Interesting ideas on the freakonomics blog. see

If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?

Tune in to Reading -almost ready

The Backpacks with iPods loaded with the audio books and student created author studies, illustrated story summaries, and book reviews are almost ready. We hope to have them out by the end of July. This project is an outgrowth of our circulating kits of paperbacks and the cd as well as a version of the strolling story hour backpacks for elementary school kids. To start we will circulate them from Washington Street. We have had a great partnership with Northeast Elementary and Mike Fiscus. Lisa and the staff are working out the circ rules and check in procedures. More details to follow.

Thanks for the help with the Avatar

Thanks to the helpful suggestion of my fellow 23 thingers, I devised an avatar that really is a fine likeness of me.

Where the new FY08 funds go

Of the $113,044 in new funds we are receiving this fiscal year, 35% goes toward covering electricity, 27% goes to wage increases, and 13% goes to health insurance increases. Unfortunately, this year follows the recent trend that the largest portion of our budget increases goes to just keeping the door open the same number of hours.

Where is that book I ordered? Place that Hold!

If you checked the status of a book for a patron, why not go ahead and put it on hold for them?

If our catalog says it is on order, you can place a hold for that patron. If TS3 says the item is back-ordered, you should still be able to put a hold on it in our catalog for the patron.

At this time, Carol is creating "On Order" records for new adult fiction, new automatically yours titles and soon for DVDs.

If there is another type (say Harry Potter) that might generate lots of holds, I am sure Carol would create an "on order" record for that too!! just send her an email.

Where is that book I ordered?

Using B&T Title Source 3, you can see what is the status of an item is at any time. Go into TS3, and search for your title, go ahead and add 1 copy to your cart. When you click on update, the automatic duplicate check will tell you what the status is. (Shipped, back-ordered, canceled) Then just click in the cancel button to end your query.

Of course, the first step would be to search our own catalog first.

Grafitti to wish for

don't you wish we got comments like this?

created at www.letterjames.com

Technorati- thoughts on week 4

Technorati, the blog search engine seems a bit overwhelming. Then I discovered the tabs that separate what you find into blog posts, blogs, videos, pictures, etc. Do you have to register your blog on technorati, before a technorati search will find it? I can see it as useful if you got a question about a town or travel destination and the patron wanted to see what was being said or what to do in the town with technorati search of the town name. It would also be useful for reviews to pull real actual comments by people about a product such as Chevy Silverado or GE dishwasher. On to week 5.

Sneaks at the Beach

Sneaks enjoyed the sea and the late night tribal cermonies.