“I heard it on…..”

Books in Print began in 1948 as the index to the Publisher’s Trade Manual. We all learned how to use this venerable publication. But today, it is not your mother’s publication anymore. Since 2000, BooksInPrint.com has provided the industry’s largest online bibliographic database. That alone allows them to provide the most current up-to-date information available on the published and soon to be published, but I recently learned that it can do much more.

How many times has a customer said “I heard it on…?” Not a problem if you happened to listen to or watch the same program. BooksInPrint.com now offers a special feature that allows you to search by particular program mentions or where it was reviewed. I feel empowered.

Another feature that can help us provide comprehensive information is the Awards section. This not only gives awards an author has received, but nominations for prizes they didn’t win. Then there is the Fiction Connection which quickly expands our readers’ advisory capabilities. While searching for similar books you can control for those special aspects the reader enjoyed; i.e., female detective, Italian countryside, etc. This is a tool with a great deal to offer.

Book Kits Plus

FCPL currently offers 61 book kits for clubs, 40 adult, 10 young adult and 11 juvenile titles. As a member of a book club I know that sometimes we need a little guidance in order to get the conversation going. The study guides in the kits are very helpful and thought provoking. The kits are great for several reasons, primarily the study guides but also club members are saved the time of individually obtaining a copy of the chosen title.

Other times clubs want to choose titles that are not available in kits. LitLovers can solve that problem. It is an online community dedicated to books and book clubs. They offer book reviews, plot summaries, author biographies and discussion guides for a growing number of titles. LitLovers also offers reading suggestions in categories such as “A Lighter Touch”, Wonderfully Written” or “Great Works.” Other sections of the site offer great ideas for Kids and Teens, Great Movie Adaptations, book reviews and even food ideas to go with your readings. This site can turn many of the great titles offered in our libraries into book kits.

Kindle

Books are a wonderful thing. As I have aged my eyesight is not what it used to be so I have not even been tempted to consider reading books on a Blackberry or an iPhone. I don’t want to carry a laptop everywhere I go. Now Kindle, Amazon’s new portable reader, has arrived. It has many great features such as adjustable font size for those who would like larger print and wireless downloads. At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a typical paperback, but fits in one hand. The library of available titles (90,000) is growing everyday and the personal memory holds about 200 titles. New book prices are $9.99 and many older works are available for considerably less, although all publishers and authors have not agreed to allow their books to be sold this way.

I love new technology, but I am not convinced yet that I will like a world where I snuggle up with my Kindle. It has 30 hours of reading time before you have to recharge, but what if it goes dead at the most exciting moment? Maybe it is not the current delivery system (paper and ink) that I love, but I can share my books with family and friends. At $399 I am not likely to share my Kindle.

"Connections"

As my children are grown but not yet parents themselves, I must admit to being sadly out of date on children’s books. This week I learned about the "Connections" Web site. This wonderful site currently maintained by the Fairfax County Public Schools allows one to find books that are directly related to the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs). Not only are the materials identified by subject, title or author, but can be searched by grade level and curriculum. Then to make this resource even more useful after identifying a particular book, you can check directly on the availability in either the FCPL or FCPS collections. "Connections" also includes links to primary sources in the Library of Congress American Memory Collection.

"Connections" was begun by teachers throughout Virginia working with Project HOPE-Virginia, and coordinated by The College of William & Mary. It is designed to assist everyone who works with children.

We link to this and many other educational aids on the library's Homework and Student Support area on our site. Check it out!

Patron/Customer/Client?

Customer used to be defined as a person who bought goods or services. The term has been extended to refer to any regular client such as our library visitors. Some library staff still refer to these people as patrons. The definition of patron is anyone who supports, protects or champions something. Client is defined as one for whom professional services are rendered.

There is much talk about customer service, but that really has a business flavor. I think I favor the term client. We are providing professional services to these visitors in our libraries. We would hope that we do such a good job that many will want to become our patrons and support the Fairfax Library Foundation.

*Definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary.

--contributed by Barbara

What’s in a name?

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines database as "a large collection of data organized for rapid search and retrieval (as by a computer)." Well there you have it. What could be clearer? Everything! I keep looking for some other word or definition or description of all the wonderful resources we have available to the patrons of FCPL. I want a word that tells people what is there and why they want to take a look. I have looked at library Web sites around our area as well as across the country. Some of the other words used are: Online Resources, Research Databases, Electronic Resources, Online Collection and Premium Online Resources. Some of these are better maybe, but none tells library users that what is available is comparable to having a library reference collection in their own home and accessible night or day. What could be more wonderful than to have dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, statistics, literature and criticism, magazine and newspaper articles at your fingertips whenever you needed accurate information?

Web Translators

I have never been a fan of Microsoft, but I have to admit it looks like they have done a good job with their new Windows Live Translator. Babel Fish by Altavista has been around for years, but always produced a somewhat awkward translation. Google also has introduced a translator recently. Testing various parts of our Fairfax County Public Library site with these translators, Microsoft was the fastest and did a good job of retaining the look as well as the information.

Just today at my branch we had a customer who was having a difficult time communicating his questions to the info staff. Maybe when things get too complicated to explain in our fractured second languages one of these translators can come to our rescue. Not only do they translate words or sentences, but they translate whole web pages.

What experiences have you had with Web translators? Good, bad, indifferent?

Roving Reference

Record your observations, experiences, and suggestions about the Roving Reference program.

The Internet Public Library

The Internet Public Library or IPL began in 1995 as a project at the University of Michigan, School of Information. In January 2007, the project moved to Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology and is now contributed to by a consortium of colleges and universities with information science programs.

This project attempts to apply best practices for providing library services via the Internet. The goal is to select and maintain a balanced representative collection of Web sites for information, reference and research. The content must be freely available and the source trustworthy.

The IPL site includes special focused sections designed for teens and kids. All sections answer e-mailed questions. The site is visually appealing and the search engine is terrific. Not only is it quick, but categorizes results by format, i.e. Web sites, magazines, newspapers, associations, Kidspace or Teenspace. Another feature I really like is the extensive list of online newspapers from around the world.

Check it out!

Change to fees for "The New York Times"

Yesterday, The New York Times dropped its TimesSelect. Customers paid $49.95 a year or $7.95 a month for "... access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. ... In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free." ("Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site" by Richard Perez-Pena)

What effect will this move have on your use of content from The New York Times?

Who do you trust?

Some people think that if they can google maybe they don’t need libraries anymore. Everything is on the internet: truth and personal opinion.

How to know which is which? Many googlers think that the first thing that comes up should be the answer. Sorting out the source can be accomplished sometimes by reading down the urls. Another way to find trustworthy information is by using the Librarians’ Internet Index. This is a publicly funded Web site which lists and describes high-quality Web sites which have been carefully selected and organized by librarians. The site is organized into 14 main topics and hundreds of subtopics. Funding for this project comes from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

How else do you determine whether information is valid?

Good Signs

I have been trying to find ways to promote use of our databases. My first thought was that the problem was the term “Database.” It didn’t convey the right message. Then I focused on trying to show individual customers how to find things they were looking for by using our databases. Next I began passing out the brochure and bookmark that helped explain what they might find in the databases. My next step was to work with my branch staff to develop a simple program to teach parents how to help their children with homework by using the databases or at least rescue them from that frantic 8:30 dash to the library! Then one day I decided to do a walk through the library just to try and see it from the customer’s perspective.

What I discovered surprised me. We told them where the non-fiction was located, where the mysteries were and where the catalog was, but we never mentioned that those catalog computers had databases full of wonderful information. According to our most recent survey many of our patrons don’t know anything about the databases. We are adding new signs as quickly as we can. Hopefully maybe we will get more questions about these wonderful sources.

What is Krug’s Law?

Why is Google so appealing? I think the first answer is that it is so simple.

Steve Krug, the author of Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability says the most common problem with Web sites is “too much--of everything.” On the basis of this premise, Google wins. I cannot think of another Web site for anything that has chosen to say so little. If you pull up Google.com, there is no question about what you should do or where. There is a lot of white space and almost no room for confusion.

Krug’s Law is actually “don’t make me think.” Google makes it very simple and does not distract the user. Then it provides a wealth of information and things are no longer so simple. Sorting out the relevance and accuracy of the information is where librarians can save the day. Anyone can google, but people often need help sorting out the results.

What other Web sites appeal to you for their simplicity?

Happy Birthday WWW

We can all celebrate the birthday this week of the world wide web. Sir Tim Berners-Lee developed the web at the CERN Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva in November of 1990. His vision was “that people should not have to deal with the technology stuff." The WWW was launched on August 6, 1991. Time magazine named Tim Berners-Lee as one of the top 100 people who have changed the world, http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/index.html and in July 2004 he was granted knighthood by the British Empire.


Sixteen years ago most of us probably didn’t really know what we would do with this new technology. Today most of us don’t know what we would do without it. The WWW has changed how business is conducted throughout the world and without a doubt it has changed how librarians obtain and distribute information. We depend on the web for news, shopping, banking, travel and even use it for spelling… if only workflows was more forgiving!

How has the WWW affected you?

Shelfari.com

We often have requests from customers who want to know the titles of books they have checked out over the some past period of time. Since our system shows only currently checked out or overdue materials, we are unable to satisfy these requests for assistance.

In the past, there was only Librarything. Now there is Shelfari. Shelfari was launched in October of 2006. In February, Amazon invested a million dollars in Seattle-based Shelfari.

Shelfari is a social network for book lovers, but for those of us not yet up to social networking on the Internet it is also a wonderful place to keep a list of what we have read and what we want to read in the future. The site is clean, easy to use and best of all it is free. There is no advertising. Of course, if you wish to buy a book there is a quick link to Amazon and Shelfari earns an affiliate commission. Shelfari offers book clubs, reviews and recommendations for those who are ready for more networking.

Mixed Messages?

Do we send mixed messages in our libraries? We want to provide excellent customer service. We make every effort to locate our information desks so they are easy to find and make them very approachable. We work on presenting ourselves as friendly and helpful. We are continually making efforts to improve the appearance of our libraries and rearrange and display our resources in ways we think will make it easier for our customers to find what they are looking for or even those things they didn’t realize they were looking for. We try to offer assistance in every way we can. Then we change signals and offer self service check out. We want them to do this for themselves.

I often watch, from my info desk vantage point as our circulation department staff chat with and assist patrons as they are checking them out. They may be telling them about a program or just commenting on having enjoyed a book themselves that the patron is checking out, but people seem pleased for the interaction. Self check out doesn’t talk back.

Can we encourage both personal interaction and self-service? How? What do you think?

How to let customers know?

Our customers can currently receive e-mails advising them that the items they have checked out are soon to be due back or that an item they have on hold has arrived for them to pick up at the library. What if we could also provide them with e-mails about new databases, books, DVDs or programs that were available at their library? Maybe they could select areas of interest for example: best sellers, children’s books, science fiction, etc.

We have such a wealth of information and services in our libraries but perhaps the personal touch is needed. In this busy world perhaps none of us has sufficient time to go looking, but many of us still read our e-mail.

What other channels can you think of that would help us reach customers?

Shared digital media

OverDrive Community Reserve expands what our customers can enjoy. This new resource sharing service allows libraries to make available local historical documents, educational materials, or locally produced videos featuring authors or special events. Once added to the library’s collection these items could be downloaded just like any materials in our OverDrive collection.

The Community Reserve system also allows each participating library to designate restricted use limited to only their own library customers or share their local history, art and culture with all other participating libraries.

Are customers asking you for this material? Do you think this would work for us?

Wow! This years ALA conference was the largest in history. More than 28,635 librarians, exhibitors and curious attended this annual conference at the Washington Convention Center from June 21-27. Conference programs offered discussions on the latest technologies, policies and services. These programs included newsmakers, wonderful speakers, authors and other notable attendees.

For those without tickets to the big attractions there was the Exhibit Hall. Over 950 exhibiters featured the latest products and services vital to today’s libraries and librarians. Many authors were available for book signings at publisher’s booths. This was an adventure. There was no way to do this exhibit justice with only one free afternoon to devote to the exercise. Maybe next time, since they are planning on return visit to our area in 2010 I will be better prepared.

No Dewey?!

The Perry branch of Maricopa County Library District in Arizona, which opened in June, dropped the Dewey Decimal System and has employed a bookstore arrangement. The collection of 30,000 items is organized by 50 or so subject headings. The books are shelved in alphabetical order by author. The catalog record indicates the subject heading.

Going Dewey-less resulted in many failed experiments in the past and it still leaves many challenges like creating a new taxonomy to divide the broad subject headings into more manageable pieces. However, hats off to Maricopa for putting this into practice!

How do you think customers will take to a non-Dewey arrangement?

Phoenix Public Library

If you are looking for an interesting public library web site, browse the Phoenix Public Library‘s site. Their integrated library system is Endeca.

Here are a few things that caught my eye.

The catalog search feature is unique in that the home page allows the reader to search for items by different categories and by specific subjects without mentioning “Catalog.” The public can just click the links according to the subjects or types of materials on the library’s main page.

Also by adding “Find an Article” option, it allows customers who do not know what databases are and where they should go to find an article to be directed to the right place with one click.

Another user friendly feature is the links for “My Account” and “My Bookshelf.” These features appear to be customer friendly and provide easy access to perform various tasks via the Internet. Further, the option for login with their library card numbers with their last names may be able to reduce the library staffs’ workload, i.e., answering customer’s password information.

Take a look!

Me? Design a flier?

Designing a quality flier or handout is definitely a blend of art and science. I've watched in happy amazement as trained graphic artists take the germ of an idea and create beautiful pieces without so much as breaking a sweat. Having "an eye" for such things can be a natural talent, but this isn't the case for most of us. Your organization may have standards and requirements to be followed for publications, etc. But what if you are called upon to design a party flier for a friend who is moving away or for your child's birthday? What to do?

Here are some sites that are excellent places to start.

Color theory: Janet Lynn Ford's www.worqx.com or the Incredible Art Department at Princeton Online.

Color palettes: Color Marketing Group or browse through ColorBlender for some quick suggestions.

Typefaces and fonts: Too many sites out there on this so let me close with a reference to Wikipedia for typefaces.

What challenges you in creating fliers?

Online reference services

While our library's virtual reference service continues to grow in numbers of questions asked and answered, there are some competitors for us out there! Yahoo Answers!, Askville from Amazon, ChaCha, and now Wikipedia. Google Answers didn't stand the test of time. They did charge for their answers and I guess users didn't find what they got worth the fee paid. These others are free and provide combinations of search engine results plus the ability to chat with people. ChaCha calls these folk "Guides." I'm heartened by my librarian training in that I understand the benefit of a reference interview and the use of some basic quality reference resources. Still these are our competition. Check them out!

Last.fm

If MySpace or Facebook have drawn you in, you might be ready to try Last.fm. This is a "music discovery" site where individuals can create their own online pages with 30 second clips of their favorite songs and their own playlists. The site's search engine recommends songs based on the songs you've chosen. Like other social networking sites, Last.fm provides the opportunity to "meet" others virtually. This networking is based on similar tastes in music.

Founded in 2002, Last.fm has over 15 million users from countries all over the globe. The CBS Corporation purchased it on May 30th for $280 million.

What other music networking sites would you recommend?

Blackle

Could you save energy using Google? Yes! Heap Media has customized the Google search and offers Blackle.com. Blackle is Google in a black screen with white text version. Supposedly, this slight change saves hundreds of megawatt hours a year. All the specifics can be found at About Blackle.

I tried a few searches and got results speedily. I'm not sure how Blackle would work for people with visual impairments but it is an interesting attempt at saving energy for those of us who spend hours and hours conducting searches in Google.

A library catalog 2.0

The Lamson Library of Plymouth State University in New Hampshire offers customers a novel approach in providing their catalog. Casey Bisson expanded use of WordPress blog software to create WPopac which I'm guessing stands for a combination of WordPress and OPAC. The opac is inserted into WordPress. Why did Plymouth State do this? According to their site, "WordPress has a a few things we care about built-in: permalinks, comments, and trackbacks (and a good comment spam filter), just to start. But it also offers something we’ve never seen in a library application before: access to a community of knowledge, programmers, and designers outside libraries."

The current main page includes 1 customer comment for "Holt American Anthem : Modern American History" plus all the usual direct links to the title and item records, ability to click for more searches on related subjects and "to find more like this" plus in the "tools" area a direct link to "find in WorldCat Libraries" and to "add to del.icio.us" for bookmarking.

Take a look!

SearchMash

Here's a keeper for your cache of search tools -- www.searchmash.com. "Operated by Google Inc." (according to their "Terms of Service" page), SearchMash is loaded with great features. First, you don't have to have the cursor in the search box to type your query. You can start typing anywhere on the page. Very liberating! The layout for the resulting hits is very clean. Each entry in the hit list is concisely worded and your term is highlighted. The right column has listings for "images" "blogs" "videos" and "Wikipedia." Each opens with a simple click on the "+" sign. The feedback options in the right column are specific to the individual areas -- web pages, images, blogs, etc. which encouraged me to click on the yes or no. The polite "Thanks!" after each choice was also very nicely done.

Give SearchMash a try and let us know what you think.

Write clearly

Have you ever had difficulties reading someone else's handwritting? Reading your own?

PDF (portable document format) forms have gotten even better. We are offering more and more library PDF forms on the InfoWeb as fillable. What's that? You can type directly in the PDF rather than printing out the page and writing or -- heaven forbid! -- finding a typewriter and typing in the requested information.

How can you tell if a form on the InfoWeb is fillable? Go to the Forms menu page. Scroll down the page and look in the right column. If you see the Adobe image with a pencil resting on top, those are the ones.

Click, type using your keyboard, and click on the Print button at the bottom of the page. The newly redone FCPLEA Puppet Order form is an excellent example.

Survey Sez

There are some wonderful insights reported by our customers in the weekly (or so) survey questions posted on the library's Internet site home page. The current question asks "What kind of pet do you have, what is its name, and why did you call it that?" The responses are revealing and many are pretty amusing. Last week's question was "How do you use the library?" The survey offers a simple and effective way of hearing from customers which compliments the actions staff see in the buildings daily.

Have an idea for a survey question? We're all ears!

Flickr: Geotagging and Notes

With many thanks to Suzanne Levy, we have several aerial photos of the emerging new Fairfax City Regional Library. We've included them on the library's Flickr account, which is provided by the Foundation. While working on these, Bob Bowie suggested we try out a couple of the new Flickr features we learned about at the Web 2.0 Conference earlier this month. And of course we did!

To see geotagging in action, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/fcpl/sets/72157600135421510/ and click on the word "map" underneath the word "City" to get to http://www.flickr.com/photos/fcpl/sets/72157600135421510/map/. Click on the pink circle labeled "1" to see the photo. Click on "Show Detail" to see the photo with the tags we assigned and more information about the photo. Move the slider on the right side of the map to zoom in or out.

For notes, go to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fcpl/473919468/ and put your mouse over the highlighted square in the left corner. This text will appear "The existing Fairfax City Regional Library." Great feature in specifying important information inside a photo.

Web 2.0 Conference and Expo: Google News

There were many sessions at the Web 2.0 Conference and Expo which featured Google staff or at the least mentioned Google. Google News has been around for awhile, but Archive Search has just been launched. I just tried it tonight by searching for David Halberstam. The search returned lots of articles -- 10,900 if you believe the stat. The full-text of an article will cost you $4.95. Still there is some information revealed for free including the first paragraph in many cases. What was particularly fun was to look through Google Archives which spans 2004 to before the 1950s. The publications include: New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Miami Herald and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Getting back to my Halberstam search, I discovered Google Archives' timeline feature. It grouped the articles by year and let me drill further into articles by month. Very cool.

Try it out by starting on the main Google.com page, select "more", then "even more", and scroll under "Search" till you see "News."

Google or Office

Microsoft's Office suite has been the standard for desktops for years. Wordprocessing, spreadsheets, and presentation software (PowerPoint) are the basics. Updates to the software are rolled out on occasion and every few years an entirely new version is released. Google has offered its Docs and Spreadsheets in Beta for awhile. Nothing to buy. Nothing to install and configure. At Web 2.0, Eric Schmidt announced that Docs and Spreadsheets will be joined by a presentation software shortly.

So if you had the option of using the MS Office Suite or these new Google tools, what choice would you make? Would you use both?

Web 2.0 Conference and Expo

O'Reilly's first Web 2.0 Conference and Expo were held Sunday through Wednesday (4/15 through 4/18). While at first the conflict with Information Today Inc.'s Computers in Libraries conference led to some serious soul-searching as to which to attend, happily the Web 2.0 conference was an excellent choice. Over 3,000 people from all over the world attended Web 2.0 and enjoyed hearing directly from many of the luminaries in the business. The postings in this moderated discussion over the next week will focus on some of the highlights -- or as they called them at the conference the take-aways.

To whet your appetite, here are some topics:

Eric Schmidt of Google on their launch of Google Docs and Spreadsheets which is a free alternative to Microsoft's Office.

Growth of the mobile space including search with services such as Tellme.

Just what is Twitter and why it matters.

Macs and Firefox Welcome

Big news from Tutor.com, provider of Live Homework Help. As of today, their service now works with the Mac Operating System and the Safari browser. Fans of the Firefox browser are also getting a boost. Firefox devotees can use their favorite browser and successfully access Live Homework Help. Congratulations to tutor.com for responding to customers requests.

Where did that password go?

www.bugmenot.com is a Web site that provides user names and passwords for those sites that do not allow immediate access. One of those sites requiring a login, for example, is the Sacramento Bee. Go to the Bug Me Not site and enter the Bee address into the text box and back comes a selection of user name and passwords to use at the Bee site. This saves you from registering as a new user with the Bee (or any other site requiring a login) and handing over lots of personal information and potentially being bombarded with advertising e-mails in the future.

Thanks to Bob Bowie for this posting.

"How do you use the library in the Internet age?"

We regularly have survey questions on the library's Internet home page. The purpose of these is to get people thinking and communicating with us and each other. The topics vary and the comments make fascinating reading. The current question encourages participation from all ages. "How do you use the library in the Internet age?" Check out the responses received thus far.

eNotes.com: One Stop Shop for Students

I stumbled upon a fabulous site which is aimed at students but held my interest as well as luring me back for another visit. According to its intro, enotes.com provides "guides, lesson plans, and other reference material in various academic areas." Yes, the site has content in the areas of literature, science, law & politics, health, history, social science, etc. It also focuses on the interest and age range of the target audience in providing help with college search, examples of essays for specific types of curricula, and various test preparations.

Warning: some content on eNotes.com is free but much is available only to registered users. The registration fee is minimal, but still something to consider.

However, back to the free fun stuff! "This day in history" and "Scholarships and Loans."

Bruce Hornsby and Timbaland?

What's the connection? Both appear on LyricWiki as being hometown Virginians. Williamsburg and Norfolk respectively.

Thanks to today's ResourceShelf Newsletter 305, I'd like to share a great Web site for music. LyricWiki provides song lyrics for free without the abundance of advertising. You can browse by artist, album, song title, genre, label, language, or the above-mentioned hometown. You can also do a regular word search.

Where's the social networking you ask? In the "Song for the Day" and "Album of the Week." Both are open to nominations from the masses.

AccessScience

There's a new database in our offerings! It is McGraw-Hill's AccessScience. Find excellent biographical information, illustrations, and more. Give it a shot.

Express Checkout

The newly launched Express Checkout stations are in place. Circulation staff are trained and learning all the ins and outs of using them. Customers are enjoying the self-sufficiency they afford. Yesterday's Government Computer News (GCN) included an article by GCN staffer Trudy Walsh titled "Fast Book Nation." Ms. Walsh reported on the new Tech-Logic technology and its successful adoption by the public at the library.

What's your experience with express checkouts in general? Do you use them at the grocery store or the airport or avoid them?

Be sure to catch: "The Google Librarian"

Google Librarian's Newsletter is an excellent way to keep up with what's happening with our favorite search tool. The latest edition arrived in my mailbox last Wednesday. One thing that grabbed my attention is Griff Hazen's January 23 blog posting "Create an online community for your library." "Your library in Google Groups" provides a wealth of ideas to share book titles you are currently reading, announce programs such as poetry readings or book discussions, and more.

Have you joined any Google Groups? Which were of value to you?

Unbelievable?

Sunday is April 1. Yep, April Fools' Day which Wikipedia tells us "... is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends and neighbors, or sending them on fools' errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible." Remember any of these famous hoaxes?

Need a number fast?

Have you ever needed quick access to an elusive statistic about the number of items circulated at a branch in a particular month or the number of volunteer hours your department enjoyed last fiscal year or how many accesses there have been to HeritageQuest year-to-date? The InfoWeb is a goldmine for these. Check out the Statistics section at the InfoWeb home page > Statistics. Warning: Trolling this section can become addictive.

Flickr -- check it out

Through the generosity of the Library Foundation, the library has a Flickr professional account. This allows us to upload an unlimited amount of photos and keep an unlimited amount of photos in our account plus other stuff. If you haven't had a chance to check out our Flickr space, please do.

A couple of cool things Flickr offers are the ability to search for all photos on Flickr for "interestingness" and to "see" the most popular terms people are using currently in tagging their photos. It must be Spring because Wedding is the most popular tag at the moment!

Do you have a personal Flickr account? Do you use Google's Picasa? What do you like about the features offered?

Social networking and readers

There's much written about social networking sites in general. One area we library folk might find particularly near and dear to our hearts is social networking sites around reading. Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com/) is for readers who want to organize books they've read to suit themselves by tagging the titles with words or phrases of their own choosing. These tags permit other users of Library Thing to discover titles in a particular genre, theme, characters, etc. Library Thing is an intriguing concept. Give it a try and let us know what you think?

What other people are reading

Nearly everyone in the book business has their personal list of best sellers. Beyond what the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other august publications list as their top titles, we have our own best sellers at the Fairfax County Public Library.

Each Sunday the Internet Services Department receives a Sirsi report with the most circulated titles for the previous week. We use this to create our best sellers page with an additional twist. We ask customers who've read a title on our list to "write a review." As soon as someone does, we moderate the comment and post it.

The reviews on any given title are often mixed. Some love the book; others report it missed the mark for them. Regardless, the reviews spur other customers to give a book a try. To make that as easy as possible, we provide a link into the catalog directly to that title so they can place a hold.

So have you read any of this week's titles? What did you think of them?

PEEPS! Did you vote?

To close out this week's NewsBytes postings, a bit of fun with the memorable PEEPS marshmallow candies made by Just Born, Inc.

The annual "Celebrity PEEPS Survey" has concluded. According to a story from yesterday's PRNewswire, "Kathy Bassininski, Just Born Brand Director, ... continued, 'Our official PEEPS(R) Fan Club members wait with great anticipation for these survey results. We produce PEEPS(R) in a variety of shapes and colors to celebrate all seasons. Regardless of their shape or color, PEEPS(R) always maintain their sense of humor!'"

Check out just which celebrities are considered to be most in need of a PEEP!

The new Shirlington Library

We had the opportunity today to tour Arlington County's newly reopened Shirlington Library. The library is 15,000 square feet. The Signature Theatre is in the same building. Open space surrounds the circulation and information desks. There are 30 public Internet stations and wireless access throughout the building. RFID express checkout is available to customers to circulate approximately 55,000 items in the collection. Round all that out with striking examples of public art and a planned Japanese-themed Zen Garden outside the back wall floor to ceiling glass windows. Very attractive!

Best podcast search tool?

The library offers podcasts under the name "Bookcast." The county's Office of Public Affairs offers podcasts of its popular "News to Use" as well as "Board of Supervisors Meeting Highlights", and "Health & Safety" information. These are examples of the increasing amount of content available as podcasts on the Web.

So just how can you discover podcasts on your particular interests? Ran Hock, principal of Online Strategies, recommends Yahoo's beta http://podcasts.yahoo.com in his "Search Engines: From Web 0.0 to Web 2.0 and Beyond" in the January/February 2007 issue of Online Magazine.

Is Yahoo's podcast search the best? What other's have you used?

Surfing on the Phone

Are there differences between searching the Web on a PC and on a cell phone? Yahoo and Google think so. Both search giants are launching new programs tailored to use on cell phones. Yahoo's is called One-Search. Google's is in development. The premise is that people using cell phones are looking on the Web for something specific such as updated scores of sports games, weather, or nearby eateries. Microsoft plans to offer customers the option of saying their search query into the phone rather than typing on one of those tiny cell phone keyboards. So are there differences in how people will use the Web on a phone? How do you search?

What are you reading?

It is challenging to keep an eye on what's ahead for our profession. There are so many books, sites, blogs, listservs and more vying for our time. Here's a title that I've just read, which has given me food for thought. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. The ideagoras concept is intriguing. Anyone else read this book? What did you think?