Books, Books, Books!

A core collection of every public library is the children's book collection. In many libraries, youth materials out circ adult materials. I'm a big believer that these collections differ from adult collections in many ways. We are starting an initiative at our library to freshen the youth collections. This initiative will include weeding, changing purchasing patterns and finally merchandising!

The strategy involves rethinking non-fiction collections, building depth in popular titles both fiction and non-fiction, judging books by their covers (kids do!) and showing off the collection in kid-friendly ways.

Over the next several posts, I plan to veer away from technology and talk more about this print-based strategy. After all, libraries will always have print books, right? Even if the kindle catches on and ever adult in America walks around with one, the picture book format will thrive.

Is the iTouch too small?

So I bought an iTouch for the library a couple of months ago, and have been playing with it since. I came to the conclusion that it was too small for practical reference work, but before writing it off I shared it with a group of our librarians. I got mixed results from the group. Two staffers in particular fell in love at first touch, and so they are playing with it in a practical reference environment right now.

Initial reports back are that it works well for them. So I might order a couple more, and see if it catches on. I'm more and more convinced that we will not find a one-size fits all mobile reference device, so we might end up with 2-3 solutions in our environment. The trend is towards smaller, and smaller is not always better for this type of work.

We are also looking at loading the gadgets with soft phone software. In a nutshell, soft phone solutions will turn any device into a phone. Mixed with blue tooth headsets, you get one device instead of two, without the hefty phone service plan. Works well with Tablet PCs, not sure about the iTouch compatibility yet. Will learn more later this week. Hmmm... something to ponder.