Small Town Librarian

Often when I look at library websites there is something about them that is slightly old-fashioned or dated. I think that often the librarians there are so used to their own web design that they don't notice what could be updated or changed to make it seem modern and fresh. Of course for small libraries, the problem is that we don't have much funding (ok, any funding) for our website maintenance. And even if we did, where would we start. Well, a site like this can make all the difference as we look at our own designs.

Looks like the new word in websites is simple layout and plenty of whitespace. We don't need to have vast numbers of cute icons or fancy flashing effects. Because simplicity is a large part of modern sites, we can all take a look at our websites and maybe start paring them down, or start moving some of the information off of that front page. But please! Don't move your library hours somewhere obscure! They need to be right where your patrons can find them. I can't even tell you how much time I have wasted looking for hours for local libraries on their websites. One library only had it in a mouseover feature! That one took me SO long to figure out. Must have seemed logical and obvious to their designer, but I bet their patrons had plenty of problems with it too.

Posted by at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

BookLetters is a site that has a couple tiers of service.  Some larger libraries are able to afford to put BookLetters on their websites.  Unfortunately, for little libraries like us that just isn't a choice.  But for us, BookLetters has free email newsletters on a variety of subjects:  books in the news, fiction, authors, mystery, best sellers, nonfiction, and romance, as well as children's and teen information. 

Posted by at 5:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You mention at the post office that you really wanted  some of those new picture book stamps (of course, I had gotten down to the post office AND remembered to ask AND had money in my pocket several weeks after they were released) and are told to come back on Tuesday because they hope to have more in then.  (Of course, Tuesday passes without me thinking about it at all.)  On Thursday, you get a call from the post office saying that they still have some packs of the stamps, but they are going fast. 

Now that is service!  Not only do they let me know when they are going to restock, but call because they are worried (and pretty certain) that I forgot to come and get them. 

I dashed down to the post office immediately, earning some extra brownie points that I will probably use up the next time I want some specific stamps.  :)

Posted by at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you are anything like me, and goodness knows few people are, you order your own library computers straight from Dell. Yes, I have tried letting my library system do it for me, but I always seem to come up with a lower price than their Dell rep can.

Here is a page that offers the sorts of techniques I use to get the best price: Dealhack Buyers Guide: Top Five Dell Shopping Tips. I especially use the first two and number five. Those alone can save you a lot of money. I would recommend that even if you want your library system or some other organization to order for you that you take a look at Dell's site yourself first using these techniques. That way you have a frame of reference for the price you want to pay. The nice thing is that you can always go back to your Dell rep and tell them that you found a lower price on their website. They will invariably either match it or lower the price on the computer they were selling you.

Posted by at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jessamyn of librarian.net is a rural librarian in Vermont. Recently she has begun publishing pieces on traveling to small libraries in her area. In her posts, she truly shows an appreciation of small towns and their libraries. Thank you Jessamyn for not bemoaning all that small libraries do not have, but trying to find ways that we can get it.

Posted by at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had to share the article, West Virgina librarian works without pay. Paula Boggs is the type of librarian we all hope that we ourselves our. Caring more for patrons and community than we do for pay. This story of a teeny-tiny library is inspirational.

I know that there are some out there that will insist that librarians should not volunteer their time, because then we are saying that we are not valuable or worthy of pay. But I think this gives an even stronger message: that libraries are so very important to a community that we are willing to do anything to keep them going. This is not about librarians and wages, but about libraries and communities.

Posted by at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I tried this out for my other two blogs and all of them are wonderfully different!  So here is my blog cloud for Small Town Librarian.  Kind of a snapshot of what this blog and small libraries are all about.   If you have a blog, you can do your own blog cloud at SnapShirts.  Yes, they make t-shirts of the clouds! 

Posted by at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other week, I had a patron come into our tiny library and ask why we don’t have self-check stations. She had been forced to wait for two patrons in front of her to check out, one of them in a chatty mood. She informed me that so many libraries are doing it. I replied that I didn’t see self-check coming any time soon and that the price tag on one of the units made it cost-prohibitive for us. Here’s what I really wanted to say:

We will not have self-check here in our little library because small libraries are about community. And one way that we demonstrate that community is with out willingness to chat with you when you want to and speed you through when you are in hurry. Another way is that when you need special attention with a question or finding a book, you know our staff and we know you from the check outs you have had over the years. I want you as a patron to have a relationship with your librarians that allows you to begin to ask for more services, more attention as the years pass. You will not get that with a self-check machine. You also will not get the smiles, the laughter, and yes, the joy, that our staff shows you. You instead will get a faster but colder library.

Now, I am not frowning on larger libraries that go with self-check machines. I see them as a necessity. Having worked in larger libraries, I also know that the relationships with patrons are very different. At very busy libraries, there is such a volume of check outs that there is no time for personal relationships to be built.

But at this tiny library, there is time. There is help. There are smiles. And that is why we will spend our limited technology budget on other things, not on self-check machines.

Posted by at 6:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)