James LaRue - myliblog

You can find a bunch of links from today's interview with NCompass Live's Michael Sauer, right here .

Library Journal picked up my recent piece, " All Hat, No Cattle ," which they subtitled: "A call for libraries to transform before it's too late." I think I make two key points: * librarians have to DO something, not just complain to each other. * the emerging publishing marketplace is way more interesting than just what the Big Six are up to. What a fun time to be a librarian!

They're also hiring away Monique Sendze, our extraordinary IT director. But that's what happens when you hire the best; other people want them, too. Bibliotecha press release: www.bibliotheca.com/1/index.php/newsit/comunicati-stampa/455-bibliotheca-to-support-open-source-ebook-model Library Journal: www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/06/ebooks/bibliotheca-debuts-ebook-division-on-douglas-county-model/

A few days ago, I was talking with someone about the richness of Greek mythology, about how well it delineated the range of human types. I remembered having written a local newspaper column about my daughter Maddy's fascination with those stories. After digging around, I found it in my archive of columns at LaRue's Views . That particular piece, written when Maddy was four, can be found here . I would add this: Maddy's deep immersion in these tales helped to make her an emotionally intelligent soul. I sent it along to Maddy, who expressed the perfectly reasonable desire to read more about herself when she was little. I told her to just use the Blogspot search box (upper left corner) for her name, or for the phrase "my daughter." And then I realized that I could also search for "my son," born "Perry," but who later legally changed his name to "Max," which totally suits him better. (That's another story, but a cool one: the teenag...

The Douglas County Libraries has many extraordinary staff members. Four of them are Colbe Galston, Elizabeth Kelsen Huber, Katherine Johnson, and Amy Long. They are all librarians. I'm very pleased to note their recent article, Community Reference: Making Libraries Indispensable in a New Way . It's in the latest (June, 2012) issue of American Libraries . Our library has been doing a lot of work on the cutting edge of our profession. This one - "Community Reference" - is important. It represents a shift from an internal to a more wholistic focus. Instead of asking what serves the library, we now ask how can the library serve the community? This may surprise some librarians, but it's not all about us. On the other hand, we have a host of skills that can not only make our whole environment (cultural, political, economic, etc.) better. This is also an opportunity for us to demonstrate our worth. Let me also acknowledge a profound intellectual debt. The mantra of m...

A couple of weeks ago, I turned on my System76 Meerkat NetTop (which I'd bought back in December of 2010 for $400) and heard the SNAP of some kind of electrical/power discharge. Dead. Although System76 is a great company, and the hardware seems generally reliable for most people (judging by online reviews), it marked the THIRD problem I'd had with my unit, and this one was out of warranty. Sometimes you get a lemon, no matter who the manufacturer is. So I unplugged and recycled it. The good news: I back up my home computer every week in several places. I didn't really lose anything but a few emails. At about that time, I got an electronic ad from the local Micro Center. So I wandered over, and picked up an Acer Aspire (5733/5733Z/5333 Series) series laptop for $300. Oddly enough, this morning I read an article by a librarian about why this is totally the wrong time to buy a laptop. Maybe ... if you really want the latest and greatest. The truth is, my needs are si...

At a recent retreat of the Colorado Public Library Directors, it was clear that a lot of libraries want to provide ebooks to their patrons. It's also clear that they very much like the simple principles asserted by the Douglas County Libraries model to date. Those are: - ownership. Libraries need physical possession of the file. - discounts. Libraries are volume purchasers, and as such, deserve discounts. - integration. With possession of the file, we can do a much better job of providing a simple, powerful and consistent user experience. A few other principles matter, too: - a Common Understanding (see the eVoke website, below), rather than complex contracts and licenses for each publisher, that spells out the terms of our business agreement. For instance, that we limit use to one at a time, using industry standard DRM, and that we'll buy extra copies of the file to meet the demands of simultaneous use (within budget constraints, of course). - a "click to buy...