Daily Thoughts 8/20/2010 (winning grants, ingram, donations)

Koninck, Salomon, Der Eremit, 1643

Daily Thoughts 8/20/2010

On the train to work I started reading Winning Grants A How To Do It Manual for Librarians by Pamela H. McKellar and Stephanie K. Gerding.  Right now, they are talking about planning and vision statements.  They have a bunch of steps to go through before the grants are actually applied for.  I read most of it on the train home.  The book included a lot of information on how to organize a team to create grants not just a single person.  I find one of the grant projects particularly interesting http://www.getgraphic.org/ which is a literacy program through graphic novels.  There is also a cd rom which comes with the book.  This includes a presentation on a subject relevant to each chapter in the book as well as a variety of forms to fill out.  It helped me think of an idea for business sponsorship. I still have quite a few video clips to watch.







We had a gentleman from Ingram come in to talk about his vendor services.  It was kind of interesting.  Ingram owns Lightning Source http://www.lightningsource.com/ the largest print on demand services as well as has a number of small imprints exclusively distributed through them.  They are the largest distributor of books in the world.  They also distribute video games which is interesting. 




I did a little more spot checking in the 300s.  I also took a bit to look at the oversize 300s.  Like every morning, I checked the displays to see if they were in order. 




This is an article on book donations which I found kind of interesting.  http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/ask-ala-librarian/book-donations

Daily Thoughts 8/11/2010 (Budget, Advocacy)

16th Century Decorative Alphabet.

Daily Thoughts 8/11/2010 

Paintings of different peoples Ideal Bookshelves.  http://idealbookshelf.typepad.com/




We had our order meeting today.  I also read a little bit on preservation from a few websites. I am printing up the shelf talkers for tomorrow right now.




I finished reading Smart Start-Ups and Mental Health Naturally on the way to work on the train.



Things are getting rather interesting in the book trade.  It seems that Amazon is now challenging Barnes and Noble with ebooks.  It looks like things are very much up in the air in the book world.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/business/media/12bookstore.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=busln




I feel a bit perplexed.  Recently there has been talk about budget shortfalls in the city of over $4.4 million dollars by the end of the year.  This makes it look like we will need to be even more ready than before by the end of the year.  There is talk of retirement packages.  I am not sure what to make of this.  People cannot collect social security until they are 66 which is a rather interesting conundrum.  It is eye opening. 



The math is rather interesting.  We received $250,000 until the end of the year out of $400.000.  This leaves 150,000 in debt leftover.  If we were $400,000 in debt July of last year and did the exact same thing we would be $550,00 in debt by the same time next year.  If you add in inflation of 5% to a 3.8 million dollar budget, you would need another $159,000.  Add $550,000 to $159,000 and you get $709,000.  I am not sure if this makes sense.  Lets say the city decides to cut the library funds by 3% because of a need to save money, that would be another $100,000.  I can imagine an $800,000 shortfall by next year.  This would be an absolute worse case scenario.



This is why people need to find ways to save money as well as generate revenue, get more people into the building, get donations, and get grants.  This is a possible truth of what we may be facing.  It is also a reason to think about advocacy and other things.




On the way home,  I read something a little bit different, a 55 page print out of the guidelines for a conservation/preservation grant from the New York State Board of Regents for libraries.  I was reading the section on photographs.  We have some interesting old photographs in our library.  A number of them have been used in books.  There is a box of old photographs of our library.  The box of course is a greyish acid free cardboard.  The photographs would make for an interesting display in our lobby.  The foundation date of our library building is on November 16.

Daily Thoughts 7/31/2010 ( grants, libraries )

Central Stair Hall, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. (1900-1902) Detroit Publishing Postcards Series 5000.
Daily Thoughts 7/31/2010

I walked up to my local branch library and picked up a copy of Webster's New World Grant Writing Handbook by Sara Deming Wason.  It is a basic overview of the grant writing process.  I found this article from Oxfam kind of interesting.  http://www.mrss.com/oxfam-eoy-2008-fundraising.pdf   It shows a fairly common web application called a lightbox combined with a web video that is used as part of a fundraising campaign.




It is kind of interesting reading about the different types of foundations and trusts from community trusts to family foundations to corporate foundations.  It is mostly new to me.  I am reading it in the context of  getting new technology like MP3 players, Ipads, Nooks, digital cameras, and software into the library.




I have been going through all my old emails for the last couple of years where I came across examples of people, corporations, and foundations giving money to libraries in our county and compiling them into a single document.  It is mainly a mix of news articles and biographical profiles.

Daily Thoughts 7/28/2010 ( Bayou, Advocacy, Kraken, Made Possible By )

Simon Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist

Daily Thoughts 7/28/2010

I am looking at an IMLS Institute of Museums and Library Services grant and trying to figure it out.  It is the first time I am looking at this material.  It makes reference to a document called 21st Century Skills, http://www.imls.gov/pdf/21stCenturySkills.pdf  I find it kind of interesting.  It is a bit different.  There is also reference to a course called Shaping Outcomes which is about Outcome Based Planning and Evaluation for librarians.  http://www.shapingoutcomes.org/ 




Link to information on save libraries widget.  I just added it to the sidebar in this blog. http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/cro/getinvolved/saveyourlibraries.cfm




Jeremy Love's comic Bayou, Issue #1 is now free on the web.  It is quite interesting.  https://comics.comixology.com/#/issue/2584/Bayou-1




I put Smart Startups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communites by David Silver, Wiley, c2007 on interlibrary loan.  I am requesting it from another library system than my own.  This process can take several weeks. 




I also requested another book as a hold, Made Possibly By Succeeding With Corporate Sponsorship by Patricia Martin.




On the train home, I read some of Kraken by China Mieville.  It is an urban fantasy novel.  Somehow, it maintains more believability than most fantasy novels I have read.  It is in that eerie space where things are real but not quite real.  The place where horrible things happen for not quite explained reasons.  There is an almost fortean feel to the novel.

Daily Thoughts 7/26/2010 ( Cognitive Surplus, Queens Library, libraries )

Benjamin Franklin., 1767, Oil On Canvas, In the White House

Daily Thoughts 7/26/2010

It is clear that advocacy is becoming a central fact with libraries in the United States these days.  If you are not willing to speak up for your library you may not have one in your community.  Also, if you work in a library and do not speak up for your library, you might even get laid off.  Being quiet is not really an option. It may make some people uncomfortable, but it is necessary.



To Close Budget Gap, Queens Library To Lay Off 46
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/886041-264/to_close_budget_gap_queens.html.csp




With Library Campaign Materials Libraries Must Navigate Between Education and Advocacy
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/886037-264/with_campaign_materials_libraries_must.html.csp




I checked out a book called Design And Launch An Online Social Networking Business In A Week by Entrepreneur Press and Julien Sharp.  It provides an outline of the process of creating a social network from scratch.


I am looking at the Fostering Digitally Inclusive Communities Grant offered by the National Broadband Plan.  To even begin applying to the grant we would have to put some social media into effect in order to get it.  The grant mentions blogs, email, and other digital tools as being part of communicating with the public.  I have already been looking at MP3 players and ebooks because of our recent promotion of Overdrive Digital Media Catalog at our library.  It should be very interesting.




This morning, I went through and updated most of the displays as well as set up meetings to understand the invoicing process for electronic data interchange.  I also emailed Poets House about their Poetry In The Branches Program and talked to BWI about electronic data interchange.  Posters for the Library Express database also came in as promotional material.




On the train home, I finished reading Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky.  I like the descriptions of how people donating time to social media adds to real life connections through groups like Wikimedia and Meetup.  He does an excellent job of describing the intrinsic value of giving time to social platforms that can reach into the real world.  A very real example of this for me is my going to places with the New York Librarians Meetup group.

Daily Thoughts 5/23/2010

A magnificent reading room in the Vilnius University Library.5, October 2007, taken by Thomas Guignard, Lausanne, Switzerland, Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution 2.0 From Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 5/23/2010

The American Library Association has a new Awards, Grants, and Scholarships page, released on May 22, 2010. http://www.ala.org/template.cfm?template=/CFApps/awards_info/browse.cfm&FilePublishTitle=Awards,%20Grants%20and%20Scholarships&rtype=ALL

Sent out two postcards for the Postcard Campaign to save New York City libraries. http://reforma-northeast.org/postcardcampaign.html

A satirical article from the Huffington Post, Is Print Dead? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ja-konrath/is-print-dead_b_583959.html?ref=fb&src=sp

I am reading Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. There are some very interesting things about the novel. The main character, Shen Tai, calls his kingdom Kitai which is the Russian word for China. He also describes Sardian horses. Sardia was a kingdom along the Silk Route. This is a very different style of fantasy drawing from a mix of Eurasian and Chinese history.

There is a feeling that the author has been drawing from readings of both imperial China, and the more eastern tribal peoples. There are pieces of the book that remind me of the Book of Dede Korkut. The story is not just heroic, there is court intrigue, poetry, wine, and love. It is an intriguing read so far.

I just found out that the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund of which I am a member is having a fundraiser at Book Expo America sponsored by Image and DC comics. It should be very interesting.