Library of the Future? 3D Printing, Books on Demand, Oh My!

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The Washington Post has an article about DC's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library that shows a glimpse of many public libraries' future:

…D.C. Public Library system, which today is opening theDigital Commons at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. The new facility, in a renovated 11,000-square foot section of the library's ground floor, contains a 3-D printer, an Espresso Book Machine that churns out tomes on-demand, an array of tablet devices, rows of computer terminals, and several meeting spaces outfitted with some of the newest productivity technology…

Next to the 3-D printer is a countertop full of tablet computers and ebook readers, devices on which DCPL finds an increasing percentage of its membership. Every major brand is represented—Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Microsoft—in what Cooper bills as something of a test counter. More and more, library members are loaning volumes on their devices rather using software like Overdrive for books or Zinio for periodicals. (Cooper says over 5,000 library members are using Zinio for public magazine subscriptions; the most popular title is The Economist.)…

Then there is the Espresso Book Machine. Printing books or magazines is not an inexpensive venture, but for the hopeful self-publisher, or someone desperate to obtain a tactile version of an out-of-print volume (sorry,Dream City won't enter the public domain for many more decades), this small press is an affordable solution. Cooper envisions school classes printing books of essays, people compiling family recipe books, or just aspiring authors yearning to see themselves in print…

The Digital Commons' other major component is what DCPL calls the "Dream Lab." About one-third of the space is carved up into meeting spaces and cubicles outfitted with various devices for collaborative work. Cooper is expecting to attract a long list of startup companies and community organizations that might not have permanent offices of their own, but still need resources like wireless Internet access, DVD players, visual projectors, and Smart Boards, interactive whiteboards that feature speakers, projectors, and, niftiest of all, styluses that leave trails of digital ink the way one would use a dry-erase marker on an analog board.

It's this kind of service that will help libraries continue to fulfill their vital role in the community. We may not see this level of service in our smaller branches any time soon, but I could definitely see something like this at the central libraries of Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point.

 

The Rise of 14th Street

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As a teen growing up in Northern Virginia in the early 80s I'd venture downtown with some of my buddies to witness firsthand the depravity that was on display on 14th Street. I really was too stupid to realize how dangerous it was to go down there to park and watch hookers pick up johns, dealers sell their weed/coke/whatever and pimps managing their "personnel." To me and my buddies it was like going to live theater, except that when we saw the inevitable beatings, assaults and brawls and realized that the blood that was spilled and the bullets that flew were very real, we retreated to our suburbs and ventured downtown only to visit the clubs in Georgetown or Foggy Bottom.

It's from that perspective that I read this article in the Washington Post about the gentrification of the 14th St. corridor.  Whether or not you're a fan of gentrification you have to be amazed at how a city can literally be transformed.

The formerly riot-scarred corridor has gone into gentrification overdrive, a boom fueled by investors looking for a safe place to park hundreds of millions of dollars, the relative ease of obtaining a liquor license, and the arrival of thousands of new residents longing to live downtown.

The result: more than 1,200 condos and apartments and 100,000 square feet of retail are being built or have hit the market in just the past nine months. At the same time, at least 25 bars and restaurants have opened or are under construction along 14th Street, adding more than 2,000 seats to the city’s dining scene at warp speed…

The street’s renaissance began decades ago, with the establishment of Studio Theatre (founded in 1978 and expanded in 1987) and other performing arts venues. But the pace of change accelerated after a successful community lobbying effort to lure Whole Foods Market to P Street, between 14th and 15th streets. A steady progression of improvements followed, with carryouts, auto repair garages and pawnshops giving way to sit-down Thai restaurants, fitness studios and window displays of $5,000 sectional sofas.

This next part interested me from a professional standpoint since I work for an apartment trade association:

Veteran commercial real estate broker Andrew McAllister, who has done $1 billion worth of business along 14th, likened the District’s post-recession situation to last call on a Friday night.

Were we the “best-looking chick? We were the only chick at the bar,” he said.

Washington quickly found itself at the center of a national apartment building boom, spurred by the transformation of millions of former homeowners and would-be home buyers into renters. Many of them experienced unemployment or had their credit ratings decimated by foreclosure. Others couldn’t muster the bigger down payments required to obtain mortgage loans.

Washington’s status as an oasis of job security, in particular, made it one of the nation’s top destinations for the young, highly educated and affluent, putting the city on track to drawmore newcomers between 2009 and 2011 than it had during the previous decade.

A note for our folks here in the Triad: notice how important jobs were to the revitalization of downtown Washington? Our small cities are doing a great job focusing on the redevelopment of their downtowns, but until we get significant job growth it will be hard for our cities to really take off.

Lewisville 2013 Candidates Update

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With four days left to register we have the following candidates registered to run for seats on Lewisville's Town Council:

Mayor
Dan Pugh (Incumbent)

Council
Jeff Zenger (Incumbent)
Robert Greene (Incumbent)
Mike Horn (past council member)
Fred Franklin (Incumbent)
Ed Smith (Incumbent)
Ken Sadler (past council member) 

The only current members of the council who haven't filed are Sandra Mock and Tom Lawson, and since Mr. Lawson has reached his term limit he can't file.

If no one else files then this election will be dull as dirt since there are only six seats on the council, plus the mayor, so everyone will be running unopposed if things stand as they are. On the positive side we could save a lot of trees since our candidates won't have to print any signs.

The Agony of Dafeet

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As I've written about in years past the organization I work for, Piedmont Triad Apartment Association, does an annual food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC.  One of the cool developments over the last couple of years is the development of other fundraisers tied to ours and a perfect example is Matt's Run to Fight Hunger.

One of our board members, Matt Ketterman, has a running streak of running at least one mile every day for over 22 years. That's 8,030 straight days for those of you who are counting.  A couple of years ago to celebrate his streak hitting 20 years Matt started his run to fight hunger with the help of Off 'n Running in Greensboro, NC. The concept was simple: bring a food or cash donation as your entry "fee" to the the run and then run a 5 or 10k with a bunch of like-minded runners.  The run was a big success so Matt did it again last year and this year he really ramped it up and decided to set a goal of raising one dollar for every mile of his streak, or $8,030. 

This year's run happened on the morning of July 6 and Matt had over 200 runners show up and he raised more than his $8,030 goal. Below is the Fox8 story about the run (you can see yours truly really suffering through the last part of the 10k at about the 1:55 point of the story) and although they say the run raised $7,000 that was just the morning of the race: donations continue to come in even as I type this.

FYI, PTAA will be sponsoring the annual Fill the Stands With Cans effort for Second Harvest this Friday (July 19) at the Greensboro Grasshoppers game and next Friday (July 26) at the Winston-Salem Dash game. If you bring a food or cash donation to the game you'll automatically be entered for a prize drawing. Hope to see you there!

The Williams Road Bridge

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For all the folks in Lewisville wondering about the status of the Williams Road bridge – you know, the one between two traffic circles – the latest I've heard is that construction won't begin until some time next spring and when construction does begin NCDOT will close the bridge for however long it takes to repair (replace?) it.  Apparently they're also going to raise it so that there won't be a repeat of trucks with oversize loads hitting the underside, but unfortunately they won't be widening the span to allow for pedestrian or bike lanes. They'll also occassionally have to shut down 421 and detour traffic during certain parts of construction, similar to what they're doing on I-40 at Union Cross road right now. 

For those of us who live on the south side of 421 it's going to make our trip to downtown Lewisville just a tad more circuitous.

Interesting Times

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It sometimes takes living in interesting times to make you realize that boring is vastly underrated. The Great Housing Bubble followed by the Great Recession have caused many of us to live through some interesting times, and the reaction by our elected leaders to the fallout of those interesting times has led to even more interesting times.

Here in North Carolina we're starting to get national attention for the way our state leaders are reacting to the aftermath of the recession. The state is a perfect storm of economic hardship and political sea change that makes it a perfect political story on a national level. Unfortunately at the root of those stories is the suffering of real people, some of whom are our friends and neighbors, and the ideological response of the newly dominant political party to the economic reality that those people represent.

Lots of ink has been spilled about new conservative policies that have been put in place this legislative term and the Moral Monday protests that were prompted by those policies.  Quite frankly it's a complicated issue, and in defense of both sides of the arguments it should be noted that they almost certainly feel their way is the best way to address the whole of the problem, but from the point of view of those of us who are neighbors and friends of the very folks who are directly affected now by these policies it's hard to swallow the big picture economic arguments while they suffer.

Probably the best thing I've read about this issue is something a friend linked to on Facebook that addresses the Moral Monday protesters and why their protests are righteous even if you disagree with some of their specific remedies/arguments:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:35-36, 40)

God is far bigger than a single political party. There are many paths and policies for addressing poverty, reforming our broken immigration system, responding to climate change, and healing the racial divides that continue in our society. But what we cannot accept, nor allow, is for our own leaders to willfully exacerbate our problems and directly harm people who are already suffering — to sacrifice the common good to their own ideological agendas. In such moments and times, people of faith must speak out — not for the sake of politics, but because the beauty and simplicity of the gospel demands it. (Emphasis mine)

For those of us whose faith compels us to do everything we can to help the unemployed, hungry, homeless, etc. we cannot ignore the long-term economic policies that can lead to those states. We must acknowledge that there are many different ways to address the underlying sociological and economic issues that are the root of those problems. We must be ready to admit that perhaps some conservative ideals might be the way to go, or that perhaps some government-led initiatives truly are the only hammer that will work on that nail.  But, and this the crux of the argument for me, it doesn't matter which path is best if people get seriously hurt during the journey. It is our moral imperative to make sure that the least of us is cared for, and if our journey has to take a little longer or follow a crooked path, i.e. involves ideological comprises in order for us to be able to help carry those who need help, then so be it. 

Running

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2013 is an election year for many NC municipalities and Lewisville is among them.  Folks can register as candidates between July 5-19 so whose hat is already in the ring now that we're not quite halfway through the registration period? Here's a quick rundown:

Mayor – Incumbent Dan Pugh has registered and right now he's running unopposed.

Council – Incumbents Fred Franklin, Jeff Zenger and Robert Greene have filed to run. Former councilman and mayor Mike Horn has filed to run for a council seat after sitting out last term due to term limits.

That's it for now, but the next six or seven days should bring a flurry of filings.  Incumbent council member Tom Lawson has reached his term limit so he'll have to take a break for at least one term. That leaves only two other incumbents, Ed Smith and Mayor Pro-Tem Sandra Mock, who have yet to file.

FYI, you can find the list of registered candidates at the Forsyth County Board of Elections website.

Reading Mrs. Adkins

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Anne Adkins has been writing an occasional column for the Winston-Salem Journal for a while now and I must say that, to me, her writing is consistently the best in the paper. From this Sunday's column: 

George got a job and over the next few months he paid back his loan and appeared to be doing just fine. In those years immediately following World War II, our generation was full of halcyon dreams springing from the conviction that after years of war, we would bring to the world lasting peace. Who would have thought that early one morning on a Virginia mountain road, George’s body would be found face-down in a ditch with a bullet hole in the back.

That was nearly three-quarters of a century ago. As far as I know, no one ever found out who killed George. As the years went by, Al and I, like most of our generation, worked hard, raised our kids, saw more wars come and some of them go, and squeezed the best part out of living. And like every generation before us, we also buried our dead.

Last week a beat-up, yellow truck sped past me on the highway. Suddenly the years peeled away, leaving me with the sharpness of a memory unexpectedly returned. I shut my eyes and there George was, my young lost friend, tossing me one more smile.

I smiled back at the bittersweet thought of a young lost friend who never had the chance to find his way, but for one shining moment in time was King of the Road, gridiron hero of the Golden Wave, the sweetest guy in town.

We’re Talking Downtown

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Over at the NC Legal Landscapes blog attorney Tom Terrell writes about the changes proposed for High Point by consultant Andres Duany:

Duany described High Point’s furniture market as “the most complete monoculture I’ve ever seen,” adding that all it is good for is “fame and tax base.” The town is designed and constructed to support a semi-annual economic event that, in itself, causes High Point to exist on statistical ledge, waiting against an unexpected event – any event – to topple it to the canyon floor below. “If the monoculture sneezes,” Duany noted, “there is no Plan B.”

In both standing-room-only public presentations, Duany expressed amazement at the obstacle created by the “market.” “When the market is gone, the entire downtown hibernates. . . . I’ve been to many places but never to a place where all the storefronts hibernate.”

In economic terms, Duany explained that the market is a “spike,” and spikes are terrible for commerce because businesses must continually “staff up and staff down.” High Point, he marveled, has the “Everest of spikes.”

Duany’s antidote is to create a mixed use town anchored by one “hot destination” district. Since the historic downtown is unavailable for that, he recommended another area several blocks north. “All it takes is two and a half blocks to create a famous destination,” citing examples of 2-3 block famous areas all of us had heard of.

High Point also must plant trees along that stretch and engage in “road dieting,” something he described as a non-negotiable aspect of the plan. Road dieting eliminates the hostile experience of speeding traffic, creates places for parking and landscaping, and nurtures a friendly, desirable place to visit.

For those of us working on Lewisville's downtown we don't need to worry about a hibernating downtown, but we do need to worry about how a bedroom community like ours can develop a downtown that hasn't really existed before. It's amazing how similar our concerns are to High Point's, especially our desire to create an environment that "nurtures a friendly, desirable place to visit."