Superpatron - Friends of the Library, for the net

New York Mercantile Library to close

as noted on READ20-L, the New York
Mercantile Library is facing major changes, reinventing itself as the Mercantile
Library Center for Fiction and seeking a new home after selling its building on East 47th St.

from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/nyregion/03mercantile.html

"The Mercantile Library, in many ways, never fully made the
transition from an age of mercantilism to the information age.
In the 19th century, it operated as a significant cultural
institution with 13,000 members. It was the fourth-largest
library in the country, with three locations in Manhattan and
10 regional branches. Books were delivered by horse cart after
being requested by mail in envelopes posted with a Mercantile
Library stamp, much like an early version of Netflix.

"Even until the day it closed, the library relied on a card
catalogue to find books that were then retrieved and hand-
delivered by librarians from the dusty stacks holding a
collection of 75,000 fiction titles from the last 100 years.
An additional 10,000 titles from the 19th century are kept in
climate-controlled storage in New Jersey.

"Founded before the introduction of the Dewey Decimal System,
the library arranged its collection alphabetically — by title
for fiction and by author for nonfiction. This was overhauled
when the library opened some of its stacks to allow members to
browse for their own books. "

If you go back to
the Times from 1892 you get some sense for the
delivery mechanisms of the day:

"The Mercantile Library of New York has an up-town and a
down-town branch. To each of these branches two daily deliveries of books
are made from the main library. In addition to this, the library has a system
of delivering books at member's residences. For 5 cents members can purchase
orders ready for mailing. By this plan books may be ordered
through the mails. Without additional charge, messengers deliver
the books ordered at the member's residence and take back
the books which are to be returned to the library."

Tool libraries (and cake pan libraries) in Michigan

The Detroit Free Press has a story about libraries with unusual collections in Michigan:

Libraries lend out art, tools and more

November 25, 2007

BY CHRISTINA HALL

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Need a wrench? Check out the Grosse Pointe Public Library.

How about some art? Try the Ann Arbor District Library.

Looking for a fishing pole? The St. Clair County Library System can help.

And if you're in the Upper Peninsula and need to borrow a cake pan, well, visit the Manistique School and Public Library.

Libraries aren't just repositories for books and CDs, they house collections that help cardholders do everything from fix their homes to create different shapes of cookies.

It's a nice story - including some sense for the history of these collections and how they have accumulated over the years.

Incoming search report for 16 August 2007

Thanks to a report from 103bees I get a snapshot overview of the week's search queries. Here's what people are finding on Superpatron.

SUPERPATRON (http://vielmetti.typepad.com/superpatron)
> book espresso machine nypl
> ann arbor employment weird
> friends of ann arbor
> used ladders shovels foster tools portland
> new publishing system for books new york library
> boston museum of fine arts membership reciprocity
> net zed
> wall bed, "wall of books"
> librarian gifts
> open source library catalog

SUPERPATRON QUESTIONS
> how special library is helpful in research?
> how to arrange books in a home library
> how to take care of library books color sheets
> how to run scripts in firefox
> how a librarian can run for office

Any answers or more feedback to any of these welcomed.

Technorati Tags: 103bees, search, feedback

Google hiring a librarian (DC or Mountain View)

From the Google Librarian Central blog:

The follow-up question, typically, is whether or not we have current openings for librarians. We usually send people to www.google.com/jobs, where they can access the comprehensive list of Google job openings. However, I recently learned from a colleague in Google's new Public Sector Content Partnerships team that they're looking for a librarian to help the team navigate the world of public sector and government information, so I thought I'd send this on directly to you.

Content Analyst, Public Sector - Mountain View or Washington D.C.

Google is seeking an information professional to serve as the domain expert and analyst for a Public Sector Content Partnerships team. The candidate must have demonstrated background and skills in conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses of government and public sector information sources in support of strategic and tactical planning. The ideal candidate will be passionate about uncovering, interpreting, and helping to improve access to public sector information.

The relevant and active long-standing email list (which has been around since the early 90s when I first ran into it) is GOVDOC-L,

GOVDOC-L is a LISTSERV-based discussion forum about government information and the Federal Depository Library program. Many subscribers are librarians in and out of government, although private and public information producers are represented as well. GOVDOC-L gratefully acknowledges Pennsylvania State University's and Duke University's computing support as well as the hosting services of LISHost.

GOVDOC-L was started in January 1990 by UIUC grad Diane Kovacs - if you search for both our names on the google you get back results from 1992 and 1993.

(hm, create a government documents category here)

Technorati Tags: GOOG, GOVDOC-L, library, jobs

As EPA libraries go digital, public access suffers (Christian Science Monitor)

December 1 2006 story By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

For a new Democratic Congress facing big environmental issues from global warming to dwindling fisheries, the first step may be keeping the nation's top environmental libraries from closing - and saving their myriad tomes from ending up as recycled cardboard.

To meet a proposed 2007 budget cut, the Environmental Protection Agency has in recent months shuttered regional branches in Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City, Mo., serving 15 states, and has cut hours and restricted access to four other regional libraries, affecting 16 states. Two additional libraries in the EPA's Washington headquarters closed in October.

Until these closures, the EPA had 26 libraries, brimming with a trove of environmental science in 500,000 books, 25,000 maps, thousands of studies and decades of research - much of it irreplaceable, experts say.

EPA officials say the closures are part of a plan "to modernize and improve" services while trimming $2 million from its budget. Under the plan, "unique" library documents would be "digitized" as part of a shift to online retrieval.

See earlier coverage from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Third Coast Press has this coverage of the closing of the Chicago library, written by Raizel Liebler:

The library is part of an extensive network of libraries scheduled to close in the coming months. The Region 5 library has an annual budget of under $100,000, excluding salaries. The EPA’s yearly expenses for its libraries, including the main branch at EPA headquarters, are approximately $2.5 million a year. However, the president’s fiscal year 2007 budget would close many of the 27 EPA libraries, including the headquarters library, six of the ten regional and several of the laboratory branches, including Chicago’s Region 5 library, leaving only $500,000 for all EPA libraries. This $2,000,000 savings is equivalent to a tiny percentage of the approximately $35 billion spent per year on the Iraq war and would pay for only approximately a half hour of current military action.

While the 7,000 research materials unique to the Chicago EPA library will be likely be shipped to another EPA library that will remain open, an important Chicago-based public resource will be gone. And while the Chicago-based employees are doing their best to continue to keep information available in the future, the ways in which EPA information will be available to EPA employees and the public are unknown. According to Patricia Krause, Library Manager, the EPA plans to on digitizing all EPA documents and putting them on the Internet, as an example of “responsible dispersal.”

Technorati Tags: epa, library, chicago

Circulating map library (Ann Arbor District Library)

The ever-helpful AADL Research Blog notes that the library has a maps collection - and it circulates. Van writes:

When I go on vacation I need maps, maps of cities I will be visiting and maps of states I will be driving through.

I borrow the maps from the library’s map files on the Second Floor of the Downtown Library. The library has maps for Michigan cities and regions, for states, for most major cities in the United States, and for foreign countries and cities. The maps circulate for four weeks.

During a recent trip up north I found where I was going with the aid of street maps of Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island, Harbor Springs, Petoskey, Charlevoix, and Traverse City and a regional Michigan map of the Northern Tip of Michigan.

In the past year the map files helped with maps of San Francisco, Napa and Sonoma counties, Chicago, Boston, Greenville (S.C.), Chapel Hill (N.C.), and Ithaca (N.Y.)

I'd be happy to highlight other libraries with good circulating current map collections - anyone have a favorite? (Google is utterly unhelpful in answering this question.)

(add a "map libraries" topic)

Technorati Tags: maps

EPA invites doubts with library closings (Minneapolis StarTribune editorial)

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune 9/14/06:

Most Americans, even most American scientists, will never have cause to visit one of the regional technical libraries maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency. But to environmental scientists in Minnesota or any of 14 other states, working inside or outside EPA, the pending shutdown of these repositories will be a serious blow.

The general public, too, should be concerned about what this means for EPA accountability, which has come under repeated challenge in recent years -- most notably over unduly rosy postdisaster assessments in lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks, and in New Orleans after last year's hurricanes.

North Portland Tool Library, Portland OR

From their web site:

NPTL: Tools and the Power to use them.

The North Portland Tool Library (NPTL) is a community resource that loans a wide variety of tools to community members free of charge. The Tool Library benefits North Portland residents by reducing the costs of maintaining and improving their homes, building community, and sustaining diverse, livable neighborhoods.

Registration with the Library is free to residents of North Portland. Please see the membership tab for additional details about registration and requirements.

The Library is located in the basement of the historic Kenton Firehouse at:
2209 N. Schofield, Portland OR, 97217

Metroblogging Portland writes:

North Portland has its own tool lending library and it is celebrating it's one year anniversery (in October 2005) with over 300 brand new tools it will lend out to residents for free. Yes people, FREE! The brainchild of Jason Hatch, Matt Moritz, Laura Dalton, and Jason Henshaw, the tool library is there to help maintain affordability and build community by providing these free resources to residents of North Portland. The library also offers different hands on workshops to the community to instruct people on the proper use of tools and tool safety.

This Old House Magazine says:

And in Portland, Oregon, Jason Henshaw stands behind the counter of the North Portland Tool Library doling out, for instance, a jigsaw and advice on how to use it to cut a doggie door out of a human-sized door.

Henshaw, a health-care administrator with a penchant for power tools, cofounded the tool library last October in the basement of an old firehouse. By providing home-improvement tips and everything from plumb bobs to table saws at no cost, the volunteers hope to fight urban blight and foster community pride. An added bonus: Locals never have to buy a tool they’ll use only once a decade.

Technorati Tags: oregon, portland, toollibrary

Archives failure: NASA loses moon landing original video

From Eric Ederer via Red Tape

The government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” a NASA spokesman said yesterday.

Armstrong’s moon walk, seen by millions of television viewers on July 20, 1969, is among the transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.

NASA has retained copies of the TV broadcasts and offers several clips on its Web site. But those images are of lower quality than the originals stored on the missing magnetic tapes.

Archives and museums are not just for teaching history; NASA is also going back to museums to see original Apollo rocket parts (Washington Post/AP, Aug 15 2006) to get ideas and examples for engineers who are building the next generation of spacecraft.

UPDATE: also seen on Boing Boing.

(this should go in a government documents / archives category too)

Technorati Tags: apollo, archives, govdoc, moon, nasa

Flooding at the National Archives

Margaret Hedstrom writes:

I'm attaching an update on the recent flooding at the National
Archives in Washington, DC (Archives I). At this point it appears
that the collections (including the charter documents) have not
suffered damage although this is concern about high humidity levels.
Part of the building (which was renovated recently) have suffered
considerable damage.

Here's more details: