks at how to get at the real needs of the community. The most important thing to remember here is that we aren't the experts on the needs of the community, the community is the expert. Often libraries go in with preconceived notions of what the community needs. This is not the way to develop a true partnership, nor is it a way to get at the real needs that libraries can help address. This may be one of the more difficult things to get our heads around, as it goes against decades of "how we do things." Needs will be specific to each community, and we have to recognize and respond to that, not focus on statistics and generalizations.
Which brings us to Library Image and Identity. How do we identify ourselves and how do others see us. Libraries are made up of parts that include the buildings we occupy, the staff that work for us, and the services we offer. We have to look closely at all these things and specifically at barriers these bring to our relationships with the community. Barriers may be institutional (hours, policies, signage, staff attitude, prescriptive collections), personal and social (literacy, low income, discrimination, self-esteem, housing), environmental (physical access, safety issues, isolation, transportation), or perceptional (ideas about library services, isolation, relevancy, technology fears). We have to look closely at these and try to eliminate them where we can.
The next chapter is a sort of bridge or continuum from traditional library services to the community-led model, explaining the differences between outreach, partnerships, community development, and true co-production. Many of us have the first two in some way, and it is understanding how these can help up move towards a greater integration with our communities, and where each type of activity has its place.
We then move to the role of technology in addressing social exclusion issues. This is another chapter that looks at common library assumptions and moves beyond them.
Following that the book addresses the provision of materials, a core service of libraries, and emphasizes the need to have the libraries step back and let the community determine the focus and makeup of the collections offered.
The next topic is library staff, what skills are needed, how we find staff, and how we training and develop the staff we have now to change to this new model of service. Included here is a useful appendix for library schools to help them develop appropriate courses to meet this new model so that new graduates are ready to hit the ground running.
The following chapter focuses on addressing social exclusion, and changing the focus of libraries to bring this issue back to the core of library services. This looks a strategy, and how libraries can focus their staffing, service structure, systems, policies and procedures, and values and culture to make the community needs the centre of what we do.
Of course, a big part of library service is measuring our success towards our mandate, and the next chapter focuses on how we create measurements, performance indicators, and evaluation systems that are meaningful. Once again this comes back to working with the community so that these are not set by the library, but by the community in partnership with us. There is also the need to continually adjust these as we learn from what we do, from the feedback we get. This is a movement away from quantitative indicators and statistics to the more difficult qualitative, impact, and outcome measures. How are we relevant to our community? And how do we continue to be relevant as the needs of the community change?
The last two chapters provide additional help in moving towards this new, necessary model for library service, offering a blueprint for change and a road map to how to proceed.
Now comes the difficult work of implementation, but many of us are looking hopefully forward with this model, and we can learn from each others' experiences as we continue to listen carefully to our communities and become more integral to them.

Lust in the Library

Finished March 26
Lust in the Library by Amelia Fayer

This novella consists of two linked stories that take place in an academic library. Sara Owens is the assistant head of special collections, an achievement for her young age. She is attracted to William Hammond, a visiting researcher, but doesn't have the confidence to make a move to show it. William has been making some subtle moves, but Sara hasn't picked up on them. Veronica, a student assistant at the library, takes it into her own hands and gives Sara a push in the right direction.
Meanwhile Veronica, who hopes to go on to library school, is having her own relationship issues. She thought she was onto a good romance, but caught him kissing her roommate, and certainly won't stand for that despite the attraction she holds for Andrew. But was it all a misunderstanding? Andrew is persistent and Veronica does what is needed to protect the library's collection.
A nice humorous look at relationships that include a "in the stacks" sexual encounter, or two.

Library Technology Companion

Finished February 23
Neal-Shuman Library Technology Companion by John J. Burke

This is the 4th edition that I read, and it provides history on technology in general as well as library-specific technology and then moves in the basics of technology knowledge including tips on information sources and evaluation.
Part II takes the reader through computers and other computing devices; general applications; communication from email to wifi, integrated library systems, discovery layers and OPACs; storage devices both current and obsolete; databases and electronic resources; the internet, and web 2.0.
Part III covers using technology, whether supporting patron needs, including accessibility; using 2.0 tools in furthering the library's mandate, or teaching others.
Part IV covers the technology environment from security to troubleshooting, ergonomics to gaming.
The last section takes a peek at the future and how things might develop also covering the elements of a good technology plan.
We all know the problem with books is that they are out of date by the time they make publication and so a few of the future developments are also happening, but that is a minor item. This book has good coverage of the technology side of libraries and is a useful addition to the professional collection.

The Library of Unrequited Love

Finished April 28
The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry, translated by Siân Reynolds

This short novel is the first novel for Divry. It takes place on the lower level of the public library in a unnamed provincial town in France. The librarian goes into work one morning to discover a patron who had been locked in overnight. She then says she can't let them out before the library opens as it would alert others to the patron had been in the library after hours, and proceeds to talk about the library, her life, her dreams, and other matters. The text is one long monologue by the librarian, although there are a few points where the patron obviously commented or reacted in some way, but we only get the librarian's words.
There are points where she seems to fall into an unhappy and untrue stereotype of librarian:

"Being a librarian isn't an especially high-level job, I can tell you. Pretty close to being in a factory. I'm a cultural assembly line worker. So what you need to know is, to be a librarian, you have to like the idea of classification, and to be of a docile nature. No initiative, no room for the unexpected; here, everything is in its place, invariably in its place."

But other times she seems to be more progressive. She espouses the views of Eugène Morel (a man I was admittedly ignorant of until now) a Frenchman who had the following view demands of libraries:

"...make it easier to borrow books, have longer opening hours, keep the collections up to date, have comfortable seats, special areas for children, and the underpinnings of the whole thing, the idea, the supreme aim, was that the people should be able to read."

and she feels that:

"...in my job, there's nothing more exciting, to make you feel wanted, than to be able to size up the person in front of you, guess what they're after, find the book they need on the shelves and bring the two together. Book and reader, if they meet up at the right moment in a person's life, it can make sparks fly, set you alight, change your life." 

She has dreams of more for herself, both professionally and personally, but lacks the hope or will to make these dreams come true.
This is a gem of a book, and I have to thank Ben McNally for introducing me to it.

The Incident Report

Finished March 16
The Incident Report by Martha Baillie
This novel has an intriguing format. With the narrator, Miriam, an employee of the Public Libraries of Toronto, in the Allan Gardens branch, the book begins with a form used by the library to report on incidents that take place in the library. The rest of the book is in the form of short (sometimes very short) incident reports that consist of descriptions of events that take place in the library, in her personal life, or in her past. It was a very different way to tell a story and yet it worked in a very good way. The short sections made it easy to change scenes, introduce new characters and emphasize certain events.
Of course, as a librarian, I could also relate to some of the strange encounters one has with patrons, and the rewarding ones. A very interesting read with a few surprises along the way.

Old Spice Guy for Libraries

Another Kids Classic

Finished October 29
I Believe in Unicorns by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Gary Blythe
A lovely book about the power of reading, as a young farm boy gets introduced to books and sees how the people in his village work together to save the library when it is threatened.
This edition has lovely illustrations which bring the story to life.
I know a young boy who will be getting this one for Christmas.