Two posts TPL will actually pay attention to

Because they didn’t come from me.

• Yes, the RFID checkout system at North York Central is a disaster.
• Tour the Reference Library stacks.

Benign Catherine Raine’s 99-Branch Club has been documented in the TPL’s April online newsletter, which of course is a PDF, hence is not really “online.” I was never expecting coverage in TPL’s own publications (it never occurred to me), but now I know I’m not going to get it. I have learned the hard way that the library does not actually want any coverage it doesn’t write itself.

The 99-Branch Club

In a Same Planet, Different Worlds scenario, I only just discovered Catherine Raine, an American émigrée to Canada who has assigned herself the task of visiting all 99 Toronto Public Library branches. She’s up to 74 or 75 already over a two-year period.

Catherine describes her project thus:

My admiration for the TPL system started seven years ago when my husband Stewart and I immigrated to Canada. During my very first week in Toronto, I applied for a library card at Deer Park. By 2006, I had visited quite a few different branches before I decided it would be interesting to visit all of them. When I mentioned this idea to Stewart, he encouraged me to blog about it. Hesitant at first, I became more and more enthusiastic about describing the various branches. My first two posts in the fall of 2007 provided quite brief notes, but by January 2008 I was starting to write much fuller descriptions.

Now I’m in the process of fleshing out the earlier entries and making plans to visit the remaining 26 branches still unknown to me.

Catherine is unwittingly following in the footsteps of transit fans, some of whom take it upon themselves to visit all 69 subway stations on the same day. The phrases “every-station club” and “69-station club” (blog) have come to be used for these people.

Hence Catherine Raine is the founder of the 99-Branch Club. Somebody’s gotta do it.

Why isn’t TPL on MySpace?

It’s not enough for a library system to have its own Web site anymore. You also have to show you’re totally with the program by getting on the various social-networking sites.

As far as that goes, TPL is really just “on the Facebook.” The Web team has its own blog, and there’s a Twitter feed for those of you keen on the fastest and most convenient medium of cyberbullying known to humankind. (The account name, @torontolibrary, shows second-mover disadvantage – @TPL was already taken.) But that’s kind of it.

Keeping up with the Joneses can become a war of attrition. Maybe you remember Friendster and Orkut, the latter of which is still big with the Brazilians. Maybe you’d have to hire your own personal social coördinator to keep adding and updating profiles and re-refriending all your refriended friends.

Too much trouble if you’re just a person sitting at a computer? Of course. But is it too much trouble for an organization? A publicly-funded organization? A public library? What happens if you don’t go to that trouble?

What happens is an unintended class division, according to researcher Danah Boyd. (It’s pronounced “Dayna” Boyd. It’s Dana with an h.)

Chat mode

You can now not only E-mail your questions to a librarian but also actually chat with one. Like a teenager with her girlfriends! Only more serious.

Here’s what it looks like:

Joe Clark Initial Question/Comment: Skill-testing question of a sort: When will there be a way to suggest books for acquisition online?

Thank you for waiting. We will be with you shortly.
Librarian2 has joined this session!
Connected with Librarian2. Your Reference Number for this chat is 11482.

Librarian2: Hi[,] Joe.

Librarian2: I don’t think I understand your question.

Librarian2: Can you elaborate?

Joe Clark: There used to be a way to suggest new books for the library to buy. That disappeared with the new (“improved”) computer system. When do we get it back?

Librarian2: now I understand….

Librarian2: We will be getting a new homepage in the fall.

Librarian2: I think suggesting new books will be one of the features available fairly soon after the launch.

Librarian2: I can’t really give you definite dates, I’m afraid.

Librarian2: You can always go into your branch and make the suggestions in person :)

Joe Clark: all right.

Librarian2: is there anything else I can help you with?

Librarian2 has left this session!
The session has ended!

TPL has a blog

Don’t you love the new library catalogue? A pleasure to operate, isn’t it?

With difficulty, one can use it. But it borders on terrible. You know it, I know it, the Web team knows it. They as much as admit the failings of the system on the TPL Webteam blog, which you might want to read or subscribe to. (Check developer Dara Renton’s workstation.) You can just feel the writers holding back from saying what they really think. They’re the ones who have to live with it day in and day out.

However, before you storm the Reference Library with flaming pitchforks, understand that there are very few vendors of software for library catalogues and even fewer that can handle what is reputed to be the world’s largest public library. They’re kind of stuck, which means we are too.

On the plus side, the new computers that are being installed in branches have finally, at long last, gotten rid of the worst browser ever created, IE6, replacing it with IE7 and Firefox. (Both!) Real sites now look more or less correct, and you as a library patron may join the 21st century and use tabbed browsing to watch your Farsi videos and old episodes of Happy Days.