I agree...and...The 'NOTES' left in response to this article lead to some interesting add-ons to the practice of asking "Why?" five times to get to the root of any problem.

see: To Get To The Root Of A Hard Problem, Just Ask “Why” Five Times. Written by: Eric Ries at Co.DESIGN / fastcodesign.com.

Charting the answers in some kind of diagram linking root causes explored to each question helps me to see where I've been with my querying quest.  Others point out that five "whys" may not be enough.

The 'take-away'? 

When you are faced with a design problem of any kind at your library, keep drilling down to the source of the problem until you see the underlying reason for your dilemma.  Only when you know why you have a problem, will you be able to explore how you may fix it.

image as per article credits.-Tx.

Visual impacts of your sign design can not be underestimated.

Signs set the tone and style of your library as much as the design affects your users.

 CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Signs, their readability , quality and consistency of design will always be a primary interest of mine and I urge you to make it yours as well.  People do make up an opinion of you at first glance and they will do the same when they walk into your library. 

The premier quality of an effective sign is readability. If a sign cannot be read sufficiently from a distance to allow time to read it, then the message it carries is silenced.

As a general rule the Greatest Impact Readable Distance is 10 feet for every 1 inch of letter height.

credit:  ecs-signs.com

We need to know and show clearly and simply what the privacy policies are on sites we design and visit. McLean's Magazine's Jesse Brown reports on a system of icons that can simplify and our understanding of a site's privacy policies.

This site develped by students at Yale will allow youto generate code to place ICONS on your site to alert vistors about your privacy policies.  Take a look.

This could be fun...http://boingboing.net/2012/05/11/seattle-library-hides-1000-bo.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Andy Goldsworthy started it, creative books lovers continue the trend...

Have any remainders around you want to make art with?

For Librarians already in the center of controversies about the survival of the idea of the 'Physical Library', this piece from Forbes by Eric Jackson, Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years will give you even more to worry about.  It touches on how "Baby Boomers behave differently from Gen X’ers and (now we are seeing) additional differences with the Millennials."

Mr. Jackson starts to think about the differences and possible future when looking at:

Web 1.0 (companies founded from 1994 – 2001, including Netscape, Yahoo! (YHOO), AOL (AOL), Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY)),

Web 2.0 or Social (companies founded from 2002 – 2009, including Facebook (FB), LinkedIn (LNKD), and Groupon (GRPN)),

and now Mobile (from 2010 – present, including Instagram).

It is my belief that I create and learn and produce better things and ideas when I have fun.

Who doesn't love a Rube Goldberg machine? 

The fun is just for itself.  The ideas that result can be for others' benefit too.

Here are adults having fun.  Wish I was one of the team.

Melvin the Machine

Start with the first machine  

and go to the second and most recent...