johnbarbrook.info » Libraries

Staffordshire Library and Information Service

John Barbrook — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:51:50 +0000

Stafford as a town may sometimes get a bit of a bad reputation, mainly due to the bulldozing of all the pretty listed buildings in the late 60’s, and a lack of any distinguishing features. Yes it’s got an unimpressive castle, a windmill without sails and a ‘High House’, but so far the most distinguishing feature I have noticed is that the town exudes a sort of blandness that it is quite tricky to describe. The only growth market locally seems to be in charity shops and despair, and a lot of the locals here joke that the sign coming into town should read “Stafford, great connections to other more interesting locations”.

I once met a rather comical chap in a pub who told me that the town survives almost entirely on money generated by tourists who misread the sign as ‘Stratford’ and come here looking for Anne Hathaways Cottage. He claims that he diverts them to Izaac Waltons Cottage, and they don’t notice the difference. I am somewhat skeptical.

Still, everywhere has its special little gems, and I was thinking of the actual good things about Stafford, and one of those is “Staffordshire Library and Information Service”. I have only been working here in Stafford for little over a year, but I once studied engineering at Stafford College for a year at the tender age of 17, all full of vigor and vim. And probably Clearasil if I remember correctly. The course wasn’t for me and I eventually escaped a year later, but the town Library back then was a fantastic find, and in many ways I probably neglected my studies in favour of hiding in the stacks, reading books selected from the excellent science fiction collection.

You can imagine my delight when coming back to Stafford 15 years later only to discover that the Library may have moved, but the book selection is as excellent as ever. I have a rather silly way of evaluating Library collections, and I like to self-indulgently call it the ‘Cory Doctorow test’. It’s the same way everyone judges the comprehensiveness of a collection (I used to call it the ‘Stephen Baxter test’), where you search the shelves for your favorite books, and then declare the collection good or bad depending on how many of your favorite niche/mainstream author you find. It’s the same way 14 year olds judge the musical taste of other 14 year olds*.

I am happy to say that the library here is a spectacular gem in the town, with one of the most excellent and eclectic sci-fi book collections I have met. Indeed, they have a large chunk of the written output of Cory Doctorow, which made me smile, along with many other excellent authors that I never heard of before, which is quite tricky given the amount I read (At the moment, I am reading the Hornblower series chronologically, you lubberly seadogs).

Ok, they have sectioned us Sci-fi nerds away with the ‘Youth’ books again, but it’s an excusable fault, as in the old Library, the section was shared with the Mills and Boon’s. I was sometimes a bit scared to mix with the target market for these books during my hours of loitering in there (They all looked like my Nan, but with a sort of worrying gleam in their eyes). Perhaps the kids will discover that there are no more of that twinkly vampire series left to read, and pick up some Sci-fi space opera epic from Alistair Reynolds. And another nerd will be born.

Google will hopefully do its magic on this blog entry, and it will turn up in the search results for the Library in Stafford, and perhaps they will read it.

So in case this happens, I would like to state. Well done Library staff. You all deserve massive pay increases, golden crowns and probably ponies.

Carry on being awesome.

*I know this from being both 14 years old once, and from a previous job purchasing music for a college Library. Its super fun being judged by an entire college of the most critical 14 – 18 year olds ever, where every single day they come to your desk and complain that we don’t have multiple copies of ‘My Chemical Romance’ or the latest bucket of swears by Eminem. This used to happen hourly. I found it confusing as I thought all the kids were downloading music illegally nowadays?

DIY Library Catalogue Computer

John Barbrook — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:55:22 +0000

Or how to create a Library Catalogue Computer for free(ish), with whatever you have in the store cupboard, using Linux and the tame e-resources Librarian (That’s me).

The Library where I work has so far been succumbing to my evil machinations, specifically on the theme ‘Put Linux on everything that doesn’t work properly’. I have no desire to constantly fiddle with unreliable IT resources, not when I have far more productive things to do.

Our newish Linux Web server and Content Management System has been, if not a roaring success, at least a loud hurrah. And it hasn’t caused me a single significant problem since I hit the ‘online’ switch. And it’s cheap, which is jolly good news.

Now to repeat this with other resources would be a canny trick, especially as using Linux in a Library is a zero sum game. It costs nothing to install Linux on a system, apart from staff time as well as the cost of the computer, and the computer need not be particularly fast. It’s perfect for reusing old machines that have reached a point that Microsoft Windows shuns as ‘Too Old’.

The prime example was the computer that accessed our Library catalogue, an old Windows 98 machine with quite the grab bag of issues, the main one being that it was far too slow to actually access the Library Catalogue. Which is the whole point really.

The Machine

As our Catalogue computer was a geriatric windows machine, in painful need of replacement with something more usable, I pulled a spare machine from public use. Specifically the one (You know which I mean) that everyone avoids using. Flickery screen, funny smelling keyboard, possible haunting? Who knows for what reason it became a digital pariah, but this sort of machine makes an excellent candidate for being ‘banjaxed’ into a Linux box. It is best to avoid a machine that is prone to overheating, or that emits a horrific soul-piercing whine however, as it will be on 24/7.

The Operating System

I used Ubuntu Linux, as it’s the most mainstream of all the Linux distributions. I specifically used the LTS version (Long Term Support). Ubuntu Linux is quite cutting edge and fancy, receiving automagical daily updates with many great new features and applications, however the Library Catalogue machine didn’t need that, so by sticking with the LTS version of Ubuntu, hopefully any updates that break the system will be avoided.

If you haven’t installed Linux, or have heard horror stories of past failures, let me assure you that things have got a lot easier now. As long as the machine you use is reasonably mainstream (Think Dell and HP Computers) everything should ‘Just Work’. Especially with Ubuntu, which makes the installation process terribly easy.

You will also have to give your catalogue computer a name. I suggest ‘Catalogue’ as the sensible choice. You can call it Brenda or Balthazar if you want, I’m not stopping you but do make need to make it unique!

The Wireless Card

Instead of running the system over the work network, I decided to use the free Library Wi-Fi. The Catalogue Machine can be situated anywhere in the Library, and it removes any issues with internal security while also enabling printing over the Wireless to a Printer in another room. Great for pulling Harvard References off the Library Catalogue.

I chose a USB wireless card by the brand ‘Edimax’ that I have found to be compatible with Linux in the past. If you have problems with theft, I would suggest you go with an internal wireless card. I would also suggest buying your wireless card from a known shop, rather than on the internet, so if you discover that you are having problems (Wireless Security, or installation issues) you can just return it for another model.

The Set-up

Once your computer is installed and ready for use, create a new user, called public, or patrons, whatever you fancy. Make the user log in automatically on a reboot.

Next set the browser to automatically start up, this means that even if there is power cut or someone unplugs the Catalogue Machine to charge an iPod (An ever-present risk), it will open immediately. On some computers you may have to go into the bios (The screen when you reboot a computer that says ‘Press F2 for Bios’) and also change a setting so the machine turns back on automatically after a power cut.

Set the browser to the address of the ‘WebOPAC’ of your Library Catalogue. You probably will have one, and I haven’t seen a Library without web access to the Library catalogue in over 5 years now, but maybe you are one of those hold-outs that haven’t done it yet. Unfortunately you will require a web accessible frontend to your library catalogue for this to work, so perhaps now is the time to consider it!

The Browser Setup

The Web Browser (Mozilla Firefox) needs to have a few features added. It needs to start up in ‘Kiosk Mode’ (Full screen, buttons disabled and the address bar removed) so users cannot use it to browse to other websites.

The Web browser also needs to return to the Homepage when idle, so that it will always show the search page first. It’s a usability issue, and instantly telegraphs to the user ‘This is where you search’

The two plug-ins I used were R-Kiosk and Reset-Kiosk, and whatever you do install R-Kiosk last. It will make Firefox work only as a browser for one single website (The Homepage), and it is a serious hassle to disable once you have installed it! Install only when completely happy with the setup!

That’s it, machine complete.

Some other features I added.

I set the catalogue to wirelessly print, in draft and B+W to a wireless printer. This will help the users print out the details of books if they cannot remember them or wish to print out a detailed reference.

I created an exciting and dynamic PowerPoint presentation about the Library, exported it as a folder of image files and dropped it into the ‘Images’ directory. You can then run the ‘Image Slideshow’ screensaver, so the catalogue computer can advertise your services when idle.

In the future I hope to change the screensaver so it displays the Libraries ‘New Books’ RSS feed, as one of the great benefits of Linux is that it can be customised to within an inch of its life!

Also if you wish to share a printer with all your wireless users, you can do that as well. Attach a printer to the back of the Catalogue machine; install it and the share the printer. It should turn up on the wireless network as a printer, which is a neat trick and saves a bit of money on purchasing network printers.

I haven’t gone into great depth how to install Linux, or how to use Ubuntu, but if you need help the Internet is but a click away. One thing that is useful is ALT+F4. This closes Firefox so you can tinker with the operating system. Another handy feature is CTRL+ALT+F1 and then the classic CTRL+ALT+DELETE. This quickly reboots the machine. I haven’t had to do it anger, but it is useful to know.

May you never purchase another Library Catalogue computer again!

Netvibes. For Fun and Profit

John Barbrook — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:49:06 +0000

From a blank slate to a working current awareness service… in one week!

I have been using Netvibes at the moment, to create a journal based current awareness service at the Library where I work, and it is surprisingly easy to create an highly functional resource in a short period of time. I have always been pretty cynical about using web based resources, preferring the more ‘home grown’ solutions.

However colour me impressed..

It even works under IE6. As horrid as that sounds, you would be surprised at the number of people still stuck with an outdated browser that often are shut out from many recent and up-to-date web resources.

So 1.9 thumbs up Netvibes. It loses .1 of a thumb for having a rather weird theming system that is surprisingly counter-intuitive. But it’s small beer, and just bought into sharper focus due to the general slickness of the rest of the site.

Check it out Here

eBook Reader, The Last Millennium

John Barbrook — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:24:08 +0000

Palm m500

Thank goodness for the endless march of technology, as it makes hugging the trailing edge so much easier for us tech laggards. I have used a wonderful palm as an eBook reader for many years now, however the wear and tear of everyday life has turned it from a solid companion to a slightly troublesome pal. Superglue and a homemade cable helped but I think that the inevitable progress of entropy cannot be ignored, so I suppose I need to upgrade.

And when I say upgrade, I mean upgrade like its 2001 baby! Frankly if it was good enough for Stanley Kubrick, It is good enough for me. Through the unregulated flea pit that is eBay I have bought a “New, Unused perfect condition Palm m500“. When I say new and unused, I suppose it was back in 2001 when it was shelved by Palm for obvious battery problems, thanks eBay seller! Thank goodness I have the correct screwdrivers and a will to tinker!

Reasons why I chose a palm m500.

It was the last palm to have a grayscale screen, and electroluminescent back-light. Much better to read off than a fuzzy TFT screen.

Palm m500 Backlight

The SD Card Reader. It takes up to a 1 GB card with a free upgrade from palm. I used to have 2MB. Wow. I have 1GB SD Cards floating around like dust motes in a Hollywood animated movie. It is also very simple to upload eBooks to the SD Card with a standard card reader, I have almost 200 eBooks on my m500 and I have filled a mere 10 percent of the card.

User replaceable battery. The original batteries had a slew of problems, however after the purchase of a torx screwdriver it is very simple to fix. New Batteries cost about 10 euros with twice the capacity of the original.

It lasts for a week, with medium to heavy use.

Its got USB. Although its only about 4 times as fast as the serial connector (Suspicions of some technical bodgery abound, naughty palm company)

Its not all good though, I dislike the fact it cannot take AA batteries, call me an dreadful Luddite. And the so called ‘Universal Connector’ on the bottom was universal for only a few years.

And the touchscreen isn’t as sensitive. Coupled with with the obvious overhead of running the SD card reader it makes the palm feel a bit slow to respond to input.

But other than that, there is no way you can find a cheaper eBook reader, it was about 40 euros in total cost, and I have filled it with open source translation dictionaries, and far more. Plucker works great with the added speed of the pseudo-usb and the case has a timeless look of style about it.

And here is the list of recommended software, for those of you who like that sort of thing. Like Me.

And if you need to fill your palm with eBooks, excellent Public Domain and Creative Commons licenced offerings can be downloaded from the Gutenberg Project and the fantastic website of author par-geekiness, Cory Doctorow.

Book Cover. The Revenge!

John Barbrook — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:01:57 +0000

Or rather, the revenge of Photoshop. Many years ago I was on a book cover here. Well it seemed the book itself must have sold quite well, and I have been photoshopped onto some new and even more heroic situations.

I think I have found my new passport photo, unfortunately the only effect on people so far is less ‘Awe and Admiration’ and more ‘Unstoppable Mirth and Laughter’.

A note for the reader, I am not constantly googling myself, I am a Librarian. We have some sort of radar (furtive glance). Yes some sort of magic book radar.

Creating an Affordable E-Book Reader

John Barbrook — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:06:57 +0000

Palm IIIe

Sometimes you have to do it yourself. What with the Sony Reader being very expensive, proprietary and well, a little too Sony. The Amazon Kindle being mildly expensive, unavailable and blisteringly ugly, and all the others requiring substantial loans. The only real solution is to somehow create a more ‘down to earth’ E-Book reader.

Now don’t panic yet, as if you don’t there won’t be any need for screwdrivers or hammers, but you will need to find about 15 Pounds/25 Euros (Dollars, who knows?) . If you use an online recycling service like Freecycle you can often find the kit for free. or

For the E-Book reader I chose the venerable Palm Series, there is a lot of choice ranging from the hopeless to the amazing however look specifically for the Palm III Range. Any model is suitable, except for the Palm IIIc (It has a near unusable colour screen while the gray-scale palm screens make excellent E-Book readers).

I use a Palm IIIe, that although quite functional, lacks the upgradable memory of the rest of the Palm III range. I can fit about 8-10 E-Books on it.

Palm electroluminescent back-light

The earlier palms, although excellent in their own right lack a feature introduced in the Palm III range, an electroluminescent back-light. The back-light is very easy on the eyes in low light conditions, as it highlights the text rather than lighting up the screen itself. Modern PDA’s have full colour TFT screens, very nice for movies but awful for reading text. Another great feature about these Palms is that, as they are up to 8 years old now and can be picked up online for around 10 pounds or 15 euros, you won’t worry so much about losing it as it actually costs the same as a new hardback book!

Install the Palm software, for Windows or Mac. If you use Linux or some other thrilling operating system there’s plenty of options too. If you are like me and have been a happy Mac user for the past few years you will discover a problem, that there is a serious lack of serial ports on most modern Macs. That problem is easily solved with a USB Dongle from Keyspan. I got mine free from a nice lady who didn’t need it anymore, you might find one too (The nice lady and the dongle). Note the word dongle, I will probably try and sneak it in later as I like it so much.

Once you are now sitting with a Palm and with the software all set up, Read the manual and the instructions on how to transfer files to the Palm, because you will want to download Weasel Reader. You will find that like most Palm software it has been in constant development since the Palm first reared its pocket sized head on the scene, so now it is extremely stable and the best E-Book reader on the Palm by a long shot. Its also free thanks to Open Source and the GPL.

You now have a Palm here sitting, naked, its potential untapped. It may be feeling a mild sense of Ennui. You will need to put a book on it.

You can download books, free in the PalmDoc format that Weasel Reader uses from many excellent Websites (I recommend ManyBooks, They list the compatible files as ‘Doc’ Format). However creating E-Books from raw text files gives you the ability to make compatible E-Books from sites such as the Gutenberg Project as well as any documents on your computer you create. Try to remember that if you do save files from programs such as Word or Mac Write save them as .rtf (Rich Text Format) files or simple .txt files as it makes future conversion a whole lot simpler.

The program I use for conversion is the Mac application PorDiBle which is another piece of Open Source magic, however if you still nod your hat towards that Gates fellow, I believe that txt2palm will work just fine although its not as elegant a solution as PorDiBle. I ‘normally’ would recommend you buy a Mac but that may be somewhat outside your budget. Please do try read the manuals as even though they are very simple programs because they often have a lot of hidden extras (For instance PorDiBle converts a file to the Palm format by merely dragging the document onto the icon. Magic!). Again if you are using Linux or some aged UNIX operating system I suggest you consult your beard for the answers to file conversion.

Now sit back and consider, you have a perfectly functional E-Book reader in front of you, for a fraction of the cost of the more modern solutions. It may not play mp3s and browse the web but I hear that there are many solutions that do that Much Better. It will however function not just as an excellent E-Book reader but I have also heard (although don’t quote me on this) is is a passably decent PDA too. It keeps your contacts and schedule from your chosen scheduling application on your computer up to date and even beeps at you when you should be somewhere. It also has a battery life of up to a week of normal use, although heavy back-light use can cut into that somewhat.

I hope you, the reader find my digital musing useful and I would be very pleased to see the global demand for Palms skyrocket, however not just yet as I want to find a Palm IIIxe cheap. Here is a recommended reading list for those who like that sort of thing.

City at Worlds End by Edmond Hamilton

Overclocked by Cory Doctrow (in fact anything by him)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court by Mark Twain

Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher by Ike Matthews (Not for the Squeamish but very entertaining)

Good Luck, and Happy Reading. Oh and before I forget, dongle.

Why the Commercial eBook Market is Broken

John Barbrook — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:28:59 +0000

Previously, back in the mists of time, I had a Palmpilot. It was an old greyscreen and it was used exclusively for one job… Reading books.

A six year old calender device was a fantastic book reading device, the screen was even easy to read.

Forward 6 years into the future and I have no eBook reader, why? Well the little Palmpilot broke and there wasn’t any viable replacement. ePaper looked like the way forward until both the cost and dreadful DRM put me off.

So whats the future going to bring? ‘Charlies Diary‘ makes for an interesting read. Not just for the excellent article but also the comments, especially noteworthy are the ones about mobile phones…

I am led to believe the only reason that little palmpilot worked so well as an eBook reader was that it wasn’t designed for that job and so didn’t have the ‘Value Add’ (Muffled Cough) of extra unwanted features and DRM.

Link

Time Travelling Ninjas on Motorbikes

John Barbrook — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:24:34 +0000

As somewhat of a connoisseur of films featuring librarians in bit-part roles (The Mummy, Day after Tomorrow) I was excited to hear of a film that featured a librarian in a starring role. ‘The Librarian – Quest for the Spear’ undoubtedly was made for TV, and that TV was from the mid 90′s. Its entertainment strictly by numbers, however those numbers happen to be 102.888 LIB.

Puns Over

Actually its quite good, it’s enjoyable for its novelty value and has some rather ludicrous dialogue. Think Snakes on a Plane and you won’t be far off.

Best Parts

“I can create an RSS feed! Ha, We all can do that”

“Get your own geek”

Quite decent CGI.

Fighting Monks.

The appearance at the end of the movie of “Time Travelling Ninjas on Motorbikes”

Actually having the brains to lob a rock at the booby-trapped statue from a safe distance rather than risk all mucking around with bags of sand (I’m looking at you Indiana Jones, tsk).

Worst Parts

The Librarian has no library qualifications (though 20+ degrees?!) and lives with his mother, however he seems to have a personal stylist and must visit the gym quite a bit.

The English love interests accent is a disaster, what’s going on there? Is there some filter all British dialogue in the US is piped though that converts normal speech into ‘Oh My, Jolly poor show what ho! Pip-Pip’?

Shoehorned in Love rival.

Completely irrelevant library.

The Monks Fighting, If you are a monk either you stand there refusing to fight or you are a whirling saffron robe of death. Slap fighting is unacceptable.

Hackneyed reused rehashed and recycled plot.

If you find the time, watch it and laugh. It won’t be a memorable moment for you though, unless you previously watched ‘Fire on the Mountain*’

*The worse TV movie I have ever watched, bar none. I was trapped on a ferry for 7 hours and it played 3 times, I still wake up screaming.

We’re down with the Kids 2

John Barbrook — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:42:47 +0000

When I was not paying attention due to the Birmingham German Christmas Market (Fantastic and rather unreal*), it seems the library have gone all out and painted more Official Graffiti, Enjoy.

* Someone should really tell the German chap selling jam for £3.50 at the Christmas market that we too have Lidl’s in the UK!

We’re down with the Kids

John Barbrook — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:04:16 +0000

At the moment I am working in Birmingham at the BCFTCS Library and on my way to work I Walk/Cycle though the open public areas of the Birmingham Central Library. Recently I noticed what seems to be actual official graffiti in ‘Paradise Place’?

This poses a lot of unanswered questions? Should they rename the location ‘Frightening Atrium’ or something more suitable instead of ‘Paradise Place’?

I would be quite fond of the name ‘Irony Square’.

Cruella DeVille as a librarian role model? Maybe she was misunderstood? Perhaps the reason she kept stealing the puppies was to create some sort of small dog lending service? Perhaps she used Dewey? (Sorry, thats going a bit far now, she plainly would have used a more spot friendly classification scheme like Library of Congress.)

And most importantly, where can I find more BFG based graffiti artists? That’s a phone number that’s worth its weight in gold, or at least book tokens. Snozzlecumbers!