June 25, 1997 - Booksellers

Maren Francis is the owner of Hooked on Books, an independent bookstore in Castle Rock. She also happens to be a member of my library board. Maren just got back from a big conference of the American Booksellers Association, and shared some of her insights with me about trends in the book business.

The main issue among booksellers these days is the rise of such big chain stores as Borders, and Barnes and Noble. For consumers, this certainly looks like a good deal: the big chains offer big discounts.

But (at least until recently), those big consumer discounts were made possible by big publisher discounts. Moreover, these discounts were not available to the independent booksellers. Then, a couple of years ago, the independents sued the publishers for more equitable treatment. They won.

But the publishers haven’t forgiven them. And the independents still tend to get stuck with shipping charges that don’t get billed to the chains.

Booksellers operate on pretty slim margins. Many independents are down to about 1% over their costs. Publisher discounts and shipping charges can make or break them. So the basic situation hasn’t changed: when the chain bookstores come in, many independent booksellers go out of business.

Here’s another wrinkle. Some book publishers actually pay the chain stores to feature the titles of certain authors, much as soft drink companies pay grocery stores for prime space at the end of an aisle. So for the discount chains, displays mean “advertising.”

“But they don’t pay me to do that,” Maren told me. Independents tend to build their book displays based on what either the local public has gone for, or what the store workers found of literary merit. So displays mean “good books.” Maren said, “I would love to see some of these authors get a wider audience.”

There’s another challenge. “When I walked onto the floor of the conference,” Maren said, “all the row markers -- huge overhead banners -- said ‘amazon.com.’” amazon.com is an Internet-based bookstore. For those folks with Internet access, amazon.com offers great discounts, no doubt because its overhead is so low (smaller staff, no retail rents, no warehousing costs). (Note: Denver’s own Tattered Cover is also on the Internet at www.tatteredcover.com. And other booksellers probably won’t be far behind.)

Some librarians express the concern that bookstores, the Internet, and libraries are competitors. Maren and I don’t see it that way. Each serves its purpose, has its niche. Generally speaking, the more all of us promote books and reading, the more of a market we have. People who like books use the public library for some things, and bookstores for others.

On the other hand, despite the rapid growth of the chain stores the overall purchasing of books has remained relatively flat throughout the United States. In other words, the rise of the chains and “virtual bookstores” has not resulted in a larger market for booksellers, merely a more fragmented one.

A more pernicious influence of this competition is that mainstream publishers are making bigger but fewer deals. That is, they look for blockbusters: bestsellers that go straight to movie options. The big advances and hype mean that publishers have less time and money to look for more purely literary books. The result is a shallower catalog of offerings, a market place of more glitz, but less substance.

I asked Maren what so many people ask me: “Will the book survive?” She thought it would. “In a time when our lives are more frenetic, people turn to books because they offer a reduction of stimuli.” Because of this, she suggested, some of the chains won’t survive either; their very busy-ness will work against them.

Yet Maren observed, “The perceived value of books is much lower than it was a few years ago. Consider how you feel about a book you see stacked in huge numbers with a sign announcing 30% discount. Compare that to how you feel about a book you find in a hand picked display, lovingly arranged and reflecting the taste of a bookseller whose instincts you trust.”

Maren is right that, “Any bookseller has to offer something special.” For some of us, it’s the best price. For others, it’s warm, personal service. For all of us who love books, it’s an interesting time.

June 18, 1997 - Books by Mail Program

Our culture’s idea of service has changed quite a lot over the past half century, and probably not for the better.

I realized this (again) while watching the movie Back to the Future. Marty has just arrived in the 50’s, and watches a car pull into the local Texaco station. FOUR young men leap out. One pumps gas, one wipes the windshield, one checks the oil, one checks the pressure of the tires. Our idea of service used to be lavish personal attention.

These days, we define service as “self-service.” Cheaper, it is - but meaner, too.

If self-service is indeed a trend - as many people say it is - then how might this apply to libraries?

Well, our library allows people to dial in from home (through the ACLIN network) and place their own holds on materials. When they come to their local library, the books (and other materials) are waiting for them. That’s a real convenience, as many of our patrons have discovered.

The Boulder Public Library came up with an interesting wrinkle on this idea. Once staff place the hold (their patrons can’t place them themselves), and the books come in, the materials aren’t just set behind the circulation desk. Instead, they are mailed right to the patrons’ homes, at library expense. To return the items, patrons must drop them off at the library, or bear the cost of a return mailing.

It’s an interesting idea. From the patron’s perspective, it’s hard to beat door-to-door service. From the library’s perspective - at least the staff of the Boulder Public Library - library items don’t sit around as long, don’t get handled as often, get to patrons quicker, and don’t take up valuable library space.

On the one hand, a similar notion underpins two Douglas Public Library District programs. One of them concerns our patrons living in the remote mountain community of Deckers. Their tax dollars (plus a generous subsidy by I.R.E.A.) cover the costs of mailing library materials both ways. But they wouldn’t use our library at all, otherwise.

The second program is new, this time in our Highlands Ranch area. Some folks are homebound, either because they are elderly, bedridden with a difficult pregnancy, or otherwise physically unable to get to the library. Thanks to the incomparable boon of volunteer time, we will actually take materials right to patrons’ homes. (Call 841-6942 if you fit that profile and live in the Highlands Ranch area.)

On the other hand, we don’t offer that to all our patrons. Instead, we phone them when their items come in. That’s more like old-time service; most larger libraries mail notices. And perhaps our public responds to this human touch. Most of our patrons retrieve their items the same day we call them, or the next.

And perhaps, too, there is something to be said for the library as “the great good place.” That is, the library is a kind of sanctuary, a place where you step outside the urgencies of your daily life and are encouraged to meander a bit, to while away a few moments in consideration of the current crop of publisher offerings, or in quest of a timeless classic. While other businesses focus on volume and speed, the library strives to be a place where you can feel both welcome and comforted, a “time out”.

So you tell me. Would you like to get your reserves mailed to your house, or would you rather have the excuse to swing by the library and nose around? Call me at 688-8752, e-mail me at jaslarue@earthlink.net, or write me at 961 S. Plum Creek Blvd, Castle Rock CO 80104.

June 11, 1997 - 7 Reasons Why Books Will Last

Like public schools before them, public libraries are coming under increasing scrutiny in a time of social change.

One example of this is the most recent issue of “CQ Researcher,” entitled “The Future of Libraries.” Each issue of the magazine (published by the Congressional Quarterly) tackles some topic with public policy implications.

The overarching concern of the CQ Researcher was technology. The issues asked, Are America’s libraries moving too quickly to adopt technology?

Like any good research piece, the conclusion is, “It depends.” In some cases, probably so. In others, some libraries aren’t moving quickly enough.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I don’t have an instant’s worry that Internet terminals will drive out printed material, nor that they will make libraries obsolete.

A close analysis of print and electronic resources reveals that each has its strengths and weaknesses, its appropriate uses within a public library. In brief: electronic resources have the edge for periodical, encyclopedic, or other information contained in relatively short documents. Such documents tend to be timely, concern themselves with just one or two topics, and can be searched for and retrieved quickly. That’s an important subset of library use. The World Wide Web is a superior tool for this function. Generally speaking, it works better than paper alternatives.

But by far the greater use of almost any public library -- or school library media center -- falls into the category of “sustained reading.” Here I mean our staples: children’s books, non-fiction, and novels.

There are at least seven reasons why the book, pretty much as we know it today, will endure.

Resolution. The resolution of type on typical computer monitor has just 72 dots per inch. The typical typeset book has 1200 dots per inch. For sustained reading, paper is best.

Linearity. The World Wide Web is based on hypertext -- the ability to jump from one document to another. The ’Net is a mosaic -- you start anywhere and go anywhere and wind up anywhere (or nowhere). But fiction and non-fiction depend upon a sequential argument or story. I would argue that such an orderly presentation is precisely the contribution of the author. It’s the difference between a random collection of slides, and a travel book.

Portability. Granted that computers are getting smaller all the time. None is so wondrously cheap and transportable as a paperback.

Accessibility / affordability. No matter how poor you are, you can probably afford a used paperback. A used computer and modem still requires a phone bill and Internet subscription.

Surface technology. Just as the Web needs computer equipment, a roll of microfilm needs a big, boxy, reader machine. A book requires just one working hand and eye, and even those have work-arounds.

Durability. At a recent preservation workshop, various storage media were dropped in a bucket of water. The CD’s came out ok. Computer disks and tapes did not. Books -- after suitable treatment -- came out surprisingly well.

Lovability. My daughter has enjoyed computerized books. They’re fun and can be useful. But she loves certain books, so much so that we could (and have) read them to her night after night after night. There is a deep power to this artifact, this four letter word, “book.”
There is also a reason that most people associate the library with “a place for books.” That definition, and the need for such a place, will long endure.
In a book called Future Libraries, authors Michael Gorman and Walt Crawford describe a hierarchy: data is not information, information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. The Web is about data. Books are about knowledge.

Wisdom, alas, is still rare in either

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In remembrance: Last weekend, my companion for 20 years, Watson the cat, died much as she lived her life, quietly and with little fuss. Her funny little spirit, her wee and unassuming attentiveness, will be sorely missed. Farewell, little friend. medium.

June 4, 1997 - The Value of Public Space

I jumped on a slow couple of days to catch up on my professional reading. Because of the way the pile got stacked (pure accident), I ran across two articles, back to back, that said more together than they would have separately.

The first was a piece called “Books, Bytes, and Buildings,” published by the Benton Foundation, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. There were many findings about “the future of [public] libraries in the digital age,” based on surveys, phone polls, and focus groups. Here are the two findings I’d like to focus on this week:

Like library leaders, Americans value library buildings. But Americans are less sure than library leaders that the library is a significant community meeting place. People between the ages of 18 and 24 have the least value for library buildings.
While many Americans are angry at government, libraries are thus far the exception. Libraries enjoy high marks (and strong support as a funding priority) from all Americans, again

My next piece of professional reading came from a book called The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream, by architect Peter Calthorpe.
Here’s the quote that jumped out at me:

“Today the public world is shrunken and fractured. Parks, schools, libraries, post offices, town halls, and civic centers are dispersed, underutilized, and underfunded. Yet these civic elements determine the quality of our shared world and express the value we assign to community. The traditional Commons, which once centered our communities with convivial gathering and meeting places, is increasingly displaced by an exaggerated private domain: shopping malls, private clubs, and gated communities. Our basic public space, the street, is given over to the car and its accommodation, while our private world becomes more and more isolated behind garage doors and walled compounds. Our public space lacks identity and is largely anonymous, while our private space strains toward a narcissistic autonomy. Our communities are zoned black and white, private or public, my space or nobody’s.

“We must return meaning and stature to the physical expression of our public life.”

These issues are more than academic to me. The Douglas Public Library District will be building or renovating a building every year for the next five years, all around the county. It matters to me how they will be seen and used.

After encouraging these ideas to stew in the back of my mind awhile, I formed two hypotheses:

One of the reasons there is so much anti-government sentiment these days (as evidenced by declining voter participation, anti-tax revolts, and at the extreme end, militias) is that our modern urban and suburban landscape pointedly removes public structures from public view. We have, as Calthorpe puts it, dispersed and fragmented the physical expression of our public life. For our youngest citizens -- those between the ages of 18 and 24 (the early voting years) -- that civic life is all but invisible. No wonder they don’t value it.

One of the reasons that libraries have retained more public support than other governmental entities is that libraries try hard to build beautiful and inviting buildings that are a part of the public’s life. Particularly during the design phase, we actively seek the involvement of the people who live in communities the libraries will serve. We attach a high priority to meeting those people’s concerns. It pays off, literally and figuratively.

In short, Calthorpe is right. If we want people to see themselves as more than consumers, we have to make another dimension of their lives tangible in our shared environment. Library buildings are a good place to start. But libraries aren’t enough.

May 28, 1997 - Storytelling in the Park

The library has many friends. These friends perform two important functions for us. First, they aid in recruitment. They talk up the library, drag their neighbors along with them, and in general increase our visibility to the community.

Second, they improve the library. Like our library staff, our friends are creative people, with lots of good ideas about new services, or new twists on old ones. Let me give you an example.

The Friends of the Highlands Ranch Library, currently presided over by Susan Alaimo, recently requested a contribution from the Highlands Ranch Foundation (funded by the Mission Viejo Company). The request was successful. The Highlands Ranch Foundation presented a check for $1,000 to the Friends of the Highlands Ranch Library’s 1997 Storytelling in the Park series.

This year’s series kicks off with an event we call “Picnic Storytimes.” Popular Highlands Ranch storyteller Kathleen DiLeo will be using special “book props” for such stories as “The Lady with the Alligator Purse,” “Once There was a Bull ... Frog,” and “The Wolf’s Chicken Stew.”

The storytimes will begin at 10:30 a.m. and run until about 11:15 a.m. All of them will be held at Northridge Park Shelter #2 (by the baseball fields). The dates for the storytimes are as follows:

• June 11
• June 25
• July 9
• July 23
• August 6
• August 20

Each storytime concludes with “parachute play,” and I am advised the parental assistance is required. (I would hope so!)

Children and the folks looking after them are invited to bring a picnic lunch and stick around to enjoy it. In short, our Storytelling in the Parker series is not only a great way to get or keep kids interested in books, it’s also not a bad way to meet some of your neighbors.

Another important date for your calendars is June 2. That’s when registration begins for our 1997 summer reading program — Camp Read-Along. To complete the program, preschoolers and students have to read (or have read to them) 15 books. They list their titles on their own personal reading log, provided by the library, which is studded with summer camp drawings.

The children who complete the program will have their names entered into a drawing for free family tickets to the Children’s Concert at the Rocky Mountain Storytelling Festival in August — the premiere storytelling event west of the Mississippi.

The Summer Reading Program will also feature a program called “Wild Rascals of Roxborough State Park.” Presented by park rangers, it is scheduled for

• June 18 (Oakes Mill, 4:30 p.m.) and
• July 10 (Highlands Ranch, 4:30 p.m.)

We’ve experimented over the years with our “prizes” for successfully completing the reading program goal. In my mind, the books themselves are the prize. For parents, seeing their children maintain reading skills over a summer break may be sufficient reward. But this year, children who complete the program also earn an invitation (for the whole family) to attend a “Hootenanny.” This will feature an old-fashioned Sing-along, kazoos, watermelon, cookies, and a humorous skit (we hope) performed by librarians.

Again, it takes good friends to offer such events. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Douglas Public Library District, I am pleased to thank the Friends of the Highlands Ranch Library, the Mission Viejo Company, the Highlands Ranch Foundation, the Highlands Ranch Community Association, Douglas County Parks Department, and Roxborough State Park.

Let the reading commence!

May 21, 1997 - The LaRue Companion (tm) Time Management System

I don't remember the name of the story or who wrote it. (This guy is a librarian?) But it was a science fiction yarn about people who could travel in time, all by themselves, without any machinery. This ability was a rare but persistent human mutation, like being born with six fingers on one hand.

Most of these time travelers, when they became adults, eventually went back to the period when they were children. Their purpose was to teach themselves to master their gift at the earliest possible age.

I thought of this story recently because at the age of 42, I finally have something I deeply wish I could go back in time to teach myself when I was, oh, 13 or so.

You'll have to bear with me on this one for a few paragraphs. I realize it sounds a little anal, and possibly pathetic. But I suspect I'm not alone in the need that prompted me to such desperate activity.

I'm a very intuitive person. I work on things I sense I ought to be working on. Mostly, this works pretty well, and sometimes spectacularly so. But over the years, I got more and more frustrated at the things I forgot to do -- deadlines I missed, appointments I spaced, obligations I just plain lost track of.

So over the past few months, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I actually work. I perused my datebooks for the past five years, figuring out what I wrote in each book, and why. I combed through examples of how other people managed their time (both at the library and in business supply stores).

One weekend, I started doodling. Then I went up to my personal computer and started some serious page design. By the time I was done, I put in some 40 or 50 hours designing various forms. I made a form for taking notes at meetings. I made a form for tracking and managing projects. I made a form for keeping track of appointments. I made my own daily "to do" list.

Then I went back to the business supply stores. I bought a 3-ring binder, an insert for punching three holes in a half-size sheet, some dividers, and a clear plastic pouch. Total cost: about $5. Everything else I ran off my home computer at less than a penny a page.

To buy a similar time management tool would have cost me between $30-60 dollars, with another $20 a year in inserts. But I've been testing this for over a month now. It works. The others didn't, at least not for me.

I call it, only half-jokingly, "the LaRue Companion (tm)."

If I could just go back in time, bearing the LaRue Companion (tm) with me, I could have saved myself scores of humiliating moments. Better, I could have gotten more done in the areas that mattered to me then, and matter to me now.

If you'd like to see this wonderful gimmick, by all means stop by. I'd be glad to show it to you. And by way of balancing my message this week, I also recommend The Tao of Time by Diana Scharf-Hunt. Available from the Douglas Public Library District, it's a book that argues convincingly that time management systems, by themselves, won't solve your life's problems. Those of us who live in the Western world, generally speaking, feel that time uses us, rather than the other way around.

Thinking about that is worth some time, too.

May 14, 1997 - Brain development and Reading

A lot of people lately have been researching and writing about the human brain.

Much of this research focuses on childhood brain development.

“At birth a baby's brain contains 100 billion neurons, roughly as many nerve cells as there are stars in the Milky Way,” according to an article in the February 3, 1997 issue of Time. And according to an article in the March 10, 1997 issue of U.S. News & World Report, “... the brain reaches 80 percent of its full development by a child's first birthday.”

Yet as reported in Newsweek (April 28, 1997), “25 percent of parents of young children do not know that what they do with a child can affect his intelligence, including increasing curiosity, confidence and problem-solving ability.”

“Just loving” your child isn’t enough. A clear finding of all this research is that parents must talk to their children -- and that too many of them don’t. Children in that first year have minds that literally hunger for language; thousands, perhaps millions, are starved.

But brain development doesn’t end at the age of 1. A February, 1997 issue of a magazine called Neurological Research reported on a study that children aged 3 and 4, after six months of piano lessons, boosted their performance on spatial-temporal reasoning to 34% above average. This is called the “Mozart Effect.”

Here again, early stimulation seems important. Most concert musicians, international chess players, and even accomplished golfers, have to start young, preferably before the age of 8.

Speaking of chess, Richard Nadeau, a math teacher at a French-speaking school in Canada, said this in Maclean’s Magazine (February 10, 1997): “Chess is kind of like Lego for the mind. You're actually building thoughts."

Many things once thought to be true about the human brain turn out not to be. For instance, after adulthood, we do not lose over a million brain cells a day, as was once believed. It just feels like it.

Of course, some people, as they age, do “lose intelligence.” But researchers now believe that mental fitness is much like physical fitness. We have two choices: “Use it or lose it.”

An article in the Saturday Evening Post (November/December, 1996) reported that “Bridge players do very well on mental tests; bingo players don't. Crossword-puzzle workers do better on verbal skills, and jigsaw-puzzle players tend to maintain their spatial skills.”

The article continues: “Seven factors stood out among those people who hung onto their intellectual prowess as they aged:

A high standard of living marked by above-average education and income.

A lack of chronic diseases.

Active engagement in reading, travel, cultural events, education, clubs, and professional associations.

A willingness to change.

Marriage to a smart spouse.

An ability to quickly grasp new ideas.

Satisfaction with accomplishments.”

Biologically, there need be little difference among the brain of a 25 year old man, and that of a 70 year old man. And some kinds of intelligence actually grow with age.
What does all this have to do with libraries? Put simply, libraries are brain development institutes.

For children aged 0-3, we have thousands of brightly colored board books, picture books, and music tapes. For children from the ages of 3-5, we have daily storytimes, rich celebrations of language, rhythm and music. For older children, we have materials to help them learn to play an instrument, to excel at a sport, or to maintain those vital reading skills so important in school, and in the development of a rich inner life.

For adults through seniors, we have newspapers, magazines, books, and computers, all of which keep the mind active, probing, constantly acquiring new skills.

Oh, and at the Parker Library during the month of May, we also have Chess night -- every Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. You can stop by to learn how to play, or to pick-up a game.

It’s your move.