If there’s anyone out there who wonders why Cites & Insights hasn’t appeared for five weeks now (and isn’t likely to for quite some time), and who doesn’t read posts such as this one, here’s an update of sorts.
Massachusetts down…
I’m currently interleaving work on the draft text for Libraries in Social Networks (working title, from ALA Editions, some time next year with luck) with work on expanding my survey of actual public library presence on Facebook or Twitter from the current 25 states and 2,406 libraries to a total of 38 states and 5,957 libraries (or, if energy runs out, 36 states and 4,963 libraries).
I’m doing the remaining 13 states (all of them I hadn’t already done and that have readily-available spreadsheets of library names and population served) in alphabetic order–except that, regarding the parenthetic note in the previous paragraph, I’ve now moved Pennsylvania and Texas to the end, since those are the two with the largest number of reporting libraries.
I’d already done Alabama and Indiana. A few minutes ago, I finished Massachusetts (and the first three libraries in Maine, since I stopped at a “20 multiple” convenient spot).
Which means I’ve looked at the websites and other evidence of social networks for all the public libraries, memorial libraries, free libraries, incorporated public library associations, city libraries, town libraries, just plain libraries, reading rooms, citizens’ libraries, social libraries, athenaea (what’s the plural of athenaeum?)…and, last but not least, the Young Men’s Library Association in Ware, which has both Facebook and Twitter accounts. I’ve even managed the cases where two libraries in two different communities have exactly the same name (I think there were three of those), with a little help from Wikipedia.
Now on to Maine (and Chapter 5)
So now I’ll start in on Chapter 5 of the text…and interleave that with Maine’s libraries. (Odd coincidence: The number of reporting libraries/library systems in Maine is exactly the same as the number in Nebraska, which will come next. Whereas the numbers for New Hampshire and Ohio, the next two after that, differ by one.)
And that’s the news from South Livermore…in the heart of one of California’s lesser-known (but also one of the earliest) wine countries.
