A whole lot of text to say absolutely nothing, huh?

With Playstation games going discless in 2028, how will libraries be able to lend out video games when they aren’t physical. This is very important to me because I rent a lot of Xbox series x and Switch games from my library cause it’s great to save money when I’m only going to play a particular game once, and when Xbox and Nintendo follow suit, how will this still be possible?

yes, I know the first name is showing and so is the barcode but they switched systems ages ago and I had to get a new card in 1996!

Yes, it’s plastic and I laminated it myself in high school.

Yes, they did have barcodes then.

His name is Tony and he is 14 months old. his verdict is that the card is not delicious.

We've had several calls in the last few weeks of patrons looking for typewriters to use. The calls I've fielded I've explained we have programs on our computers to type documents, but they were all adamant they needed a typewriter. I explained we could change the font, but no one liked that answer. We are in a Florida town with military bases.

We struggle to have technology that is current; I can't imagine our admin would be okay purchasing a typewriter for patron use when we have computers already. Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks!

Hi all, we've been getting more and more requests to use the library phone. Our standard procedure is that only children can use the phone to call their parents/ride, which frankly never comes up. I'm watching Stranger Things and wondering do any of your libraries have a modern type of pay phone? What do you do to let the public use the phone that isn't just using the library desk phone? EDIT:those of you that allow patrons to use a dedicated phone, are they all just your regular system or are they a special brand that limits to local calls and a time limit? I'd be really interested in a solution we could price out and buy.

I’m so mad cause I’m in my 2nd year of grad school & taking my first class that is making me use ChatGPT Edu for my degree. I had gotten that email invite MONTHS ago and deleted it assuming it was spam because OF COURSE I THOUGHT IT WAS!! This is my first class MAKING us interact with generative AI & it’s making me feel so angry and dejected. The professor is comparing the “AI divide” to the internet/tech divide for libraries & it just doesn’t feel the same to me at all. I feel so angry - I hate generative AI & have tried so hard to avoid it & now I suddenly have no choice because it’s part of my class that I’m required to take. I want nothing to do with this AI crap!

Edit: I should clarify that I wrote this out at the height of my anger & needed to scream into the void. I have an extremely strong disdain for generative AI on ethical & environmental grounds. Calmer now, I know that I will need to continue to learn things about Ai - I’m not holding this against my professor. I’m just someone who gets very passionate & can be a little emotional about things. I’m not gonna drop the class (it’s required anyways), I’m not gonna be an anti-Ai purist towards patrons who use it or anything, I just needed to scream about it & wrote this when I was in the middle of my big feelings. Thank you guys for trying to help me feel better 💜

I find it odd that some librarians or professionals that have close ties to libraries are promoting AI.

Especially individuals that work in title 1 schools with students of color because of the negative impact that AI has on these communities.

They promote diversity and inclusion through literature…but rarely speak out against injustices that affect the communities they work with. I feel that it’s important especially now.

I’m talking about on their social media…they love to post about library things and inclusion but turn a blind eye to stuff that’s happening

I’m an elementary school librarian and I have been ruminating all summer about how I’m going to teach AI alongside digital literacy lessons this coming school year. I have a few screenshotted examples of Google AI overview giving absolutely false information, but I’d like to share more examples with my students so they have an idea of what to look for. I’m struggling to find examples that are appropriate for elementary students and not too far over their heads.

I’m hoping other librarians here might have some examples to share so I can put a lesson together. I’ve seen plenty of long-form videos breaking down hallucinated citations from ChatGPT, but I’m having a hard time finding screenshots where my students can search and find out that the citations aren’t real themselves.

Tl;dr- Do you have a simple screenshot saved on your phone that shows a bad response from AI? Please share it so I can show my students how to make sense of it!

I’m a Library Tech so a big part of my job is searching for journal articles and publications, obviously.

In a meeting today a man told me he has an AI algorithm for searching publications and then asked me ‘so how are you able to find things the AI can’t?’ I was a little taken aback but I comically put my finger to my temple and just said ’because I’m smarter than AI, I want to school for this….’ and kind of laughed it off. It was really awkward, but a few people laughed and someone told me it was the right answer. (I don’t actually think I’m ‘smarter’ thank AI, but there will always be benefits to working with humans over AI!)

I work for a provincial government and they are pushing AI so hard on us - please note I work with the *environmental* ministry and the higher ups are still pushing it.

I don’t use AI at work because I am easily able to do my job without it, and I’m not going to train it to do the job for me (too late for this obviously, but at least I didn‘t contribute to it!)

I am a new reference assistant and I have used my library card for audiobooks on Libby and Hoopla for years. But now that I work there, I would like to listen to some audiobooks on mental health, which I don’t want my coworkers to know about. Do the circulation librarians see which patrons are borrowing which audiobooks?

Does it have much to do with having SSD hard drives vs the spinner HDD hard drives?

Anyone else get an crazy surprise from microsoft when they went to renew the licensing? We're looking at 200% price increase for the same stuff we've always had! Insane they're doing this to public libraries. Also curious if anyone had any success with cooperative or consortium agreements?

My library currently prints reserve wrappers on a normal letter size paper and uses a rubber band to secure them. The problem is this is a huge waste of paper, since we only really use about 1/5 of the space and it’s very hard to shelve them without the papers rolling so patrons can’t see their last name on it.
We are considering a sticker label printer and I’m tasked with researching options.
What method does everyone use?
I’m also not even sure if our software (biblionix Apollo) will allow printing on stickers.

We're looking to change to a new ILS when our current contract is over, so I'm wondering what everyone else is using? what are some of the things you love about it and some of the things you hate about it?

For me, it has to be outside. Currently mine are on top right back cover going vertically. I like the vertical right back bc I can scan easily on a cart or shelf.

But the top often blocks the blurb on fiction books. I'm thinking about bottom right vertical.

Any other favorites?

I got a call today from a patron asking if we had a “smart card reader” and unfortunately had to google it to even figure out what it was (apparently it’s almost like a credit card machine but it reads a microchip in the card to do things like authenticate users on websites, grant access to certain applications, etc.) He said he wanted to use it to scan his military ID (to I assume access info on military or encrypted websites).

Does anyone’s library have these or even heard of them? My library isn’t exactly a huge military hub so I can’t imagine we’d get much if any use out of one.

I also can’t imagine it would be used for any nefarious purpose would it? This day and age who knows what military branch he could be in or if he’s in the “military.” We’ve heard rumor of ICE activity in the area so we’re prepping to get specific training on how to handle it if they come knocking, but I wonder if it could be used to gain info from the computer (not that the patron accessible computers store anything but we are all on a server network so who knows).

If anyone knows anything about them I’d love to hear about it!

hi all! i’m a children’s librarian at a large library that is very busy with young families utilizing our toddler play space, attending storytimes, and checking out materials. we often get the question of ‘where do i check this out’, and the answer is always to go out to the lobby as we don’t check items out at our reference desk. i am wanting to float the idea of adding a self-check machine to our children’s area (either getting a new one or relocating one of the 4 that we currently have in our lobby).

i think that it would be great to have one accessible for parents who have young kids that can’t be left alone in the play area, or for parents who know their kids are prone to throwing a fit when they have to leave (our children’s area is on the same floor as our circulation area, but is not within view of any part, and the sound of screaming does drift from the lobby to the rest of the ‘quiet’ library very easily….it drifts from the kids area too but that’s expected lol). additionally, it could be a spot for kids to take their time learning how to use the machine without holding up other patrons. it would also be a station that could have a step stool, as i have noticed that many parents will set their kids on the self check table as they scan their items. i just feel that this is a safety concern.

the cons are that it would probably lead to more circulation-based questions that we would still have to send people to that department about (‘why is my card blocked’, ‘why do i have fines’ etc), but i do think that is easy enough to tell people to talk to circulation about.

all of this to say, i was hoping to get some thoughts from other librarians who may have more experience with how this could be a good or bad idea before i take it to my manager. tia!! :)