How to make dough that works good for trout?

Library Donations

• Hi There! 1. This is a re-post for more dough. Many thanks go to easterangel, frde, and czh for their outstanding comments on my earlier question. 2. First, some background. Many years ago, I bought a VHS videotape for $5. Title was "Cooking with Chocolate." This was very dumb since I don't cook and I don't eat chocolate. But it was so cheap I couldn't resist! heh heh heh 3. Instead of throwing away the tape, I donated it to the Spokane Public Library. This was back in the pre-computer days when each item checked out received an ink stamp in the back showing the return date. 4. Each time I returned to the library, I would check "my" video. Over the years, over 140 people had checked out the video. I was truly amazed. So much usefulness from something which I intended to throw in the garbage! 5. Soooooo...I now want to donate some Bibles to libraries in various locales. These Bibles could be either cheap or expensive, depending upon what works best. (Works best=used by patrons most often). My goal is both altruistic and selfish. Selfish because I want to recapture the pleasure I felt way back then---realizing my VHS video was checked out regularly by folks I would never meet. 6. I see two problems with my plan: (a) Many libraries now solicit book donations so the donations can be sold. Thus, donations are never actually placed on the library shelves. (b) Computerization seems to have done away with the old-fashioned ink stamp. This may now make it impossible for me to determine if the Bibles have been checked out by 5 people...or 500 people. I would really like to know whether patrons are checking them out or not. 7. In a sense this is an "easy" question. I just need some ideas. Your 5-star answer could be as short as one paragraph or as long as 4 paragraphs. I'm not looking for hard data----just ideas as to how I might achieve my twin goals (altruistic + selfish). All comments greatly appreciated! Thanks. ron P.S. My brother just called with these two suggestions: (a) donating to libraries in very small towns (b) buying Bible-based DVDs or other multimedia, and donating these instead These two ideas are fyi only; these ideas may or may not be helpful to your thought process. Thanks again!

• Answer:

  Dear nronronronro-ga; I?ll certainly be delighted to offer my suggestions. First, let me explain my concern with your scenario and how it might compare to your initial experience to help you avoid a potential disappointment with your new project: The DVD on chocolate you so generously contributed to your library?s collection appeals to a much different audience than would a Bible. While there are certainly a number of people who are interested in both issues and who would appreciate such material, the fact remains that there are far more FREE hardcopy and electronic Bibles about than there are readily available culinary and recipe tapes and books for chocolate lovers. Having said that I fear that the comparison you?d like to make would be one of apples and oranges and the pleasure from contributing that you are trying to recapture may be doomed from the outset simply by virtue of the fact that your Bibles will be appealing, this time, to a very different market element. Secondly, the number of people to whom your Bibles may appeal is not necessarily indicative of the measure of your contributions? success. On one hand you could say, as you did with the chocolate tape, that x-number of people found the tape desirable. On the other hand you could theoretically say that only y-number of people found the idea of viewing your Bible material appealing, but those people, much more so, found it especially meaningful and informative for their purposes. How then can we compare what is largely entertainment (or perhaps even superfluous) to what is commonly viewed as a potentially life altering text? With this in mind, it is not necessarily the ?number? of consumers that the true litmus test measures, but the impact the contribution made ? even if were only to one person. The same would be true when comparing the chocolate VHS to say, an audio novel in the opinion of a blind user. While fewer people may check out the audio novel, the impact it would have on that one person may be especially significant and far surpass the value of the chocolate VHS in that regard. In the end, one should not rush to judge his contribution on numbers alone. It is the CONTRIBUTION then that should give you the most pleasure despite the number of appreciative or unappreciative consumers. So with that logic out of the way, taken in context however ? and absent the comparison of the success of your first contribution ? there are indeed ways to find out how well received your contribution proves to be in both numbers and feedback. Here are some suggestions: Make your contribution an ON LOAN donation with the understanding that you will recall the items in one year. Typically, libraries track the usage of ?loaned? items with the expectation of providing the data to the loaner. Meet with the director or head librarian at the library and specifically request that they track the usage of the media so you will know what consumers like. Libraries will usually be enthusiastic about meeting the requirements of loaned items. Let the staff know that you are interested in helping stock the library with usable and popular material and that you will be keeping tabs on what works and what doesn?t. As certain items tend to fall from the popularity list, assure them that you will recall them and replace them with more interesting material. This will allow you to see what works (in terms of numbers) and what doesn?t and this simple arrangement will benefit both you and the library. Ask the library if they have an online database or card file. Some libraries do. This would enable you to keep up with your contributions to see if they are checked out or not ? and perhaps even enable you to know how often. Ask prospective libraries if they have a usage survey or usability assessment system in place. If they do they will probably provide you with periodic the data on your donations. They may even be willing to provide this to you periodically by email, postal mail or on demand with a quick telephone call. Place a permanent card inside the cover of the book or DVD with a telephone number, an email address or a website address where you can be contacted. Encourage users to call or send you an email when they check out the book or movie and provide personal feedback. This will allow you not only to keep track of numbers but you?ll also get a first-hand account directly from the consumer about how useful, meaningful or informative they found the item to be. Consider donating to academic libraries, electronic libraries, and libraries that implement web-based library catalogs that typically track and compile usage data. Consider (as your brother suggested) donating to smaller county or city libraries where (believe it or not) everything is not always automated and computerized. Why? Because in this environment you can sometimes make arrangements with the primary librarian who may, as a favor to you in exchange for your generous donation, simply keep an old fashioned card in the book which can be manually ?punched? or notated to reflect how frequently and for how long each book or DVD is checked out. If you plan to relinquish the item to the library permanently at some point you may be able to arrange for the librarian to mail you the usage card at the end of a specified period. I hope you find that my answer exceeds your expectations. If you have any questions about my research please post a clarification request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us. Best regards; Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher INFORMATION SOURCES Defined above SEARCH STRATEGY SEARCH ENGINE USED: Google ://www.google.com SEARCH TERMS USED: Library Libraries Usage Data Tracking Assessment Usability System