Library Tech Confidential

It’s been almost a year. What’ve I been up to? Well, I did read that book. Very sad. But very good.

Martha Baillie, a writer and part-time storyteller with TPL, was the subject of a write-up in today’s paper that focused on her new novel The Incident Report. Set in a fictional “Allan Gardens Library” — presumably a stand-in for tthe Parliament Street branch — it deals with the odd ups and downs of working in an often-chaotic urban facility.

From Lurking in our libraries [Toronto Star]:

Confronted by [disruptive] events, the library staff in the novel are guided by compassion and library policies. The staff are supportive of one another, which Baillie says reflects the camaraderie she has found among library employees.

About 90 per cent of the incidents in the book are loosely based on Baillie’s experiences or those she was told of by other library staff. As a result, the book provides an inside look at the kind of bizarre incidents library workers sometimes encounter.

The fascinating novel also delves into some wider themes, including “the nature of urban storytelling,” Baillie says. “Whoever is sitting behind the reference desk is an ear. You play the role of a bartender a bit.” The novel asks, “Why do we so often pick strangers to tell our stories to?”

My time as a patron vastly outweighs the two weeks I logged at a public library reference desk in college, but even that short stint had me nodding my head as I read the article. Reference work in a special library just isn’t the same… the pseudo-confessional atmosphere is virtually (but not completely) absent, but I suppose that’s why social reference sites like Ask MetaFilter are popular among we library folk.

From Google settles landmark lawsuit over book scanning [Library Journal] :

If approved by a federal judge, the settlement would end a class-action suit filed September 20, 2005 by the AG and certain authors, and another suit filed October 19, 2005 by five major AAP members. It would transform Google Book Search into a major online bookstore, creating a one-stop experience for users who wishing to search, access, print or buy copies of books. The announcement comes just weeks after LJ reported reported on October 10 that a settlement was imminent… [read more]

A settlement is good, but a verdict confirming Google’s approach as fair use would have been better.  For more information on what this will mean for Google Book Search product, there’s more detailed information from Google. 

This paves the way for some seriously innovative offerings that will be particularly relevant to special libraries.  When trying to find titles for ILL I have frequently come up empty at local libraries but found exactly what I need on Google.  Depending on the price point, this could be a real lifesaver.

Reviewing John Broughton’s Wikipedia: The Missing Manual in The New York Review of Books, Nicholson Baker hilariously describes that mightiest of social media reference work free-for-alls as follows:

It’s like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks. [read more]

[via Library Juice]

Based on the substantial props given by Peter Morville over at findability.org, I’m strongly considering pre-ordering — or at least heavily hinting after, holiday wishlist-wise — William Jones’ Keeping Found Things Found, a sample chapter of which is available online right now.

Come to think of it, it might be time to finally check out Ambient Findability (sample chapter), Morville’s own book. I’ve meant to pick it up for ages, but WorldCat confirms that local public libraries don’t seem to have shared my enthusiasm for the title.

Kottke’s guest blogger has posted a fantastic interview with Cory Doctorow on copyright, 21st century literature, and appropriately compensating artists for the indexing and public availability of their work :

“You know, the fact that Amazon or Google want to show quotes from your book alongside search results for people who are trying to find out which books contain which string, I think it’s just crazy to say that you deserve to be compensated for that even if they could figure out a way to make money off of it. Indexing books is just not in the realm of things that we deserve to get compensated for, any more than library lending is.

And I know that in Europe they do have a library right, and you actually do get compensated for library use. I actually think that’s kind of gross. I don’t think that’s good public policy. If we want to subsidize writers with public money, don’t take it out of the budget of the library. What a disaster for public policy, for good stewardship, to take money out the hands of the public libraries. What a disaster that writers have actually endorsed this plan.”

If that doesn’t provide a clear enough picture of his position on digital re-distribution of copyright works, here’s what he says in the bio on his personal website:

“I believe that we live in an era where anything that can be expressed as bits will be. I believe that bits exist to be copied. Therefore, I believe that any business-model that depends on your bits not being copied is just dumb, and that lawmakers who try to prop these up are like governments that sink fortunes into protecting people who insist on living on the sides of active volcanoes.”

At the risk of violating my personal prohibition against bandwagon-jumping and/or endorsing unabashed declarations of historical inevitability… can I get an amen, brothers and sisters?

In any case, I think the “library right” to which he refers in the first quote above may be the “rental and lending right” established in Directive 1992/100/EEC (since replaced by Directive 2006/115/EC), although my familiarity with law there is not sufficient for me to say so with any great degree of certainty.

In Canada we have the Public Lending Right Commission. According to it’s FAQ, the Commission disbributes payment to authors of registered “works of fiction, poetry, drama, children’s books, scholarly books, and general non-fiction” that meet certain criteria, with compensation being based on their presence in the catalogues of a representative sample of Canadian public libraries rather than tied to circulation statistics or any other measure of use.

In February of this year, $9 million in public funds were distributed among some 15,000 authors (an average payment of $588 per author). Given that compensation was capped at a maximum of $281.05 per title, I guess that means the ‘average’ compensated author has 2.09 works in the registry; however, compensation is calculated using a sliding scale whereby recent works are worth more than older ones.

I can’t help but wonder if Cory, an ex-pat Canadian, has registered any of his numerous titles?

“Peel’s Catholic [school] board has pulled the award-winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars from high school library shelves after one parent complained about its sexual content.” [Toronto Star]

TV Guide Canada to cease print publication, switch to online-only format [Globe and Mail]

Chavez nod turns Chomksy book into bestseller - “Chomsky, who is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could not immediately be reached for comment.” [Reuters]

• ISBN-13 FAQ [LAC]

• Symbols and ILL Policies in Canada [LAC]
• Blurb.com: Design & publish personalized books.

• The Effects of Television on Public Library Circulation [JSTOR]
• “[Anansi.ca: Selling Books Online] explores why Anansi began selling online and what the company envisioned would come from it. It discusses the implementation of the online bookstore while highlighting some of the considerations that were taken into account. It also explores what it takes to keep online sales running, and what impact it has on Anansi financially.” [via Google Scholar]
• Canadian book publishing industry, 2004 [StatsCan]