Video Explaining Free Use of TexShare Dabases…07.22.08

I recently shared the with my department about the TexShare databases that are available for free searching through local public libraries or online from anywhere using a user name and password obtained from local public libraries. The above video posted on YouTube is a good introductory marketing tool for the service. Periodic unsolicited information sent to patrons from library resources highlights and reinforces the value of library and/or information services.

Further Personal Reading & ILL Frustration…07.20.08

I have used the ILL at a local public library to acquire a couple of books I want to read and will when they are available.  One is Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Johnson which Publisher Weekly has described as a:

“…richly detailed and passionately argued book, Jackson (What’s Happening to Home?) warns that modern society’s inability to focus heralds an impending Dark Age—an era historically characterized by the decline of a civilization amid abundance and technological advancement. Jackson posits that our near-religious allegiance to a constant state of motion and addiction to multitasking are eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention—the building block of intimacy, wisdom and cultural progress and stunting society’s ability to comprehend what’s relevant and permanent…”

The other book is Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida.  Publisher Weekly describes this work as:

“Choosing a spouse and choosing a career are important life decisions—but perhaps even more predictive of our all-round personal happiness is our choice of living location, argues Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class) in this informative if somewhat dry tome. As globalization makes the world effectively smaller, economic growth concentrates in certain mega-regions of large superstar cities, leaving other regions in the proverbial dust. The areas where we live are also affected by our increasingly mobile culture, housing priorities that change as we age (from starter homes to family-friendly suburbs to empty nests and finally retirement centers) and the global economy…”

Mmmmmmmmm…  I have lived in many places and really only one partly by choice–Lake Mary, Florida. It was a good decision to move there but through circumstance, direction, and necessity was only able to stay there 3 years.  It is a great area I would highly recommend if you can afford it.

Due to the financial crunch we’re almost all feeling lately, I am resorting more and more to personal ILL through my local public library for leisure and other reading materials. It has been an unnecessary challenge to do so though.

The community in which I live has no public library.  No public library close by would allow me a free library card because I was not a resident of their community.  I finally found a public library about a 35-minute drive away which would let me get a library card without paying an annual fee.  I then had to wait 3 months to get a TexShare card from that library so I can go back and use those libraries closer to my home.  However, I still have to go through the library from which I received the initial card to do an ILL via telephone.  This means I have to drive to this far away library to physically receive the materials when they arrive.