nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student

<Yes, I am shamelessly working a fangirl post into a library themed blog. :)>

I got to see Tori Amos perform in Omaha this weekend, and part of the way through the performance it hit me- Tori must be the Annoyed Librarian! Consider the facts:

She released a greatest hits album called “Tales of a Librarian.”

She’s outspoken and opinionated

She already has several personas, the AL would just be one more

And the most damming of all, the Martinis:

Not long into the concert, Tori (sorry, Santa) poured martinis for herself and her crew. She even walked into the crowd to deliver said martinis to the sound crew. That’s when I knew.

OK, it’s a stretch. But it’s more believable than me saying *I’m* the Annoyed Librarian.

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<fangirl stuff>I was extremely pleased with this concert. Tori is one of my favorite singers, and it’s always great to see her perform, but this particular concert was full of energy and fun. Tori is getting quite good at tapping into her somewhat rabid (yes, me included) fanbase. Her website includes places you can upload your own photos, make comments about the concerts, and connect with other fans. She seems to be pretty lenient with other websites as well (there’s never a shortage of Tori footage on YouTube or photos on flickr.) This is in contrast to Prince, who has been going after his fans lately, which makes me grumpy.

I would add a “what can libraries learn from this” paragraph here, but since this is really a fangirl post, I won’t.

My favorite new feature on toriamos.com is the ability to download an concert in MP3 format, recorded from the soundboard, within hours after the concert for $10. This is a great idea, and long overdue. Most fans would much rather pay $10 for a good quality official bootleg than getting a cruddy audience recorded boot. Alas for me, the concert I attended appears to be unavailable.</fangirl stuff>

karin :: Nov.12.2007 :: Humor, Library, Sites and Stories :: 2 Comments »

A while ago, I wrote what some interpreted as a scathing review of Lincoln City Library’s new website.

I’ve been looking at the website fairly frequently since then, and I’ve seen some nice changes.

The blue on the main page has been changed to a more royal blue, which I think helps the site look a little more professional . The content on the front has been changing frequently to highlight events. They added “Lincoln, Nebraska” to the header, which was a great idea.

A blog post about “pimp my bookcart” from the teen place blog.

In particular, the Teen Post Place blog has really taken off. There are regular posts, it gets a good number of comments, and the content is featured on the main page. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of the Teen post place blog and other pages. The writing is pretty good - it asks questions and invites responses. Karrie does a good job of identifying events that might be of interest to teens and then relating it back to the library. The only thing I would change would be to add a link back to the main blog from the individual pages. Lincoln City Libraries seems to involve teens a great deal, they have a Teen Advisory Board and make school visits.

There are several RSS feeds on the site, and I would love to see these highlighted. There are feeds for the children’s part of the site, Linc for Kids, feeds about the “One Book, One Lincoln” program, and more. While there are a few things I would like to see- like a page listing all the feeds available and a feed for the board minutes, I really think they’ll get there in time.
At the 2007 Nebraska Library Association Annual Conference, I talked to many people from Lincoln City Libraries, and I have to say, they are a great bunch. They’re excited and love their jobs, and have a great customer service ethic. When they talked about problems in the library, they almost always talked in terms of how they can make things better. I also got the impression that there are big talks about the future of the library and how they fit into the vision for Lincoln’s future.

As a patron of Lincoln City Libraries and as a library student, I’m proud of my local library.

karin :: Nov.02.2007 :: Library :: No Comments »