Librarian at the Farmers Market

We have been told to take the library to wherever the clients are. I spent yesterday at a library table at the farmers market in Western Springs. It was the first time I have done such a thing, after several years of thinking that we should. I learned a lot of things right off the bat.

• Big posters work like sails. It might seem like a calm day, but even the slightest puff of air will catch the poster and you will fly.
• You need lots of rocks to hold down your handouts. Again the wind that you hardly notice will lift your papers and send them away.
• Laptops are difficult to view in the sun. We wanted to do some reference from the table, but it was tough. Maybe someone can recommend outdoor PCs.
• Do not expect people to rush the library table. People have come for the fruits and vegetables. You are a curiosity.
• Do not expect all of your regulars from the library to recognize you. You are not where they usually see you.
• Talk will be your most popular offering. You may return to the library with most of your handouts and books.

It was fun. The weather was beautiful and I enjoyed hearing Annalee, a folksinger raising funds for World Bicycle Relief, sing throughout the afternoon. I especially liked the Joni Mitchell tunes. She wanted to take bicycles to children in Zambia. We were all there in a good cause.

Library Outreach Services, London, 1895

I always enjoy finding references to libraries in my pleasure reading. I found the following opening paragraph in the second chapter of The London Yankees: Portraits of American Writers and Artists in England, 1894-1914 by Stanley Weintraub.

Externally, Lancaster Gate had an ambience of comfortable gentility rather than showy fashion. At number 69, for example, lived retired Indian civil administrator Sir Richard Strachey, whose gaunt, precocious son Giles Lytton was often home from public school on sick leave. Every week the van from the circulating library would deliver half a dozen novels to Sir Richard's door, perhaps even the latest title by Bret Harte, or by Pearl Craigie under her well-known pseudonym, "John Oliver Hobbes." Deaf and doddering, Strachey very likely had no idea that Lancaster Gate was being overrun by authors or tainted by scandal by such Americans.

The next paragraph tells the reader that the time is 1895.

I wonder whether the books were for the father or the son or someone else in the house. Also, was delivery service just a benefit of membership in the circulating library or a special arrangement? Did someone have to have a doctor's signature to get delivery? It must not have been an uncommon service, for the library had a van.

One of the current ideas that is being batted around is that public libraries should send out their books by mail (like Netflix) or deliver more to homes. It seems to be an older idea than we thought.

Reaching Patrons: Online Outreach for Public Libraries by Sarah Houghton-Jan

Sarah Houghton-Jan is one of several people at Internet Librarian with multiple presentations. She had a quick Jamba Juice for lunch on Monday and took the stage a second time with her presentation Reaching Patrons: Online Outreach for Public Libraries.

With many library users (and nonusers), especially teens, on the web gathering information, Sarah says that it is important for the public library to go where they go and be where they look. To this end she has created a 20-item checklist for library cyberoutreach.

I am glad to see that my library does some of the things that she suggests. Still there are some opportunities we have not taken. I plan to address items #5 (List your library events and services in local community websites and calendars) and #11 (Check reviews of your library on social review sites) when I get home.

One of the points Sarah makes is that once a library goes onto the web with its services it adopts everyone on the planet as possible library users. We have no choice. We have to get past geographically-limiting thinking. We serve everyone or no one at all. If we serve no one, then our purpose disappears.

il2006