Member peteswind3 started the conversation by asking:

What should one say to keep people from copying donated material to the genealogy department and putting the copied material in a book and selling it. Is there a standard form stating a person cannot copy and sell this material? Then what recourse can be taken if it is copied and sold.

This generated questions about whether libraries “own” the copyright on donated materials.

I’m imagine this topic is relevant for other parts of our collections—especially as self-publishing for-profit becomes more common. Please join the conversation and share your thoughts by commenting here in the blog or in the original discussion thread.

I’ll highlight specific resources and activities later in the post, but right now I’ve got to tell you how excited I am about the wacky-good promotional Library Week videos you can download from the AL Focus site.

These videos turn normally stale library stats (”Reference librarians in the nation’s public and academic libraries answer more than 7.2 million questions weekly“) on their ear. I mean, where else are you going to find a video campaign that combines romance novels and vending machines, brings literature and Johnny Depp to the McDonalds Drive-in window, stumps viewers with the really important reference questions, and takes them inside a high-stakes game of ID-card Go Fish.Genius!The shelf life of this campaign is sure to extend well beyond next week and should make for clever marketing videos for the entire year. Instructions are available for downloading and embedding. You are even invited to use the the animated intro as a lead-in to your own library cinematic creation. Let us know if you make one!

All right, on to the rest of the week’s goodies. Individual events for the week include:

• Monday: Submit your library star nominee
• Tuesday: National Library Workers Day
• Thursday: YALSA Support Teen Literature Day
• Friday: Library Gaming Day (Gaming @ Your Library)

And a smattering of resources to help you plan your events:

• ALA National Library Week Fact Sheet (and don’t forget the Julie Andrews promos)
• Who needs the Public Library video via WebJunction
• Lesson Plans, Projects and Resources from Education World
• Library Week Activity Page at I Love Libraries
• Library Postal Art History
• Chicagoist Blog Celebrates Libraries
• Special Library Celebration Ideas from WJ-Illinois
• National Library Week South Africa from “It’s All Good“
• Inspirational ideas for children

As the week goes on this list should get even more rich thanks to all the nuggets you’ll submit via comments (You are planning to comment, aren’t you?), your blog posts out there on the interweb, your ticklish, snippet-filled tweets (I’m thinking “#NatLibWk08″ hashtag could work), and so on.

And if it turns out that a whole week still doesn’t allow enough time to get your library groove on, you can relax— you’ve got more time. April is School Library Media Month. Phew! I think LibraryLand has us Aries covered.

Do you have something fun planned for National Library Week? As always, let us know here in the comments or in the National Library Week discussion thread on WebJunction.

Check out this fantastic collaborative national effort brought to my attention at the PLA WJ Member Reception by Denise Raleigh from the Gail Borden Public Library District in Illinois.Based on the library’s Storypalooza project of 2007, the contest is sweeping across the country as kids create 2-minute videos about their favorite book. The entry deadline is April 20, so spread the word with the kids in your library community.

Voting mania will happen each week in May with winners each week receiving $500 in books. Their sponsoring organization (school, library or designated organization for home-schooled youth) will receive $1,000 in books.

I wasn’t surprised by the report’s data that indicates Spanish is far and away the most supported non-English language in public libraries. Seventy-eight percent of libraries reported Spanish as the foreign language that is their first priority when it comes to providing programs and services to non-English speakers. Asian languages ranked second in priority at 29%.

I was surprised to learn that smaller communities are serving a larger proportion of non-English speakers. The report found that the majority of libraries serving non-English speakers are in communities with fewer than 100,000 residents.

Check out ALA’s one-page summary of the report highlights or download the full report. Stay tuned for a companion toolkit coming soon!
 

As Darwin discovered, it’s not necessarily the swiftest or strongest or largest species that survive; it is those most adaptable to change. The dangerous ideas conversation is all about adaptation and change. It begins with the question “What if …?”

What if librarians would promote and participate in the development of Wikipedia?
What if we made decisions that are not based on scarcity?
What if libraries large and small invest together to adopt open source solutions?
What if teens in the library were our partners instead of our problem?
What if we learned to advertise the allure of libraries as successfully as soft drinks and junk food?

(This is just a sampling of the provocative questions raised.)

Half of the “what ifs” above came from the audience as a result of the refreshing level of interactivity. (What if all conference sessions stimulated participation from the audience?) Questioning assumptions is contagious and uncomfortable. There was anxiety and reaction mixed with excitement. In the atmosphere of brainstorming “unthinkable thoughts,” the point is to confront the discomfort, find the opportunities, and then move forward with actions.

One audience member suggested that the next PLA (2010) should be totally focused on “what if?” Someone else said we can’t wait that long—that the next PLA should be one grand discussion of the results of two years of action.

Catch the fever at whatiflibs.wetpaint.com.

*Presenters: Deirdre Routt/Omaha PL, Stacey Aldrich/California State Library, Brian Auger/Howard County Library, Amy de Groff/Howard County Library, Rivkah Sass/Omaha PL

According to the study results, it appears that libraries indeed remain relevant in this internet age. In fact, the study found more than half of all Americans manged to visit libraries last year. Even more surprisingly, those tech-savvy, web-loving, Wikipedia using Gen-Yers were the biggest library users of all.

To start a discussion on the topic, WebJunction member alatreil asked:

“Would you say that Generation Y (18-30-year-olds) are your library’s heaviest users? What do you think this means for your library—and what does it mean for the nation’s libraries?“

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post in the original thread, or here in the blog comments.

We post the featured question here in the blog and on our community landing pages, hopeful that our WebJunction members will see topics from areas of the site they don’t normally frequent. The question is normally selected by WJ staffers, but please remember that this is your community and your input is always encouraged. If you’ve got a question you want to ask, or you see a good question coming in, please post it in the Question of the Week topic.

Without further ado, here’s our latest question: On the surface, it seems a pretty standard policy query; a deeper look reveals a twist.

“Does anyone have guidelines or a policy on the handling of truant students in the public library during school hours?“

-WebJunction member 4578

The twist here is that initial respondents in the discussion thread commented that their libraries’ large populations of home schoolers would make even identifying truants a difficult task.

Do you have a truant policy? Or a problem with school-aged children in the library during the day? Please share your tips, stories, and questions in the original thread, or here in comments.

We’ve created a discussion thread in our community forums, but it’s begging for your contributions; please chime in. We also welcome your comments here in the blog.

If you are still looking for ideas, you can try the WebJunction African American Resources pathfinder or peruse shared ideas in the discussion forum.

Remember, this forum can be a great programming resource for next year. Even if you don’t have time to contribute right now, you can still share what you have done to help people planning their 2009 celebration!

This month we are trying an experiment with our long-running “I’m Curious George” column. As regular readers know, George’s pieces can often inspire reflection and occasionally lend themselves to group discussion. To facilitate such discussion we are posting the entire column here at BlogJunction. We’re optimistic that the “I’m Curious, George community will engage in a conversation right here in the blog comments. If this proves successful, look for more of our regular features published in BlogJunction. If it bombs, well, this is the web and we are supposed to try new things, right?

E-books Kindle Buzz

by George Needham

Dear George: When I was young, “kindle” was how we started a fire in the fireplace. Now, I see the name has been appropriated for yet another electronic book reader. I’m curious, George: What is it about e-books and e-book readers that make techies salivate? Don’t they realize that the good old paper book is the best possible technology for carrying information?-Passionate about Paper in Poughkeepsie

Dear 3P:

Before I address your question, full disclosure: E-content provider NetLibrary and WebJunction are both part of OCLC, and I work for OCLC. Second, I have a Kindle on order from Amazon for my personal use and to use in the workshops I teach. Finally, everything stated below is my personal opinion and not the opinion of OCLC or NetLibrary or WebJunction or the commissioner of professional football or the studio producing the movie contained herein.

That being said, many years ago I attended one of the first Public Library Association conferences where the keynote speaker was science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. He talked about writing a story in which he needed a high-tech device that was easy to produce on a mass scale, fairly indestructible, and compact, and that could hold vast amounts of information. Then, he said, he realized it had already been invented: it was the book.

“Wikipedia lists two dozen formats in its comparison of e-books, and that doesn’t even include Kindle. It seems that the woods are littered with dead e-book readers.”

Since that day, your faithful correspondent has watched the rise and fall of a score of electronic reading formats, and there was a time when I would have agreed with you. Wikipedia lists two dozen formats in its comparison of e-books, and that doesn’t even include Kindle. It seems that the woods are littered with dead e-book readers. As one writer said on the flickr site “ebooks kindle amazon” (run by WJ’s own Michael Porter), “The public library I worked at bought a ton of e-books and e-book readers back about, oh 8 years or so ago. A huge flop. I think they’re using them for coasters. Or to hold up bookshelves.”

I looked at several of the earlier technologies and decided they weren’t for me. The flickering screen, the short battery life, the onerous usage restrictions, and the lack of available content were all factors that discouraged me from using e-books.

“I believe we might be at the point where e-books move from techie toy to mainstream product.”

E-books have taken a beating in the courts of library and popular opinion. But one of the few advantages of being older than dirt is that I’ve gained some perspective. There seems to be a pattern to the adoption of these things. When a new technology is introduced, the initial manifestations may be bug-ridden, expensive, highly restricted in operation, and available in limited supply. A few people will become passionate advocates despite the flaws, a few people will become passionate adversaries despite the potential, and the vast majority of people will be blissfully unaffected. Slowly, the new technology may improve and become more acceptable to the vast middle group by coming down in price, becoming more dependable, and improving functionality. If it doesn’t, it disappears into the sunset, rightfully.

I believe we might be at the point where e-books move from techie toy to mainstream product. The E Ink has greatly improved readability of the electronic page. The battery life on the new readers is much longer than its predecessors. Amazon already has nearly 100,000 titles available for the Kindle, along with magazines, newspapers, and blogs. Are there huge holes in the offerings? Of course. Will I trash my personal collection of thousands of books in favor of replacing everything with digital surrogates? No.

But it strikes me that e-books could have a huge positive impact in several ways. First, there is inordinate waste in the current production of paper books, magazines, and newspapers. Millions of these items are printed and pulped every year without ever being read. Millions more clog landfills after they’ve served their purposes. E-books take this inherent inefficiency and environmental damage out of the system.

E-books could be a very effective distribution mechanism for high-demand items. I certainly would have preferred to put in my order for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and have it delivered directly to a Kindle than waiting in line at midnight at the local superstore to buy it. it would have also weighed about a quarter as much as the paper version.

“Another positive impact could be the e-book reader as a possible delivery tool for textbooks.”

E-books might make it possible for iconoclastic authors with views outside the mainstream of any publishing house to make their views known to a wider audience, and even make a living at it. This could, possibly, help keep the huge communications conglomerates from limiting access to the marketplace of ideas.

Another positive impact could be the e-book reader as a possible delivery tool for textbooks. When I see my grandson lugging a backpack full of textbooks home from school each night, I wish that he could have just loaded all that material to a 10-ounce reader and saved his back. It would also be possible to keep e-textbooks up to date on an e-book reader, something that’s not an option with paper books.

Despite this screed, I’m not totally sold on e-books yet. I need to start using my Kindle to know if it’s going to be something I can’t live without, like my iPod, or a tchotchke that sits on my desk and doesn’t get used, like my digital picture frame!

So all I ask is that you keep an open mind, 3P, and don’t write the technology off just because the early versions are clunky. That’s my beef with the gentleman who posted about the library that bought e-book readers eight years ago: a lot has happened in the intervening eight years! We don’t base our decisions on buying a car today on the shortcomings of the 1903 Stanley Steamer, do we?

Want a second opinion? Read William Lund’s of Brigham Young University review of the Kindle e-book reader.