The Observation Deck

With Jim's suggestion, I am starting an Ashtabula thread, beginning with my post on another thread.

Since Ashtabula was mentioned in another thread, and our new used bookstore has just opened in Lakewood, I thought I would share information about Lofthouse Books. It is one of the few businesses left on Main Street in Ashtabula and in all of my travels has remained my favorite used bookstore.

http://www.lofthousebooks.com/

Being in business since 1989, it's amazing and quite an accomplishment that they've been able to remain open in such a declining economic city. I have not yet made it into Madison Rose, but look forward to checking it out in the near future. It is about time we have a bookstore, and I'm very excited about it. I think that Lofthouse Books would be a great networking tool for such a new business.

Something exciting for the whole NEO region was 2007's FinnFest held in Ashtabula. The city worked with Kent State's Ashtabula branch and other organizations to pull it off with great success.

FinnFest Called Smashing Success

Lakewood is much denser than Ashtabula, and we only have two hotels... Days Inn and Econolodge. But as I recall, hotels in Ashtabula were booked solid, people camped on the Kent campus, as well as people opened their homes to visitors either renting out or offering for free the use of a spare bedroom.

We have some great public spaces that could be used for something like this, and great public transportation that visitors could use.

Thinking about this festival made me wonder what types of similar events Lakewood could host that aren't ideas originated within the city? While we don't have a branch of Kent to help us out, are there any organizations in the city that can?

Great stuff.

Do not be so sure we do not have a Kent State Branch, well not yet, but maybe very soon. Some board members are teaching at Kent, and they are looking at some other connections with Lakewood. shhhhhhhhhhhh.

As for the FinnFest, this is what we need. A fun way to showcase our clean, safe, fun affordable city week after week.

Very good.


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_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Six independent Ashtabula County libraries form new consortium

I'm not trying to push regionalism with this post. I was just interested in the idea of the open source LibLime software and wondered if LPL had looked into it in the past?

What are the thoughts on having the remaining independent libraries in the area forming a network to cut costs on things like software and other programs? Not giving up their independent status, but developing efforts to make each library stronger?

just curious.

Chris:

I've been in discussions with the Director of Geauga County PL well over a year year ago about open source strategies. She decided to go forth. I asked my Tech Team to evaluate functionality in the current state and they determined it was not quite ready.

There are costs involved in open source. There are service companies that handle the software. I am not philosophically or practically opposed to the open source project, and believe value can be achieved if libraries move in that direction. But it's a new system, and there are training costs and disruption to operations that come from such moves.

If savings were significant, I had actually planned to make a move to the open source in 2009. But the functionality was not yet there and the costs were greater than I imagined.

We will continue to monitor developments.

Kenneth Warren
Director
Lakewood Public Library

If the LPL networked with other independent libraries on a opensource system like the one being used in Ashtabula County, would that reduce the costs? I don't know how much the sircy system costs to run compaired to an opensource system.

Chris:

To flip to system that lacks both functionality and interoperability with several other applications used in the here and now, while demanding higher levels of in-house technical expertise and diminishing services to the public in the present does not make sense to me.

I did feel compelled last year to probe the benefits of a flip in systems, thinking that savings could be significant. Not so, at least right now.

Here’s an in-house e-mail from Mr. Popeck, one of LPL’s tech savvy supervisors:

“Darrell Ulm form Stowe called this afternoon and chatted about Koha.
Some misc notes from our conversation:

:liblime does system updates
:backups: local by them and remote backups by Liblime
:$13500 k per year with Liblime
:migration $48,000 with a lot of customization; includes record
import, catalog cleanup etc

His general opinion is that we should wait about a year and re-examine
Koha when 3.0 is settled in and smoothly running. If you have other
questions, here is contact information.â€

Awesome information. Thanks!