A Day in the Life of a Librarian

"You're so lucky to work in a library. You must get to read a lot of books all day!" Yeah, and the view from the vantage point of a library school student (me, [mumble] years ago) was equally disconnected from the reality of what it takes to deliver library service to the public.

So what does this librarian do all day? I'm glad you asked! This week, in response to the Librarian by Day's, challenge, over a dozen library staff from across the country will be detailing their workdays on their blogs. I could never pass up a challenge, so tomorrow through next Sunday, I'll be taking my show on the road, virtually speaking. You can get a peek into my work day at Annot8ions, and compare it with the workdays of the other participants at Library Day In the Life. (Thank you, Civil Librarian, for the invitation!)

RINCON LATINO : PREMIO ORTEGA Y GASSET

Hace algunas semanas mencioné en una nota a la cubana Yoani Sánchez de La Habana y su blog Generación Y. En entonces, Yoani fue mencionada en BBC Mundo por su intrepidez periodística en escribir sobre sus experiencias cotidianas y en expresar su opinión sobre los acontecimientos que la rodean. Dado esto, Yoani Sánchez fue galardoneada con el Premio Ortega y Gasset otorgado por el diario español El País. El premio fue creado hace 25 años para destacar a periodistas en el mundo hispanohablante por el mejor sus esfuerzos periodísticos. Este año el premio fue otorgadoa no solamente a la blogera cubana sino también a la periodista mexicana Sanjuana Martínez por su trabajo periodístico y al fotógrafo español Gervasio Sánchez ( ningúna relación con Yoani ) en la categoría de periodismo gráfico.

Whither Newspapers?

This morning, I attended a breakfast/informational session sponsored by NewsBank, vendor of our online subscription to the Sacramento Bee and other California newspapers. Here are some interesting statistics from Ken Doctor, former journalist and managing editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, who spoke about the "Changing Face of Content":

• 56 - average age of those who read newspapers in print


• 60 - average age of those who watch broadcast TV news


• 40 - average age of those who primarily use newspapers' web sites


• Yahoo! News - #1 Internet news site

Some surprising factoids:

• Americans read the news about 62 minutes per day. This has not changed over the last five years; what has changed is that more Americans are reading the news online now.


• 50% of Americans get their news at the GYM (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) daily; 25% more than once a day.


• 10% of news content is now blogs.


• 60% of broadband video is news footage. Reuters and AP make 1,000 new videos per month!

His conclusions: news and blogs may become indistinguishable, as television news and newspapers post additional information - much of it surprisingly comprehensive - and news stories on their blogs, and then the blog posts are, in turn, republished in print. This then leads to a few questions that have still to be answered: What is the newspaper of record? Print? Online? Are reader comments included?

What do you think? How do you get your news fix?