That is the title of a web initiative being undertaken by the American Library Association (ALA). It will be a portal for library advocacy and be available through the ALA website and I believe will be able to be accessed through all member websites.
I sat in on a focus group held during the mid-winter meeting. Though in its early stages the concept is a good one and if executed successfully will be an asset to our libraries.
The highlight: listening to the feedback from a few members of the ALA emerging leaders program who were in the focus group. They were in tune with the current technologies and web trends and will be an important component in the ALA’s mission to remain relevant in these changing times.
I hope you have been visiting the ALA mid-winter wiki. Links to photos of the meetings are already available and there is a strong list of library related blogs that are posting from the meetings. Lots of great info.
My favorite tidbit so far comes from the Shifted Librarian who recounts probably the most constructive use of a video game yet:
a teen librarian who keeps Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) set up all the time so she can invoke it as need be. For example, if a teen has overdue books, she will dance-off against the person, and if the teen wins, the librarian will waive the fines.
In addition, when the kids get into squabbles amongst themselves, she tells them to take it to the mat and dance off against each other. It’s a great way to channel some of their energy.
Another librarian talked about using DDR for indoor recess at school when the weather is bad.
I’ll leave you with a few more library factoids:
Some Good Ones-
-There are more libraries than McDonald’s in the US
-The new Seattle Library will yield $1 billion in economic activity statewide in the next 25 years
-Academic librarians answer almost 73 million questions a year, twice the attendance at college football games
-92% of respondents to a poll expect libraries to be needed in the future
Some Not So Good Ones-
-we spend 10x as much on home video games than they we do on school library material for our kids
-We spend 2x as much on salty snacks than we do on public libraries
-if the cost of People magazine had risen as fast as the cost of academic library periodicals since 1990, it would cost $150 a year for a subscription
-number of librarians per 1,000 students at our colleges and universities dropped from 2.4 in 2000 to .5 in 2004.
Facts compiled by the ALA Office of Research & Statistics in 2006