Front Desk

Students at the Art Institute of Seattle think visually, so graphic design student Carley Moran—an employee of the library—designed a series of 22 posters, each reflecting Library of Congress Classification ranges or sections of the library. Supervised by tech services librarian Andrew Harbison and library director Cathy Donaldson, and with fellow students critiquing potential designs, Moran used stock photography and design software to match unintuitive call number ranges with visual cues and familiar terminology.

Google and Yahoo offer toolbars that users can download for one-stop searches—and Yahoo even offers a library search via the WorldCat database. But why shouldn't libraries offer their own toolbars? The Harris County Public Library (HCPL), Houston, TX, is apparently the first to do so, with a toolbar that allows users to search the library catalog, access the "Teens Know" and "Kids Know It All" sites, and even renew books. The toolbar can be downloaded for free at www.hcpl.net. The HCPL version was customized from software available from www.besttoolbars.net, explained e-branch librarian Grace Lillevig, who noted that buying the product was cheaper than devoting staff to code creation. The toolbar is so popular that HCPL now offers a version for the Firefox web browser.

The tiny iPod shuffle was developed so listeners could randomize their music collections, but the South Huntington Public Library (SHPL), Huntington Station, NY, has bought ten such devices for downloadable audiobooks. Titles come from the Apple iTunes site via Audible.com, which had marketed directly to libraries a few years ago but found that few wanted to buy and distribute digital devices. SHPL bought six shuffles with one-gigabyte capacity ($149 each), the equivalent of a 16-hour audiobook, and four with 512 megabytes ($99 each), or eight-hour capacity.

Those onscreen librarian stereotypes really burn you up, right? Welcome Ann Seidl to the rescue. After five years of planning, librarian Seidl—a former voiceover actor and television host—has acquired seed money for The Hollywood Librarian, a documentary that aims to meld librarian-related footage from feature films with interviews with real librarians and library supporters. Her goal: to show the worth of the profession, covering such topics as intellectual freedom, equal access to information, technology in libraries, pay equity, and library funding. The $50,000 from a private source will now allow the Madison, WI–based Seidl—a library consultant—to work full time on the film. She already has spoken about the project at more than 25 events and is working on a trailer that includes interviews with celebrities such as Martin Scorsese about the library experience. For more information, see www.hollywoodlibrarian.com.