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Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)
Interesting comments, Tom. The snip below was published recently in the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune. It may be of interest to your wife-mate:
Mark Durenberger
===============
Library boom is book lovers' boon
Established libraries are expanding and new ones are popping up across the
metro area, as demand surges for their services.
Kevin Giles, Star Tribune
In Forest Lake, graders are contouring a field for a new Washington County
branch library that will be four times larger than the current one's cramped
quarters at city hall. In Stillwater, workers are scurrying to complete an
$11 million expansion of the river city's 1903 Carnegie library just weeks
before its reopening. And next summer in Plymouth, construction begins on a
new, bigger library because the western suburb has outgrown its current site
just 11 years after it was built.
While the new Minneapolis Central Library grabbed headlines this summer, a
massive investment in libraries is also underway around the Twin Cities
metro. Driven by changing consumer demands, and blessed with usage rates
that in some suburbs are twice the national average, new libraries are
opening and older ones are getting huge additions.
"The demand for services is definitely growing," said Patricia Conley,
library director in Washington County. "And the types of services being
requested or offered is changing. Growth is all around," Conley said.
Figures from the state Department of Education show that an estimated $89
million is being spent for remodeling and new construction at 11 libraries
in the metro area. That number doesn't include costs at several libraries
completed in the past few years, such as the new one in downtown
Minneapolis.
These new libraries come on the heels of a smaller building boom over the
past few years. Chisago County, for example, recently opened three new
libraries. Carver County renovated Chaska's library in 2002 and built a new
one in Chanhassen in 2003.
Books still in demand
The expansion of the metro area's public libraries bucks predictions that
computers would make books obsolete. Libraries are still seeing growing
demand for books, their traditional offering, and for newer electronic
products that library users have come to expect.
Hennepin County libraries checked out 12.7 million books, CDs and DVDs last
year, an increase of half a million from the year before. Ramsey County's
circulation grew nearly 1 million in four years through 2005. In total,
libraries around the metro circulated more than 33 million books and
audio-visual items last year, up more than 6 million from 1999.
Story times for children also doubled to 10,000 from 2004, MELSA said, and
it estimated that 100,000 children will participate in this summer's reading
programs.
"People still love their libraries," said Joe Manion, public services
division manager for Washington County Libraries. "It's impossible to close
one. Everyone wants one in their neighborhood."
As part of the building boom, the seven-county metro area's 105 libraries
and bookmobiles are reinventing themselves to meet borrowers' expectations
and keep them coming back.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)
You guys are still missing my point, at least some of you. I'm not saying
put the contents of the book online. I'm saying the publisher (ie
copyright owner) should put accessory ("bonus") material online -- like
good-resolution versions of photos that are badly reproduced in the
typical non-fiction book. This is asking alot -- I'm advocating the
publishers make a GIFT to their readers (a deserved gift with cover prices
of new hardcovers pushing $35 in some cases). But, at the same time, they
can employ technology to make them and their products look a tad less
antique. My wife is a high school English teacher. Trust me, most kids
don't read books these days. They do, however, spend endless hours reading
chatroom dialog and Myspace websites. Yeah, yeah, it sure ain't like them
old days, but it is what it is and publishers can adapt or die off
slowly -- kinda like record companies.
Music companies, by the way, have had all sorts of fits and starts with
this concept. CD+ format had web-link content in some cases, sometimes to
the artists' websites, sometimes to bonus tracks (typically in low-rez
WinMedia or Quicktime formats), sometimes to preferential opportunities to
buy tour tickets. DVDs are also more and more including web-oriented bonus
material.
Even audiobooks, which only recently have dropped the cassette format en
masse, are getting with the 21st century and usually offer illustration
material or other non-audio content, or sometimes and author interview, on
the final disc of a set. By the way, audiobooks do their format a huge
service by killing off cassette releases. The general rule was
bottom-basement tape quality and duped by cavemen in a cave. Audibility
was always an iffy proposition. CDs, the quality is better and consistent.
And, they got around the "resume quandry" (ie many CD players don't have a
resume function, although that's been solved in recent years) by putting
track cuts every 3 minutes or so. Thus, worst case, you'd have to
re-listen to 2:59 the next time you put the CD in the player. And the
iTunes coders got into the act and put in the option to stitch all cuts on
a CD together for more convenient loading of audiobooks into an iPod. I'd
suggest the final convenience for audiobooks would be to include an unlock
code on one of the CD's that allows the user to download the book from the
iTunes store, already crunched to digi-compressed format and ready to load
into the iPod.