March 21, 2011 · 2:10 am

Visual Representation of the Books Everyone Should Read

I caught this from Stephen Abram, a recent Guardian Datablog post visually depicts the “classics” from a compilation of many sources.

Do Top 100 Books polls and charts agree on a set of classics?  I scraped
the results of over 15 notable book polls, readers surveys and top 100’s. Both popular and high-brow. They included all Pulitzer Prize winners, Desert Island Discs choices from recent years, Oprah’s Bookclub list, and, of course, The Guardian’s Top 100 Books of All Time. A  simple frequency analysis on the gathered titles gives us a neat ‘consensus cloud’ visualisation of the most mentioned books titles across the polls. Do you agree with the consensus?

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March 20, 2011 · 8:56 pm

Starbucks: a Lesson for Libraries

I was recently in Starbucks and this caught my attention:

 

What is most interesting is that customers can read books for free while they are in Starbucks.  These are some pretty good looking books too.  So my question is why don’t libraries explore something like this?

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Filed under eBooks, eReading

March 19, 2011 · 9:24 pm

Happy to Announce My New Position

I am happy to finally be able to announce my new position.  I will be the Director of Highwood Public Library in Highwood (Lake County), Illinois.  I will begin in mid-April.

Highwood Public Library serves a community of around 5,000 residents.  The community is diverse, but energetic and active.  The library itself has been neglected for the last few years. Many of the residents likely use Highland Park Public Library or another local library.

My first 6 months will look something like this:

1. Weed the collection down to 40,000 volumes (currently around 75,000).  35,000 is the benchmark compared to libraries of similar population size, budget and EAV.

2. Implement a new ILS system (likely Evergreen or Koha).

3. Totally renovate the interior (paint, new carpet, new bookshelves, new furniture) including adding a teen space, creating a meeting room and conference room.  The renovation will take place in the summer, but I am very hopeful that we will not need to close.

4. Revamp the collections including adding other formats.

5. Add several programs for youth and adults.

6. Fund development.  Create a 501c(3) foundation to allow tax deductible donations.

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