Monthly Archives: February 2012

Sustainability at the library

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at the library

Libraries are going green. Considering how many other organizations are going green these days that is not exactly startling news. But libraries are not like other organizations. They have a unique role in informing and inspiring their patrons. Sustainability becomes part of their mission in two ways. Administratively, they choose how to go green with their building and practices. They also put up displays, host workshops, and otherwise educate their patrons to think more about sustainability. Here is a sample of projects over the past couple of years that libraries have used go green and help their patrons go green, … Continue reading →

No ball playing aloud: more misused pears

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homonyms

A group of boys loved to play ball on a vacant lot. The owner didn’t like it, so he put up a sign. The next time he went past his lot, he was appalled to see the boy all over his property and yelled at them, “Can’t you read the sign?” One of the boys answered, “Yes sir. We’re playing as quietly as we can.” The sign said, “No ball playing aloud.” Did he have trouble spelling? Or did he just not know what homonym to use? “Aloud” (adverb) means with the voice, and louder than a whisper. He meant … Continue reading →

Marketing the library

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poster marketing the library

Is a library a business? Public libraries are an arm of local government. Academic libraries are part of a larger college or university. It used to be easy to say that libraries are not businesses and shouldn’t be run like one. Now, it’s not. With so many people–including local government officials and academic administrators–not understanding what the modern has become, libraries need marketing campaigns to survive. I do not subscribe to the notion that libraries ought to be run like businesses, largely because businesses exist to make a profit for their owners and shareholders. A good marketing campaign, on the … Continue reading →

Libraries support families

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Dedication of the Doris Dillon Children's Library at the Almaden Branch Library, San Jose

If you have ever dropped your kids at the library for story time, you know one way that libraries support families. If that’s all you know, you have hardly scratched the surface of what the library has to offer. The Children’s Reading Foundation has determined that pre-schoolers need hundreds of hours of being read to in order to be adequately prepared for kindergarten. Even parents with minimal or no reading skills can make up stories to go along with the pictures in books. Twenty minutes a day beginning in babyhood will easily add up to that much time. Unfortunately, not … Continue reading →