Tag DCPL

Entries 16 Total

Powerful Library Cards

Nov 5, ’10 1:33 PM

The Queen Anne location of Top Pot Doughnuts is just a stones throw away from the branch of Seattle Public Library and is decorated with a bunch of heavy tomes on wood shelves.

I’m not sure if the SPL has anything to do with this nice offer. Regardless, it is nice for library cards to have additional value around the community.

I presented my Multnomah Public Library card to see what would happen. It worked! $1 off. No questions asked, just a pleasant chat about Portland and how many people flash their library card for the discount. The answer: a lot.

At the DCPL we’re evaluating ways to automatically offer patrons email accounts and online storage space when they register for a card. And thinking about if the idea even makes sense.

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Visual Design Libraries Should Be Proud Of

Jun 1, ’10 12:36 PM

In response to my post beautiful > ugly Suzanne Chapman just shared some examples of nice looking graphic design from the University of Michigan Library.

See her post and the MLibrary Branding & Marketing Materials set on flickr for more.

This got me thinking about two other things I’ve seen recently. The first is a collection of library cards from the Edmonton Public Library (via John Blyberg’s Twitter feed).



They also have an associated sticker contest. I think I have a pretty big crush on this library.

Lastly, the District of Columbia Public Library has two new library card designs. One of them is a promotion for the forthcoming second version of the DCPL iPhone app.

I really like the idea of a library putting out collectable, limited edition library cards that people can trade in their old cards for.

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my notepods arrived

Oct 9, ’09 9:58 AM

So the IBM Thinkpad was a computer based on a pad of paper.

Here we have pads of paper based on a computer.

These are going to come in handy for my work with the DCPL. We are launching our new website next week and can get around to improving the looks and functionality of our iPhone app.

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in development

Sep 16, ’09 1:00 AM

inga

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DC Public Library Joins the Flickr Commons

Apr 14, ’09 1:03 PM

I’m happy to finally be able to announce that the DCPL is now part of the Flickr Commons. The library’s photos just went public.


Among the photos there are images of buildings around DC, some colorized images, and portraits of people (many of which have awesome mustaches). One set of photos I like are the four cornerstones marking the boundary of Washington, DC.

If you want some information about what part of the DCPL’s massive photo archive is going into the collection you can visit the Flickr Commons project page on DCPL LABS.

Better yet, take a look at the post titled “Photo Contest: DC Then & Now” to see how the library is encouraging people to interact with its photos.

The quick summary: to enter the contest, people can submit photos related to the DCPL Commons to a Flickr group called DC Then & Now. The intention here is to get people interacting with our stuff and gently guide them to participating in something online that might be new to them.

Once again, this was a great team effort. Mark Greek uploaded the colorized images, Bill McClendon rescued image metadata, and Chris Tonjes assembled the team and signed off on the project.

Enjoy the photos and add some tags and geocode data if you into that kinda thing!

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DCPL iPhone App Code Released

Apr 6, ’09 1:00 AM

If you want to create an iPhone application to search your library’s online catalog (etc), taking a look at the DCPL’s solution wouldn’t be a bad place to start. The code is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license and you can download it at the DCPL Labs website.

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recommending & teaching with pandora

Mar 6, ’09 1:00 AM

My coworker Elissa Webber emailed to tell me about a spur of the moment program she lead one night while she was talking with kids about music:

…we decided to create a Pandora account for the branch.  It was a lot of fun for both me and the kids! The other CR librarian at my branch, Anina, and I also created a librarian station there, but we’re so far apart in age that it’s hard to agree on many artists/songs.

This is a great example of a librarian using a new tool to do a traditional library service and in the process introduce young people to the participatiory web.

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recommending & teaching with pandora

Mar 6, ’09 1:00 AM

My coworker Elissa Webber emailed to tell me about a spur of the moment program she lead one night while she was talking with kids about music:

…we decided to create a Pandora account for the branch.  It was a lot of fun for both me and the kids! The other CR librarian at my branch, Anina, and I also created a librarian station there, but we’re so far apart in age that it’s hard to agree on many artists/songs.

This is a great example of a librarian using a new tool to do a traditional library service and in the process introduce young people to the participatiory web.

Comments (4)

catalog cards find another, shorter life

Feb 24, ’09 1:00 AM

It strikes me that these cards retained bibliographic information for years and now they’ll just hold some notes for a few days at most.

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text message notifications from the DCPL

Feb 23, ’09 4:50 AM

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District of Columbia Public Library patrons can now get holds and overdue notifications via SMS. What’s almost even cooler is something I learned just a few months back. When you apply for a DCPL card online it is immediately active and can be used to place holds and use electronic resources. And actually, people in DC don’t even need to get a physical library card. They can opt to use their drivers license and its number as their barcode. Pretty convenient. DCPL CIO Chris Tonjes and consultant Bill McClendon did a nice job with this stuff.

[original photo]

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