Titangos Local Community in the Era of Social Media Technologies

A Global Approach
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78063-361-9
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten

Reihe: Chandos Publishing Social Media Series

Social media technologies can help connect local communities to the wider world. Local Community in the Era of Social Media Technologies introduces the experience of bringing a local community to the world. This book, with the model of Santa Cruz County, California, develops a truly global approach to the subject. The first section of the book covers the early efforts of recording the local Santa Cruz area, before moving on to deal with Library 1.0. The next section looks at the present situation with Library 2.0 and its benefits. The book ends with a discussion of future directions and the implications of Library 3.0 and beyond. - Illustrates the potential for new developments through practical experience - Goes beyond digitization technology to include: integrating database management; using library professionals' unique research skills; conferencing and publications; and rejuvenating Library 1.0 applications - Demonstrates how to effectively present local information to the world

Hui-Lan H. Titangos is Reference/Access Services Librarian at Santa Cruz Public Libraries. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Information Management and an MLIS from the University of California at Berkeley. Her previous experience includes working for The DIALOG Corporation, Pacific Neighbourhood Consortium, and Shanghai Filmmakers' Association. She came to Santa Cruz in 1989 and fell in love with its landscape, and most of all, its people. She is the author of five working papers about Santa Cruz published in journals and publications, such as Library Management and Chinese Librarianship.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Titangos, Hui-Lan

Leseproben

2 Santa Cruz Public Library, California: a brief review
Abstract:
This chapter provides historical background on the birth and growth of public libraries in California, after the formation of the new state. It examines three critical time periods: 1849, when the Monterey Library Association was formed as the first public library in California; 1868, when the Santa Cruz Library Association was founded; and 1878, when the subscription library became a tax-based institution after the passage of the Rogers Act for maintaining free library services. Also mentioned are Hubert Howe Bancroft and John Muir, two historical figures who made tremendous contributions to the preservation of the historical heritage and natural resources in California. Key words Santa Cruz County El Cuartel Monterey Library Association Santa Cruz Library Association Minerva Waterman subscription library Rogers Act Santa Cruz Carnegie Library Andrew Carnegie H. H. Bancroft Bancroft Library John Muir Monterey Library Association: the first public library in California
The Monterey Library Association was established when, on the initiative of the Reverend Dr. Samuel H. Willey, Monterey civic leaders successfully raised funds by persuading citizens to purchase $40 shares in a public library. With $1500 raised from the sale of shares, the Association purchased its opening-day collections from New York. Housed in El Cuartel, a Mexican government building built in 1840, the library was equipped with a reading room that was stocked with books, newspapers, magazines, maps, and government documents. There were two kinds of arrangements for using the library: shareholders were allowed to borrow books, and non-shareholders were expected to pay a monthly subscription of one dollar. Users who wanted to borrow a book were required to leave a cash deposit of twice the value of the book being borrowed. Figure 1 El Cuartel, ca. 1887. Location of the first public library and first newspaper in California, former Mexican-era government and military barracks building, later US Army headquarters. C.W.J. Johnson, photographer Source: 274.v3.jpg. Courtesy of Monterey Public Library–California History Room. The Monterey Library Association can be regarded as the first public library in California, not only because of its pioneering endeavors to establish a public library in California but also, more importantly, because of its record of library administration. Unlike many early library associations, it had a constitution, regulations, and a book catalog, namely, the Constitution and Rules of the Monterey Library Association, Together with a Catalogue of Books, Organized 1849, published by O’Meara & Painter, Printers, in 1854. There were two sets of rules applicable to the library and reading room, and the Association’s printed catalog listed 871 titles, one quarter of which were in Spanish. The collection was classified into two broad areas: serious (theological, legal, medical, scientific, and reference works such as the Encyclopedia Americana and Webster’s Dictionary) and popular (history, biography, travels, and fiction). There were about 250 works of fiction, featuring American classics by Herman Melville and James Fenimore Cooper, and eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century English novels by Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. With such a select list of authors, the Monterey Library Association intended to achieve community betterment by introducing world literature into the community of Monterey. This can be further proven by its declared dual goals, namely, to serve as a “nucleus around which the friends of literary and social refinement, and elevation, may cordially unite” and as an institution “to afford amusement, entertainment, and profit to a large class who, without its aid, would waste their time in the frivolities and questionable pastimes so prevalent in our State.”1 Figure 2 El Cuartel, ca. 1880. C. W. J. Johnson, photographer Source: [W. Morgan Collection] 61-#2.v3.jpg. Courtesy of Monterey Public Library–California History Room. The decline of the Monterey Library Association was due largely to the 1849 Gold Rush and California’s admission to statehood in 1850. The former attracted the population away from Monterey and into the gold-mining regions, whereas the latter removed the capital to Sacramento after California became the thirty-first state. In the following decades, before it finally turned over its assets to the City of Monterey in 1906, the Association suffered a spiraling downturn in its fortunes. In 1911, the new, publicly funded Monterey Public Library was opened at 425 Van Buren Street, with a grant from Andrew Carnegie and a land donation from Mrs. A. M. Freitas. The building was designed by California architect William Weeks in the Mission Revival style, and the library was housed there until 1952, when the voters of Monterey passed a $350,000 bond measure to construct a new home for the Monterey Public Library. The new library at the corner of Madison and Pacific Streets was designed by California architect William Wurster in the Second Bay tradition, and today remains one of California’s architectural gems.2 Figure 3 Monterey Public Library, funded by Andrew Carnegie. It opened its doors in 1911 and remained in the building until 1952 Source: 4046.v3.jpg. Courtesy of Monterey Public Library–California History Room. To meet the needs of the local community, a new Monterey branch library was built at 700 Laine Street in 1931. The branch library was in operation for over 20 years until 1953, when the City Council proposed to close it as a budget-saving measure. In spite of letters of protest, petitions, and public meetings against the closure, the branch library was permanently closed on 1 January 1954. Figure 4 The new Monterey Public Library, June 1952. The patron is reading an encyclopedia during the first Open House Source: 4125.v3.jpg. Courtesy of Monterey Public Library–California History Room. Figure 5 New Monterey Branch Library, ca. 1930s (Note fisherman wood sculpture on corner of building.) Source: 11.v3.jpg. Courtesy of Monterey Public Library–California History Room. Santa Cruz Library Association: the predecessor of SCPL
SCPL is a medium-sized city–county library system with ten branches and one bookmobile. Lagging behind its Monterey counterpart by a few decades, the Santa Cruz Library Association, the predecessor of SCPL, was formed in 1868. As with other libraries in California at the time, the birth of Santa Cruz Library Association was driven by persistent effort from the community: The most important of the factors in the typical community was the moralistic or uplift drive. Other motives may have impelled certain people more, but nothing else was utilized so much to obtain public support and nothing else seems to have contributed so much to the library movement in so many communities. In California as a whole, it was the most obvious force behind the development of libraries prior to 1878.3 A provincial California rose after 1849, when good order was restored and the gold-mining era was replaced by the agricultural age. The provincial California, however, did not remain in a pure state for very long. Ever since the beginning of 1880 s, California has been permanently infused with new immigration and a strong eastern influence, especially in Southern California. Kevin Starr, the former California State Librarian (1994–2004), concludes that If there is such a thing as DNA codes for states – and there may very well be! – then crucial to the sociogenetic heritage of California would be ethnic diversity. It began in the Native American era with its seventy to eighty language groups and its multitude of tribelets and kinship groups, and it continued through Spanish and Mexican eras.4 Indeed, the state’s ethnic diversity has only intensified since the Gold Rush, when peoples of all colors and racial groups arrived in California. According to Starr, in the early 1900s, the city of San Francisco had a higher proportion of foreign-born residents than any other city in the United States. More than 80 languages were spoken in the Los Angeles Unified School District by the end of the twentieth century. In as early as 1861, at a meeting in Temperance Hall, carpenter and builder Tom Beck proposed to form a library in Santa Cruz. Owing to the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, Beck’s proposal was not adopted until seven years later, in 1868, when the Santa Cruz Library Association was organized under a governing Library Board of Trustees composed of seven members, with Dr. C. L. Anderson as its first president. Through membership dues and donations of money and books, the library opened in March 1870, after Citizen John Brazer donated a room to the library...