Gaming is much on my mind, with gaming programming at the recent LITA Forum, American Libraries’ December issue having a gaming theme, and the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium beginning on Sunday. (I’ll be attending, so check here for daily reports.)
The idea of gaming in libraries gets a lot of pushback. (All together now: “It’s a library, not an arcade!”) All of this righteous anger, however, ignores an important fact: Gaming exists, and complaining about it won’t eliminate it. So it seems more constructive to me to attempt to use it in a positive way.
I do game, though primarily on casual online games rather than the consoles (Wii/Xbox/PlayStation) that are getting a good share of library attention right now. These games generally don’t have the community-building attributes that console games often do. But there are a fair number that support library missions in other ways: namely, as education, and as works of art.
Games with an educational bent are certainly the more familiar—Word Munchers, Number Munchers, and Oregon Trail (version 1, where hunting involved shooting a deer bounding across the top of the screen—none of that 8-direction stuff!) are fond memories from my elementary school library computer lab. (The librarian, Mrs. Sorvik, had the vision to be an early adopter of computer technology; the upshot was that we had an Apple lab sufficient for a full class by 1982.) The availability of Flash or other tools that make creating games relatively easy, and the rise of the internet as a distribution medium, means that educational games today can easily reflect current events and aren’t limited by salability.
“These games can be very successful, too, since interactive multimedia can engage its audience in ways passive media could never do,” said Jay Bibby, creator of the JayIsGames blog.
Examples include: (Some are my recommendations, some are Bibby’s, but all I found mine through his blog.)
FreeRice, which started as a vocabulary game but has branched out into math, chemistry, and other topics, and which has sponsors that donate rice through the UN World Food Programme for every correct answer.
Stop Disasters, a building simulation in which players must use sound building practices to prepare a town for a tsunami, wildfire, flood, or other natural disasters.
ElectroCity, another building sim where players must balance power needs with tourism, industry, and the environment.
Art games may well be even more intriguing, as they provide an immersive artistic experience that really can’t be replicated in other ways. Examples include:
Grow Island, a wacky but loving ode to human development.
Karma, a game-based take on the eponymous concept, where the player must attempt to wash his or her sins away.
Passage, which condenses a lifetime into five minutes of play and can be viewed as a rumination on exploration, on the phases of life, on marriage, on grief, and no doubt many others.
Samorost, a surreal point-and-click immersive experience.
Treasure Box, the equally surreal point-and-click Rube Goldberg Machine.
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:58 pm by Leonard Kniffel
The ALA Council discussion list was abuzz this week with praise and congratulations for councilor Bernard Margolis following the October 21 announcement that the embattled former president of Boston Public Library had been appointed state librarian of New York. “We welcome you with open arms,” said Barbara Stripling, director of library services for the New York City Department of Education. “As a school librarian, I am so pleased that we will have a state librarian who understands how all types of libraries work together to provide seamless and complementary services,” she added. “We look forward to your leadership!”
Numerous councilors chimed in to wish Margolis well, and almost all of the messages contained an undertone of “You showed him.” The “him” is none other than Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who ousted Margolis last year after an 11-year run, complaining that he paid too much attention to the main library at the expense of neighborhood branches. A very public battle ensued, and Margolis departed without fanfare this June 30.
From inside ALA, I’ve seen plenty of squabbling and bickering on the Council discussion list, but Margolis’s appointment brought out an unusual display of collegiality, which prompted me to call the longtime councilor today and ask what he thought about all the fuss.
“The library community has been behind me 110%,” Margolis said. “I think everyone understands the situation is unusual, not by any means the norm for anyone, but I think we all realize that when we give leadership to institutions that are part of the political environment, that sometimes crazy things can happen. But it has been amazing, the cards, the e-mail, the flowers, the candy. It’s very heartwarming and endearing, colleagues new and old giving me their best wishes.”
At the risk of getting mushy, I reminisced a bit with Bernie (which is what everyone called him 20 years ago when I first watched him in action on the Council floor) about the odd way in which ALA is a community for many people, albeit a frustrating one sometimes resistant to change. He then recalled a time when he was first elected to Council, some 25 years ago, and he introduced a resolution to get an 800 number for ALA headquarters. Seems like a no-brainer today. But “there was actually not staff support for it, believe it or not,” Margolis laughed. But ”with the help of some people, I brought it back at the same session, and it was passed.” He noted that people still tease him that his greatest legacy is getting that 800 number for ALA. Seriously, he said, “I do want to express enormous appreciation to my colleagues everywhere around the country and literally around the world who sent words of hope and words of support.”
As for Mayor Menino? I couldn’t get Bernie to say “nyah, nyah, na, nyah, nyah,” but he did say that he felt a sense of vindication from the new appointment and that the current Boston city administration “is anti-intellectual at its core.” But “that’s part of the world we live in,” he added. “Sometimes people are afraid of anything intellectual, and libraries have been dealing with that for centuries.”
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:03 am by Greg Landgraf
One last bit from LITA: the video. It features Tim Spalding, Michael Porter, Dinah Sanders, Nicholas Schiller, Conference Chair Dale Poulter, and LITA president Andrew Pace, as well as a very brief snippet (under the opening title) of the blackjack-for-grapes game that broke out at the Open Gaming Night.
Concurrent Session 6
“Participation and Power: Combining Community Features with Existing Metadata in Next Generation Public Interfaces”
Dinah Sanders, Innovative Interfaces, and Kelly Vickery, University of Kentucky
Sanders and Vickery discussed using community tagging to complement existing library catalogs. In 2007 the University of Kentucky installed Innovative’s Encore system, which incorporates community tagging features. “[Libraries] have the best data of anyone,” Sanders declared, adding that despite egregious examples like using “cookery” instead of “cooking,” “Most subject headings are really useful to patrons.” Even so, community tagging can fill in gaps where subject headings fall short.
“The more you can support the natural search mechanism people use, the more successful they will be,” Sanders noted.
In an academic setting, Vickery said, tags can be used to identify course materials for easy finding or to build collaborative shared course bibliographies. Tags are also valuable when terminology is too new to be reflected in subject headings. One example he cited was when Pluto was demoted from planetatry status and terms like “plutoid,” “dwarf planet,” and “trans-Neptunian dwarf planet” sprang up overnight.
Public library applications that Sanders offered include book groups tagging their books, the provision of distinct subcategories (”Trip-hop” as an alternative to “music,” for example), and the incorporation of emerging vocabulary and slang.
Sanders has written an article on tagging for American Libraries. Watch for it in the December issue.
Closing Session
The Obligation of Leadership
R. David Lankes, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
In an animated talk, Lankes offered the sculptors of Florence, Italy, as an cautionary tale of leadership. Florentine sculptors considered their work to be the pinnacle of art’s evolution, so the education that a new artist received was geared to replicating what had already been done. “It killed Florentine art,” Lankes said, because audiences had to go elsewhere for anything new. “It was there that I realized that innovation and leadership are deeply intertwined.”
He exhorted the audience to create knowledge through conversation. This is “not waiting for [patrons] to come in and hope that they ask the right questions so we can find them the right book, but proactively going out and saying, ‘this is what the community needs to know.’”
Lankes shared leadership lessons from three of his mentors. From his father, Richard Lankes, he learned that “You cannot wait for a leader. Sometimes that person may not come.”
From Jeff Katzer, a colleague at Syracuse, he learned that change is scary but worth it, and from Ray von Dran, his first dean at Syracuse, Lankes took that leadership is not about careerism, and that true mentorship is wanting your mentee to do better than you.
He concluded with a challenge to the crowd: “I invite you to invent the future, and I invite you to invent the future where we’re the most important parts of it.”
Additional
Total Forum registration was 321. LITA Executive Director Mary Taylor said that figure was a bit low—registration typically ranges from 350 to 375—but called it “still healthy.”
Watch for a video from the conference on AL Focus, planned to be uploaded Wednesday, October 22.
General Session
Michael Porter, WebJunction
“Hi-Fi-Sci-Fi Library: Technology, Convergence, Content, Community, Ubiquity, and Library.”
There’s a decent chance you’ve seen the “Hi-Fi-Sci-Fi Library” video that Porter and David Lee King of Topeka and Shawnee County (Kans.) Public Library made in August. If not, or if you just want the catchy hook again, see it here.
The ideas in today’s keynote were the inspiration for that internet hit. (The presentation might even be considered the inspiration for the song, even though the song predates the speech; that’s a complicated tale that Porter explains better than I could.)
Using examples from television and movies, Porter spoke on the relationship of science fiction to the actual future, and particularly the actual future of libraries. “[The makers] are making entertainment, but they’re thinking about what things might look like in the future,” he noted.
One example Porter offered of science fiction technology that has largely become real is Star Trek’s Personal Access Display Device. These were scaled-down, portable versions of the ship’s computer in the show; in life, handheld devices now perform many of the same functions as desktop computers. (And with downloadable skins, many can even look exactly like their Star Trek counterparts.)
Also from Star Trek—specifically, Star Trek IV, in a scene where Spock meditates by subjecting himself to a battery of intellectual tests—was the idea of a computer input that changes form with the task. While not yet in wide use, Porter observed that “keyboards” that are actually just laser projections on a flat surface already exist.
Some sci-fi prognostications were more amusing, like The Time Machine’s artificial intelligence librarian who was capable of and perfectly willing to roll his eyes while conducting reference interviews. Others were bleak, as in I, Robot, for example, one character scoffed that another’s father “wanted to ban the internet to keep the libraries open.”
Porter observed, however, that the universally accessible computer system in Star Trek had the official name “Library Computer Access and Retrieval System.” “The people they hired to make the decisions about what technology will look like are brilliant,” he said. “It’s no accident that they believe that there will still be libraries.”
Concurrent Session 3
Five Minute Madness
This session consisted of five-minute presentations of projects too new to have had time to develop a full concurrent session presentation. Presenters included Krista Wilde of Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library, who detailed a new search and discovery tool for the library’s digital collection; Derek Rodriguez of Triangle Research Libraries Network, who spoke about the Endeca Project that helps connect records for member libraries; Emily Rimland of Penn State, who described the creation of a handheld devices group at her library to implement and evaluate devices for use in roving reference, library instruction, and other functions; and Keith Weimer of the University of Virginia, discussing the library’s new service that allows patrons to send reference queries by text message.
Concurrent Session 4
“Building Your Own Collaborative Web Applications with Drupal”
Weiling Liu, University of Louisville.
Liu shared her experiences using the open-source content management system Drupal to build several applications, including a news and event management system for the University of Louisville Libraries, and an online conference proposal form for the 2008 Kentucky Library Association/Kentucky School Media Association/Southeastern Library Association/Association of Research Libraries National Diversity in Libraries Joint Conference. “Drupal is an application that is so flexible that to achieve one goal, there are many ways,” Liu said.
For the news site, goals included decentralized content management, because each of the university’s six libraries have their own news and events to add, as well as the ability to display different types of news differently. The conference proposal site needed to centralize proposals, include notification when submissions are entered, and have a mechanism to evaluate proposals. Liu discussed how available add-on modules for Drupal helped her build sites that met these goals.
Concurrent Session 5
“Building a Web-Based Laboratory for Library Users.”
Jason J. Battles, University of Alabama, and Joseph (Jody) D. Combs, Vanderbilt University
The web-based laboratories that Combs and Battles discussed are based on Google Labs—a place to share and get feedback on new projects that are being built or considered. “The library labs are a part of a broader effort to address the needs and expectations of library users,” Battles said.
They and a team of four created Test Pilot at Vanderbilt when both were working there. Features tested there include Ex Libris’s Primo search and discovery tool, the LibX toolbar, site redesign options, and library blogs.
Combs said Test Pilot helped the library to introduce new services as they became available, rather than waiting for them to be 100% ready and then waiting for the beginning of a semester. It also generated valuable feedback—182 comments on Primo, for example. In addition, “It occurred to me that this is not just a way to release and get feedback on a service,” Combs said. “It also functions as a kind of marketing.”
When Battles moved to the University of Alabama, he adapted Test Pilot’s open-source code and installed UA’s Web Laboratory in November 2007. Adapting it took less than a day, and it incorporated improvements such as AJAX functionality to make commenting seamless.
Quotable
“Looking at you guys, I know that’s not true.”—Michael Porter, commenting on the Sony Reader’s “Sexier than a librarian” ad.
“Futurama thinks Dewey’s gonna be around in a thousand years. I’m just saying.”—Porter, on the LibraryThing group started to build an open-source alternative to the classification system.
A Librarian’s Ingenuity
After the sessions today was an open gaming night. While cards weren’t among the games ‘officially’ provided, a game of blackjack did break out pretty early on. The stakes? Grapes.
I’m in Cincinnati for the Library and Information Technology Association National Forum. Here’s my first report; I’ll be posting every evening.
Opening General Session
Tim Spalding, LibraryThing.com
“What is Social Cataloging and Where is it Going?”
Tim Spalding and Dr. Horrible address the LITA Forum Opening General Session
Spalding got a laugh off the bat by promising not to define the term “Social Cataloging”—accompanying his villainy with a photo of Dr. Horrible (from the recent online film Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) and a rendition of Dr. Horrible’s well-trained evil laugh. The gesture wasn’t pure fandom, however. Spalding also told how LibraryThing users worked together to catalog Dr. Horrible’s bookshelf, a collection shown out-of-focus and on screen for only a few seconds.
That’s an example of “Collaborative Cataloging,” the top rung of what he termed the Social Cataloging Ladder. Users start with personal cataloging, move to exhibitionism and voyeurism by sharing what they read and looking at what others read, and then self-expression by adding book reviews. From there, they move to implicit social cataloging, using tags, reviews, and ratings to better categorize their books. “When everyone catalogs in their own separate room, but the rooms are all connected, something emerges,” he said. LibraryThing features that use this information include the UnSuggester, which suggests books that would be diametrically opposed. (One such pairing: Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason vs. Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic.)
Beyond implicit social cataloging lies social networking, sharing, and explicit social cataloging, which includes capturing data like locations, characters, first and last words, or places the author has lived or tying equivalent or near-equivalent things together (Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens, for example). Spalding said LibraryThing users make about 1,000 of these combinations each day. “They’re doing it to help other people; they’re doing it because it helps them. It’s really kind of remarkable.”
Librarians can be cheered, Spalding said, by the “amazing store of passion out there.” But “Library catalogs are fundamentally not open to the social web,” a problem and a threat. Meanwhile, Library 2.0 is in danger by libraries “concentrating on what they can do, not on what they can do best.”
Spalding recommended fighting back with free services that work with libraries’ strengths, like incorporating book recommendations from library holdings in search results, user reviews, and tagging. “I wish that some of these efforts were directed at the most important digital representation of your assets, the catalog.”
Concurrent Session 1
“User-Centered Design for Humanities Collections Within a Digital Library”
Mark Phillips and Kathleen Murray, University of North Texas
Phillips and Murray described their IMLS grant-funded IOGENE project, which studies how genealogists interact with the UNT Library’s Portal to Texas History. The site has grown dramatically since 2004—from 489 items then to 40,089 today—and the library has a revamp underway to incorporate information from three focus groups.
“We might say that our digital library is very standards driven and the genealogists are very content driven,” Murray said.
Requests from the focus groups included name searches (made difficult because names could appear in metadata in many different places—as the subject, the author, the photographer, and more), additional search fields, improved relevance weighting, and improved search results for serials.
UNT has divided requests into four groups: Two phases of improvements that will be made, one group that may be outside of technical feasibility, and one group that may well be unwise to impose system-wide or that is already available and users need improved information to be able to make it work. Wireframes for the first phase have been built, and the first release quality assurance process is scheduled for February.
Concurrent Session 2
“Portals to Learning: What Librarians Can Learn from Video Game Design”
Nicholas Schiller, Washington State University and Carole Svennson, University of Washington
Schiller and Svennson proposed that gaming literacy and traditional literacy can complement each other. “I really don’t think it’s helpful to see this as a zero sum game,” Shiller said.
Many games are complicated information systems just like libraries. “At the end of the day, the content is very different, but the databases are exactly the same,” Shiller noted. Therefore, libraries can adapt techniques that these games use to keep students engaged when learning and using library systems.
One of these techniques is an emphasis on pure knowledge rather than authority. “[Librarians and professors] are used to being the authority figure in a classroom,” Svennson said. “In World of Warcraft, it was the peers in the game who had the best information. There were official channels to request help, but that was the last place you’d turn.” Adapting that concept would entail the creation of long-term knowledge bases, such as wikis, where students can share information with peers and with future students.
“It feels like giving away the answers, but the truth of the matter is, that’s how students learn,” Svennson noted. “You’re not giving them the answers, you’re helping them get to the next stage.
Other techniques include a level concept that provides “scaffolding” to build on already-gained skills, social functions and the ability to collaborate, intrinsic motivation by demonstrating the rewards and offering options, and persistence through failure—the ability to build on failures rather than repeatedly reaching dead ends.
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:58 pm by Leonard Kniffel
I talked with Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, yesterday afternoon about the library funding outlook. The view from the man often credited with making library fundraising chic (as president of the New York Public Library for eight years from 1981 to 1989) was optimistic but modulated by some pretty shocking numbers.
“Whenever there has been a budget crisis,” Gregorian said, “libraries are affected immediately because municipalities always make cuts across the board, in order to be even-handed.” In his opinion, “that’s wrong because library budgets are so small relative to every other agency.” He also noted that during times of crisis, libraries are used more heavily. Everybody I’ve talked to recently about the current financial crisis has pointed this out, and we have the survey evidence to support it: library use is up, as it was during the Great Depression, which Gregorian pointed out. But like all parts of the cultural scene, libraries are going to be affected by the debacle on Wall Street, “whether we like it or not,” he said.
I was more than a little shocked when I asked Gregorian to tell me what kind of impact this disaster will have on philanthropy. “Oh yes, this year all the institutions will have major losses in their endowment,” he said. “I would not be surprised if we lose anywhere from $500 million to $600 million dollars on the endowment.” After lifting my jaw enough to speak, I asked when that would manifest itself in Carnegie Corporation’s giving level, and he said that the organization still has$30 million to give this year and those commitments are “our #1 piority.” He explained that because money is awarded on the basis of average earnings from previous 12 quarters, or a three-year average, the Corporation expects to meet those commitments. This year’s earning were low, Gregorian said, ”but for the last two or three years we were getting a 22% return.”
And beyond that? I asked him. He replied, “Foundations are losing their assets, and this will reflect, in our case, a year from now, maybe two years, we’ll be suffering the consequences.”
Gregorian’s main point during our conversation is that now is the time for us to make the case for libraries loud and clear, particularly here at ALA. Make the case for libraries, now, he said. “I don’t want libraries to go back to what they were in the 1970s, because when I came to New York…you needed a calculator and GPS to know which libraries are open what time and where and so on.” Librarians are wonderful because they always do more with less. As long as they don’t run out of less they’re fine, but we should also not run out of less, first not to accept less, but then not to run out of it. After all, like everything, giving is about priorities. I would just seize this. This is the time to alert about the importance of the library, not to assume the public knows it.
Geregorain urges us not to threaten to fold if we don’t get funded. ”When I came to the New York Public Library,” he siad, “there was a big ad put in the New York Times: ‘If you don’t help New York Public Library, it will become a big parking lot.’ Well, if you are dying, why should I help you? I’ll give you a good funeral. Librarians should insist that our existence is not in danger, can never be in danger. Our survival can never be in question. It’s the quality of our survival and quality of services, which is important to the public.” ”If you can make that case, nobody will put the library on the top of the cutting list but rather on the bottom,” he concluded.
I recently saw an excellent proposal from Brian Herzog at Swiss Army Librarian for “Work Like a Patron” day. As the name suggests, the day entails librarians working, as much as possible, as patrons—using public computers, meeting in public meeting rooms, and using public restrooms, to help see the library as patrons do.
One addendum (or perhaps, side-proposal) that I’d make is to incorporate common patron tasks to make sure that the instructions are clear and that there are no needless barriers to accomplishing them. Most processes are easy and logical when you’re the one building them, but when they’re imposed upon you, things aren’t always so clear. Is it easy to reserve a meeting room? If you call the library, can you actually reach someone who can help you? Can you get a library card without hassle?
An example of the last point: Several years and several moves ago, I nearly didn’t get a library card because of Policy. Very soon after moving, within a couple days, I went to the library to sign up for a card, but since I’d just moved, my driver’s license didn’t have my current address. No problem, the staffer said; just bring in something with your address on it and we can use that. I did so and… no go. The address had to be typed, and the document I’d brought was hand-written, and therefore not acceptable as proof of my address.
That invalid proof of address? My lease.
I did eventually get my library card, several weeks later and still a bit miffed. But many people wouldn’t have. And regardless, if this barrier had been found and exterminated before I’d run afoul of it, I’d have had a much higher opinion of that library and much more goodwill toward it.
Perhaps my proposal is more “Be a patron” than “Work like a patron.” They come from the same place, though: a desire to make things run better.
(And yes, this proposal applies to ALA headquarters as well.)
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:21 pm by Leonard Kniffel
Brian Huddleston, senior reference librarian at Loyola University College of Law Library in New Orleans, contacted me this morning to say, “I guess one useful thing about a blog is that you can publish stuff that are only half-formed ideas because the campaign staff of certain big politicians never return your calls.” He was letting me know that he had posted to his blog an article (well, really a non-article) about the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain that he tried to write for American Libraries.
Huddleston pitched the idea to me months ago, saying, the basic question he would like to answer was, “Who does research for presidential campaigns?” A quick literature search had confirmed that nothing much had been written on this topic. “The hook for the article would be a scene from the 1992 documentary The War Room,” Huddleston said, “and if I could get a brief phone interview with someone in each campaign who did that sort of work, it would be a decent article.” I loved the idea and thought readers would too.
“But both campaigns blew me off,” Huddleston finally told me, “preferring to only deal with more ‘mainstream’ and ’serious’ media outlets like Blender magazine.” Reading Huddleston’s ”The Research and Information Needs of Presidential Campaigns; or, The Article that was Never to be Published” is an interesting look at how our profession is regarded by those who run the presidential election campaigns.
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:51 am by Leonard Kniffel
Sandra Fernandez, manager of public relations for Houston Public Library, contacted me this morning to give us an update on what the library has done to aid in recovery from Hurricane Ike, which made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast shortly after midnight September 13. After talking last week with Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey and development guru Pat Martin, and after hearing both of them agree that these tough financial times are exactly the right time for us to be trumpeting the value of public libraries, it was gratifying to hear about what a central role HPL is playing in the recovery.
A few notes from what Fernandez said the library did to help patrons as well as other city employees in the days and weeks immediately after the hurricane devastated the area:
As of today, six HPL neighborhood libraries remain closed, she said, but they expect to have all but one open within the next week or so. Most, if not all, library employees and library users have regained power. Houston and Harris County are getting back to normal.
Fernandez noted in her e-mail that in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Ike, “HPL stepped up to help respond to the post-Ike needs of fellow citizens and city employees. Library staff acted quickly to reopen its Central Library and to shift the focus from the provision of normal library services to concentrate on how to best use the library’s resources play an active role to help with the city’s recovery efforts.”
“On the Tuesday after Ike, the Central Library reopened, with library employees working hard to provide fellow citizens with the support services and information resources they needed to get back on their feet,” Fernandez said. “With power outages in every area of the city, HPL played a vital role by ensuring that citizens had online access to communicate their post-Ike status with family and friends, contact insurance companies, and make other critical connections. HPL staff exhibited great passion and patience while providing one-on-one assistance to citizens who need help with filing online FEMA and other aid applications online—some customers had never used a computer and others had very low literacy skills. When necessary, staff guided customers on a step-by-step instruction of how to navigate and finish the necessary forms online to apply for aid.”
Fernandez also said that as power returned and repairs were made, HPL re-opened additional library locations each day, providing customers with access to all services, including computers, Internet, and free Wi-Fi. Where possible, computer training labs and meeting rooms became Hurricane Ike Assistance Rooms to file for FEMA aid and insurance claims online and emailing family and friends. Other Library facilities were equipped with laptops to increase the number of computers available to customers. Assistance in accessing these online resources was provided by on-site librarians, many of whom previously aided Hurricane Katrina evacuees and also those affected by Hurricane Ike. In many locations, librarians printed out forms and guides customers would need, including emergency food stamps applications, information on applying for unemployment benefits, and follow-up instructions for FEMA aid.
“What began as a service for only library staff members in the first days after Hurricane Ike, was promptly extended to include all city employees,” she said. “At the request of Council Member Sue Lovell and Mayor Bill White, the Houston Public Library cared for more than 300 school-aged children of city of Houston employees, making it possible for their parents to return to work.”
How did they do it? Fernandez explained: “HPL learned of the need and began operations to provide emergency child care services to fellow city employees who needed a place to leave their school age children while schools remained closed. Guided by HPL’s talented and skilled children and teen librarians, and utilizing the exciting library resources, books and new technology at the newly renovated Central Library, children and teens found adventure, face painting, crafts and new friends while their parents returned to their City of Houston jobs. Activities were designed to be both educational and entertaining. Teenagers created everything from duct-tape purses and wallets to custom t-shirts and videos. All participants were provided with free snacks and lunch. This HPL service was provided until all city independent school districts reopened their schools. More than 70 staff members participated in the child care, many of them from neighborhood library locations that were without power and thus unable to open.”
Houston Public Library also provided registration sites for the Blue Roof Program, for citizens that had storm related damages to their roof. The US Army Corps of Engineers provided a free temporary roof to residential structures through its Blue Roof Program.
HPL used every available resource to provide services to as many customers as possible, said Fernandez. In addition to the library locations that opened, the HPL Mobile Express, HPL’s “computer lab on wheels,” was deployed to the parking lots of several neighborhood libraries that were not able re-opened at that time. Staff was available to assist residents who needed help with filing online FEMA applications.
Fernandez wanted to acknowledge the help of Verizon Wireless in providing Wireless Broadband Access air cards to support the critical community services provided by HPL Mobile Express. In addition, Verizon Wireless provided 25 cell phones for use by customers at the HPL Mobile Express locations and Community Access Locations.
