I stumbled upon an interesting site today: MetaCarta. You can find news stories from Reuter's and AP via a map of the world. Simply click on a pinpoint to see the title of the article. Click on the article title to view the full text of the story.
Last Thursday, at the final NHLA session of the day, many of us attended a lively and productive round table discussion for small libraries. During the meeting we talked about creating an online space to discuss issues related to small libraries.
After some consideration, I thought a free, private online space built with "Ning.com" might work well in this case. Ning is a private social network. The site itself is password protected and every user must register and get admin approval prior to joining the site. Please know that I can certainly lift these restrictions and make this a completely open site that anyone could view and use. At this time, I am the only site administrator, but I am very willing to share these duties with anyone else! Just let me know if you are interested.
After the very short registration process and admin approval, you are automatically provided with your own page (a la FaceBook or MySpace). You can customize your page, choose a new template, or leave it bare - whatever you are comfortable with doing. You can leave messages for an individual on their page. You will be notified via email when someone leaves a message for you on your page.
There is also an online forum where you can start a new discussion. You can also respond to other people's discussions. You can get notified via email when someone else responds to a discussion you are following (or a discussion you started). Generally speaking, I think the forum is the function that will (hopefully) be used the most often on this site.
It is also possible to form smaller groups of librarians within the site itself. Users have full control over this feature.
There is an events module to this site. Anyone can enter a new event for everyone to see. This might be a nice way to advertise your next book sale, author signing, etc. The only downfall I see is that you need to upload a small photo with the event.
Please note that this is a free, ad supported site. If we ever truly wish to get rid of the ads, the cost of an ad-free site would be $8/month.
Truthfully, I am not sure if this site will fit our needs or not. But for the few minutes it took to set up (and for being free!), I think it is worth a try.
This site is password protected for the time being, but please do not assume that your words will be locked in a safe. Don't write anything you wouldn't write to this list.
If you work at a small library and want to share ideas with other librarians, register for the site by following this link to: http://smallnhlibraries.ning.com/
By the way, what is a "small" library? There isn't a true population limit or definition. If you think you work at a small library -- that's definition enough!
NHUPAC, the name of the new server for NHU-PAC, is proving a problem child. There were problems with its physical installation, which were taken care of with the help of Theresa Pare-Curtis. Now there are connection issues. NHUPAC, the computer, is physically installed in the server farm on Hazen Drive, the wires have been connected but – there doesn’t seem to be anyone at home. I’m hopeful that this is just shyness on the new computer’s part and once it realizes that we, the Library community, mean to do it no harm, it will respond as any good computer should.
This tongue in cheek description of the technical problems is to inform you that another range of problems has arisen and is being beaten back through the cooperation of the State’s OIT Department, Sirsi-Dynix, and NHAIS services. As I’ve stated previously, when a “go live” date can be established it will include at least a 7 day warning period so that work schedules can be modified, if needed. The “go live” day will be the day that NHU-PAC, the service, will be unavailable for most of the day while final changes are made to the program.
NHAIS Services staff is waiting to have the new server installed. The upgrade should fix a couple of long standing problems. Top on that list is access to the Cataloging module.
Thank you for your patience and forbearance. The complexities of our system are deep with many parts must all work in harmony.
Charlie
Steve at Libbie Cass Library (Springfield, NH) recently sent this to NH libraries and agreed to let me share it here:
"I guess it's time for another reminder about the small library book distribution program. I've held off for a while because I tend to get swamped after sending out a notice like this, but I want to remind you all that smaller libraries cannot compete with larger ones when it comes to snapping up the freebies that are offered on line. I collect books for, at this point, 11 libraries around the state. People send me books they no longer want, I type up a list each month of what I've received and send the list to the smaller libraries who then return them to me with their choices. What they don't want gets put into our annual book sale. What am I looking for? Mostly the books have to be in good condition. I take fiction, non-fiction, adult and juvenile, audios and videos. Weeded books are okay, as long as they're still in good condition. However, I don't want high school textbooks, travel books that are more than a year or two old, directories of NH manufacturers (or books of that ilk). With juvenile books, especially, make sure that the spines aren't ripped or the book looks like someone's dog has played with it for a while (you might be surprised what some people send me). Just put what you have in a box and put it on the van for me with some kind of notice that it's a gift, or for distribution. I'll do the rest. Right now I distribute to 11 libraries (the number is always changing as libraries join and drop out of the program) and I offer around 6,000 books each year. I now charge libraries a small amount to cover the printing costs of the lists I send out, but otherwise it's a free program, and a single new book that a library takes covers the cost. If you have further questions, just email. Thanks."
Because of continuing problems with access to the Holdings Maintenance server, users have had more reason lately to save lists of titles to work on at a later time. We recently improved the instructions for working with My List, particularly for using saved lists in Holdings Maintenance. Go to the NHU-PAC training page and click on Using 'My List' (under Searching NHU-PAC). The PDF files on the training page represent most of the handouts from NHU-PAC classes which will be offered again on June 3 in Concord. The classes are free but you need to register online if you'd like to attend.
At the NHLA conference yesterday I presented a digital archive (library?) built on WordPress. Those of you who have attended a WordPress blogging workshop are familiar with the hosted side of WordPress, or WordPress.com. However, you might not know that there is another deeper side to WordPress: WordPress.org.
WordPress.org is the site that provides the free, open source software that you can download, manipulate, and upload on a server of your choice. The software is free and different themes and functionality can be added to the site as needed.
Here is what attracted me to use WordPress as a digital archive:
Alas, it's getting to be a daily occurrence: Holdings Maintenance is working slowly or won't let you log in. And, alas, all we can tell you is to try again later. Although we have new hardware that should take care of this problem ready to install (and we've had it for more than a month now), we still have to wait for the agency which controls the state's server farm to do its part.
The New Hampshire State Library is closed on Monday, May 26, 2008 in observance of Memorial Day. There will be NO VAN DELIVERY on that date. If you have "Monday only" delivery, you may want to make other arrangements for pickup/delivery with your van driver.
Friday, May 16, noon: It's another day when our Holdings Maintenance server can't keep up with demand and users are finding it slow or are unable to log in at all. As before (see the May 1 posting), we regret that the only advice we can offer for now is try again later.
Leaders of the Library of Congress , the National Library of Medicine, and the National Agricultural Library met on March 10, 2008 to discuss the recommendation from On the Record: the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control to "suspend work on RDA." Deanna Marcum has issued a letter regarding this meeting along with the statement from the group.
Thursday, May 1, 11:45 a.m.: The NHAIS Help Desk has heard from a few libraries unable to load the Holdings Maintenance login page this morning. Until we're able to install new server equipment (work originally scheduled for April 21), you'll just have to try again later to see if you can connect to the Holdings Maintenance server. We have a new server ready to go but continue to wait for the state's Office of Information Technology to give us a date when it can be installed.
