Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
A report from the Futures Group: Public library service in 2015 (pdf).

"[Libraries] will need to segment [users] by the nature of their requirements, sometimes they will need to segment them by their financial status."

"There are many examples of new technology being used for old uses, with no real exploration of what it can do. For example, netLibrary uses web-based texts to create e-books that are issued like traditional books. A more inventive use of the same technology might be to create a national electronic back catalogue for storing out of print texts that can be downloaded by library members to wherever they happened to be"

"Libraries are not well supplied with change managers."

"In the public library of 2015, marketing will play an increased role"

"Staff almost always score highly in terms of friendliness and approachability in customer surveys. However, when asked about how knowledgeable staff are, satisfaction ratings are lower."

"These changes in library staff requirements will draw attention to staff who will have little to contribute to the new service and who are unable or unwilling to change, or who may even actively work against the revised objectives of the service organisation. It is vital that these people leave and a variety of methods should be used to assist them in this." [though good staff should be renumerated more appropriately].

"While public funding is the only guarantee of free access to the service at the point of delivery, the particular form it takes could change."

"a bookshop and library could share premises with the library remaining free and the bookshop taking profits from sales, and absorbing the lion's share of the infrastructure costs. Similarly, a library could be sited within, say, a supermarket with the same type of result"

Also discusses roles for central government, local government, and library schools.

Premium services could involve home delivery of books, even within the hour, by mail or courier.


| posted by Simon at 9:44 pm

 
New Zealand state schools have been allowing their internet policies to be determined by what Russell Brown calls a fringe Christian organisation. The Fundy Post broke the story, pointing out that students at Takapuna Grammar were unable to access an anarchist website, thanks to the filtering software installed by web filtering company Watchdog. On further investigation, Watchdog also bans parody sites such as Happy Clapping Homos, a site parodying the Destiny Church, claiming that Destiny is homophobic.

Watchdog offers to ban sites that users have reported as offensive, and analyses logs of accessed sites, in order to investigate what sites should be blocked in the future.

As the Fundy Post writes: "Students can use the internet for study, but can only visit sites approved by a company run by fundamentalist Christians, who comb the records of sites visited by students to find new ones to ban and who encourage denouncement of sites they have not found themselves.".

We have a secular schooling system here. Religious schools are welcome to implement whatever filtering arrangements they want, but I don't think an overtly religious group should be filtering sites based on its own criteria.

The NZ Herald also reports that Watchdog is preventing access to sites such as GayNZ. (Interesting to note that the Herald published this story several days after Brown's story, and didn't mention the extensive coverage given by the Fundy Post).

| posted by Simon at 10:49 pm

 
A group of academic publishers called Google Inc.'s plan to scan millions of library books into its Internet search engine index a troubling financial threat to its membership.

The Association of American University Presses said in a letter to Google that the online search engine's library project "appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale."

More, at the Associated Press. Google is claiming fair use, and continuing to scan the books.

Via Techdirt.

| posted by Simon at 10:40 pm

 
Xeni Jardin blogs that an Illinois is introducing fingerprint scanners, in order to verify the identity of computer users, and prevent people using their friends' library cards to log on. Not only are there privacy/civil liberties issues here, as Xeni says: "Way to make libraries a more happyfun haven of knowledge, guys!".

And, y'know, it seems to me that encouraging non-card holders to come into the library, even if only to use the internet, might make them more aware of all the other things the library offers, and maybe make them become library members. And after all, presumably they are members of the community that funds the library, and therefore just as entitled to access as anyone else?



| posted by Simon at 3:53 pm

 
Computers in Libraries has a good introduction to open source software, and its applications in libraries.

Nice to see the mention of both the New Zealand Digital Library and Koha.

| posted by Simon at 12:26 pm

 
Wade Roush's article The Infinite Library, in Technology Review, is an overview of digitisation programmes, with emphasis on Google Print and some interesting details about how Oxford's Bodleian Library operates.

| posted by Simon at 3:29 pm

 
Techdirt has a good discussion on the decline of print media. The article points out that old-school print media is clinging to outdated business models and doesn't really understand the implications of the digital environment, pointing out that many haven't even heard of Craig's List (an online classifieds-type service in the US). Heck, even I'd heard of Craig's List and I'm on a different continent - you would expect that newspaper people would be familiar with something that was potentially going to take away a big chunk of their income.

The same mentality is evident in New Zealand. Many newspapers post stories online at www.stuff.co.nz. But they don't post all their stories, and they often post them a day or so after the print version. That isn't going to drive me back to the print version. It's going to make me dismiss your product as irrelevant to my needs and go looking for an online newspaper that's actually up-to-date.

The same problem is evident with the classified ads. I was hunting for a new flat recently. I used the Property Stuff service (which is a replica of the print classifieds service) and the TradeMe flatmate hunt (which is born digital). The latter is about 100 times better and includes images, better search capability, more text, everything. Property Stuff, in an effort not to give away something that is better than the print version, is basically worthless. Sure, the newspapers will prevent people abandoning their print versions for Property Stuff - but people will just abandon both for TradeMe or other services.

The sister of a friend of mine works for a major newspaper, and she keeps telling him to be loyal and not read the online version. But loyalty's not enough. I can go online and get in-depth news from 100s of quality newspapers around the world. Why should I pay for the print version of a local paper, which in the main carries the same wire stories as any of those other papers?

| posted by Simon at 7:48 pm

 
Michael Geist reports from first hand experience on restrictions on internet access in China.

"[U]nfettered Internet access is far more fragile than is commonly perceived.... Google News... would not load into my browser...it became clear that the Chinese system was filtering my [web-based] email messages and cutting off the connection....most people I spoke to were resigned to an Internet with limits....[many] noted that the censorship “only” affected political information, but that business could be conducted online unimpeded."

The technology to censor the net is out there. It wouldn't take too much effort for the same thing to happen outside of China.

| posted by Simon at 7:33 pm