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Looking for love in the BPL reading room
By adamg on Sun, 11/30/2008 - 1:08pm
Karin, who loves the Bates Reading Room at the BPL main branch, admits to scoping out the male patrons there and even fantasizing about picking one of them up:
... I have no idea how this would actually work. The silence discourages conversation. There's no way to banter via computer (a la Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy's characters in Pretty in Pink, which, speaking of, how the hell did that ever work?). Most folks wear sweatpants and scarves with bed-head and are probably stressing a 20-page brief for Monday's Con Law class.
However, there's something sexy to me about intelligence and academia and those in it who might love this space as much as I do. ...
Scot, who works at the main branch, reads Karin's post:
... Got me thinking about how differently her experience would be if we had online communities on the library web site. As Web Services Manager for the Boston Public Library, its something I think we really need, but I sure hadn't considered the direct user interaction she's got in mind! Maybe we need to provide chat rooms too. ...
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Comments
The Lewd and the Lascivious
The BPL mens' room was a notorious "wide stance" spot for years, not sure how it is now. When I was a teenager, it was a place that one would brave only when you really had to go because of the creeps haunting the place.
So I don't think hook-up chatrooms are a good idea.
My memories involve the
My memories involve the stench of urine in the hallways and Aqualung, with
Granted, it's been a while, but it doesn't exactly bring to mind Date Central.
Alternative models of reference desk services
That's a good thing to look at developing. There's a model for reference desk services where librarians interact with a group with varied interests and a group with some similar interests. The participants learn about library resources through other participants and the librarians
see also
http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
hey, I'm famous!
I can't believe you found that post, Adam! I do hope you realize that the BPL's web site development goals *don't* include dating services or personals. That was totally tongue-in-cheek. But we *do* want to provide more participatory services for library users!