Blogs in Plain English

Found this one on the Project Play blog -- it's a great intro to the whys & wherefores of blogging!

Fox Cities Book Festival kicks off!

Fox Cities Book Festival planned for April 17-19

First-ever event to feature national, state and local authors

APPLETON (Dec. 6, 2007) — Three noted national authors are among the first writers to confirm their attendance at the first-ever Fox Cities Book Festival, which is planned for April 17-19, 2008, at several venues throughout the Fox Cities.

“I am so excited that the Fox Cities is hosting a book festival. Books are vitally important to all of us. Reading not only gives us pleasure, it also brings the outside world to us,” said Ellen Kort, Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate from 2000-04 and book festival co-chair, during the announcement this morning at the Paper Discovery Center. “Our goal is to connect readers and writers and celebrate the pure joy of reading.”

The three national authors who have already committed to participating in the Fox Cities Book Festival are:

• Billy Collins, one of America’s best-selling poets, who served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001-03


• Naomi Shihab Nye, internationally-known poet and author of books foradults, young adults and children


• Charles Baxter, author of the award-winning “The Feast of Love” and other noted works

“We selected our authors carefully. We want to make sure we have a good mix,” Kort said. “There is always a sense of excitement when readers have the opportunity to meet and talk with authors and we want to tap into that.”

Kort said other well-known authors – national and regional – will be added to the event’s line-up in the coming weeks.

Besides the national authors, state and local authors will also be featured at the Fox Cities Book Festival. The events will be held at various locations throughout the Fox Cities, including schools, libraries, colleges, coffeehouses and other open-to-the-public venues. A book fair featuring numerous publishers will also be held April 19 at City Center Plaza in Downtown Appleton.

“While serving as Poet Laureate of Wisconsin, one of my goals was to create a book festival for the Fox Cities, but I had to put it on the back burner because of time constraints. I am delighted that the seed has blossomed into this amazing book festival,” Kort said. “It’s a community wide event for everyone.”

Books connect people together, said Leota Ester, who is co-chair of the book festival committee. “The Fox Cities Book Festival’s purpose is to remind everyone how much fun it is to read a good book. It will be a time to appreciate the authors who write them as we listen to them tell their stories, ask them questions about how they write them and have a chance to talk with them,” she said. “Books are the way we tell our stories, the way we have new and different experiences and are an important way we learn. The festival will celebrate books, their writers and their readers.”

A recent study sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts reported Americans are reading less, and reading less well. The Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence Study found that less than one-third of 13-year-olds read on a daily basis – that is 14 percent lower than two decades ago. In addition, the study discovered reading among 17-year-olds has dropped by half in the past two decades.

“Literacy is essential to our lives. We have done a great job in the Fox Cities where literacy can play an important role,” Kort said. “The book festival will promote the importance of reading and writing.”

Val Wylie, president of the Fox Cities Book Festival Board of Directors and director of the Paper Discovery Center, said the key to getting the festival off the ground was bringing the right group of people together.

“As the planning for the event grew, we kept pulling in more and more people. It is truly a community collaboration,” she said.

In addition to the Fox Cities, other Wisconsin cities hosting book festivals include Milwaukee, Eau Claire, Edgerton and Madison.

The Fox Cities Book Festival is made possible by a number of public and private donors, including: Lawrence University, the Appleton Education Foundation, the Fox Valley Library Council, a project grant from unrestricted funds within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, a project grant from the Ellen Kort Literary Arts Fund within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, a project grant from the Frank C. Shattuck Community Fund within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region and a grant from the Wisconsin Humanities Council, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the State of Wisconsin.

For more information on the Fox Cities Book Festival, please visit www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org.

Buildings and budgets -- continued

Our Library Board's Building and Equipment Committee met this week and reviewed our draft RFP for consulting services. We wrote the first draft of this document almost three years ago, and did a major revision the following year, when we hoped our Foundation might fund the study. Most of the writing was done by Tony Wieczorek, our Library Business Manager, along with Dean Gazza, the City Facilities Manager and me. The committee gave us some fine tuning suggestions.

Once the Board approves the RFP, we'll send it out to anyone we think might be interested. We've already heard from several consultants and architects who have at least a tentative interest.

Elements of the RFP include:

• Overview
• Background
• The Building
• Future Developments
• Deliverables
• RFP Proposal Submittal
• Submittal, Evaluation & Award Process
• Site/Building Tour
• Questions

We're hoping to hire a consulting firm by February and have a report back in June. The report should help us evaluate our alternatives, with pros & cons as well as approximate costs. Alternatives to be considered will include:

• remodel / expand our building
• relocate to a new or different building
• build or establish a branch or branches
  

This will be a lot of work, but it's important, worthwhile and exciting. One important concern will be to do the job well. Doing it right is more important than doing it quickly. We think four months will be a good time frame for the study, but when we get the recommendation, there will be many other decisions.

The future of reading?

"The vision is that you should be able to get any book—not just any book in print, but any book that's ever been in print—on this device in less than a minute"

Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Oh yeah. There's a vision...but sorting out the implications will take awhile. What does this mean for libraries? for newspapers? for bookstores?

The device in question is, of course, the Kindle, the latest and far away the greatest thing in ebook technology. It represents a quantum leap forward, marrying convenience in use with convenience in purchasing.

Simply put, take the best ebook device yet marketed and virtually hardwire it into the world's largest bookstore and you have an unprecedented knowledge distribution tool. Questions of how electronic books will affect library services are not new. But they just became a bit more real and pressing, because at first blush, the Kindle is that good.

After a quick straw poll of library staff, I decided we needed to purchase, and play with, a Kindle of our own. After a couple days of using it, I'm reluctant to pass it on. While some things are still clunky -- this is an imperfect technology -- the core experience of reading a book sure works well for me.

Quick and dirty reactions:

positive...

• ability to quickly purchase from the Amazon store, using search and browse features -- 88,000 titles does not include everything I'd like but it's a lot -- the time from wanting a book to having & reading it is very short
  
• the screen -- easy to read electronic paper
  
• the user interface -- big "next page", "previous page", and "back" buttons, and a pretty intuitive and fairly sophisticated click-wheel menu system for most other things
• light and easy to hold
  
• you're online all the time, via a cellphone not wifi, connection
• Amazon answers reference questions, and not too badly, via their nownow service
• battery life - quite decent and charges pretty quickly
• automatic daily delivery of newspapers
  

not-so-positive...

• newspapers are awkward to read, with the click-wheel menu feeling more intrusive & less intuitive
  
• annoying screen flash when you turn a page
• no backlight
  
• grey scale is 4-bit -- photos look like poor photocopies
  
• menus & content manager system are a bit clunky & non-intuitive
  
• more difficult to share information with others (from the bookseller's viewpoint, this might be a positive)
  
• $399 is steep (but they said iPods were too expensive to succeed in the mass market, too)

It's too early to understand all the technological, economic and educational implications and impacts, but the Kindle deserves our attention. Now I've got to stop writing about it and let somebody else try it. More later!

Of books, bytes, buildings & budgets

As we approach the turning of the year, we celebrate many things and have just kicked off the holiday season with Thanksgiving. As always, I’m thankful for the community support our library receives. This year that support was manifest in our City budget for next year.

We’re a part of the City of Appleton. Although the financial support provided by our Foundation and Friends group is critical, although the reimbursement from counties and the support of the system are essential, and although the work of our volunteers is indispensable in keeping our heads above water, the City budget is still our fiscal core. A vast majority of our funding comes from City property taxes, so the budget process and decision loom large for us every year.

This year the City Council adopted the Mayor’s proposed budget for the library unchanged, and the Mayor’s budget was very similar to the Library Board’s request. The good news is that we will see a 10% increase in the materials budget after three years of no change. We’ll also be able to address some staff training needs; the training budget had eroded in the past few years and the recently adopted Long Range Plan identified this as a priority. Our increasing volume of business and increasing dependence on technology mandates a well-trained staff.

But the controversial part of the budget was our building study. For the past three years, the Library Board has requested we study our facility needs, but until this year, the Mayor was not ready to support the study, considering all the other facility concerns for the City. The need has grown more pressing as we’ve grown more crowded and the increased use exacerbates some of the difficulties of the current building. We’ve done some “make do” remodeling, but it’s better to address the needs in a serious and systematic way.

Our building is critical. Books and other library materials may be our lifeblood, and our virtual and online services may be increasingly important. But the library is still a place, a place for the whole community. The facility should make everyone feel welcome. It should be efficient to operate and should sustain the library services delivered: not only getting library materials, but doing research, attending programs and meetings and bringing children to story hours. Our current facility is functional, but less so every year and not adequate for the growing library service needs of a growing community. We need to look at some tough questions.

Some of our alderpersons were not ready to support the study. I suspect their reasons were diverse: some may have been concerned about the cost of implementing recommendations; some may have felt the study was too undefined; some may have felt that conclusions are foregone. From where I sit, the study is needed and timely, neither are the conclusions known. And though we had a close vote in including our study in the budget, it is there.

The consultants can help clarify our choices and understand costs, so the Library Board, the Mayor and Council, and ultimately the community, can decide what they want and will pay for. Choices include doing nothing, remodeling or relocating the central library, and whether to build a branch or branches – and if so, where.

Library services and our building may be under the authority of the Library Board, but our building is one of many city facilities. We’re glad that our study is going forward even while our city is looking at other facility needs. We’re also benefiting from the expertise of Dean Gazza, the City of Appleton Facilities Management Director, who had helped draft our Request for Proposals and will work with us on every step. We hope to send out our RFP in January, and then buckle down to do some work taking a good look at our options.

We love a parade!

From the Post-Crescent website: "The Appleton Public Library offers cards through the years in the 37th Annual Downtown Appleton Christmas Parade on Nov. 20, 2007. Post-Crescent photo by Steve Kabelowsky"

Several staff members, family and library supporters -- undaunted by drizzle and sleet -- carried large blow-ups of library cards from the 1930s to the present as well as historic and current photos of the library.

Young library supporters in the parade.

After the parade, children were treated to a Santa Story hour at the library. Miss Kathleen, aided by her husband Ty Westbrook, played songs shared stories and welcomed the Jolly Old Elf.

Ty & Kathleen Westbrook entertain the kids.

Miss Kathleen supervises Santa in placing a book atop the tree.

Library photos by Michael Kenney

Our local paper reads the state's reports

Posted November 23, 2007

Appleton, Neenah libraries see big circulation increases
By Ben Jones
Post-Crescent Madison bureau chief

MADISON — A slow economy could be the catalyst of a boom at some Fox Valley libraries.

Circulation at the Appleton Public Library rose more than 10 percent last year to 1.3 million items circulated, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.

Terry Dawson, the library's director, said there are probably many factors contributing to the increase, but a slightly slowing economy could explain part of the increase.

"People use libraries rather than buying books (and) people that can't afford to buy books are more reliant on the library for books and other media," Dawson said.

Dawson said other factors also could be driving circulation. He said the publishing business is booming and, locally, people pick up books while they are in the library for other events and meetings.

Dawson said circulation is up among different types of materials.

"It's not just adult materials, not just children's materials, we've seen increases in both of those," he said. "It's not just media, although it is rising quickly, it's also books, we are circulating more books than ever before."

Dawson said that in general, Fox Valley libraries are doing well. Circulation varies among area Fox Valley libraries, although state statistics show Kaukauna, New London and Oshkosh libraries saw small circulation declines.

In Neenah, the public library's circulation grew by more than 8 percent last year and is up another 8 percent this year, Director Stephen Proces said.

"We have at least 750 people a day in here," he said. "It's a good cross-section of the community."

Debra Cronmiller, executive director of the Community Shelter of the Fox Valley, said libraries mean more to low-income people than people with greater means.

"If you are making $100,000 a year, you are probably still going to Barnes & Noble," she said.

Dawson said circulation increases are good news for libraries. "It's the first law of library science," he said. "Books are for use.

With all due respect to Debra Cronmiller, who does wonderful work with the homeless in our community, if you're making $100,00 a year and going to Barnes & Noble, you're probably still going to the library. There's no doubt that poor people have fewer choices and are thus in some ways more dependent on public libraries. But there's lots of stuff that even people of means will not find in a bookstore or online.

YouTube marketing

"London Public Library: it's time to take another look!" is an interesting YouTube video from the London Ontario Public Library. I like the fact that while they're promoting their new website and cover a lot of 2.0 stuff, they also emphasize plenty of traditional services.

Read about this on John Miedema's blog -- which has been in my Bloglines list for quite awhile. John's new blog emphasizes the Slow Reading movement, and is worth viewing as a balance to all the 2.0 influences of the biblioblogosphere.

Reading at the intersection

In a Nov. 5 New Yorker article, "Future Reading: Digitization and its discontents", Anthony Grafton looks at Google Book Search and the Google Library Project, balancing their claims and promise with a look at how we read and process information and ideas.

He has some conclusions which should hearten, but not surprise us in the trade:

For now and for the foreseeable future, any serious reader will have to know how to travel down two very different roads simultaneously. ... Sit in your local coffee shop, and your laptop can tell you a lot. If you want deeper, more local knowledge, you will have to take the narrower path that leads between the lions and up the stairs. ... The narrow path still leads, as it must, to crowded public rooms where the sunlight gleams on varnished tables, and knowledge is embodied in millions of dusty, crumbling, smelly, irreplaceable documents and books.

It is not coincidental that we're hearing about the slow reading idea and Walt Crawford's Balanced Libraries. Even as we undertake exciting changes that help us become more interactive, deliver service with new tools and remind our patrons of our relevance in a digital world, our core values and services are essentially unchanged.

In marketing terms, reading is our brand. OK, but contrast with the public image of library stodginess. The trick here is to show off the new and glitzy without abandoning -- or ever appearing to abandon -- that core. Nor try to be all things to all people.

That's that, now what?

Well, our building study is in our budget, on a narrow vote in the City Council. But narrow or unanimous, we go forward. Now the work starts: we have a plan for our service priorities, and we'll work with some consultants and the community to better understand our facility options and take forward some priority recommendations.

We'll thank those Council members who voted for the library, and ask our supporters to do likewise. We'll keep talking with those who voted against the library, to understand their concerns and help them understand ours. And we'll keep telling the library's story to the community, because a well-informed community will give us better input as we study our building choices.

The long range planning at our neighbor's place in Menasha reinforces the need to keep telling our story. Tasha notes some concerns in her blog:

• Intelligent people in your community are not using your library.
• Even more so, they have no idea what a modern library is.
• They see us as conservative institutions.
• They see us as insular and unresponsive in the extreme.
• They believe every librarian fits the stereotype because they don't know or interact with librarians in real life.
• They believe we don't care, don't want to serve, don't understand society.

While Menasha's concerns are going to be nearly identical to neighboring Appleton's in respect to these perceptions, they're broader than that. This public image fight is one for all of us, touching the whole public library community. It comes home to roost in local planning and local government voting.