E-books, Creating Computer Games, What to Appreciate in our Careers as Librarians

Here I am again with a look at American Libraries. May is again filled with lots of interesting news from the library world. So without much further ado, here is what is happening in the library world.

One of the first interesting articles in this month’s issue was news about the unveiling of the ALA study on library service to new Americans. The article starts off by starting that “about 21 million people in the United States speak limited or no English, 50% more than a decade ago” (12). The ALA released the results of this study in response to the trend of public libraries who continue to make the effort to meet the service needs of non-English users. The study focused on “the range of specialized library services for non-English speakers” (12). This study was the first national study to consider the range of library services and programs developed for non-English speakers by looking at the services that public libraries provide to this population, such as effectiveness of services, barriers to library use, most frequently used services, and most successful library programs by language served, and by analyzing library service area population and patron proximity to local libraries that odder specialized services. Some interesting facts from this article about the study are that the most frequently used services by non-English speakers were special language collections (68.9%) and special programming (39.6%)[includes language-specific story hours and cultural programming], Spanish is the most supported non-English language at 78% being most reported as a priority, followed by Asian languages at 27% priority, and Indo-European languages in third at 17.6%. Barriers found for non-English speaking library users are reading and library habits at 76%, being unaware of the services offered by the library came in second at 74.7 %, and lack of discretionary time as the third most common barrier at 73.1%. To view the complete report and find more information on this study, you can visit www.ala.org/nonenglishspeakers/

Other interesting news includes Booklist begins its new online effort to ease the complexity of ordering selected online materials. Booklist Online and Title Source 3 from Baker & Taylor added this new functionality where Title Source customers can now place their orders of selected titles directly into Title Source 3 without navigating out of Booklist Online.

First Lady Laura Bush was interviewed about her post-White House agenda. Laura Bush talked about how she is looking forward to playing a role in the establishment of the presidential library at Southern Methodist University for her husband. She also talked about how her profession as a librarian has influenced her own initiatives and how it will continue to do so after the end of her husband’s term on January 20, 2009. Her initiatives currently have been “focused on helping America’s youth, education, Gulf Coast school rebuilding, women’s health and wellness, books and authors, and other issues central to librarianship” (18). She talks about the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries, which helps provide funding to help school districts with inadequate funding for library materials. In addition to helping with funding for these school districts, the foundation also has helped in aiding schools destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The rest of the article talks about the children’s book that she wrote with her daughter Jenna.
In the world of technology, Skype, a free of charge downloadable program that is used to make free long distance calls over the Internet, is being used by librarians as a videoconferencing tool. The program has visual, aural, and typed communication capabilities. Skype was proved “spectacularly successful as a videoconferencing tool for the more than 200 attendees who saw it in action at the ‘Future of Libraries, Part III: Embracing the Invisible Customer’ conference held at San Francisco Public Library last year” (32). The participants were able to see and hear Librarian Char Booth live from Ohio University Libraries. The article goes on to explain that to use Skype for conferences, the presenters just have to download Yugma, a free piece of software associated with Skype, to control their PowerPoint presentations from remote locations, and with these two programs along with a webcam, the presenter can be heard by the audience in a conference or presentation and are able to interact through a moderator. The article continues to talk about how a presenter can use this software and work out the kinks before using it to present.

Now that we have looked at some highlights of news in the library world, let’s take a look at the featured articles, or the “meat” of this month’s issue. What is the main focus of this issue’s feature you ask? Well let’s now take a look at “The Elusive E-book”. The article first takes a look at e-books. They point out that there are two types of e-books, those that are computer-based, which are used by a fixed or semimobile device such as a laptop and those that are portable, which can be used by a dedicated reader, such as the Amazon Kindle or a mobile device such as a PDA or cell phone. There are also a couple ways that e-books are sold: individual books and through subscriptions. Along with e-books comes a few problems when reading them associated with CRT and LCD screens, such as resolution, contrast, flicker, and glare. LCD screens has eliminated flicker, contrast is not so much of a major problem, and glare can be dealt with. Even with these problems dealt with, resolution is still a problem. While many would think that the resolution issue would be the reason that computer-based e-books don’t work, it more comes with the fact that the screens are immovable and are not ergonomical. It is the ergonomics that keep these computer-based e-books from being successfully circulated. The article goes on to explain a study on visual ergonomics and how it affects reading on a computer. Because of the nature of visual ergonomics and how it applies to reading a computer screen, computer users try to keep their eyes at the center of the screen and only skim information on the screen rather than reading it. While one would think that this would mean that specialized readers, such as the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, would be the answer to this problem. This is not the case because the question becomes why would someone want to spend $300-$400 on a device dedicated to reading books, when the resolution quality is 100 percent less than a regular printed book? The article also points out that paper books can be sold, traded, or given away, but an e-book is leased and therefore tied to the particular reader device. The article ends on the note that the potential for these books are enormous, but to be popular it is still a future dream.

So we’ve taken a look at the e-book, now let us turn our attention to another form of technology that are seeing in our libraries, gaming. We have all seen the information on studies dealing with kids and gaming when it comes to them playing games. This article takes a different approach by looking at studies that deal with kids creating the games themselves. These studies “suggest that kids’ best learning experiences come when they are engaged not simply in interacting with materials but in experimenting and inventing with them” (55). The author looks at what Mitchel Resnick, professor of learning research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Resnick states “In the process of designing and creating—making sculptures out of clay or castles out of cardboard—children try out their ideas…If their creations don’t turn out as they’d expected or hoped, they can revise their ideas and try something new. It’s an iterative cycle: new ideas, new creations, new ideas, new creations… In design activities, as in play…children test the boundaries, experiment with ideas, explore what’s possible.’ Digital design activities…’facilitate learning by combining many of the 21st-century skills that will be critical to success in the future: thinking creatively, analyzing systematically, collaborating effectively, communicating clearly, designing iteratively, learning continuously” (55). An example of how this is being put into effect is a program that was developed in Wilmette Public Library in Illinois. They created a program that allows teens to design and create their own computer games using a program tool called Scratch that was developed by Resnick’s research group at the MIT Media Lab and also the tool Game Maker. Both programs are available as free downloads. They developed this program with the idea in mind to support these skills as well as “to develop fun and innovative teen-oriented programs, to broaden our existing gaming programs, to support teens’ use of new participatory technologies, and to promote 21st-century literacies by embedding learning activities within a highly motivating context” (55). The article goes on to talk about how each program was used within the program. The article concludes with explaining that with this program and others like it, libraries can become places that promote and enhance not just the traditional role of literacy education, but a place that promotes other competencies, such as integrating storytelling, art, digital media, logic, and other elements, by using these kinds of programs.

Ok, so there have been lots of wonderful and interesting articles in this month’s issue of American Libraries and I have had the opportunity to highlight some of the ones that I found interesting. That being said, there is one more I would like to tell you all about before I call it a day. That is the little article called “Living the Dream”. This one page article talks about taking time to appreciate what we’ve got as librarians in our career. Have we really had the opportunity to look at what great things we have with being librarians? Well Mary Pergander gives us a few things to appreciate about our jobs:

• We get to work indoors regardless of weather, often in pleasant surroundings.
• The world’s knowledge surrounds us, and the entire world of information is at our fingertips.
• We work with interesting, intellectually stimulating people who generally share interests with us. We develop relationships with colleagues across the state and the nation, even around the world.
• We get to sleep at night without interruption from the workplace (unless you are one of the few on-call librarians).
• Our work brings us in contact with the edge of change in our society, enabling us to be early responders and adapt to what is coming—if we keep our minds open and flexible.
• Many of us have opportunities to read, to watch, or listen to bestsellers or newly minted, well-respected works, at no cost to ourselves except the hours devoted to devouring them. Others have the honor of reviewing priceless historical items on a daily basis.
• Whether serving patrons directly or in support services out of the public eye, the work we perform matters, and we make a difference in the lives of those served by our efforts (69).
  

So we can see that we have many things to be appreciate while being librarians and knowing that we are making a difference.
So that is it for me for the May issue of American Libraries. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this little snapshot of what is in this issue. This is Cathey, your American Libraries connection signing out.