This is probably true in libraries too. We keep seeing studies that say that women are the majority of our patrons but often we don't ask why that is beyond “men don't read”.
There's also a gender bias in both publishing and libraries that the writer tip-toes around. But the truth is that the majority of people working in both publishing and libraries are female, the majority of library programmers are female, the majority of library collections development folks are female so a subtle bias is going to creep in no matter how conscious you try to be.
Men read. Tons of them do. But they are not marketed to, not targeted,
and often totally dismissed. Go to a book conference, a signing. Outside
of a Tucker Max event, what percentage of attendees are men?
I'm reminded of the program which I think ran in Southeast Regional where the branch held a “how to fix motorcycles” workshop. It was a huge success with tons of men in attendance. Same thing when another branch had a “hunting and fishing” program.
(Oh, and I happen to have read the mystery book described in the lead-off anecdote of the article. I'm glad that teen nephew of the publisher gave it a thumb's up! )
I recently gave kudos to the book “Crowdsourcing” which I'd just finished reading. You know a book's a good one when you're still thinking about it a few days later and you know it's a great one when you keep thinking of ways its lessons might apply in your everyday life beyond that.
How does that relate to libraries? Well, like the vast majority of organizations, libraries tend to have a hierarchical structure with a Director (and usually a Deputy Director) at the top then a variety of managers below that then supervisors then on down through the ranks.
Which makes me wonder? What if somebody tried to implement a completely crowd-sourced library? This would be a *major* shift for anyone used to working in hierarchies but it could produce some very interesting results. Tapping into a typical library's staff, you'd definitely have a large and varied crew and it's not hard to imagine how the advantages could manifest themselves.
Let's take a really simple example. Let's say you were trying to set-up a new adult program of some kind. In the traditional model, the decision might be made by someone like a Head of Programming in consultation with a Branch Manager and maybe (or maybe not) the actual staff who'd be delivering the program might have some input as well. Some libraries might do this via a committee structure, some might do it with a series of meetings.
Now, imagine the crowd-sourced library program. Suddenly, everyone on staff anywhere in the library could weigh in with their thoughts, likely via some web-based mechanism. Suddenly, the Pages might throw in some ideas about an upcoming but still underneath-the-radar new author that the Branch Manager wasn't aware of but the page knows because they're re-shelving those books constantly. Someone in another branch might be on the board of a community organization that connects to the theme of the program. The maintenance crew could share ideas from a perspective that the rest of the staff rarely consider (or at least consider to the same depth that the physical plant folks would.)
Or if you wanted to be truly crowd-sourced, you could open it up to the general public as well! After all, what are libraries at their core but a reflection of the communities in which they operate? And what better way to truly embody this (no, the occasional focus group doesn't cut it.)
[Edit: I did some further searching around after posting this and saw that the author of the crowdsourcing book is championing a “One Book, One Twitter” campaign based on the popular “One Book, One City” initiatives that have happened in various cities. Tomorrow's the last day so why not go vote?]
Our Deputy Director was in Chicago for a conference recently and brought home a really nice souvenir!
Shea's jealous that I got to play around with this as she wants an iPad more than I do. In reality, I've got mixed feelings about the device. I love my iPhone and though it's not perfect a perfect analogy, the “a bigger iPhone” analogy makes sense in many ways. But I also see many of the issues raised by folks like Cory Doctorow and others.
I think the secret of allaying my reservations is telling myself that I'm not buying a computer, I'm buying a toaster. It's just another appliance – only it's one that happens to go online and let you check e-mail and play games and stuff like that. If that means there are two types of computers in the future – mom and grandma-friendly iPads and the usual hacker/creator friendly laptops/desktops – so be it.
Lots of interesting tidbits. I thought about listing what my answers would be but nobody needs to know which Shakespeare play my first time resembles (okay, half “Midsummer Night's Dream” and half “Comedy of Errors” if you really must know. )
I wrote about this meme before. Turns out that a couple years after these parodies gave their German-language art house film some international attention, the people who made the movie have decided that the single scene used for all these parodies is an “infringement” of their work. Well, they say that dinosaurs had small brains and that's why they went extinct…
My mom and dad had tickets to a magic show featuring Jeff McBride, courtesy their Investors Group rep so invited Shea and I along. Not your typical Tuesday night in Regina!
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