Since I started this blog about a year ago, it’s grown. I, and my web skills, have improved as well. Check out the brand-spankin’ new www.bookmobilize.com, and/or update your feed subscription to http://www.bookmobilize.com/feed/ (or just drop the “.wordpress.” from your old subscription).

Thanks for following. Let me know if you have any issues with the new site. I tried to make it mirror this, the original blog, as much as possible. I think I did all right.

Yesterday, Freshome (one of my favorite blogs) shared the book painting work of Mike Stilkey. I love his style, and it’s yet another fun way to library-ize your living space. On a marginally related note, I’ve been working on some table numbers and cake stands made from books for my wedding in March and will share those library links when that project is complete!

from Freshome

Earlier today, I was watching Glee on Hulu. The commercials that streamed were PSAs featuring the Glee cast encouraging viewers to be responsible citizens and all that jazz. Guess what, though? Rather than focusing on the usual “be nice” or “respect” messages, one of the PSAs featured information on how libraries can share books to keep their collections fresh and reduce their carbon footprint. Pretty cool.

The only problem is that I can’t for the life of me find a standalone stream of the clip! In the comments section for the Glee episode Theatricality, someone mentions seeing this clip, so at least I know I’m not crazy. As soon as I find an embeddable clip, I’ll share.

Gotta go, the season 2 Glee premiere just started!

Freshome is a blog that often has great posts about including books in one’s interior decorating. Today’s post, TEEbooks, the Almost Invisible Bookcase, features some cool bookcases that seem to me almost like complicated, mountable bookends. Their near-invisibility is a bonus if you’re looking for a near interior decorating idea. I bet these would make an awesome dorm room accessory.

via Feshome

Originally via Stilsucht.

September is National Library Card Sign-up Month, and in honor of this great library marketing opportunity, I thought that The ‘M’ Word – Marketing Libraries would be an appropriate Blog of the Month choice. Their posts are a great place to find library marketing inspiration.

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Quick note: With my wedding looming under 6 months away and with library school graduation next August, I’ll be honest with you, readers. Blogging will happen less that it used to until next summer. Sorry about this.

Earlier this week, I attended an ALA TechSource webinar, hosted by David Lee King. Anyone who wants to get their feet wet in understanding how and why to conduct usability testing should check out the Slideshare version of the webinar, embedded below. Other topics discussed included social media tools and CMSs. Enjoy! Thanks, DLK, for an awesome and informative session.

Readers, let me know if the embed isn’t loading. I had issues with that yesterday. Thanks!

LIS News is one of those blogs I struggle to keep up with. They post such a volume of good, library-related content (duh) that reading every post is a daunting task. I can’t even imagine curating all of it. That aside, LIS News is a great blog to subscribe to if you’re interested in really keeping your finger on the pulse of the library and information science world. They’re on top of pretty much everything. Enough said.

Full disclosure: My Ignite Lansing presentation, “The Library: Not What You Think,” was featured at LIS NEWS a couple weeks ago.

This is a repost of a feature I wrote for the wonderful 8bitlibrary.com!

My Sweet Library Tattoo

A couple of months ago, my best friend was visiting me in Lansing, and I decided to bite the bullet and get the library tattoo I’d been wanting. We’d been roommates during our mutual time at Michigan State University and had gotten in to our fair share of mischief back then, not the least of which was getting our first body modifications. That’s when I fell in love with tattoos. My first was a memorial tattoo for a recently-passed family member. My second tattoo reads, “I simply can’t do anything which I don’t feel deeply,” and is written in my own handwriting. (The guy who did the tattoo called it my “don’t sell out” tattoo, and it’s served me well in that regard.)

When I get tattoos, it is always an incredibly premeditated, personal decision. In looking at the comments on the Project Brand Yourself a Librarian page, I noticed people saying they’d wear a temporary library tattoo, they can’t afford another tattoo (a valid consideration), or they’re on the fence about getting a tat. I guess I was on the fence at first about getting my library tattoo as well, but it is something I absolutely don’t regret.

So many people stop me on the street now to ask, “Is that real?” of my tattoo. By and large, everyone talks about how cool it is, and it always starts a conversation about libraries (bonus!). Everything from questions about my library‘s overdue fines, to our millage, to a great conversation about what the library means for our community. One day, I was walking to a dinner meeting, and these two guys stopped me on the street. I thought they were messing with me at first and I was all set to ignore them. Instead they said, “Hey, is that a library thing?”

“Yeah – I work at the library.”

Their response? “That’s what’s up! Peace.” And with a nod and a smile, I was off to my meeting.

Ha! I love telling people this tattoo-related story because, especially for those who are “on the fence” about branding themselves a librarian, the BEST thing about library tattoos is the cred you suddenly find yourself armed with. If you’re prepared to permanently brand yourself a librarian, a lot of people have respect for that, and in my community, people understand that working at a public library can be quite the experience. The tattoo lets people know that you’re serious about what you do. Permanently serious.

Thanks, Justin, for inviting me to share my story. I <3 being a librarian. A lot.

This post was inspired by NPR’s Why the Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries. Full disclosure: I used to work for an NPR/PBS affiliate.

Flickr user: simiant

Whenever I find great articles about libraries/librarians or in support of libraries, I tend to get pretty pumped. In the case of this NPR article, I’m not so sure. The cupcakes article went viral last week – I think I had it Tweeted @ me a dozen or so times, posted to my Facebook wall a handful of times, re-posted by librarian friends on their walls, etc. – and I’m already sick of this. This article led a number of my friends and I to discuss whether libraries being a fad was a good or bad thing. Our consensus? It’s not great.

I’ll fully admit that the trendiness of libraries and books is part of why blogs like the one you’re reading have a following. We’re “hip”. Young librarians + the Internet = massive information sharing. We get it.

In the short-term, libraries-as-a-fad could be a great thing. We’re more likely to have mentions in national media, shedding light on our dire funding situations. People might become more educated about how we work and why we exist. In the long-term, however, I’m nervous. It’s no news to regular readers of this blog that my library is up for a millage renewal next week, and if it doesn’t pass, our entire 13-branch system will close on January 3. That’s over 250 library jobs gone. That means that there will only be one, small public library in my county that I’ll have to pay a non-resident fee to use. To be frank, it would be really sh*tty.

The NPR article reads:

There seems to be a preposterous level of goodwill. Quite honestly, I feel like you can go on YouTube and act like a complete goof (in the best way), and if it’s for libraries, people have that same rush of warmth that they used to get about people who had sextuplets, before … well, you know. Before.

Are they saying we’re the next Jon & Kate Plus 8? Really? Maybe not, but libraries are about significantly more than our YouTube videos. The Plus 8 crew has dealt with a huge backlash against them once their saccharine facade cracked in 2009. Does that mean libraries have a few years of goodwill remaining before everyone is sick of our videos? Or us? Before our fall from happy family grace spells the end of libraries? For us there’s no “Twist of Kate” spinoff in development. Pardon the drama, but for us, losing that “preposterous level of goodwill” could spell curtains.

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I would love to hear what readers have to say on this subject. Especially fellow librarians.

ATTN LIBRARIAN TWEEPS: Need help getting @oldspice guy to say a few words regarding libraries. RT plz. Thanks.

And the Old Spice guy answered:

And then then Harold B. Lee Library Multimedia Unit at Brigham Young University (who can really produce an effing video – thanks for that, guys) took the concept and ran with it. Ahh Librarians, so resourceful.

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UPDATE

Great story from The Social Media Marketing Blog on Old Spice’s amazing viral campaign.