Perhaps your desk drawer is chock full of old stuff that used to work, works a little, or works not even a little bit. What is the environmentally responsible thing to do with those first generation iPods and such?

Check out Gazelle for an easy way to recycle your old stuff for cash, or you can even set up a gadget drive for a favorite cause or charity. I found the site easy to use and attractive, and it certainly offers a nice solution to a big problem.

The Plymouth Rocket Team will be in Portland, WA for PLA 2010. We’re looking forward to a great conference, and if you are planning to attend, hope you’ll plan to visit us on the show floor. You can find us at Booth # 660.

We’ll also be attending several regional/trade shows and conferences throughout the fall and early winter. Our schedule:

New York Library Association Conference & Trade Show 2009, October 15 & 16, Niagara Falls, NY Conference Link

New England Library Association Annual Conference, October 18 – October 20, Hartford CT
Conference Link

Pennsylvania Library Association Annual Conference, October 18 – October 21, Harrisburg, PA Conference Link

ALA Midwinter, January 15, 2010 – January 18, 2010, Boston MA. You can find Plymouth Rocket at Booth # 2566. Conference Link

It’s only July (feels like March) but library conference season is about to kick off with the arrival of fall. We’ve always had a hard time finding a comprehensive conference calendar, so we put Library Show Keeper together. We hope you find it helpful as you plan your conference attendance schedule.

Did we miss an important conference or event? Send us an email or post a comment with the event information and a link if you have it, and we’ll add it post haste. Thanks!

A boatload of paid and free apps are available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Here is a “best of” list compiled by a librarian for librarians:

Top iPhone Applications for Librarians

from the Seattle Post Microsoft blog:

What percentage of e-mail messages are unwanted or harassing?

According to a Microsoft Security Report published Wednesday: Almost all of them.

More than 97 percent of e-mail messages are spam, contain malicious attachments or are sent as part of a phishing attack, the report said.

In the second half of 2008, spam was dominated by product advertisements. Nearly half, or 48.6 percent, of the spam was for pharmaceutical products.

The report also found that attackers increasingly target common file formats to exploit systems, such as files created by Microsoft Office or Adobe PDFs.

“The most frequently-exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office software were also some of the oldest,” the report said. “91.3 percent of attacks examined exploited a single vulnerability for which a security fix had been available for more than 2 years.”

It was a great tool. Our company relies on it for communicating with our subscribers, and staying smart about it is a challenge.

Amy Ryan is the new director of the Boston Public Library, and like all libraries, BPL is being affected in dramatic ways by the economic downturn. She recently provided WBUR in Boston with an insightful look at the library and her thinking regarding weathering these touch times, when every dollar counts:

Amy Ryan interview regarding Boston Public Library

The average American aged 15 – 24 spent only 7 minutes a day reading for pleasure. Older Americans, on average, spend about 20 minutes per day, with Seniors reading as much as 50 minutes each day.

Claiming that we’re too busy to read is a small piece of these frightening numbers. How can we sustain the habit of life-long reading?

Read the 2007 (PDF download) NEA Report here.

The TixKeeper patron confirmation page is an important part of the reservation process, and libraries need to craft the language on that page so that patrons are never in doubt as to its intended use.

Rarely, it happens that patrons mistakenly take that confirmation page to the museum, expecting to retrieve the pass at that point. Museums don’t like that much.

Of course, to avoid any confusion, TixKeeper provides librarians with the option to change that confirmation page text, to say, this: “Please print this page and bring it to the library with your library card when you come to pick up the pass.”

Not a huge issue, but one we thought worth commenting on. Always glad to hear your thoughts!

Well, this is a first, penned by the poet laureate of the Morton Grove Public Library. Thanks, Kevin!

‘Twas the Night Before EK
———————————–

‘Twas a new event system for MGPL, 
The colors are chosen, 
and keywords as well.

The templates are hung
under the pop-up with care
in hopes that you’ll use them;
that’s why they’re there!

There’ll be programs galore
for adults, teens and YS.
What attendance will be
is anyone’s guess.

And so I proclaim
as I turn it over to you,
Happy eventing to all
and registration, too!