Author Archives: Sam Shaw

Thanks goes out to all of you who are helping collect data, by completing our makerspace survey or working on your public library surveys. I know surveys sometimes can be a chore and/or a bore, so here’s to you for helping us in that regard. Recently, the Dude has been reflecting on the monotonous and repetitive nature of daily life (how’s that for a transition?). Between periods of boredom and emotional responses from other humans analogous to something out of the Twilight Zone, there is this notion of balance in life. Speaking of which, isn’t that a concept that leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth? Balance, that is. It implies that we joggle all these sets of circumstances in our lives, and one circumstance seems to be necessary in order to obtain the other. The implication is that the monotonous work feeds the ability for leisure (or at least less monotonous work). The Dude sees this monotony almost every day, when encountering the same strangers in the same places doing the same things (that’s the Twilight Zone reference, but maybe Black Mirror is more appropriate since technology is often a part of it). Well, the Dude says toss balance out in the toter. Change your line of thought so that it is no longer necessary. But before you do so, know that once in a while, something or someone appears that changes the game, surprises you, and perhaps does not completely eradicate the monotonous feelings but somehow adds some meaning, passion, or purpose. Make sure that if that happens, you don’t miss it. Irish poet John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong) aptly sums part of this up:

“We live in a world that responds to our longing; it is a place where the echoes always return, even if sometimes slowly… The hunger to belong is at the heart of our nature. Cut off from others, we atrophy and turn in on ourselves. The sense of belonging is the natural balance of our lives… There is some innocent childlike side to the human heart that is always deeply hurt when we are excluded… When we become isolated, we are prone to being damaged; our minds lose their flexibility and natural kindness; we become vulnerable to fear and negativity.”

If you read that again, you’ll notice that this has the potential to tie into our notion of the library makerspace (although admittedly the Dude was thinking of something more along personal lines), or if you prefer, just scratch your head and move on. But since this blog should (at least in theory) have even a slight applicability towards something library related, let’s take a crack at it.

In response to the makerspace survey, some of you indicated that you were intrigued by the notion but either had limited experience with it or had no experience at all with the term. Well, fear not because that term captures many things (keep reading for more detailed information). Common terms for makerspaces often include hackerspaces, design centers, community collaboration areas, workshops, innovation space, and (the Dude’s favorite to date) creation stations (it conjures up a nostalgic feeling similar to that of Conjunction Junction, and the Dude has an affinity for nostalgic things). The common thread is that the space (often dedicated solely for such a purpose) offers people the ability (either individually or collectively) to come together and create something. Spaces often include all kinds of things or tools to create, and the sky is the limit on what might be offered. The survey contained some of the more common things that libraries, educational institutions, or communities might offer. Collaboration is, however, often an essential part of these spaces, as knowledge might be shared or ideas built upon during the creative process. And it makes sense for libraries to be involved with offering these things and programs. Libraries, in addition to being what one might call anchor institutions in communities (that’s a fancy way of saying they have been around for a long time and have always been and will continue to be there), are facilitators of the free exchange of knowledge and ideas. The makerspace embodies this notion.

Now back to O’Donohue. For the record, these feelings of monotony don’t permeate or consume a huge amount of my time, but they do exist. When we talk about a lot of these things, the notion of confidence comes into play. Now, I’ve blogged before about creative confidence, and that certainly is important. In the library sense, people who come together to collaborate on things (like in a makerspace) certainly need an amount of creative confidence in order to exchange ideas and build on someone else’s ideas. But I’m talking about confidence that gets a person in the door, or gets them to look someone else in the eye, or say hello. To a large and often underappreciated degree, this involves vulnerability, and that may be the topic of discussion on another day. Photo upper right is of the Metz Beer bottling plant, courtesy of Nebraska Memories. Shaka.

This week, there is yet another Pew Research Center study worthy of regurgitation (the Dude knows this is familiar territory). The report, titled Technology Device Ownership: 2015, details the rise and fall of ownership of devices such as cellphones, smartphones, desktop and laptop computers, tablet computers, game consoles, MP3 players, and eBook readers. While the chart at the right details the specific 18-29 age demographic, those numbers (and trends) mirror the general population (GP). It should come as no surprise that smartphone and tablet computer ownership is on the rise and eReaders, portable gaming devices, and MP3 players are on the decline. It’s fairly easy to understand the reasons for the trend, but in case you might be having trouble the Dude will spell it out for you. The reason is that eReading, game playing, and music listening can just as effectively be done on devices that not only handle those specific functions but do others as well (or multi-taskers, if you will). Example: A smartphone makes phone calls but also can handle your MP3 music files, so if you are out for a stroll and want to listen to some tunes, no need to pack up that MP3 player and AA batteries. Just take the phone. Likewise if you want tunes in your car (and have a more modern car), just plug the phone in. Gone are the days of burning your own CD’s (or cassette tapes); just drag and drop them ol’ MP3’s on your phone and plug it in to the AUX jack on the modern vehicle. If you’ve got a non-modern car, play it old school and turn on the radio.

Now eReading and game playing for most can both be accomplished with a small tablet computer. Forget about separate eReaders and game playing devices; just get one tablet that can handle both of these and many other functions (the price difference isn’t much). For some, games can also be played on the smartphone, depending of course on the game. It’s a bit better experience on the tablet, though, and why not pay a few extra dollars for the color tablet that allows you to download and play games? Because, let’s face it, if you’re like the Dude, you enjoys a bit of Pac Man 256 or Crossy Road now and again. When we think about eReaders, we typically think about basic black and white devices that you can’t do those things on, and you can’t really watch movies or stream video content on those B&W thingy’s. Finally, when looking at these trends ask yourself about your own websites. Are they optimized so that those viewing your site on a tablet or smartphone have a decent experience? Is the site accessible from such devices? It’s been said before and it’ll now be said again. Shaka.

Shaka. The results from the 2014 Digital Inclusion Survey are now available. Here is a link to the press release and a number of the reports. The Nebraska page can be found here. You can view the specific data and profile for your library by typing your library name in the search box (just make sure your browser is up to date if you have problems). Digital inclusion addresses both the digital divide and digital literacy. Thank you for your participation in last year’s survey (our response rate was much higher than the previous year). Here is a brief summary of how Nebraska compares to the national average on some of the digital inclusion areas (for a complete list, go to the link on the Nebraska page and scroll down):

2014 Digital Inclusion Survey Results

Just as the Dude was ready to start on a couple of rather extensive posts in response to some abstract concepts, he received a call from some overachievers who were compiling their OverDrive circulation data since their fiscal year has now ended. Actually, this was a good thing, because it led the Dude to revise the Bibliostat page of the NLC website and brought his attention to some material there that was just a tad outdated.  The pages should now be up to date, but if you notice any errors, please let me know.

This reporting on the survey is always confusing. For one, the survey asks for “Children’s” circulation, but OverDrive doesn’t use that same terminology. It uses Juvenile and Young Adult. Some might disagree, but the survey instructions indicate that you include young adult titles with children’s, so that is where they are counted.

Here’s the good news: You don’t even have to open that guide if you don’t want to. For OverDrive, all these numbers, for both consortium holdings and OverDrive circulations (both adult and children’s) should be prefilled on your survey. In past years, this was the source of a lot of undue stress and confusion about how to get these figures and how to do the necessary math to fit them into both adult and children’s categories. Well, math no more; prefill is our friend. It should be noted that if you have another service other than OverDrive, get out your calculators because you will need to add those numbers to the prefilled amounts. And for those of you who have a subscription to eBooks or Audiobooks with a patron-driven acquisition model (that’s a fancy way of saying that your library has access to a massive collection of eBooks or Audiobooks and you only pay for what your patrons want to read/listen to), then you need to get a bit creative.

For these types of things (we’re talking eBooks, Audiobooks, or videos here) the key is whether or not they are “returned” or permanently retained. Keep in mind that downloading something to a device only to have it disappear after a set period of time is the same thing as returned. For these things, you count the number of items circulated both as holdings and circulations. In other words, if you have access to a service that has a catalog of 1,000,000 eBooks and during the course of your fiscal year there are 10,000 eBooks that are downloaded, then you count 10,000 for your eBook holdings and 10,000 added to your electronic materials circulation. If the items are retained and not returned, then you count those under electronic collections (in the technology part of the survey). There is a guide on the website that was originally created by the state data coordinator from Arizona, and tweaked for use in Nebraska.  Shaka.