"You may be commiting a crime ..."

I was in a library a few days ago and ran across something I hadn't before ... and it scared me ...

In the front of each book was a small piece of paper ... neatly cut, perfectly centered on the flyleaf, and no more than two inches by two inches, the note addressed all potential readers with a stern and ominous message ... You may be committing a crime if you choose to write in this book ...

Back in November of '05, I wrote a post that dealt with writing in books and associated things ... here's a section of that :

How cool would it be to have access to a book with dog-eared pages and the
scribbles of 10, 50, or 100 years of readers/thinkers in the margins ...
ideas that move beyond those of Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species
and adding to them the opinions, questions, and feelings of a 17-year
old high school senior, a single mother of three who’s going back to
school, or a 72-year old Jesuit priest ... you ... me ...

... I want libraries to be the publishers and archivists and commentarians of content for, about, and by local folks ... I want not just to read the books, but all of the
ideas that my community-mates have left within the margins ...

Anyhow, while I did laugh a the note (how much time/money did the library spend putting them in?), at the same time it betells the issue facing us as a profession ... the fact that we want to protect the books and the ideas they embody instead of ensuring that the ideas live on and grow ...

I know, an over simplification, but what would a blog be without an oversimplified argument ... that's the best way to invite discussion, isn't it? ... Feel free to write in the margins ...

Privately developed public airports and library databases

Long time since my last post (sounds like an entry that should begin with "Dear Diary") ... in the gap, I've taken a new job (awesome!) ... bought a new house (tons of work!) ... and stopped working out (bad idea!) ... maybe this post will help me turn around the last one ...

So I was listening to NPR on my way into work this morning and there was a story about how a private company is building a public airport in Branson, MO ... not too interesting? -- I beg to differ ...

Apparently, the development company is going to charge the town $8 per person they bring to town ... the town's good with it because they don't have to lay out any upfront cash to build the place, it's a simple pay-as-you-go model ... and if no one comes, they still don't pay.

This got me thinking (again) about out database payment models ... we always lay out our bucks right up front ... then we hope people come to use it ... we do a lousy job of partnering with (or better yet requiring) our vendors to help us promote and market the products ... and then we pay the annual increase despite the fact that usage (using whatever measure you want) barely goes up even proportional to population increases ...

I think the Branson Airport model isn't a bad one ... in fact, I think it's a great one! And I think we should be asking our vendors to "bring people to us" (or at least help) and paying them based on success (i.e., usage) ... that's is capitalism, and since folks are always asking government to be more like business, this approach would seem to move us in that direction.

There are holes in this approach, (like if usage does spike up, we might not be able to pay!), but we're smart ... we can figure out how to handle these issues, right?! I'd like to think that we'd be better off spending our time trying to resolve problems about over utilization rather than underutilization.

Enough for now ... I'll be keeping my eye on Branson ... as inspiration.