Books float at the LFPL Main Library (By Scott Utterback, The Courier-Journal) Aug. 4, 2009

So here’s what I know that is new:

• On Thursday I received ten donations for the Louisville Free Public Library for a total of $230. Thank you, all who donated.
• Library Journal published an interview with LFPL Director, Craig Buthod. They now are estimating five million dollars in damage and the Main library will be closed through Labor Day.
• Then there was this, which amazed me. When LJ reporter, Norman Oder, asked what offers of help they have received from the library community, Craig Buthod said this:

Very strong offers. The Library Society of the World [is raising money]. I got a call from Mary Ellin Santiago. [Project Manager of Gates Foundation’s Gulf Coast Library Project]. We’ve had offers from Cedar Rapids [IA, which suffered flooding last year.] The state librarian has been on the phone daily.

It’s really neat that he mentioned us first. He knows better than I do that $5,000 is only one-tenth of one percent of five million dollars. He might or might not be aware that we are still pretty far short of five grand. But I hope it means that Buthod and the other folks at LFPL are cheered up a bit by the knowledge that a bunch of librarians from all over are scraping up $10 and $20 and $50 donations because we are thinking of them and we empathize with them and we wish we could do more.

I knew donations would fall off today. We saw the same thing with people participating in Shovers and Makers. But with this Library Journal mention, I’d really like to see us hit that $5,000 goal by September 1. Here’s the button and the addresses:

If you’d rather send a check, send it to the Library Society of the World Clubhouse, PO Box 7893, Colorado Springs CO 80933. Make the check payable to Steve Lawson.

If you’d rather donate to the LFPL Library Foundation directly instead of using me as a middle man, please do:

The Library Foundation
Attn: Flood
301 York St.
Louisville, KY 40203
(502) 574-1709

Lastly, Abigail Goben-with-a-”b” and Amy “Jambina” Buckland are encouraging contributions with prize drawings. You can win beautiful yarn from Abigail or “libpunk” merch from Amy. (See their blogs for details, must be 18 or over, odds of winning depend on number of entries, offer not valid for Elsevier executives.) I have been trying to think of a similar promo to bring donors out of the woodwork. But other than “for $50 I’ll take my clothes off; for $100 I’ll put them back on,” I haven’t thought of anything (and I think the nudity thing might be illegal in Kentucky anyway). Send good ideas my way.

• 40 people have donated a total of $1,295.
• Contributors are from all over the USA, but also from Canada, England, and New Zealand. The “World” part of Library Society of the World isn’t just a joke.
• Contributions range from $5 to $100.
• The average contribution is $33.21, but the median is $20 and the mode is $10.

I think this is wonderful. I have seen this happen on a more intimate scale where a bunch of small contributions from a group of friends adds up quickly to serious money. This is the same thing, but with strangers sending me $100 on PayPal, trusting that I’m not going to buy plane tickets to Costa Rica or something.

I think the fact that most people are giving $10 is wonderful, too. If you are moved by this story, give what you can. It will add up.

I’m also getting a little nervous. It feels very strange to be responsible for more than a thousand dollars of other people’s money. I think I’ll call the LFPL Foundation line tomorrow. Unless they would really prefer to get one check a few weeks from now, I think I’ll clear out the PayPal account a few times between now and September 1 and send several smaller checks.

I’m also nervous that the “buzz” around this will dissipate quickly, and contributions will slow to a trickle. I don’t want to turn this into Pledge Week on NPR, but I will if I have to! Despite Wednesday’s great success, $5,000 is still looking like a challenging figure to reach. But I think we can do it 5, 10, 20, 100 dollars at a time.

Speaking of which, what’s that PayPal address again? It’s LSW.LFPL@gmail.com, or use this handy button:

If you’d rather send a check, send it to the Library Society of the World Clubhouse, PO Box 7893, Colorado Springs CO 80933. Or just send your check directly to:

The Library Foundation
Attn: Flood
301 York St.
Louisville, KY 40203
(502) 574-1709

I have one more little statistic. As of the instant I’m writing this, my post from yesterday on LFPL has been viewed 2,002 times. That makes it my second-most viewed post on the site. The top post, How to Annoy Librarians has been viewed 2,003 times. Perhaps by this instant, love has already surpassed snark.

You may recall that back in May, I asked you to join me in supporting Consuming Louisville’s Libraries are Free But Books Aren’t drive. Organized by Michelle Jones, that drive was to by books for the Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL) from their Amazon wishlist. It wasn’t that LFPL was terribly needy, it was just a way to help out a library by buying a bunch of book that they really wanted.

Now LFPL is in need. On Tuesday, Louisville was hit with a really ridiculous amount of rain. The Main Library was hit especially hard. I got most of my news about the flood from Greg Schwartz’s Twitter posts and Twitpics.

Photo from LouisvilleKy.gov. Click photo for full-size.

So a lot of those books we sent them in the spring are now covered in water and sewage. And so are the bookmobiles. And the mechanical equipment for HVAC. And the data center. And $50,000 worth of new computers. The initial estimate is $1 million in damage, but they must just be guessing at this point.

So it’s time to help them out again.

I have set up the email LSW.LFPL@gmail.com and linked it to my PayPal account. I intend to collect money at that address until September 1, at which point I’ll send a check in the name of the Library Society of the World to the LFPL Foundation. You can just send money to that email address using PayPal, or use the button below:

If you’d rather send a check, send it to the Library Society of the World Clubhouse, PO Box 7893, Colorado Springs CO 80933. Make the check payable to Steve Lawson.

Don’t worry about how much you can afford to donate. My own contribution will be small-ish, between $20 and $50.

But there are about 300 members of the LSW room on FriendFeed. There are close to 1,000 members of the LSW group on Linkedin. I would like to think we can raise at least $5,000 for LFPL by September 1. That’s only $17 per FriendFeed member, or $5 per Linkedin member.

For this to work, you have to trust me. I promise that every dime that comes through PayPal or check will go to LFPL. (PayPal takes a small cut if your donation is charged to your credit card (rather than your bank account) and if you don’t choose the option to pay those fees yourself, so it’s possible that I won’t get the full amount of your donation. I’ll only be able to donate the money I actually receive after PayPal fees.)

On September 1, I’ll total up what we have raised and send it to the library. If you would rather give money yourself instead of sending it to me, here is the address and phone number given in the Louisville Courier-Journal:

The Library Foundation
Attn: Flood
301 York St.
Louisville, KY 40203
(502) 574-1709

Five thousand dollars or more for Louisville Free Public Library by September 1. Think we can do it? I’ll keep you posted.

Everyone (well several people at least) has been asking how they can get their hands on a copy of Codslap! the LSW zine.

Here’s the scoop: you can use the button below to send me US$3.00 to get one copy postage-paid within the US and Canada. Make sure your address is accurate. [Edit: depending on your feed reader, you might have to click through to the website to view/use the PayPal button.]

Or, if you aren’t in the US/Canada or if you want multiple copies, or if you are an old skool zinester and want to mail me cash in an envelope, email me at steve@stevelawson.name and we’ll make it happen.

There are two catches to all this:

1. Aside from the copies I have reserved for contributors, I’m pretty much out of zines.
2. I am going out of town for about a week.

For me, this works out great. The orders can roll in this week, and then I will know how many to print when I get back. For you, this means you will have to wait a while before you can assume the zine is in the mail.

Feel free to email with any questions or leave a comment on this post, but remember I might not reply promptly.

Then I pretty much threw a copy at Neil Gaiman, but he didn’t get it. (Here’s the story on FriendFeed, Josh’s message to Neil and Neil’s reply (!) on Twitter, and Dorothea’s message and Neil’s reply (!!))

I was successful in getting the zine and an LSW badge ribbon (thank you Candaian non-ALA-attending posse for getting those done!) to the Shanachie Tour Dutch guys, and they were nice enough to do an interview with me about the LSW. You can view it below (mom, my part starts at about 6:50). I think it turned out well–I sound surprisingly prepared, given I had no idea we were going to do this ahead of time.

ALA Annual Conference 2009 Chicago from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

The idea is alive and well. I still have every intention of having the first issue of the Library Society of the World zine ready for ALA Annual in July. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, try reading this earlier post, The LSW Zine: a Call for Rants, Manifestos, articles and artwork.)

Several people have already submitted finished contributions. For the rest of you, here’s a deadline: all submissions for the LSW zine are due on or before Monday, May 31.

In addition to the guidelines in that previous post there’s one other thing I’d like to mention. My wording in that post or people’s preconceptions about what a “zine article” would be may have made it sound like I’m just looking for snarky or satirical or “edgy” work. That’s really not true. I think most of us who work in libraries love libraries and library people, and if you have a story that is full of love and sunshine, I’d love to publish that story.

If you want to contribute, but aren’t sure what to write, I think what I’d most like to see right now are real-life tales of library work. What is it like to work in a prison library or to routinely handle manuscripts that are hundreds of years old or to have someone pull a gun on you at the circ desk? Think of something that is interesting about your work, and tell us a specific story about that.

Or don’t. Make a collage of 1970s punchcards found in the backs of old books. Interview people on the bus about their favorite librarians. Write the first scene of “LIBRARIAN!” the musical. I will exercise my discretion (such as it is) about what to publish or not publish, but I expect there will be room for just about everything. Leave a comment on this post or email steve at stevelawson dot name if you want in. And get to work: you have a month.]]> http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2009/04/the_lsw_zine_articles_due_may_31.html/feed 4 http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2009/04/lsw_cod_of_ethics_merchandise_now_available.html http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2009/04/lsw_cod_of_ethics_merchandise_now_available.html#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:27:46 +0000 Steve http://stevelawson.name/seealso/?p=16122 Whatever the Library Society of the World is/was/will be, there’s one thing I am sure of: we like nerdy t-shirts.

Introducing the latest: The Library Society of the World Cod of Ethics T-Shirt and Related Merchandise.

Yes, now you can show everyone that you aren’t merely common rabble: you live by a Cod. Right now, I have men’s and women’s shirts for sale, plus mugs and mousepads. I can add other products if there is demand.

I think it’s fair to ask where the money goes in cases like this. About 10% of the purchase price is my profit, though it looks like Zazzle takes some fees out of that profit, too. If that bugs you, download the full-resolution image (2.12MB PNG image) and make your own shirt.

Since librarians are likely to care about this, the cod image is in the public domain. It’s from The Fisheries and Fisheries Industries of the United States, a publication from the 1880′s. I first found it on the Wikipedia page for cod, then followed up the documentation to find a higher-resolution image on the NOAA Photo Library – Historical Fisheries Collection. Dorothea Salo cleaned up the source image.

Word is that Dorothea will be sporting her Cod shirt at ALA this summer. Don’t be left out.

Note: the LSW CafePress site is still up and running, so you can get your LSW logo shirt or Shovers and Makers shirt there.

[Cross-posted to Humbug! The LSW Blog.]]]> http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2009/04/lsw_cod_of_ethics_merchandise_now_available.html/feed 1 http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2009/03/shovers_and_makers_is_open_for_business.html http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2009/03/shovers_and_makers_is_open_for_business.html#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:36:47 +0000 Steve http://stevelawson.name/seealso/?p=13052 Back in November, my fellow carping nerdboy, Joshua M. Neff, came up with a new Library Society of the World slogan and t-shirt: Shovers and Makers. I liked the shirt and thought we needed an award to go with it–an award that would provide a fun counterpart to Library Journal’s annual Movers and Shakers awards.

So with Josh’s approval and input, I built shoversandmakers.net. We had a bunch of “teaser” posts being fed into the LSW FriendFeed room for the past two weeks, and the site went live today.

In short, Shovers and Makers is open to anyone who wants to call herself a Shover and Maker. Go to the site, read the about page, hit the front page and read some of the other Shovers’ and Makers’ posts about themselves, and then go to the winners’ page where you can write up your own profile and have it posted to the blog. Tell everyone about something that you did that you are proud of, or share some big plans for the future. If you have a blog, you can spread the word by linking to your post or the front page, or by using one of our badges like the one above.

This is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a little inspiring and a little absurd. I’m thrilled that there are already more than 20 people (besides Josh and me) who have participated in the first few hours the site has been open, and I hope we get many more.