Category Archives: General

Before the Dude explores this week’s Wednesday Watch, a shout goes out to Pete Kostelnick, a Lincolnite who won this year’s Badwater 135 Ultramarathon. The Dude has previously written about Badwater, and wants to acknowledge Pete’s accomplishment. The running world is yours, Pete. The rest of us just live in it.

Now today let’s take a look at two TV series offerings (available on DVD from your local library). The first, Orphan Black, is from BBC America (via the Canadian Space Channel), and the other, Black Mirror, is from British Channel 4. Orphan Black came highly recommended by a number of individuals, and the Dude was hyped up after a few episodes. Toward the end of season 1, his buzz was decimated. And thus, unfortunately, Orphan Black cannot be recommended. There are, however, some positives, but they don’t really outweigh the negatives. According to WorldCat, 5 public libraries have season 1 of Orphan Black. The premise of Orphan Black is this: A woman named Sarah sees another woman (Beth) commit suicide by jumping in front of a train. Just before the act, Sarah eerily notices that Beth looks identical to her. Immediately after the suicide, Sarah steals Beth’s identity and eventually discovers that not only are she and Beth clones, identical in appearance and genetic material, but there are numerous other clones in addition to the two of them. At first, the notion seemed intriguing, and this appeared to be a fresh new go-to show, but the feeling didn’t last. In fact, the Dude had placed a hold on the season 2 DVD’s, but returned them unwatched. Yes, it was that disappointing. Tatiana Maslany, the actress who plays the clones, does do an excellent job. The problem, however, has to do with what would be considered unrealistic script writing, introducing characters that otherwise appear quite reasonable and placing them in situations where they act quite unreasonable. The Dude found it not so much believable. But wait! Perhaps it is somewhat due to budget restraints. The same feeling of un-believability occurred when watching FX’s Sons of Anarchy. The show was intriguing, or a little above meh, but that’s about it. On the sci-fi front, because it seems like that is the theme here this week, the Dude is anxiously awaiting and has high hopes for HBO’s upcoming Westworld.

Compared to Orphan Black, the British Channel 4 series Black Mirror presents an entirely different level of exoticity. The Dude was disappointed to discover that no Nebraska libraries have season 1 of Black Mirror, and just 20 libraries in the world have it, according to WorldCat. Black Mirror would be a great choice to add to your library’s DVD collection. How to describe Black Mirror? Well, it’s often been said it’s like an updated, technologically marinated version of the Twilight Zone. That would be a fair assessment, along with the fact that it is often just plain creepy. Like, look over your shoulder if you are watching it late at night or Twin Peaks-y bad dreams after you watch it type creepy. Like that. And the Dude doesn’t generally like creepy things, because, well, they often result in the Dude feeling creepy, and the Dude doesn’t like that. The series creator, Charlie Brooker, asks the question: “If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side-effects?” Black Mirror explores this premise, in the disconnected, dirty, and often hopeless way that technology sometimes leaves us feeling. Like the Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, each episode stands on its own, with different characters in different situations.

One side effect of the show is that it does provoke thought about technology, its use, and its application, and (the Dude won’t sugar coat it), it often isn’t good. To a certain extent fear, loneliness, and disconnection married to technology breed a pessimistic cocktail indeed. At least technology has that potential; to feed the worst parts of our souls. OK, enough with the philosophical pessimism (the Dude has been reading Schopenhauer on and off this month), let’s tie this into libraries somehow.

The defining factor is that both the library of the 21^st Century and even the critic of the 21^st Century library often rely too much on technology as a solution to societal problems or even societal wants. While technology does play an important role (the Dude won’t argue that point), the library of the future should transcend it. It’s not an either/or proposition (as many see it), but rather a Ken Wilber-esque integral type of theory. We need not double-down on technology, but rather walk away from the casino with some real life human connection. In the age of what Brooker aptly refers to as the Black Mirror, we are often left with a numbness or certain icky-ness feeling that seems more like an infinite means to an end rather than the technology and human ends in themselves. Libraries may be able to help alleviate those feelings, but it has just as much (or more) to do with us than the library as a modern day institution, facilitator, place, or technology salesman. Outside of the running world (which belongs to Pete), it’s our world (and also the world of the hummingbird, butterfly, flower, sun dried tomato, and other such niceties and even not so niceties), and we all live in it. Shaka.

In keeping with the theme of announcing new questions or changes to the annual public library survey, today will focus on what we call the virtual library visit. But first, the Dude must retract what has been previously written about the -1. While the -1 is code for “not collected” on your surveys when the data is submitted to IMLS/Census, a recent conversation with the Bibliostat people indicated that they prefer that you enter N/A if data is not collected. If the survey question is not coded to accept letters (only numbers), then enter a 0. They will then change the field to -1 when they compile the data. Sorry for the confusion.

OK, on to the virtual library visit. Some of the reasons for collecting library statistics from the annual public library survey include identifying trends and demonstrating the value of public libraries. The chart to the right shows the number of annual visits to Nebraska libraries from 2010 – 2014, and while it looks like there is a huge drop between FY2013 and FY2014, keep in mind that this is in millions, so the actual change isn’t really that drastic. But physical visits to Nebraska libraries have been declining. The question then is what about people who use library services remotely or who are “virtual visitors”. One example might be the person who wants to read a book but doesn’t feel like driving all the way to the library. They might download an eBook. What about the guy who streams a video from Hoopla from his home with the help of his library card? These are examples of a library providing a service without the person ever visiting the physical space. Another example might be the person who browses the library catalog from home, places a hold on an item, and then picks the item up. Before the availability of the virtual library visit, this person would need to go to the physical library, search the catalog, and if the item was not available place the hold from the library for a later pick up. Score: 2 physical visits in the old day, 1 physical visit in the new day. But the new day is equalized if we count the person’s website visit as a “virtual visit”, which is the idea behind capturing this data.

Many states are already collecting this data. Our question definition is modeled after theirs. It seems that the most difficult question (where states differ) is whether or not to count virtual visits from within the library (e.g. staff and computer lab hits). Our question doesn’t specifically say to exclude them.  Mostly, the reason for this is that from a technological standpoint, it may be much harder to exclude them, especially for smaller libraries with limited IT departments. For those Nebraska libraries that are hosted by the Commission, our comp. team intends to prefill this data for you. Again, if you don’t collect the data or an estimate is not available, feel free to enter N/A (not -1). Here is the definition as it will appear on the survey:

6.18. Total Annual Number of Virtual Visits to Library’s Website: Virtual visits is the number of inferred individual people as determined by IP address (filtered for spiders and robots), within the reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to the library’s website. The number of unique visitors to the library’s website may be calculated by summing the number of unique visitors for each month to obtain an annual figure. A visit ends when someone closes their browser or stops loading web pages on a website for a period of time (typically when more than 30 minutes elapses between page views).

Shaka.