The Toronto reference library was recently renovated, and they sent a drone flying around it to get a bird's eye view. They now have a salon for "writers, thinkers, artists and innovators come together for conversation and debate."  They forgot to mention ASTRONAUTS.  Have any of you had experiences with drones in your libraries? Or astronauts, for that matter?

It was Banned Books Week last week.  Did you know it is still an issue? The Mercury out of Portland also has a list of books challenged in Oregon.

Did you know Overdrive is integrated with Bing search engine?  Overdrive is the company behind Library2Go, Oregon's digital library consortium.  Search for a title in Bing, and you'll notice now on the right side of the screen there's an option to borrow the book from Overdrive.  I searched for "donna tartt the goldfinch" and despite the weird results (El Jilguero?), I found it under "Read this Book".

The Library of Congress has many many things in its collection.  And people do many many creative things with them. And creepy things. Artist Kevin Weir has more examples over at his site.

Kevin Weir

Latest Kindle iOS deletes your library

You may have heard by now, but in case you haven't, the Kindle for iOS app update (3.6.1) for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch deletes libraries and saved settings in iThing. 

Amazon issued this statement:

We have identified an issue with the app update that may cause your app to become deregistered. To register, enter your Amazon account e-mail address and password and all your Amazon content will be available in the cloud. We have submitted an update fix for this issue and are working with Apple to release.

And as of today, there's an even newer version of the app (3.6.2), which still doesn't seem to have fixed the above issue, based on user comments. 

Fortunately, all the information is stored in the Cloud, but restoring massive amounts of books, movies, and TV episodes can be a painful undertaking. 

Pass this along to your patrons with Amazon's Kindle app!

The Applestore Library (Again)

I'm sure by now you've heard of the "bookless" library that has just opened in San Antonio, TX.  If you haven't, there's a plethora of news outlets covering it: NPR, Mashable, engadget, treehugger, the verge, rt, some comparing it to an Apple store.  Skimming the articles, there are different coverages of the different pros and cons associated with it.  However, as usual, I saw nothing about how the library is staffed.  Do they have support staff? There are questions about availability of ebook titles from publishers, and how long ereaders last, but little about the running of the library itself.

So, dear readers, if this is the direction libraries are headed, how do you see your job changing?  What would a support staff job in a library like that look like?  Would we be called "Library Geniuses" that work at the Genius Bar?