Back in the Saddle, All the News I Missed in One Go

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So the Banned Library took a little vacation and look at what you folks did.  Calendars, ebook crap, Amazon and that damn Kindle, even Harry ma-fuckin Potter got in on the action.  Well, here we go with the best random sentences I could cobble together in my one non-alcohol infused hallucination.  So hit the jump and follow the pink elephant into the marshmallow pool!

Because it works so well with firemen, the men of the library started a little calendar to show off their cataloging butts for charity.  Nothing like living out that Full Monty fantasy, right fellas?  LATimes

Pottermore, the Harry Potter site, announced that they will not be releasing Harry Potter ebooks until early 2012.  I guess I will have to go back to the pdf scans a 14 year old made and torrented two years ago.  ABCNews

The Amazon ebook "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson came under fire when first it was said to be full of typos and errors, and upon re-release Amazon labeled the ebook as having corrected "missing content."  Amazon had no comment when we pretended to call them on our hand because of our next story.  ChristianScienceMonitor

Amazon officially announced their color Kindle, the "Amazon Fire."  Hilariously, you could equate this to the burning of the amazon jungle to allow for grazing land for cattle.  In this joke, cattle are people.  Amazon via Geekologie

President Obama has set forth legislation that will allow states to opt out of the controversial "No Child Left Behind" program.  I do not have a joke, I just wanted you all to know.  CNN

This article was titled "Books on the Banned Wagon."  That is the single best article title in Banned Books week ever.  hindustantimes

New York librarians can rest easy again knowing that the nightmare book thief has been caught and prosecuted.  With this one problem gone, the library can concentrate on who keeps leaving stinky in the men's restroom.  New York Post

Two, count them, two libraries were infested with bedbugs this week.  The Vancouver area library found bedbugs in their shelves and furniture, as did an Arizona library.  VancouverSun and AZCentral

The Lowell City Council in Massachusetts has voted to ban sex offenders from being at the library during times when children are present.  So remember, get arrested for a sex related crime and you are not allowed into Summer Reading.  BostonHerald

Freaked out, the California State University library was evacuated searched after a patron indicated he had a gun.  The man was found and slapped around like the stupid red-headed stepchild he was.  WashingtonPost

The e-reader app Kobo now allows your friends to see what you are reading and when you are reading it by posting automatic notices.  Your mother wants to know why you would read all that smut.  Your best friend thinks you are gay for Percy Jackson.  Your girlfriend wants to know who "Jane Eyre" is and if she is prettier.  Thanks, Kobo.  USAToday

The Dead Sea Scrolls are gonna be online.  We can get 2000 year old parchment online, but not fucking Harry Potter?  Youtube via BoingBoing

Tech News: This Week Was a Doozy of Dooziness

Okay, here we go this week with the Library Tech news that I did not cover because I was hungover or something.  Honestly, I am barely able to read most of these, much less crank out 200 words on each subject.  On to the poopy!

A Wisconsin library has begun to loan out iPads to their public as a way to educate them about technology.  Why not loan them the most expensive and easy to use piece of equipment known to man?  That'll teach them about economics. Consumerist


Facebook began sharing movies, TV shows and music this week as an attempt to keep themselves relevant.  Next they will be mapping your brain to find out what are your exact "likes" so they can better target the ad space.  SF Business Times


IT departments in most large corporations allow their employees to choose whatever mobile device they want.  Whereas in the past and IT department would dole out equipment in a unified manner, now employees have more freedom of choice.  I want one of those huge brick cell phones like Zach Morris used to have.  Can you set me up, library? NYTimes


The Spartanburg library in Spartanburg, SC has suspended use of its elibrary to neighboring county Greenville users citing overuse of resources.  I bet they won't let them ride the monorail or eat from their lemon tree either.  WSPA


Madison, Wisconsin is looking to create a law wherein when you sell a used video game to a retailer, they take a photo of you for their databases in an effort to curb theft.  Next they will require blood, urine and semen samples which should make game stores much more interesting.  If only the library could take pictures of users that try to donate.  "Ratshit's back again with a pile of National Geographics!"  Madison via Kotaku

Facebook Has More Photos Than Anybody

The photography blog 1000memories did some number crunching and found that Facebook has nearly 140 Billion photos in total at a rate of 200 million photos uploaded per day.  That is nearly 10,000 times the size of the Library of Congress photography collection.  Holy crap, check out the article here because the numbers are truly staggering.

What does that mean though?  Our archives, our history, is becoming digital more and more each day.  Our photos have moved from physical albums to online ones, our records are either scanned or typed directly, our books are on non-existent bookshelves.  And you know what?  It has made us more present.  We are more as a people.

Chances are, most of you did not build the house or were not the first person in your apartment.  Have you ever looked up your residence in an old city directory?  Seen the name of the person who lived there?  Just a guy, right?  A name on a piece of yellow paper in a dusty book.

Think about how our grandkids (or kids if you start getting busy now) will look that up.

You are your grandkid.  You have the address of your home.  You put that address into the ether and find a list of names of people who lived there.  You pick a name.  That name is on several social networking sites, but one in particular seems to be from around here.  Sure enough, he lived in your house and there are pictures of a Halloween party tagged there.  As you go through the pictures, vowing to clean up that corner a little better, you see a couple dressed as Jack and Jill making out.  Her face is visible and tagged.  Its your grandma. But Jack is most def not your grandpa.  Ewwww.

Welcome to the future.

New Facebook Privacy Controls, I Call'em 'Squares'

NYTimes

Facebook has rolled out some new features and cleaned up some old ones in the area of privacy.  Now featuring a drop down on posts, the website allows you to designate quickly who sees what you do.  As the New York Times reports, some of these abilities were available but difficult to manage.  The new drop down will feature settings such as "Public" for all to see, "Friends" for just those you are connected to, and "Custom" for when you want to leave some people out of the party.

Yay!  Now Grandma can stop asking me who Sanchez is and why he is "dirty."  The only problem will be getting all of the family (not just Grandma) to stop sending all the love and attention to public.  I am an adult, you guys, and familial love is gross and icky.

Also, I can start sending false updates to everyone.  I will always be at the library. *wink*

Now It's Time for More Facebook Bull$h1t

First up, Microsoft's Bing has begun to more deeply use Facebook "likes" in their search queries.  Basically, if you are logged into Facebook with Bing, Bing will use your and your friend's "likes" within the search results.  Here's the problem as I see it:  this is going to turn the Internet back into the porn, troll and 80s sitcom mess it used to be when every search includes at least one result from a group entitled "Bring Back the Facts of Life But in Porn Cause We All Know Jo Was a Lesbian." computerworld

Cameron and Tyler Winklevondl... Winkandfondle.. Twinvillian from that social movie, have been denied the appeal in their lawsuit against other really rich people and will have to get by on $100 million.  Com'on judge, that's totally not enough money to swim in comfortably!  Okay, maybe swim, but no diving!  rcrwireless

California introducing bill that will allow parents to have private information stripped from their children's social network accounts.  As long as they don't introduce a bill that let's celebrities get away with murder.  Am I right?   FoxNews, aka Broken Clock

Yeah, go slow news day.

Facebook Renting Movies

Like the Matrix, dude.

Warner Brothers has tied with Facebook to rent movies over the social network reports Hollywood Reporter..   The first movie, The Dark Knight, is up now for $3 in Facebook Credits, whatever those are.  A little Netflix envy, eh, Facebook?

Over at Galleycat, they are wondering if this will lead to ebooks in the future.  I have a better question:  What if this kills us all?  Think about it, if the Social Network plays on Facebook, the whole universe might just blow right the hell up!  And do not try to fill my head with your blah blah physics, this stuff is real people!  Wake up and take the red pill and face your fears for judgement day for it is upon you, suckas!

Facebook Zero to Become Super Hero

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, subject of The Social Network, and person so rich he could buy me and everyone I know and sell us twice, is now getting to be a freaking comic book super hero.  Hey, I have another idea, lets shower him with gold rose petals while he has sex with all my old girlfriends and they tell me he is better than me at you know... stuff.  

Seriously?!  Why does this guy get to be a super hero?  There are firemen, policemen, hell, freaking crossing guards more deserving.  I need a drink and it is not even noon.

Get the full story here.

Facebook Breakup Notifier: Why You Shouldn't Friend Your Patrons

A new website called the Breakup Notifier has launched that sends you an alert whenever someone you are "friends" with on Facebook changes their relationship status.  Remember the days when you had to get into awkward conversations when you wanted to know if someone was still dating that jerk from the Coffee Beanery?  Not anymore!  All you have to do now is wait patiently outside their house with a gallon of coffee and pray that fight going on leads to a change on Facebook, am I right?

I say hallelujah!  I love it when the Internet goes pure creepy, ya know?  Technology has allowed me to know when my friends are ditching me for an awesome party and when my ex is no longer dating that hunky slab of beef and can come back to my flabby, fatty fat arms.  Yay!

Breakup Notifier via Geekologie

Ebook Lending Seems Like a Thing

Ebook lending has taken the Internet by storm since our last post on the subject.  Two new sites, the verbose ebooklendinglibrary and the tease ebookfling, have opened up, both offering lending of Kindle and Nook ebooks.  This expands on the idea of creating mock friendships online so people will give you free things.  I expect Facebook will be the next to offer an app to allow you to borrow and lend ebooks to friends and family, as well as marking them "Lolz" and "gay" after you announce you are looking for literary classics to make yourself look better.

Networking the Library

Libraries have been facing the idea of social networking for a while.  Facebook, Twitter, etc, have given fantastic methods of reaching out to our users, but I argue that they are hindering society and by extention, libraries.  Here we go:

The other night I sat down to watch an American classic:  Hot Tub Time Machine.  Whatever the overall opinion history will give to this masterpiece of cinema, one scene stood out that rang true to the state of our nation, if not the future of the world.  One of our heroes, a modern teenager thrust into the stone age that was the 1980s, meets a girl in a bar.  He asks her for her text number, if she's online.  She looks at him like he is the broken man-child that he is and tells him that she does not know what he is talking about.  He asks how he is supposed to get in touch with her.  She says, "You come find me..."

I think she's in there somewhere....

Now I like this movie, but it is stupid cannon fodder of a comedy with the exception of this scene.  As I sit, blogging, I think back on all the times I had to track a girl down, wait to see if she would show at a lame party, or hope she would walk by where I worked this Thursday cause she did last Thursday.  I will freely admit I was the kid that held out on getting a cell phone until he was 24 because I did not want to be that easy to get in touch with.  But that limited my options as well as boosted my creativity.  I was forced to track people across town or go to that random bar not because Suzy Wannamaker texted me to be there, but because I thought she said that she liked the place.  It was all about the hunt and the adventure.

How am I gonna tie this to libraries?  Hit the jump to find out.

Libraries are no longer facing the same issues I faced with Miss Wannamaker.  We do not have to go out into the community to hang fliers, march in their parades or hawk our new database/book finder/OPAC/monkey training Iphone app.  The cash spent on newspaper ads for the spring book sale and harvest festival is saved as we go on our website, type a few keys and BOOM!  Those that visit will see it bright and clear, possibly with a 10 year old dancing book gif.

Libraries should be dominating the social network machines.  As a profession we are geared to produce the fuel that runs these bloated monstrosities:  content.  Events, pictures, book recommendations, cute videos of librarian drill teams, we got it all folks.  Here are some ways you can spice up your libraries various social network pages:

Facebook
I could spend an entire post teaching all the stuff you could add to a Facebook profile.  Despite my hate for some peoples utter dependence on this service, it does offer so many diverse types of input that exploration is infinite.  Here's a few I have found:  posting links to various catalog searches or items; pictures of featured events and items; book reviews; discussion boards for books so you do not have to run a book club; cute poems about your cat;  just post a lot of stuff at least once a day, no more than 5 times a day.  I do not know why, but the Facebook crowd is fickle and will drop you if you post too little or too much.

Plus, the Library's mom could be on Facebook.

Twitter
The best thing you can do for Twitter is link it to your Facebook.  Like Facebook, posting too much or too little will lose you followers as your content clogs up their inbox feed thingie so they can not hear about there Aunt Edna's newest taco that looks like Jesus or that Ashton Kutner fella.  Some things to add to Twitter are:  comments on a book you read; links to your catalog; event postings; pics of monkey doin it; again, whatever.

He's winking because he Facebooked your mom.

Myspace
Let's be honest, Myspace is for teenagers, pervs, and bands singing about teenage pervs.  There may also be some out of touch businesses.  Just say no.

This guy's Myspace name is LadyGagaLuver69

Friendster
If you use Friendster, I pity you.  You have forgotten the name of your father.  Seriously, just tell your library staff that your computers are run by mice on treadmills while on fire chased by rabid wolverines.

I don't have a picture of the mice-treadmill-wolverine thing, so here's a puppy.

Other Social Services
Things like texting, IM, and random book reading social sites.  These may cost you some money and social status, but have fun with it and see what you can find.  The Internet's a big place so spread your metaphorical library wings, toss yourself off a metaphorical Internet cliff, and plunge into the metaphorical social ocean to eat the fish of patron satisfaction.  Or something.  Just have fun with it and remember:  for the first six months, nobody will follow you anyway.

Oh, and what was the modern kid's reaction to the beautiful 80s chick telling him he has to find her?  "That sounds exhausting."  Indeed, modern kid.  But it is worth it.