Thursday, December 15, 2011
Vlog review of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Kindles and Hugo Cabret
Here I am again!
Many thanks to my colleagues for their contributions. I’m looking forward to seeing what else they write in the future.
Okay, here’s thing number 1: No post next week. Hey, it’s Thanksgiving -- a lot of people prefer to spend the holiday with friends and family and stuffing ourselves until we burst, and I’m no exception!
Thing number 2: We just got this thing.
Yes, it’s a brand-new Kindle (ad-supported, so ignore the goofy turkey). And it’s a harbinger of some changes students, faculty, and staff will see in our e-book offerings by the time Spring 2012 rolls around. We’re using it to test some new features offered by long-time vendors, as well as some things from a new vendor. We also are keeping an eye on the road ahead; often, when people run into technical difficulties on Library-related issues, we’re the ones they come to first for tech support.
Although there are plenty of times when we end up referring the person with the problem to Gallaudet Technology Services, we like to be as knowledgeable as possible about the services we offer in order to save time for the people we serve. That means having the same type of equipment our users have, so we can learn how the process works for them and figure out quick ways to solve common problems.
Anyway, we’ve been talking about e-books for months, if not years, and with good reason; we’re seeing a significant shift towards e-books and are working to find ways to continue increasing the level of service we’ve offered the Gallaudet community for a lot longer than most people reading this have been alive.
Change is good, folks! Especially this kind of change. It’s so thin and light. If I weren’t already in love with my own Kindle (work-related things are not allowed to live on it), I’d seriously consider getting one for myself. Depending, of course, on how the Kindle Fire works out. But that’s another post!
Thing number 3: A book review hasn’t been seen on this blog in many a moon. Neither has a vlog, for which I apologize.
But never fear! December will see a couple of vlogs go up (depending on how busy the last weeks of classes are and how quickly my vacation looms). In the meantime, I thought I’d do a quick review of The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
You may have heard of its author, Brian Selznick, recently. His newest book, Wonderstruck, was released recently and it features a deaf character or two (I’m mostly focused on the librarian character). Evidently, he included Carol Padden and Tom Humphries -- two prominent Deaf scholars -- in the writing process so that he could get the picture right. It’ll certainly end up in our collection!
Anyway, Hugo Cabret is a kid’s book, which I readily admit. Some of the best books in the world were written for kids. Think about that before you cock an eyebrow in my general direction.
It’s about a young boy who lives in the attic of a train station in Paris. He winds all the clocks so they keep accurate time (kind of important in a train station). Ordinarily, they don’t hire little kids to do this job, but his parents are dead and his uncle, who actually holds the job, went missing months before.
This young boy has a secret. It’s a little machine that he’s been fixing steadily for a long time, since his father died, replacing broken parts with pieces of toys that he steals from a toy store in the train station. The story starts when he gets caught, and takes you through a genuine mystery that kept me puzzled until … well.
The thing about this book is that it’s a little unconventional; it’s like a graphic novel and a regular kid’s book mashed together. You have a few pages of text, then page after page of the story told visually. It’s very arresting and keeps the story moving along incredibly well. The book itself looks huge when you first check it out -- I was expecting another Harry Potter -- but you quickly realize that it’s only that way because there’s so much illustration.
It all works together so well I can still remember very strongly specific images from the story along with the narrative details. The drawings themselves are wonderful, very moody and permeated with a strong sense of time and place.
I hate to be so vague. Suffice it to say that the toy shop owner has a very unusual secret himself, and when he catches the boy in the act of stealing the toy, it sets off a series of very surprising events that reveals a connection between both characters and culminates in an honestly pretty lovely ending.
I recommend it because it works on so many levels, is very, very well-done, and, above all, is a quick read. A movie version is coming out next week, actually, and I look forward to seeing what they did with it!
Many thanks to my colleagues for their contributions. I’m looking forward to seeing what else they write in the future.
Okay, here’s thing number 1: No post next week. Hey, it’s Thanksgiving -- a lot of people prefer to spend the holiday with friends and family and stuffing ourselves until we burst, and I’m no exception!
Thing number 2: We just got this thing.
Yes, it’s a brand-new Kindle (ad-supported, so ignore the goofy turkey). And it’s a harbinger of some changes students, faculty, and staff will see in our e-book offerings by the time Spring 2012 rolls around. We’re using it to test some new features offered by long-time vendors, as well as some things from a new vendor. We also are keeping an eye on the road ahead; often, when people run into technical difficulties on Library-related issues, we’re the ones they come to first for tech support.
Although there are plenty of times when we end up referring the person with the problem to Gallaudet Technology Services, we like to be as knowledgeable as possible about the services we offer in order to save time for the people we serve. That means having the same type of equipment our users have, so we can learn how the process works for them and figure out quick ways to solve common problems.
Anyway, we’ve been talking about e-books for months, if not years, and with good reason; we’re seeing a significant shift towards e-books and are working to find ways to continue increasing the level of service we’ve offered the Gallaudet community for a lot longer than most people reading this have been alive.
Change is good, folks! Especially this kind of change. It’s so thin and light. If I weren’t already in love with my own Kindle (work-related things are not allowed to live on it), I’d seriously consider getting one for myself. Depending, of course, on how the Kindle Fire works out. But that’s another post!
Thing number 3: A book review hasn’t been seen on this blog in many a moon. Neither has a vlog, for which I apologize.
But never fear! December will see a couple of vlogs go up (depending on how busy the last weeks of classes are and how quickly my vacation looms). In the meantime, I thought I’d do a quick review of The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
You may have heard of its author, Brian Selznick, recently. His newest book, Wonderstruck, was released recently and it features a deaf character or two (I’m mostly focused on the librarian character). Evidently, he included Carol Padden and Tom Humphries -- two prominent Deaf scholars -- in the writing process so that he could get the picture right. It’ll certainly end up in our collection!
Anyway, Hugo Cabret is a kid’s book, which I readily admit. Some of the best books in the world were written for kids. Think about that before you cock an eyebrow in my general direction.
It’s about a young boy who lives in the attic of a train station in Paris. He winds all the clocks so they keep accurate time (kind of important in a train station). Ordinarily, they don’t hire little kids to do this job, but his parents are dead and his uncle, who actually holds the job, went missing months before.
This young boy has a secret. It’s a little machine that he’s been fixing steadily for a long time, since his father died, replacing broken parts with pieces of toys that he steals from a toy store in the train station. The story starts when he gets caught, and takes you through a genuine mystery that kept me puzzled until … well.
The thing about this book is that it’s a little unconventional; it’s like a graphic novel and a regular kid’s book mashed together. You have a few pages of text, then page after page of the story told visually. It’s very arresting and keeps the story moving along incredibly well. The book itself looks huge when you first check it out -- I was expecting another Harry Potter -- but you quickly realize that it’s only that way because there’s so much illustration.
It all works together so well I can still remember very strongly specific images from the story along with the narrative details. The drawings themselves are wonderful, very moody and permeated with a strong sense of time and place.
I hate to be so vague. Suffice it to say that the toy shop owner has a very unusual secret himself, and when he catches the boy in the act of stealing the toy, it sets off a series of very surprising events that reveals a connection between both characters and culminates in an honestly pretty lovely ending.
I recommend it because it works on so many levels, is very, very well-done, and, above all, is a quick read. A movie version is coming out next week, actually, and I look forward to seeing what they did with it!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Keeping track of current research
Patrick Oberholtzer, Instruction & Reference Librarian
When I was growing up, there was a kid down the block who kept a pet black widow spider in an aquarium in his uncle’s garage. Sometimes after school, we’d wander over to visit the incarcerated arachnid. Eventually, one of us would find a long stick and explore the gray area between investigating, studying, and of course, teasing the spider. It’s a wonder one of us didn’t get bit. One morning at school, we learned that the spider had escaped. After that, every time we went into his uncle’s dark garage, we’d look around nervously, expecting the spider to race out of the shadows and suddenly drop on one of us, seeking revenge for time spent in the glass prison.
To the best of my knowledge, we don’t have any black widow spiders around the library. But I do know about another, much friendlier kind of spider that will help you with your research. Put this “search” spider to work for you!
Current awareness tools, such as Google Alerts, help you keep tabs on breaking news stories by sending you an e-mail with content designed around criteria you pick. The criteria you select instructs the spider to race around the Web, restlessly searching “terminator style” for the latest news stories, sports team updates, and must-know celebrity gossip. Check out Google Alerts and see what it can do for you.
The Gallaudet Library offers a second current awareness tool, called RefAware. It employs a more powerful spider (really a tarantula) that never sleeps, and is constantly on the hunt for current research. RefAware is more academic and research-oriented than Google Alerts. Not only does it find references and information sources, but also keeps an eye out for research data and links to full text articles. Like Google Alerts, it spins out e-mail alerts too. RefAware offers a variety of searching options that make this sources especially perfect for scholarly research.
Look for “create alert” or “set up alert” in many of the Library’s databases such as Ebscohost Academic Complete and ProQuest Research Library. The alert you create will only crawl in the database you select and push you e-mail alerts from the information found in that database. Take advantage of them!
HINT: Be as precise in your search terms as possible.
When I was growing up, there was a kid down the block who kept a pet black widow spider in an aquarium in his uncle’s garage. Sometimes after school, we’d wander over to visit the incarcerated arachnid. Eventually, one of us would find a long stick and explore the gray area between investigating, studying, and of course, teasing the spider. It’s a wonder one of us didn’t get bit. One morning at school, we learned that the spider had escaped. After that, every time we went into his uncle’s dark garage, we’d look around nervously, expecting the spider to race out of the shadows and suddenly drop on one of us, seeking revenge for time spent in the glass prison.
To the best of my knowledge, we don’t have any black widow spiders around the library. But I do know about another, much friendlier kind of spider that will help you with your research. Put this “search” spider to work for you!
Current awareness tools, such as Google Alerts, help you keep tabs on breaking news stories by sending you an e-mail with content designed around criteria you pick. The criteria you select instructs the spider to race around the Web, restlessly searching “terminator style” for the latest news stories, sports team updates, and must-know celebrity gossip. Check out Google Alerts and see what it can do for you.
The Gallaudet Library offers a second current awareness tool, called RefAware. It employs a more powerful spider (really a tarantula) that never sleeps, and is constantly on the hunt for current research. RefAware is more academic and research-oriented than Google Alerts. Not only does it find references and information sources, but also keeps an eye out for research data and links to full text articles. Like Google Alerts, it spins out e-mail alerts too. RefAware offers a variety of searching options that make this sources especially perfect for scholarly research.
Look for “create alert” or “set up alert” in many of the Library’s databases such as Ebscohost Academic Complete and ProQuest Research Library. The alert you create will only crawl in the database you select and push you e-mail alerts from the information found in that database. Take advantage of them!
HINT: Be as precise in your search terms as possible.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
An argument for open access
Sarah Hamrick, Library Director
Scholarly Communication has been a hot topic in academic libraries for several years. And why do we care? Because in 1985 a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology cost a library $1,950. Does that sound expensive? It was a real bargain! Today a subscription would cost us $30,860. That is not a typo. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! That’s more than most librarians spend on a new car. It’s more than some houses cost in Selma, Alabama. And it’s more than a 2012 Nationals season ticket in the President’s Club -- 81 games, right behind home plate.
I confess that Gallaudet University Library does not now, nor have we ever, held a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology. But it’s just many librarians’ favorite example of how crazy academic journal publishing has become. Journal prices have skyrocketed in the last 20 years. According to Ebsco, a library vendor, the average cost of college library journal subscriptions rose 31.7% between 2006 and 2010. That figure is just for journals published in the United States. If you include international publications, the increase was 36.24%.
So libraries, Gallaudet University Library included, are spending more every year on subscriptions. Many started canceling subscriptions in the early ‘90s because budget increases weren’t keeping up with subscription costs. And that was before the economy tanked. Since 2008, college librarians who only had their budgets frozen instead of cut are the envy of their colleagues, most of whom are trying to figure out what subscriptions they can hold onto in spite of their slashed budgets.
We librarians are a creative bunch, and we take a uniquely geeky pride in providing our constituents with the information they want and need. So we’ve banded together in consortia (like the fabulous Washington Research Library Consortium) and created systems (like our Consortium Loan Service) so we can get you the scholarly articles you need even if we can’t subscribe to the journals.
But alas, we’ve been thwarted again by the proliferation of electronic journals. Don’t get me wrong -- we love them, and we know you do too! But electronic journals come with license agreements, and publishers won’t allow us to access their e-journals unless we sign their license agreements. While there’s some room for negotiation, many publishers aren’t willing to grant libraries interlibrary loan rights to electronic journal articles. So we’re stuck once more with another obstacle to get over, around, or under. And you thought librarians just read all day long!
The irony to all of this is that much of the content in academic journals is produced by faculty and researchers at colleges and universities around the country. Faculty write articles documenting their research, work hard to get them published in peer-reviewed journals, and then sign away the rights to their own work.
Let’s say, for example, Gallaudet biology professor Peter Pan writes an article reporting on his research project in which he proved that it is, in fact, possible to never grow up. Professor Pan is thrilled when the editorial board of The Journal of Lost Boys chooses his article for the January 2012 issue. He receives his publication agreement, signs and returns it, and eagerly awaits publication. The next fall his colleague, Professor Wendy Darling, wants the article to be required reading for her class and asks Professor Pan for a copy to scan and post on Blackboard. Both are dismayed to learn that the publication agreement assigns copyright ownership of the article to The Journal of Lost Boys. If Professor Darling wants to post the article on Blackboard a fee will be charged. Those fees vary, but can range from just a few dollars to almost $200 for one semester use. So Gallaudet students don’t have free access to an article published by a Gallaudet faculty member, who received support from Gallaudet to do the research on which the article was based. It may sound outrageous, but it happens all the time!
Most scholars want their research disseminated widely. They want other scholars to have access to their work. They aren’t seeking great wealth for their work. They simply want to contribute to the greater good. But publishers are in business. And of course business involves making a profit. So publishers profit from the work scholars are doing. Does that make sense?
What’s the solution? How can students, faculty, and researchers access the scholarly material they need without breaking the bank? How can scholars publish their research in peer-reviewed sources, share their discoveries and their knowledge, and do so in a way that’s affordable to their audience? Scholars may negotiate to maintain some rights to their work (the right to reproduce on their own campus, for example) as part of their publication agreements. And they may elect to publish in open access journals, which are available to all without charge on the web. They may choose to publish their work with a Creative Commons license, which will allow them to stipulate what others may (and may not) do with their work. Librarians believe open access is the answer.The ever-growing list of open access journals provide scholars with a great platform to publish their work while allowing other scholars free access.
Just this week, we’ve started looking at how we can make open-access databases and other electronic resources available more easily through our catalog and database listing. The Directory of Open Access Journals, for instance, has been available on a journal-by-journal basis through our e-Journal search for some titles, but we’re now adding greater access to the directory itself. We’re also looking at publicly-available out-of-copyright e-books on the Web that we can offer through the catalog, like Project Gutenberg. You should stay tuned; we’re always working on something new!
Scholarly Communication has been a hot topic in academic libraries for several years. And why do we care? Because in 1985 a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology cost a library $1,950. Does that sound expensive? It was a real bargain! Today a subscription would cost us $30,860. That is not a typo. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! That’s more than most librarians spend on a new car. It’s more than some houses cost in Selma, Alabama. And it’s more than a 2012 Nationals season ticket in the President’s Club -- 81 games, right behind home plate.
I confess that Gallaudet University Library does not now, nor have we ever, held a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology. But it’s just many librarians’ favorite example of how crazy academic journal publishing has become. Journal prices have skyrocketed in the last 20 years. According to Ebsco, a library vendor, the average cost of college library journal subscriptions rose 31.7% between 2006 and 2010. That figure is just for journals published in the United States. If you include international publications, the increase was 36.24%.
So libraries, Gallaudet University Library included, are spending more every year on subscriptions. Many started canceling subscriptions in the early ‘90s because budget increases weren’t keeping up with subscription costs. And that was before the economy tanked. Since 2008, college librarians who only had their budgets frozen instead of cut are the envy of their colleagues, most of whom are trying to figure out what subscriptions they can hold onto in spite of their slashed budgets.
We librarians are a creative bunch, and we take a uniquely geeky pride in providing our constituents with the information they want and need. So we’ve banded together in consortia (like the fabulous Washington Research Library Consortium) and created systems (like our Consortium Loan Service) so we can get you the scholarly articles you need even if we can’t subscribe to the journals.
But alas, we’ve been thwarted again by the proliferation of electronic journals. Don’t get me wrong -- we love them, and we know you do too! But electronic journals come with license agreements, and publishers won’t allow us to access their e-journals unless we sign their license agreements. While there’s some room for negotiation, many publishers aren’t willing to grant libraries interlibrary loan rights to electronic journal articles. So we’re stuck once more with another obstacle to get over, around, or under. And you thought librarians just read all day long!
The irony to all of this is that much of the content in academic journals is produced by faculty and researchers at colleges and universities around the country. Faculty write articles documenting their research, work hard to get them published in peer-reviewed journals, and then sign away the rights to their own work.
Let’s say, for example, Gallaudet biology professor Peter Pan writes an article reporting on his research project in which he proved that it is, in fact, possible to never grow up. Professor Pan is thrilled when the editorial board of The Journal of Lost Boys chooses his article for the January 2012 issue. He receives his publication agreement, signs and returns it, and eagerly awaits publication. The next fall his colleague, Professor Wendy Darling, wants the article to be required reading for her class and asks Professor Pan for a copy to scan and post on Blackboard. Both are dismayed to learn that the publication agreement assigns copyright ownership of the article to The Journal of Lost Boys. If Professor Darling wants to post the article on Blackboard a fee will be charged. Those fees vary, but can range from just a few dollars to almost $200 for one semester use. So Gallaudet students don’t have free access to an article published by a Gallaudet faculty member, who received support from Gallaudet to do the research on which the article was based. It may sound outrageous, but it happens all the time!
Most scholars want their research disseminated widely. They want other scholars to have access to their work. They aren’t seeking great wealth for their work. They simply want to contribute to the greater good. But publishers are in business. And of course business involves making a profit. So publishers profit from the work scholars are doing. Does that make sense?
What’s the solution? How can students, faculty, and researchers access the scholarly material they need without breaking the bank? How can scholars publish their research in peer-reviewed sources, share their discoveries and their knowledge, and do so in a way that’s affordable to their audience? Scholars may negotiate to maintain some rights to their work (the right to reproduce on their own campus, for example) as part of their publication agreements. And they may elect to publish in open access journals, which are available to all without charge on the web. They may choose to publish their work with a Creative Commons license, which will allow them to stipulate what others may (and may not) do with their work. Librarians believe open access is the answer.The ever-growing list of open access journals provide scholars with a great platform to publish their work while allowing other scholars free access.
Just this week, we’ve started looking at how we can make open-access databases and other electronic resources available more easily through our catalog and database listing. The Directory of Open Access Journals, for instance, has been available on a journal-by-journal basis through our e-Journal search for some titles, but we’re now adding greater access to the directory itself. We’re also looking at publicly-available out-of-copyright e-books on the Web that we can offer through the catalog, like Project Gutenberg. You should stay tuned; we’re always working on something new!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Why e-books are neat
Elizabeth Henry, E-Resources/Instruction & Reference Librarian
The nice thing about e-books is that you can access them anytime, anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection and a laptop, computer, or iPad. For example, suppose you’re frantically trying to complete an assignment at 3:00 AM that’s due at 9:00 AM and you realize you need just one more source, but alas, the Library’s closed. That’s when the Library’s e-books can come in handy—they’re online, ready to be discovered and used by you for your assignment!
If you’re wondering how many e-books the Library has, my honest answer is: I don’t know. Why? Because there are so many e-books that I lost count and gave up trying to keep track of it. The reason for the incredibly huge amount of e-books is because we both subscribe to, and purchase from four – yes, four – different companies. Each company provides a place online, known as platforms, for us to read the e-books. The platform and how you can interact with the e-book will vary, but they all are essentially the same: books in electronic format and available online via the Library’s catalog. Our e-book platforms are:
So you must be thinking, Perfect! Now all I have to do is find the book I want, and then download it onto my Kindle or iPad! Right? Well, I honestly wish I could say, “Yup! Go ahead and download it!” but unfortunately, no, the majority of the e-books we have (as in about 98%) are offered through platforms that aren’t able to make the e-books downloadable. The only exception is EBL, a platform we’re working on getting up and running right now.
However, in some hot-off-the-presses news, we just learned that Ebrary will allow us to be able to download e-books onto Kindles, Nooks, and iPads! So once we figure out how to do that, we’ll have the download option up and running. Stay tuned for updates.
If you have any further questions about e-books here at the Library, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail.
Happy reading!
The nice thing about e-books is that you can access them anytime, anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection and a laptop, computer, or iPad. For example, suppose you’re frantically trying to complete an assignment at 3:00 AM that’s due at 9:00 AM and you realize you need just one more source, but alas, the Library’s closed. That’s when the Library’s e-books can come in handy—they’re online, ready to be discovered and used by you for your assignment!
If you’re wondering how many e-books the Library has, my honest answer is: I don’t know. Why? Because there are so many e-books that I lost count and gave up trying to keep track of it. The reason for the incredibly huge amount of e-books is because we both subscribe to, and purchase from four – yes, four – different companies. Each company provides a place online, known as platforms, for us to read the e-books. The platform and how you can interact with the e-book will vary, but they all are essentially the same: books in electronic format and available online via the Library’s catalog. Our e-book platforms are:
- eBook Collection, owned by EBSCO
- Ebrary
- PsycBooks (the platform is provided by Ovid)
- Safari Books Online, owned by ProQuest
- A table of contents (TOC) that you can click on to jump from one chapter to the next
- The ability to search within the e-book for specific words
- Being able to zoom in or out of the page so you can read the text easily
- The option to print a limited number of pages.
- Searchability within the full text of an e-book.
So you must be thinking, Perfect! Now all I have to do is find the book I want, and then download it onto my Kindle or iPad! Right? Well, I honestly wish I could say, “Yup! Go ahead and download it!” but unfortunately, no, the majority of the e-books we have (as in about 98%) are offered through platforms that aren’t able to make the e-books downloadable. The only exception is EBL, a platform we’re working on getting up and running right now.
However, in some hot-off-the-presses news, we just learned that Ebrary will allow us to be able to download e-books onto Kindles, Nooks, and iPads! So once we figure out how to do that, we’ll have the download option up and running. Stay tuned for updates.
If you have any further questions about e-books here at the Library, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail.
Happy reading!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Children's books!
Hmm. A little more than two weeks since my last post. This ain't good.
Truth is, I've been so busy juggling various duties in addition to the usual behind-the-scenes work that I haven't been able to devote time to the blog or vlogging book reviews.
I had been planning for a while to bring my colleagues in on this -- Patrick and Sarah's ALA reports from July started it -- and figured now was a great time for it.
We're kicking off with a great post about our children's books from Laura Jacobi!
One of the pleasures of being responsible for the Education collection is buying books to support the Children’s Literature curriculum. They’re short, so you can actually read them! And they’re often really cute. Here are three winners:
Being a traditionalist, I was prepared to turn my nose up at Rubia and the Three Osos by Susan Middleton Elya and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. How could anyone improve on Goldilocks and the Three Bears? But this is such a jaunty, lighthearted, little bilingual girl:
April and Esme, Tooth Fairies by Bob Graham recounts the adventures of two kid fairies on their first foray through modern England. They fly through the night skies, into Daniel’s house and to his bedroom. Oh, no! Daniel has put his tooth in a glass of water, just as Grandma does with her teeth! Then he wakes up! What to do? Text Mommy Fairy for help! Once the mission’s accomplished, will they avoid the temptation of taking Grandma’s teeth too? Find out!
If you don’t have your own, borrow a first or second grader and read We are in a Book by Mo Willems. Piggie the pig and Gerald the elephant (who contradicts everything you’ve read about pachyderm intelligence) sense someone looking at them and realize, “A reader is reading us!” They then have barrels of laughs making the reader say words -- until the book ends. Totally silly.
You can find these and lots of other picture books in the Library General Stacks in the number 800. Don’t let the Children’s Lit. students have all the fun.
Truth is, I've been so busy juggling various duties in addition to the usual behind-the-scenes work that I haven't been able to devote time to the blog or vlogging book reviews.
I had been planning for a while to bring my colleagues in on this -- Patrick and Sarah's ALA reports from July started it -- and figured now was a great time for it.
We're kicking off with a great post about our children's books from Laura Jacobi!
One of the pleasures of being responsible for the Education collection is buying books to support the Children’s Literature curriculum. They’re short, so you can actually read them! And they’re often really cute. Here are three winners:
Being a traditionalist, I was prepared to turn my nose up at Rubia and the Three Osos by Susan Middleton Elya and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. How could anyone improve on Goldilocks and the Three Bears? But this is such a jaunty, lighthearted, little bilingual girl:
Little Miss Rubia, curls made of oro.And the end has a charming twist in which Rubia departs from the selfish toad character of Goldilocks. You’ll love it!
“A tiny casita, for me? ¡La adoro!”
April and Esme, Tooth Fairies by Bob Graham recounts the adventures of two kid fairies on their first foray through modern England. They fly through the night skies, into Daniel’s house and to his bedroom. Oh, no! Daniel has put his tooth in a glass of water, just as Grandma does with her teeth! Then he wakes up! What to do? Text Mommy Fairy for help! Once the mission’s accomplished, will they avoid the temptation of taking Grandma’s teeth too? Find out!
If you don’t have your own, borrow a first or second grader and read We are in a Book by Mo Willems. Piggie the pig and Gerald the elephant (who contradicts everything you’ve read about pachyderm intelligence) sense someone looking at them and realize, “A reader is reading us!” They then have barrels of laughs making the reader say words -- until the book ends. Totally silly.
You can find these and lots of other picture books in the Library General Stacks in the number 800. Don’t let the Children’s Lit. students have all the fun.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Robbing the bees
Our September in the Stacks series of events and raffle are over. We’ve already announced the winners with some photos on our Facebook page; there are some big grins there!
Now: No vlog this week. I just finally had my computer upgraded to Windows 7 like the rest of campus -- it’s a long story that can mostly be chalked up to my own sentimentality for XP -- and the software I usually use to edit vlogs still needs to be reinstalled. That’s on my list!
In the meantime, I thought I’d actually write a book review for a change. Here goes. I hope my writin’ muscles haven’t atrophied too much by now.
The book I’m going to review: Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop.
I’m going to cop to something that a lot of people find weird for some reason: I love bees. They’re really cool animals. Not only do they make honey and sting stuff, but they also are responsible for making sure that a lot of the plants we eat on a daily basis -- from oranges to almonds -- manage to grow and produce the fruits and nuts that we all enjoy so much.
As Bishop notes in the book, I’m not the only one who thinks they’re cool; an old guy called Smiley down in the Florida Panhandle loves them. He loves them enough to have tens of thousands of them working for him, collecting pollen and nectar from various local plants ranging from watermelon to the rare, expensive, and difficult-to-get tupelo.
Although a lot of the book tells Smiley’s story, it’s really about the history of the partnership that’s existed between humans and bees for thousands of years. It offers an overview of different kinds of beekeeping techniques, some of which are still in use today after hundreds of years, and how this partnership’s evolved from chancing across the odd hive with its trove of honey in a cave or hollow tree to a multibillion-dollar industry that hums along behind our supermarket shelves.
Bishop’s style is kind of interesting; when she talks about Smiley, her tone turns kind of wry, as though she’s trying to tell a funny story without laughing. He’s a funny guy, definitely a down-home fella, and he reminds me of a few people I grew up with, a little rough around the edges, but a big old sweetheart who’s somewhat crazy.
But when she turns to the bigger picture of beekeeping history, things get a little academic. I found myself wishing every so often that she’d return to the Panhandle and the travails of harvesting tupelo nectar, which only becomes available for a two-to-three-week period in the spring. Then it turns funny again when she talks about her own experiences as an amateur beekeeper, even when she accidentally kills her first hive after a long winter. It’s a sad moment that kind of drives home the strange contrast between how important bees are to us in general, but relatively expendable as far as a particular individual or hive are concerned.
On the whole, I really dug this book! Although it focuses on our relationship with bees and how their everyday lives have become a major part of ours -- often without our realizing it -- it led me to think a little more about the mutualistic relationships our species enjoys with others, like dogs, horses, or cats.
In an oddly serendipitous incident, right when I was in the middle of this book, a friend invited me to a beekeeping workshop right here in Washington, DC! I know it sounds odd, but there are many small gardens and “farms” all over the place; this one was associated with a library and community center just a few blocks from Gallaudet.
It was pretty fascinating; a group of us stood around the hive and watched as the local beekeeper opened it up and pulled out a frame with its honeycomb and put it in a glass box for us to examine more closely. I remember most strongly seeing a young girl, a local who was involved with the center and the farm, standing right next to the hive. She was at the center of a cloud of bees, a scene that would drive most people I know into a flailing frenzy, but was completely at ease. The next generation!
Of course, the honey with brie on crusty bread that we had afterwards didn’t hurt, either. Good times.
Now: No vlog this week. I just finally had my computer upgraded to Windows 7 like the rest of campus -- it’s a long story that can mostly be chalked up to my own sentimentality for XP -- and the software I usually use to edit vlogs still needs to be reinstalled. That’s on my list!
In the meantime, I thought I’d actually write a book review for a change. Here goes. I hope my writin’ muscles haven’t atrophied too much by now.
The book I’m going to review: Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop.
I’m going to cop to something that a lot of people find weird for some reason: I love bees. They’re really cool animals. Not only do they make honey and sting stuff, but they also are responsible for making sure that a lot of the plants we eat on a daily basis -- from oranges to almonds -- manage to grow and produce the fruits and nuts that we all enjoy so much.
As Bishop notes in the book, I’m not the only one who thinks they’re cool; an old guy called Smiley down in the Florida Panhandle loves them. He loves them enough to have tens of thousands of them working for him, collecting pollen and nectar from various local plants ranging from watermelon to the rare, expensive, and difficult-to-get tupelo.
Although a lot of the book tells Smiley’s story, it’s really about the history of the partnership that’s existed between humans and bees for thousands of years. It offers an overview of different kinds of beekeeping techniques, some of which are still in use today after hundreds of years, and how this partnership’s evolved from chancing across the odd hive with its trove of honey in a cave or hollow tree to a multibillion-dollar industry that hums along behind our supermarket shelves.
Bishop’s style is kind of interesting; when she talks about Smiley, her tone turns kind of wry, as though she’s trying to tell a funny story without laughing. He’s a funny guy, definitely a down-home fella, and he reminds me of a few people I grew up with, a little rough around the edges, but a big old sweetheart who’s somewhat crazy.
But when she turns to the bigger picture of beekeeping history, things get a little academic. I found myself wishing every so often that she’d return to the Panhandle and the travails of harvesting tupelo nectar, which only becomes available for a two-to-three-week period in the spring. Then it turns funny again when she talks about her own experiences as an amateur beekeeper, even when she accidentally kills her first hive after a long winter. It’s a sad moment that kind of drives home the strange contrast between how important bees are to us in general, but relatively expendable as far as a particular individual or hive are concerned.
On the whole, I really dug this book! Although it focuses on our relationship with bees and how their everyday lives have become a major part of ours -- often without our realizing it -- it led me to think a little more about the mutualistic relationships our species enjoys with others, like dogs, horses, or cats.
In an oddly serendipitous incident, right when I was in the middle of this book, a friend invited me to a beekeeping workshop right here in Washington, DC! I know it sounds odd, but there are many small gardens and “farms” all over the place; this one was associated with a library and community center just a few blocks from Gallaudet.
It was pretty fascinating; a group of us stood around the hive and watched as the local beekeeper opened it up and pulled out a frame with its honeycomb and put it in a glass box for us to examine more closely. I remember most strongly seeing a young girl, a local who was involved with the center and the farm, standing right next to the hive. She was at the center of a cloud of bees, a scene that would drive most people I know into a flailing frenzy, but was completely at ease. The next generation!
Of course, the honey with brie on crusty bread that we had afterwards didn’t hurt, either. Good times.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Faces in the window
Phew.
That’s all I have to say about this semester so far. Part of it is the September in the Stacks series of events, which has required quite a bit of preparation, part of it is the class I’m teaching, part of it is the usual work, part of it is …
Well, there are a lot of moving parts in general. Including furniture. We’re slowly but surely changing a few things here in the Library, even as we settle into the new routine that comes with each fresh-faced September.
For instance, we’ve added a pair of super-comfortable IKEA rocking chairs to the new seating area by the public computers on the first floor. We’re currently waiting on a loveseat that’ll accompany the rocking chairs, and then ta-da!
We also finished the conversion of our 1404 computer lab into the new Quiet Study Room, which has some similar furniture and is a little more of a comfortable environment for people to work quietly, free of distraction.
While all of this has been going on, the renovation of our two study rooms downstairs got off to a strong start on Monday. The old chalkboards are already gone, soon to be replaced by whiteboards and computers with large monitors, similar to the setup we have in the Deaf Library Study Center. We’re also working on a room-reservation system for those two rooms; we anticipate a higher level of demand because of the new equipment, and want to make sure everyone gets their fair shot at them.
In the meantime, weird things keep cropping up. Last month, when we tore down the old counter that enclosed the new seating area, we found 40-year-old Pepsi bottles and Schlitz cans (empty, alas). Yesterday, a window appeared behind a chalkboard in one of the study rooms that are undergoing renovation downstairs.
My post today is going to be about that window.
One of the fellas working on the room came upstairs yesterday afternoon when they found the window, asking to be allowed into an adjacent room around the corner to the right, thinking that accessing the window from the other side might make things go a little easier.
So I left the meeting I had been in and went downstairs with him, and discovered that he meant the Genealogy Room, which belongs to the Archives. Once we got in, we discovered a distinct lack of windows. Or, not of windows -- one corner of the room is glassed in, opening onto the General Stacks -- but of windows resembling the newly-discovered one.
Hmm.
We checked the room around the corner to the right of that one, the other study room which was undergoing renovation. It turned out to be windowless. So we made another right turn and tried another room, where the Archives stores many of its photographs. There were windows! But not the window. The contractor started grumbling, and I privately wondered why anyone would treat buildings like honeycombs made by avant-garde bees (I’m reading a book about bees this week, and the comparison is apt, as many of the rooms in this cluster are hexagonal).
Puzzled, we found an emergency map in the corridor that connects the central hallway going past the auditorium towards the Archives to the General Stacks in the 900s, and examined it closely to try to get some idea of where the window actually was. Then we moved further along the corridor (are you confused yet? I’m not quite all there myself) and around the corner to the right to B112, a smaller auditorium-style classroom. Windows! But …
Well, you guessed it.
So we tried next door, which turned out to be a strange little hallway with a ramp going down, then stairs going up, and which represented the sixth right turn that brought us full circle around the southwest quadrant of downstairs rooms from where we’d started.
We found another door into B112, the rear door of the photograph room we tried earlier, and another door, which I’d never noticed before, not in the just-about-three years I’d worked here. We tried that one, and discovered something creepy.
A dark staircase. Well, it wasn’t much of a staircase -- there were a couple of stairs leading up to a landing, and then around a corner, they continued into a small room. It led into utter darkness. I saw a light switch on the wall to my right, and flicked it, but it only turned on a set of uplights set in the wall near the floor that did nothing to help and, if anything, only aggravated the mounting sense of weirdness.
Luckily, we weren’t in there for long because as it turned out, we’d found the window we were looking for. At long last. We lifted the white shade and peeked through only to see the other contractor hard at work on the other side of the room, his back to us.
The guy I was with knocked on the window, and we saw his colleague give a start, turn around slowly, and see what I can only imagine were a pair of sinister orange faces, lit from below and wreathed in darkness, staring at him through what had up until now been a sheet of blank white glass.
His reaction was something to behold.
As I went back to my meeting, I realized that more than anything else, all the big projects that the Library’s undertaken since January -- from weeding to renovations -- have shown me that regardless of how long you’ve worked or studied here, this place still has plenty of surprises.
That’s all I have to say about this semester so far. Part of it is the September in the Stacks series of events, which has required quite a bit of preparation, part of it is the class I’m teaching, part of it is the usual work, part of it is …
Well, there are a lot of moving parts in general. Including furniture. We’re slowly but surely changing a few things here in the Library, even as we settle into the new routine that comes with each fresh-faced September.
For instance, we’ve added a pair of super-comfortable IKEA rocking chairs to the new seating area by the public computers on the first floor. We’re currently waiting on a loveseat that’ll accompany the rocking chairs, and then ta-da!
We also finished the conversion of our 1404 computer lab into the new Quiet Study Room, which has some similar furniture and is a little more of a comfortable environment for people to work quietly, free of distraction.
While all of this has been going on, the renovation of our two study rooms downstairs got off to a strong start on Monday. The old chalkboards are already gone, soon to be replaced by whiteboards and computers with large monitors, similar to the setup we have in the Deaf Library Study Center. We’re also working on a room-reservation system for those two rooms; we anticipate a higher level of demand because of the new equipment, and want to make sure everyone gets their fair shot at them.
In the meantime, weird things keep cropping up. Last month, when we tore down the old counter that enclosed the new seating area, we found 40-year-old Pepsi bottles and Schlitz cans (empty, alas). Yesterday, a window appeared behind a chalkboard in one of the study rooms that are undergoing renovation downstairs.
My post today is going to be about that window.
One of the fellas working on the room came upstairs yesterday afternoon when they found the window, asking to be allowed into an adjacent room around the corner to the right, thinking that accessing the window from the other side might make things go a little easier.
So I left the meeting I had been in and went downstairs with him, and discovered that he meant the Genealogy Room, which belongs to the Archives. Once we got in, we discovered a distinct lack of windows. Or, not of windows -- one corner of the room is glassed in, opening onto the General Stacks -- but of windows resembling the newly-discovered one.
Hmm.
We checked the room around the corner to the right of that one, the other study room which was undergoing renovation. It turned out to be windowless. So we made another right turn and tried another room, where the Archives stores many of its photographs. There were windows! But not the window. The contractor started grumbling, and I privately wondered why anyone would treat buildings like honeycombs made by avant-garde bees (I’m reading a book about bees this week, and the comparison is apt, as many of the rooms in this cluster are hexagonal).
Puzzled, we found an emergency map in the corridor that connects the central hallway going past the auditorium towards the Archives to the General Stacks in the 900s, and examined it closely to try to get some idea of where the window actually was. Then we moved further along the corridor (are you confused yet? I’m not quite all there myself) and around the corner to the right to B112, a smaller auditorium-style classroom. Windows! But …
Well, you guessed it.
So we tried next door, which turned out to be a strange little hallway with a ramp going down, then stairs going up, and which represented the sixth right turn that brought us full circle around the southwest quadrant of downstairs rooms from where we’d started.
We found another door into B112, the rear door of the photograph room we tried earlier, and another door, which I’d never noticed before, not in the just-about-three years I’d worked here. We tried that one, and discovered something creepy.
A dark staircase. Well, it wasn’t much of a staircase -- there were a couple of stairs leading up to a landing, and then around a corner, they continued into a small room. It led into utter darkness. I saw a light switch on the wall to my right, and flicked it, but it only turned on a set of uplights set in the wall near the floor that did nothing to help and, if anything, only aggravated the mounting sense of weirdness.
Luckily, we weren’t in there for long because as it turned out, we’d found the window we were looking for. At long last. We lifted the white shade and peeked through only to see the other contractor hard at work on the other side of the room, his back to us.
The guy I was with knocked on the window, and we saw his colleague give a start, turn around slowly, and see what I can only imagine were a pair of sinister orange faces, lit from below and wreathed in darkness, staring at him through what had up until now been a sheet of blank white glass.
His reaction was something to behold.
As I went back to my meeting, I realized that more than anything else, all the big projects that the Library’s undertaken since January -- from weeding to renovations -- have shown me that regardless of how long you’ve worked or studied here, this place still has plenty of surprises.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
We're underway!
We survived without a scratch!
The campus, actually, is pristine, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by the sight of downed trees and damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. We also have quite a few faculty and staff members who have to cope with what the hurricane wrought upon their own houses, what with the loss of power, strong winds, and a whole lot of rain.
Nevertheless, the semester started yesterday without a hitch for Gallaudet students, as evidenced by the large number of people we had coming and going all day. It’s nice to work at the Service Desk and get none of your own work done because you’re busy helping students, staff, and faculty members.
I just wanted to drop this quick note to update everyone that we’re okay and prove this to be true by informing the world that as of yesterday, we have a shiny new microform scanner! You can use it to scan our microfilm documents (e.g., deaf-related theses and dissertations, back issues of our periodicals, the Little Paper Family, and other deaf-related historical material) to PDF or print it out from a computer. We’d like to convert all the microform stuff we have to digital formats, but copyright restrictions make that difficult, if not impossible, for some titles. We’re working on the rest of the collection as quickly as we can -- since microform was the best technology available for preservation for a pretty long time, there’s a lot of it to get through!
Bonus: It’s fast. And has this cool green-colored light that glows under the scanning plate. The future is now, people!
And the future can get a little complicated. Most of the stuff you’ll be using it for is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few bells and whistles we’re still familiarizing ourselves with. Once we’ve got the whole thing down, we’ll post some basic instructions you can use to get started. Or just give it a shot yourself; learn by doing!
In the meantime, we just have the one, so I’d like to emphasize again that, like the regular scanner workstation and the ZoomText workstations for our users with visual disabilities, people who need the computer for its specific purpose take priority.
We actually added another computer with the microfilm scanner, so the overall number of available computers shouldn’t be affected and, when nobody’s scanning microfilm, has actually increased. It’s a win-win!
I’ll do a vlog tomorrow. It’s actually on a really cool book; I just have to figure out how to explain it ...
The campus, actually, is pristine, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by the sight of downed trees and damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. We also have quite a few faculty and staff members who have to cope with what the hurricane wrought upon their own houses, what with the loss of power, strong winds, and a whole lot of rain.
Nevertheless, the semester started yesterday without a hitch for Gallaudet students, as evidenced by the large number of people we had coming and going all day. It’s nice to work at the Service Desk and get none of your own work done because you’re busy helping students, staff, and faculty members.
I just wanted to drop this quick note to update everyone that we’re okay and prove this to be true by informing the world that as of yesterday, we have a shiny new microform scanner! You can use it to scan our microfilm documents (e.g., deaf-related theses and dissertations, back issues of our periodicals, the Little Paper Family, and other deaf-related historical material) to PDF or print it out from a computer. We’d like to convert all the microform stuff we have to digital formats, but copyright restrictions make that difficult, if not impossible, for some titles. We’re working on the rest of the collection as quickly as we can -- since microform was the best technology available for preservation for a pretty long time, there’s a lot of it to get through!
Bonus: It’s fast. And has this cool green-colored light that glows under the scanning plate. The future is now, people!
And the future can get a little complicated. Most of the stuff you’ll be using it for is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few bells and whistles we’re still familiarizing ourselves with. Once we’ve got the whole thing down, we’ll post some basic instructions you can use to get started. Or just give it a shot yourself; learn by doing!
In the meantime, we just have the one, so I’d like to emphasize again that, like the regular scanner workstation and the ZoomText workstations for our users with visual disabilities, people who need the computer for its specific purpose take priority.
We actually added another computer with the microfilm scanner, so the overall number of available computers shouldn’t be affected and, when nobody’s scanning microfilm, has actually increased. It’s a win-win!
I’ll do a vlog tomorrow. It’s actually on a really cool book; I just have to figure out how to explain it ...
Friday, August 26, 2011
Welcome back!
So we’ve got a hurricane bearing down on us this weekend.
I have a tendency to downplay them; I grew up in Florida, where we get hit by these things pretty often. All a hurricane is is a lot of rain and wind, and it’s usually no big deal. You get some flooding, some deck chairs flying around, power lines falling, tree branches taking out roofs and car windshields, telephone poles getting knocked over …
Well, okay, it’s kind of a big deal. But the point is we have a hurricane coming!
All I can really say about that is: What can be prevented will be; what can’t be will be dealt with.
In the meantime, the new semester opens on Monday, come hell or high water (whichever happens first), and we will be ready. All the computers are in place with the latest images from Gallaudet Technology Services, the printers are humming along, the copy machines are ready and waiting, our database and e-books are fizzing and sparking away, and the books are as patient as ever.
Not a huge amount of stuff has changed policywise since the Spring semester; loan periods are still 4-6 weeks depending on your status and where in the collection (Deaf or General Stacks) you borrow from. Except for faculty, of course, who get the usual September-January-May due dates for loans from the General Stacks. Films are still 3 days, up to 3 per person borrowed at a time.
We’ve also changed how databases are accessed, hopefully in a clearer way. Check it out for yourself; head to our homepage at library.gallaudet.edu, find the “Find article databases” link in the “Research Help” box, and click on it. Any feedback? E-mail us at library.help@gallaudet.edu or me at james.mccarthy@gallaudet.edu.
We’re also closed this weekend and will be for most of Labor Day weekend next week so you can enjoy a couple of days off from academic obligations before the semester really gets going! Our Thanksgiving hours have also changed, since, for the first time, there won’t be any classes Thanksgiving week. Check out our schedule for more information. If it resembles a Metrobus timetable fed through a shredder, my apologies; holidays can get funky.
Now, I’m going to wrap this up by burying the lede so far down it’d take a dedicated gravedigger to find it: We’re hosting a series of events in September in order to spread more awareness about the Library and the kind of things we offer the population of Gallaudet University, as well as tying in to this year’s Common Theme about freedom of expression. The kicker is that we’re using this as an opportunity to raffle off an iPad 2 and $100 gift certificates to Amazon.com!
Tickets will be available to Gallaudet students only. Sorry, faculty and staff! Nevertheless, here’s our main event page; check it out!
I have a tendency to downplay them; I grew up in Florida, where we get hit by these things pretty often. All a hurricane is is a lot of rain and wind, and it’s usually no big deal. You get some flooding, some deck chairs flying around, power lines falling, tree branches taking out roofs and car windshields, telephone poles getting knocked over …
Well, okay, it’s kind of a big deal. But the point is we have a hurricane coming!
All I can really say about that is: What can be prevented will be; what can’t be will be dealt with.
In the meantime, the new semester opens on Monday, come hell or high water (whichever happens first), and we will be ready. All the computers are in place with the latest images from Gallaudet Technology Services, the printers are humming along, the copy machines are ready and waiting, our database and e-books are fizzing and sparking away, and the books are as patient as ever.
Not a huge amount of stuff has changed policywise since the Spring semester; loan periods are still 4-6 weeks depending on your status and where in the collection (Deaf or General Stacks) you borrow from. Except for faculty, of course, who get the usual September-January-May due dates for loans from the General Stacks. Films are still 3 days, up to 3 per person borrowed at a time.
We’ve also changed how databases are accessed, hopefully in a clearer way. Check it out for yourself; head to our homepage at library.gallaudet.edu, find the “Find article databases” link in the “Research Help” box, and click on it. Any feedback? E-mail us at library.help@gallaudet.edu or me at james.mccarthy@gallaudet.edu.
We’re also closed this weekend and will be for most of Labor Day weekend next week so you can enjoy a couple of days off from academic obligations before the semester really gets going! Our Thanksgiving hours have also changed, since, for the first time, there won’t be any classes Thanksgiving week. Check out our schedule for more information. If it resembles a Metrobus timetable fed through a shredder, my apologies; holidays can get funky.
Now, I’m going to wrap this up by burying the lede so far down it’d take a dedicated gravedigger to find it: We’re hosting a series of events in September in order to spread more awareness about the Library and the kind of things we offer the population of Gallaudet University, as well as tying in to this year’s Common Theme about freedom of expression. The kicker is that we’re using this as an opportunity to raffle off an iPad 2 and $100 gift certificates to Amazon.com!
Tickets will be available to Gallaudet students only. Sorry, faculty and staff! Nevertheless, here’s our main event page; check it out!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Vlog review of The Magicians
We had an earthquake yesterday! Things are fine here at the Library, although a roll of packing tape fell off a table in my office.
Anyway, this week's vlog, as promised:
The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
Anyway, this week's vlog, as promised:
The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Summer isn't over yet!
Mea culpa.
It’s been a long, busy week for everyone here at the Gallaudet University Library. The renovation of the former photocopy area proceeds apace; we finally finished it this morning! You can visit our Facebook page to see photos of the progress. All we need now is the new furniture.
Classes are starting just a week from Monday! We’re all suitably terrified but our game faces are on; not only are we doing the usual Library things -- setting up accounts for new students and returning students who’ve lost their ID cards over the summer, making sure all the books are in order, double-checking that our electronic resources haven’t dropped an IP address or two, tweaking our new public computers to make sure all the basics are available for students to use, planning our upcoming events, updating our class presentations, and putting together lesson plans, among many, many other things.
Lesson plans? Yup. I’m teaching a GSR 101 course for brand-new students. They’re so new I don’t think the packaging’s been taken off yet! I did the same thing last Fall, and am looking forward to doing it again -- hopefully with a little more experience and seasoning behind me this time!
Elizabeth Henry, on the other hand, is about to undertake her own big adventure! She’ll be teaching GSR 150: City as Text with Kathleen Wood, a professor from the English department (whom you can see in our Web story -- she appears right around 3:58). We’re all looking forward to seeing the fruits of their collaboration!
In the meantime, things have entered the calm-before-the-storm stage. Arrival Day and orientations for both undergraduate and graduate students are next week, and classes begin the following week. But right now, it’s Friday afternoon, the sun’s out, and there’s a mild breeze.
Next week, you’ll get a vlog and another update on what to expect if you’re walking through our doors for the first time since last May or, well, ever. We’ll have things like an event schedule, an exciting contest, fresh floor plans, and plenty more!
It’s been a long, busy week for everyone here at the Gallaudet University Library. The renovation of the former photocopy area proceeds apace; we finally finished it this morning! You can visit our Facebook page to see photos of the progress. All we need now is the new furniture.
Classes are starting just a week from Monday! We’re all suitably terrified but our game faces are on; not only are we doing the usual Library things -- setting up accounts for new students and returning students who’ve lost their ID cards over the summer, making sure all the books are in order, double-checking that our electronic resources haven’t dropped an IP address or two, tweaking our new public computers to make sure all the basics are available for students to use, planning our upcoming events, updating our class presentations, and putting together lesson plans, among many, many other things.
Lesson plans? Yup. I’m teaching a GSR 101 course for brand-new students. They’re so new I don’t think the packaging’s been taken off yet! I did the same thing last Fall, and am looking forward to doing it again -- hopefully with a little more experience and seasoning behind me this time!
Elizabeth Henry, on the other hand, is about to undertake her own big adventure! She’ll be teaching GSR 150: City as Text with Kathleen Wood, a professor from the English department (whom you can see in our Web story -- she appears right around 3:58). We’re all looking forward to seeing the fruits of their collaboration!
In the meantime, things have entered the calm-before-the-storm stage. Arrival Day and orientations for both undergraduate and graduate students are next week, and classes begin the following week. But right now, it’s Friday afternoon, the sun’s out, and there’s a mild breeze.
Next week, you’ll get a vlog and another update on what to expect if you’re walking through our doors for the first time since last May or, well, ever. We’ll have things like an event schedule, an exciting contest, fresh floor plans, and plenty more!
Friday, August 12, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Quick updates
A thing or three for today …
First, no vlog this week. There’s just too much to do. August slipped in through the door when I wasn’t looking, and now we’re suddenly three weeks away from the beginning of the Fall semester. However, as a substitute, I offer Thing Number Two:
It’s a nifty little video about the Library! The TV department downstairs (part of Gallaudet Technology Services) worked with us through the nimble hands of Lizzie Sorkin to create this video as a way to sum up what we have to offer the Gallaudet community. Of course, as I mention at the end of the video, there’s lots more we haven’t mentioned!
We try, of course, through this blog, but it’s easy to overlook things you work with every day! Plus, of course, all the stuff we keep adding, changing, updating, expanding, and moving.
Yeah, it’s been a busy summer.
Speaking of which, Thing Number Three is an important thing to know if you’re a regular user of the Library these days: The printers, print-release station, and scanner have all relocated.
Both printers and the print-release station are now all in one place, on a table in the photocopy area, and the scanner’s moved to where Printer 2 used to be. Basically, all the computers usable for normal work in the first-floor public-computer area, as well as all the printing equipment, are together in their own areas.
We’ve done this in order to clear out the low counter that the scanner, one of the printers, and the print-release station used to sit on; that counter’s not long for this world! Per my previous post, we’re having it removed sometime this month. That’ll open everything up and make it all much easier to get to. In the meantime, it’s a New Thing to know about!
That’s all for this week. There are plenty more updates to come later this month; keep an eye out!
First, no vlog this week. There’s just too much to do. August slipped in through the door when I wasn’t looking, and now we’re suddenly three weeks away from the beginning of the Fall semester. However, as a substitute, I offer Thing Number Two:
It’s a nifty little video about the Library! The TV department downstairs (part of Gallaudet Technology Services) worked with us through the nimble hands of Lizzie Sorkin to create this video as a way to sum up what we have to offer the Gallaudet community. Of course, as I mention at the end of the video, there’s lots more we haven’t mentioned!
We try, of course, through this blog, but it’s easy to overlook things you work with every day! Plus, of course, all the stuff we keep adding, changing, updating, expanding, and moving.
Yeah, it’s been a busy summer.
Speaking of which, Thing Number Three is an important thing to know if you’re a regular user of the Library these days: The printers, print-release station, and scanner have all relocated.
Both printers and the print-release station are now all in one place, on a table in the photocopy area, and the scanner’s moved to where Printer 2 used to be. Basically, all the computers usable for normal work in the first-floor public-computer area, as well as all the printing equipment, are together in their own areas.
We’ve done this in order to clear out the low counter that the scanner, one of the printers, and the print-release station used to sit on; that counter’s not long for this world! Per my previous post, we’re having it removed sometime this month. That’ll open everything up and make it all much easier to get to. In the meantime, it’s a New Thing to know about!
That’s all for this week. There are plenty more updates to come later this month; keep an eye out!
Friday, July 29, 2011
We've been busy!
It’s been a while since I posted an update!
The collection shift is over. Since then, we’ve been working on other things while the Archives expansion continues.
1) New computers. Most of our public computers in the open area on the first floor have been replaced with brand-new computers and super-delish widescreen monitors. They’re pretty, but are considerably larger than our old computers, so we’ve been …
2) Clearing space. We’ve relocated the microform readers from their old space between the public computers and DVD area to the seating area by the emergency exit immediately across the atrium from the Service Desk. It makes more sense when you see it, instead of going by how I’m trying to describe it. The upshot is that we’ve opened up that space between the public computers and DVDs and added …
3) New lights. One oddity we’ve fully recognized for years is that one of the most heavily-trafficked areas in the Library is pretty poorly-lit! It’s like entering a cave once you pass the public computers on your way to the DVDs. One major reason for the gloom is that the leaks we’ve historically had in that area have made it difficult to add any electrical equipment; another one is all the exposed ductwork, which makes positioning pretty awkward. In recent years, though, things have been relatively dry, and moving the microform readers gave us more options for light placement, which we immediately exploited. It’s nice and bright there now, which is good, because we’re getting ready for …
4) New furniture. Because the new computers are so large, and because we’re working on a reconfiguration of that part of the first floor in general, we’ve decided to add more working space there. There will soon be new tables in that area which will let us spread the public computers out a little more and add more elbow room for you to work, whether alone with a lot of stuff, or in groups sharing a single computer. If you think that sounds cramped, think again because we’re actually undertaking a …
5) Small renovation. One space constraint we have in the open public-computer area on the first floor is a low counter that encloses the photocopy area. We’ve used it for years as sort of a throwaway space for equipment that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of our public computers -- like the scanner and printer workstations that are there now -- so it’s fairly convenient, but it definitely limits everyone’s options on how to use the space. So we’re getting rid of it and opening up the whole area! This will allow us to add a …
6) Seating area and printing center. We’ve ordered new couches and chairs for the photocopy area; the copiers will be moved to the railing on the other side of the public-computer area, overlooking the General Stacks in the basement. That way, there’s a nice space for people to relax, drink some coffee, put their feet up, do some work, or socialize right next to our most popular computers. We’re also going to set up both of our printers and the job-release station there, so there’s no need to try to figure out which printer is which and where your paper will come up -- it’ll all be in the same place! In the meantime, the scanner will join the public computers on the newly-added computer tables. That’s not all, because we’re also ordering couches for a new …
7) Quiet study room. The 1404 computer lab will become something more accommodating to students who want to study quietly on an individual basis, but need access to a computer, which isn’t available (yet!) in the study rooms downstairs (it’s on our list). We’re adding more comfortable seating and table space to the room, and plan to figure out ways to keep the area free from both visual and aural noise so you can focus on your work in peace. There’ll be plants and stuff.
That’s it for the more noticeable changes, I think. We’ve gotten rid of the videophone in the Deaf Library Study Center (the computer lab with DVD players and the giant TV), mostly because nobody seemed to use it, and we thought we could use the space to add another computer.
Sorenson also renovated their public videophone booths by the men’s restroom on the first floor; they’re now in spiffy permanent enclosures which are a big improvement over the temporary partitions that had been there for years.
And of course, we can’t help but mention, once again, the collection shift. Not only did the General Stacks move around (with the very nice side effect of making the children’s books, graphic novels, and literature much easier to find! See me for more information), but we also relocated the General Periodicals (both popular magazines and academic publications), Reference (encyclopedias and the like), and the Deaf VHS collection (just a few stacks over).
We’ll have a few opportunities in September for first-timers and lifers alike to get to know the Library a little better. In the meantime, if you’re returning this fall, whether student or faculty, and are a little mixed up, please don’t be shy about asking any of the librarians you see! We’re always happy to help point people in the right direction. Same goes for anyone who’s new to Gallaudet this fall.
Or even if you’ve just dropped by to be nosy. Really.
The collection shift is over. Since then, we’ve been working on other things while the Archives expansion continues.
1) New computers. Most of our public computers in the open area on the first floor have been replaced with brand-new computers and super-delish widescreen monitors. They’re pretty, but are considerably larger than our old computers, so we’ve been …
2) Clearing space. We’ve relocated the microform readers from their old space between the public computers and DVD area to the seating area by the emergency exit immediately across the atrium from the Service Desk. It makes more sense when you see it, instead of going by how I’m trying to describe it. The upshot is that we’ve opened up that space between the public computers and DVDs and added …
3) New lights. One oddity we’ve fully recognized for years is that one of the most heavily-trafficked areas in the Library is pretty poorly-lit! It’s like entering a cave once you pass the public computers on your way to the DVDs. One major reason for the gloom is that the leaks we’ve historically had in that area have made it difficult to add any electrical equipment; another one is all the exposed ductwork, which makes positioning pretty awkward. In recent years, though, things have been relatively dry, and moving the microform readers gave us more options for light placement, which we immediately exploited. It’s nice and bright there now, which is good, because we’re getting ready for …
4) New furniture. Because the new computers are so large, and because we’re working on a reconfiguration of that part of the first floor in general, we’ve decided to add more working space there. There will soon be new tables in that area which will let us spread the public computers out a little more and add more elbow room for you to work, whether alone with a lot of stuff, or in groups sharing a single computer. If you think that sounds cramped, think again because we’re actually undertaking a …
5) Small renovation. One space constraint we have in the open public-computer area on the first floor is a low counter that encloses the photocopy area. We’ve used it for years as sort of a throwaway space for equipment that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of our public computers -- like the scanner and printer workstations that are there now -- so it’s fairly convenient, but it definitely limits everyone’s options on how to use the space. So we’re getting rid of it and opening up the whole area! This will allow us to add a …
6) Seating area and printing center. We’ve ordered new couches and chairs for the photocopy area; the copiers will be moved to the railing on the other side of the public-computer area, overlooking the General Stacks in the basement. That way, there’s a nice space for people to relax, drink some coffee, put their feet up, do some work, or socialize right next to our most popular computers. We’re also going to set up both of our printers and the job-release station there, so there’s no need to try to figure out which printer is which and where your paper will come up -- it’ll all be in the same place! In the meantime, the scanner will join the public computers on the newly-added computer tables. That’s not all, because we’re also ordering couches for a new …
7) Quiet study room. The 1404 computer lab will become something more accommodating to students who want to study quietly on an individual basis, but need access to a computer, which isn’t available (yet!) in the study rooms downstairs (it’s on our list). We’re adding more comfortable seating and table space to the room, and plan to figure out ways to keep the area free from both visual and aural noise so you can focus on your work in peace. There’ll be plants and stuff.
That’s it for the more noticeable changes, I think. We’ve gotten rid of the videophone in the Deaf Library Study Center (the computer lab with DVD players and the giant TV), mostly because nobody seemed to use it, and we thought we could use the space to add another computer.
Sorenson also renovated their public videophone booths by the men’s restroom on the first floor; they’re now in spiffy permanent enclosures which are a big improvement over the temporary partitions that had been there for years.
And of course, we can’t help but mention, once again, the collection shift. Not only did the General Stacks move around (with the very nice side effect of making the children’s books, graphic novels, and literature much easier to find! See me for more information), but we also relocated the General Periodicals (both popular magazines and academic publications), Reference (encyclopedias and the like), and the Deaf VHS collection (just a few stacks over).
We’ll have a few opportunities in September for first-timers and lifers alike to get to know the Library a little better. In the meantime, if you’re returning this fall, whether student or faculty, and are a little mixed up, please don’t be shy about asking any of the librarians you see! We’re always happy to help point people in the right direction. Same goes for anyone who’s new to Gallaudet this fall.
Or even if you’ve just dropped by to be nosy. Really.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Vlog review of Gay Power
Gay Power: An American Revolution by David Eisenbach.
Error of note: Rock Hudson's AIDS treatment didn't commence until 1985, not 1983 as mentioned in this video.Friday, July 15, 2011
Patrick's conference report!
It's time for another Friday treat: A conference report from one of my fellow librarians, Patrick Oberholtzer!
Patrick joined our director, Sarah Hamrick (see her report here), in New Orleans a few weeks ago to attend the American Library Association's massive annual conference, learn new things, and just have fun.
As you'll see, he managed to accomplish all three!
Once a year, librarians from across the country gather together for the American Library Association’s Annual Conference. This year, fellow Gallaudet librarian Sarah Hamrick and I travelled to a city known as “the Big Easy” -- New Orleans.
The conference of some 20,000 librarians offers something for just about every interest, from technology to library architecture. With so many librarians attending, you need a pretty big place for the conference, and that’s why I found myself in the massive Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The building seems to go forever (from the front door to one of their rooms was over a mile!). There are programs with expert speakers on just about every facet of librarianship; committees that discuss everything from emerging technologies to social media and public services. There is also a very large exhibit hall where you can give the latest gadgets a whirl, talk to authors and publishers, test out the latest library furniture, and enter drawings for iPads that are won by a lucky few. I spoke with the very interesting author of a book about Nazis in Hollywood in the 1930s, Hollywood Agent Provocateur. I didn’t know about that!
As you make your way around the very crowded conference center, with rivers of people going every which way, it is very easy to get lost or at least feel like you are up a creek without a paddle. After carefully studying conference center maps and signs, I made my way to one room and mercifully ran into two old friends. I asked them what programs they were attending. In fact, I ask everyone that question, because I always seem to learn about a good event that I missed. The sheer size and scope of the three-day convention produces a lot of energy, enthusiasm and, of course, new ideas.
At Gallaudet University, the librarians do a variety of work and wear many hats. One of those hats is instruction and thus, we are teachers, too. One thing I have noticed over many years is that teachers love to give out handouts, lots of them. Let’s face it: handouts can be as dull as dishwater and often are not read. At one of the instruction programs I attended, librarians were demonstrating and discussing a much more visual way to do handouts, using Comic Life2. Comic Life permits you to create a graphic story – like a comic book -- using pictures, drawings, cam shots, and photos. You can add captions or speech balloons as needed. The result is a beautiful handout that is more visually driven than plain text.
We hear a lot about Web 2.0 and libraries are using many of these technologies to market our services. The Gallaudet Library already makes good use of everything from video logs and blogs to instant messaging and e-mail. Still, we feel there is more we can do and that is why “the marketing unprogram” got my attention. In that presentation, I heard about one public library director who told his staff to increase library card registration 50% in one year “or else.” One solution the staff came up with was to ride the city buses all day distributing handouts. Sure enough, registration and library use statistics jumped immediately. I sure wouldn’t have thought of that!
Libraries have traditionally used e-mail to advertise various library functions. The rub is: how do you know if anyone reads those e-mails? Well, a public library in Connecticut came up with a solution: a software program called Constant Contact. You collect e-mail addresses, write the copy for your event or program, and send it to Constant Contact which, as if by magic, creates a nifty professional notice and emails it to everyone on your list. Here’s the crackerjack part: You can find out how many of the e-mails were opened!
New Orleans is a fun city and a pretty good place for a conference. The French Quarter is a lively place of shops, bars, restaurants and lots and lots of music. It is chock full of history, complete with haunted houses and hotels. If you find yourself in the French Quarter, take a hike and check it out. It really does look like parts of Paris.
Patrick
Patrick joined our director, Sarah Hamrick (see her report here), in New Orleans a few weeks ago to attend the American Library Association's massive annual conference, learn new things, and just have fun.
As you'll see, he managed to accomplish all three!
Once a year, librarians from across the country gather together for the American Library Association’s Annual Conference. This year, fellow Gallaudet librarian Sarah Hamrick and I travelled to a city known as “the Big Easy” -- New Orleans.
The conference of some 20,000 librarians offers something for just about every interest, from technology to library architecture. With so many librarians attending, you need a pretty big place for the conference, and that’s why I found myself in the massive Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The building seems to go forever (from the front door to one of their rooms was over a mile!). There are programs with expert speakers on just about every facet of librarianship; committees that discuss everything from emerging technologies to social media and public services. There is also a very large exhibit hall where you can give the latest gadgets a whirl, talk to authors and publishers, test out the latest library furniture, and enter drawings for iPads that are won by a lucky few. I spoke with the very interesting author of a book about Nazis in Hollywood in the 1930s, Hollywood Agent Provocateur. I didn’t know about that!
As you make your way around the very crowded conference center, with rivers of people going every which way, it is very easy to get lost or at least feel like you are up a creek without a paddle. After carefully studying conference center maps and signs, I made my way to one room and mercifully ran into two old friends. I asked them what programs they were attending. In fact, I ask everyone that question, because I always seem to learn about a good event that I missed. The sheer size and scope of the three-day convention produces a lot of energy, enthusiasm and, of course, new ideas.
At Gallaudet University, the librarians do a variety of work and wear many hats. One of those hats is instruction and thus, we are teachers, too. One thing I have noticed over many years is that teachers love to give out handouts, lots of them. Let’s face it: handouts can be as dull as dishwater and often are not read. At one of the instruction programs I attended, librarians were demonstrating and discussing a much more visual way to do handouts, using Comic Life2. Comic Life permits you to create a graphic story – like a comic book -- using pictures, drawings, cam shots, and photos. You can add captions or speech balloons as needed. The result is a beautiful handout that is more visually driven than plain text.
We hear a lot about Web 2.0 and libraries are using many of these technologies to market our services. The Gallaudet Library already makes good use of everything from video logs and blogs to instant messaging and e-mail. Still, we feel there is more we can do and that is why “the marketing unprogram” got my attention. In that presentation, I heard about one public library director who told his staff to increase library card registration 50% in one year “or else.” One solution the staff came up with was to ride the city buses all day distributing handouts. Sure enough, registration and library use statistics jumped immediately. I sure wouldn’t have thought of that!
Libraries have traditionally used e-mail to advertise various library functions. The rub is: how do you know if anyone reads those e-mails? Well, a public library in Connecticut came up with a solution: a software program called Constant Contact. You collect e-mail addresses, write the copy for your event or program, and send it to Constant Contact which, as if by magic, creates a nifty professional notice and emails it to everyone on your list. Here’s the crackerjack part: You can find out how many of the e-mails were opened!
New Orleans is a fun city and a pretty good place for a conference. The French Quarter is a lively place of shops, bars, restaurants and lots and lots of music. It is chock full of history, complete with haunted houses and hotels. If you find yourself in the French Quarter, take a hike and check it out. It really does look like parts of Paris.
Patrick
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Director's conference report!
June is always exciting for librarians. The reason is simple: The American Library Association's Annual Conference! It's giant. Think San Diego's Comic-Con with fewer comic books and more library furniture.
I didn't go to this year's conference for two simple reasons:
Because they don't have enough to do (ha), I asked them to write up a report of their experiences for you guys. Today, you get to read Sarah's! Patrick's will come next week.
So: Sarah's conference experience. Here we go!
I was one of 20,000 participants in the American Library Association’s annual conference, held in New Orleans the last weekend of June. ALA has more than 60,000 members who work in all types of libraries, and the annual conference is our opportunity to learn about new trends in libraries, network with colleagues, and meet with vendors to learn about the latest products and services. It’s also our opportunity to slip out of our sensible shoes, unpin our hair buns, and go crazy.
The conference takes place over a weekend -- there are preconferences and a few early meetings on Thursday and Friday, followed by the big kick-off Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are jam-packed with programs and meetings, and by Monday afternoon most of the sessions are over. The exhibit hall includes about 350,000 square feet of space full of vendors selling/promoting everything you can possibly imagine -- furniture (LOVE the child-sized desks and chairs in bright colors), equipment (I’ve got my eye on a scanner you can use to convert our old microfilm to PDF), clothes (librarians love t-shirts with cute book quotes), software, services, and books. Lots of books. There are always long lines of people waiting for author signings, and the free books many vendors hand out are always hot items!
ALA is spread out across the host city. Many sessions take place in a massive convention center (which in New Orleans is right on the Mississippi River, so it is very LONG), and there are meetings and programs in at least 10 hotels across town. There are always long lines at Starbucks, and at the end of each day there are many weary librarians with bags full of vendor freebies loading up on the buses that shuttle us around to our meetings and hotels. Since we were in New Orleans this time, all of those weary librarians were also kind of sweaty and a little wilted. Fortunately New Orleans offers many kinds of refreshment to perk up the heat- and humidity-bedraggled librarian!
I always learn a lot at ALA conferences and have met many colleagues there who help me do my job better. Of the sessions I attended this year two were particularly good.
The first was entitled “Libraries of the Future: Designing from the User Perspective.” The speaker was a librarian who retired after many working for many years in a college library (I hope that’s me some day!) and has started a new career (I hope that’s not me--I want to spend my retirement years at the ballpark and the dog park!) advising libraries that are designing new buildings. He talked about the importance of planning based on not only how students use the library building now but also how we WANT students to use it and how we THINK students will use it in the future. He spoke of two issues I thought were particularly interesting. Consider the exterior design, particularly at the main building entrance, and try to make it usable space. (A few comfy reading benches and some picnic tables would be nice!) And the first ten feet to the right of the building entrance is the busiest area of the building, so it is important to place the most heavily used materials/services there. (Coffee bar, anyone?)
The best session I attended was called “It’s All About Them: Developing Information Services with User Experience Design.” User experience (UX) is a relatively new field in the library profession, and it’s becoming a very sought-after specialization. UX librarians look at what students want and how they want to get it. It’s a customer service thing. Most UX librarians still do a lot of work in the technology area, but the field has expanded to include all types of library UX. The speakers at this program gave lots of tips about improving the quality of service to library users. One library schedules staff to walk through the building regularly, trying to see it through the eyes of the library user. Another library connects their library web site log-in with Blackboard so students who log into the library’s site get a specialized page based on their specific course needs. One of the program’s speakers works for a major U.S. retailer, doing the indexing for their web site. She talked about the importance of setting up our systems so that users are able to find what they need using the keywords and concepts they know and understand. While that has always been the general idea of library catalog systems, it was interesting to hear her thoughts on the issue from the retail perspective.The best part of the presentation was when a participant asked the speakers if their libraries had a UX brand or motto. The retail indexer said theirs is “Crush Amazon.” Sounds like a worthy goal to me!
That’s what I learned at ALA. I also enjoyed some delicious seafood, window shopped in the French Quarter, gazed at the mighty Mississippi, gawked at the sights on Bourbon Street, and caught a New Orleans Zephyrs ballgame. My favorite evening was spent at a very nice restaurant (delicious oysters) with friends who work in correctional (i.e., prison) libraries in Colorado. It was a very productive trip!
I didn't go to this year's conference for two simple reasons:
- I went to the Midwinter Meeting in January, and one of these things per year is tiring enough. This year's Midwinter was hosted in San Diego, in fact, in the same convention center used for the Comic-Con. If you're familiar with what a huge event it is, you can get an idea of how busy Midwinter was!
- It was in New Orleans. In June. I grew up on the Gulf of Mexico, and there's a reason why I left. The humidity is quite satisfactory here in Washington, DC; why be a glutton for punishment?
Because they don't have enough to do (ha), I asked them to write up a report of their experiences for you guys. Today, you get to read Sarah's! Patrick's will come next week.
So: Sarah's conference experience. Here we go!
I was one of 20,000 participants in the American Library Association’s annual conference, held in New Orleans the last weekend of June. ALA has more than 60,000 members who work in all types of libraries, and the annual conference is our opportunity to learn about new trends in libraries, network with colleagues, and meet with vendors to learn about the latest products and services. It’s also our opportunity to slip out of our sensible shoes, unpin our hair buns, and go crazy.
The conference takes place over a weekend -- there are preconferences and a few early meetings on Thursday and Friday, followed by the big kick-off Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are jam-packed with programs and meetings, and by Monday afternoon most of the sessions are over. The exhibit hall includes about 350,000 square feet of space full of vendors selling/promoting everything you can possibly imagine -- furniture (LOVE the child-sized desks and chairs in bright colors), equipment (I’ve got my eye on a scanner you can use to convert our old microfilm to PDF), clothes (librarians love t-shirts with cute book quotes), software, services, and books. Lots of books. There are always long lines of people waiting for author signings, and the free books many vendors hand out are always hot items!
ALA is spread out across the host city. Many sessions take place in a massive convention center (which in New Orleans is right on the Mississippi River, so it is very LONG), and there are meetings and programs in at least 10 hotels across town. There are always long lines at Starbucks, and at the end of each day there are many weary librarians with bags full of vendor freebies loading up on the buses that shuttle us around to our meetings and hotels. Since we were in New Orleans this time, all of those weary librarians were also kind of sweaty and a little wilted. Fortunately New Orleans offers many kinds of refreshment to perk up the heat- and humidity-bedraggled librarian!
I always learn a lot at ALA conferences and have met many colleagues there who help me do my job better. Of the sessions I attended this year two were particularly good.
The first was entitled “Libraries of the Future: Designing from the User Perspective.” The speaker was a librarian who retired after many working for many years in a college library (I hope that’s me some day!) and has started a new career (I hope that’s not me--I want to spend my retirement years at the ballpark and the dog park!) advising libraries that are designing new buildings. He talked about the importance of planning based on not only how students use the library building now but also how we WANT students to use it and how we THINK students will use it in the future. He spoke of two issues I thought were particularly interesting. Consider the exterior design, particularly at the main building entrance, and try to make it usable space. (A few comfy reading benches and some picnic tables would be nice!) And the first ten feet to the right of the building entrance is the busiest area of the building, so it is important to place the most heavily used materials/services there. (Coffee bar, anyone?)
The best session I attended was called “It’s All About Them: Developing Information Services with User Experience Design.” User experience (UX) is a relatively new field in the library profession, and it’s becoming a very sought-after specialization. UX librarians look at what students want and how they want to get it. It’s a customer service thing. Most UX librarians still do a lot of work in the technology area, but the field has expanded to include all types of library UX. The speakers at this program gave lots of tips about improving the quality of service to library users. One library schedules staff to walk through the building regularly, trying to see it through the eyes of the library user. Another library connects their library web site log-in with Blackboard so students who log into the library’s site get a specialized page based on their specific course needs. One of the program’s speakers works for a major U.S. retailer, doing the indexing for their web site. She talked about the importance of setting up our systems so that users are able to find what they need using the keywords and concepts they know and understand. While that has always been the general idea of library catalog systems, it was interesting to hear her thoughts on the issue from the retail perspective.The best part of the presentation was when a participant asked the speakers if their libraries had a UX brand or motto. The retail indexer said theirs is “Crush Amazon.” Sounds like a worthy goal to me!
That’s what I learned at ALA. I also enjoyed some delicious seafood, window shopped in the French Quarter, gazed at the mighty Mississippi, gawked at the sights on Bourbon Street, and caught a New Orleans Zephyrs ballgame. My favorite evening was spent at a very nice restaurant (delicious oysters) with friends who work in correctional (i.e., prison) libraries in Colorado. It was a very productive trip!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
NEW resource: Films on Demand!
A couple of things to close out the week, just to offer you a nicely-quivering little gobbet of deliciousness to tide you over through the weekend.
First thing: The collection shift I wrote about in this post started just this past Monday, June 20. I've documented part of the process and posted the results on our Facebook page. Check them out!
I will say it is very, very interesting to see the Library change in this manner. Most of the long-timers -- we've got people who've been here for over 30 years -- don't think too much of it because they've seen a lot more than this, but I'm a relative newbie. Even this little bit -- only two or three ranges' worth of shelving and a bunch of microform cabinets so far -- is pretty weird!
I also thought I'd take the opportunity this week to introduce people to a new online resource that we've just set up: Films on Demand.
First, a caveat: It's not that easy to get to. It's pretty different from most of our other online resources (you'll see why in a minute), so we're working on figuring out a way to categorize it that makes some kind of sense. Until then, you'll have to search for it (just enter "films" in the search form that pops up after clicking on the "Find article databases" link on our home page). But don't worry; we're also seeing if we can figure out a way to get all the information about, and links to, the available films into ALADIN Discovery and the Classic Catalog. That way, you could just do a search in either catalog and watch a film straight from there if it's relevant to your needs without all that mucking about with "article databases."
Anyway, this thing is awesome.
It's a big database of online streaming educational videos on pretty much every disciplinary topic under the sun, with offerings appropriate for most age and skill levels (hence the difficulty with categorizing it). It's set up so that instructors can either show the entire video or just the segments they want that are relevant to their courses; if there's a video about mammalian biology, for instance, and you want to focus on thermoregulation and homeostasis (e.g., warm-blooded animals), you can head straight to that segment and show it to your class without playing around with glands and slider bars and the like.
We'd been sniffing after it for the past couple of years, but had always balked at one issue: captioning. Films on Demand offers captioned videos, but not all of their videos are captioned. We went back and forth for a while about whether it was cost-effective to purchase access anyway, even if it meant spending a lot of money on videos that nearly all of our students and faculty wouldn't be able to watch.
Last year, we got fairly close to the brink and set up a trial, but found that not only were our faculty frustrated by the lack of captioning on many videos, but there were also some issues when it came to limiting search results to captioned videos only. It was possible, but not as easy as it could have been, and this combination made us decide to hold off for a while.
Fast forward to ...
Aw, heck. I had the entire background story typed up: two years, one trial, three faculty requests, two representatives, six months of back-and-forth, two WRLC task forces, and one offhand remark. But you aren't interested in all that!
The upshot is that Films on Demand has made it possible for us to subscribe to only their captioned videos, with pricing that's commensurate to the relative size of the collection. This is most excellent of them.
So you can use Films on Demand all you like; all you'll ever see are captioned films (ideally, that is -- we've found one or two so far that may have either slipped into the collection or accidentally mislaid their captions somewhere else). No muss, no fuss. We've set Flash as the default format; the other options were Windows Media Player and Quicktime, which is annoying. Quicktime only really works on Apple computers, while Windows Media Player only really works on no computers.
One thing to note, though, is that at the moment, it's not too obvious how to turn on the captioning. Look for a button with a speech balloon on it along the bottom of the video. After you've hit "Play," click on that button; two white lines should appear inside the speech balloon, indicating that the captions are on. You'll have to click it again if you skip ahead in the video, though, I'm afraid; seems to be unavoidable, although I am trying to talk them into getting rid of the speech balloon in favor of something more obvious. A big "CC," for instance. We'll see how that turns out!
Ah, I see. You're all hung up on that phrase a paragraph or two ago: "the relative size of the collection." How big is it, you ask?
Well, as of April 27, there were 2,935 captioned films, encompassed by broader disciplines like:
We're super-excited about this! It's only one change in a frankly surprising number of them that are taking place this summer, though; I just hope I can keep pace with this blog. It's good for all of you to know what's going on with us and what you can expect in the coming months and years. We -- or at least I -- also like to have a document of all the things we've done and are doing, because it's always interesting to look back and see where we were compared to where we are now. Things have changed, are changing, will always change.
Enjoy your weekend!
First thing: The collection shift I wrote about in this post started just this past Monday, June 20. I've documented part of the process and posted the results on our Facebook page. Check them out!
I will say it is very, very interesting to see the Library change in this manner. Most of the long-timers -- we've got people who've been here for over 30 years -- don't think too much of it because they've seen a lot more than this, but I'm a relative newbie. Even this little bit -- only two or three ranges' worth of shelving and a bunch of microform cabinets so far -- is pretty weird!
I also thought I'd take the opportunity this week to introduce people to a new online resource that we've just set up: Films on Demand.
First, a caveat: It's not that easy to get to. It's pretty different from most of our other online resources (you'll see why in a minute), so we're working on figuring out a way to categorize it that makes some kind of sense. Until then, you'll have to search for it (just enter "films" in the search form that pops up after clicking on the "Find article databases" link on our home page). But don't worry; we're also seeing if we can figure out a way to get all the information about, and links to, the available films into ALADIN Discovery and the Classic Catalog. That way, you could just do a search in either catalog and watch a film straight from there if it's relevant to your needs without all that mucking about with "article databases."
Anyway, this thing is awesome.
It's a big database of online streaming educational videos on pretty much every disciplinary topic under the sun, with offerings appropriate for most age and skill levels (hence the difficulty with categorizing it). It's set up so that instructors can either show the entire video or just the segments they want that are relevant to their courses; if there's a video about mammalian biology, for instance, and you want to focus on thermoregulation and homeostasis (e.g., warm-blooded animals), you can head straight to that segment and show it to your class without playing around with glands and slider bars and the like.
We'd been sniffing after it for the past couple of years, but had always balked at one issue: captioning. Films on Demand offers captioned videos, but not all of their videos are captioned. We went back and forth for a while about whether it was cost-effective to purchase access anyway, even if it meant spending a lot of money on videos that nearly all of our students and faculty wouldn't be able to watch.
Last year, we got fairly close to the brink and set up a trial, but found that not only were our faculty frustrated by the lack of captioning on many videos, but there were also some issues when it came to limiting search results to captioned videos only. It was possible, but not as easy as it could have been, and this combination made us decide to hold off for a while.
Fast forward to ...
Aw, heck. I had the entire background story typed up: two years, one trial, three faculty requests, two representatives, six months of back-and-forth, two WRLC task forces, and one offhand remark. But you aren't interested in all that!
The upshot is that Films on Demand has made it possible for us to subscribe to only their captioned videos, with pricing that's commensurate to the relative size of the collection. This is most excellent of them.
So you can use Films on Demand all you like; all you'll ever see are captioned films (ideally, that is -- we've found one or two so far that may have either slipped into the collection or accidentally mislaid their captions somewhere else). No muss, no fuss. We've set Flash as the default format; the other options were Windows Media Player and Quicktime, which is annoying. Quicktime only really works on Apple computers, while Windows Media Player only really works on no computers.
One thing to note, though, is that at the moment, it's not too obvious how to turn on the captioning. Look for a button with a speech balloon on it along the bottom of the video. After you've hit "Play," click on that button; two white lines should appear inside the speech balloon, indicating that the captions are on. You'll have to click it again if you skip ahead in the video, though, I'm afraid; seems to be unavoidable, although I am trying to talk them into getting rid of the speech balloon in favor of something more obvious. A big "CC," for instance. We'll see how that turns out!
Ah, I see. You're all hung up on that phrase a paragraph or two ago: "the relative size of the collection." How big is it, you ask?
Well, as of April 27, there were 2,935 captioned films, encompassed by broader disciplines like:
- Humanities & Social Science
- Business & Economics
- Health & Medicine
- Science & Mathematics
- Careers & Job Search
- Family & Consumer Sciences
- Guidance & Counseling
- Technical Education
We're super-excited about this! It's only one change in a frankly surprising number of them that are taking place this summer, though; I just hope I can keep pace with this blog. It's good for all of you to know what's going on with us and what you can expect in the coming months and years. We -- or at least I -- also like to have a document of all the things we've done and are doing, because it's always interesting to look back and see where we were compared to where we are now. Things have changed, are changing, will always change.
Enjoy your weekend!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Summer update!
No vlogs this week!
I know, even I can hear the groans. Truth is, we're just busy.
With what? Fair question.
At this point, I suppose I should share the things on my mind (and desk) these days; it'll also reveal a little something about what's going on in the Library this summer.
The biggest thing on the collective plate right now is the collection shift.
You heard right. We're shifting the collection. I was joking around with someone not too long ago, actually; I told him we were moving the collection, and he asked where we were moving it to. I thought about it for a moment and said, "About five feet to the left."
Funny as it sounds, it's more or less an accurate description. And it's not at all minor; close to a quarter of a million books takes a lot of moving, whether it's five feet or five miles. This is happening largely because the Archives is expanding this summer. The current reading room will just about double in size, which will take up the space occupied by the 900s and some of the 800s downstairs.
Because this is a once-in-30-years kind of occurrence, we're seizing the opportunity to do a number of other things, too:
1) Clearing out space for ourselves. Right now, there's zero space for the collection to move into. This is mostly because the very beginning of the General Stacks is hemmed in by a set of microform cabinets. Those cabinets contain our historical records of The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and ERIC, the government's repository of education research. However, it's kind of silly -- we've got electronic subscriptions to the same stuff, this collection is duplicated across the Consortium, and it sees very little use for such a large collection. We're not the only ones facing this kind of issue, either; the other Consortium schools who have the same collection have been talking about moving one school's collection to the WRLC storage center and getting rid of the rest. We plan to follow through on our end and clear out space for more shelves at the beginning of the collection. However, even that won't be enough, because ...
2) We're moving Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences materials to the General Stacks from the Deaf Collection. The Library and Archives have been in a yearslong process of evaluating the Deaf Collection and its institutional role in general, especially within a larger cultural context. One of the results of this is that there's been increasing consensus -- within the Library and Archives, elsewhere on campus, and out in the rest of the world -- that deafness as a cultural phenomenon is markedly distinct from deafness as a physiological phenomenon (as in deafhood versus deafness). So all the items in the Deaf Collection -- from books to periodicals to films -- that focus on deafness in scientific and medical terms (audiology, genetics, speech pathology, etc.) will be moved to the corresponding sections in the General Stacks.
If this sounds complicated, by the way, it is. Patrick Oberholtzer, the librarian who's taken over the subject area in the past year or so, has been spending almost every working hour for the past few months figuring out the logistics of the move. Kudos to him!
However, given that our space is shrinking, even with the removal of the microfiche cabinets, and the collection is getting larger, this means we're doing yet a third thing:
3) Weeding. Weeding. Weeding. And more weeding. I've lost count of how many books I've cleaned out of the General Stacks in the 800s alone. If you end up in the Library this summer, you'll notice some odd patches where shelves are nearly empty, kind of like the "after" photo in this post. That's because we've been at work. So far these past few months, I've focused on getting rid of large, old sets of books between 801 and 840, clearing space in the language-related areas (e.g., linguistics, language education, foreign languages), and slashing and burning my way through 801-810, which are mostly focused on both theoretical and practical aspects of literature, ranging from discussions of Aristotle's thoughts on rhetoric to how to write a term paper.
Don't worry. I'm leaving the best stuff. It's astonishing how many books we have about computers and composition ... from the 1980s! These books are great if you want to learn word-processing, except I think they stopped making word processors a few years ago. It was very forward-thinking of my predecessors, but these books are museum relics! Once I've hit -- and cleaned out -- 810, I'll backslide to the 700s, most of which relate to the fine arts. Why am I not tackling the 810s just yet -- American literature?
The truth is, I'm a little scared. We have such a diverse collection of fiction that I keep thinking that someone will show up in the Fall and feel that we've completely neglected readers of his or her proclivities and might, in fact, be hostile to lovers of books about, I don't know, coincidental apples or something.
Not that there's anything wrong with those. Anyway, we are focused on shrinking the collection, which is complicated by ...
4) Ordering. Yup. Even while we're streamlining the collection, we're adding more to it. At this point, though, we're getting close to the end of our major annual purchasing period and the money's starting to dry up. We're also doing it in conjunction with the weeding -- don't view both activities in isolation! For instance, we do have a lot of relatively redundant books from varying periods that cover more or less the same topic. In my particular case, weeding often informs my ordering -- if I end up getting rid of 20 books on how to speak effectively in public, published between 1898-1988, I'll generally plan to replace them with three or four comprehensive overviews from different angles -- rhetoric, overcoming anxiety, organization and structure, stuff like that.
Of course, all of this gets more interesting when you consider that we're ...
5) Cleaning out the reference collection. We've got a huge number of dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, and other reference works that need to go. Most of that is because almost everything is either outdated or available online through our electronic resources or for free on the open Internet, and part of that is because we're moving the General Periodicals up to the first floor. This particular shift is relatively easy; as we've increased our electronic subscriptions, we've cut way back on our print material, which doesn't see anywhere near as much use as the digital stuff and isn't searchable besides.
Now, the reference collection is pretty sizable and is being cleaned out at the same time as the rest of the collection, so that's a lot of work! If you stopped by the Library last week, or plan to this week, there are a lot of carts full of books congregating on the first floor over by the Deaf School Yearbooks, which is not-at-all-coincidentally right by my office.
That's right, I'm fulfilling the "other duties as required" clause of my job description and removing a lot of the material from our system, along with our director, Sarah Hamrick. Because of that, I probably should warn you that this blog will go quiet for a week or two. We'll still get a post up later this week -- and this will be a fun one! -- and most likely a vlog if we're lucky, but then I go on ...
... wait for it ...
... VACATION! For a week. Sorry, guys. Even librarians need a little R&R from time to time. But after June 20, things should be a lot more active on the blog front!
Anyway, that's the big what's-the-Library-doing-this-summer update. You'll hear more as the summer wears on, though -- the list above is far from the only thing happening around here. Keep an eye out!
I know, even I can hear the groans. Truth is, we're just busy.
With what? Fair question.
At this point, I suppose I should share the things on my mind (and desk) these days; it'll also reveal a little something about what's going on in the Library this summer.
The biggest thing on the collective plate right now is the collection shift.
You heard right. We're shifting the collection. I was joking around with someone not too long ago, actually; I told him we were moving the collection, and he asked where we were moving it to. I thought about it for a moment and said, "About five feet to the left."
Funny as it sounds, it's more or less an accurate description. And it's not at all minor; close to a quarter of a million books takes a lot of moving, whether it's five feet or five miles. This is happening largely because the Archives is expanding this summer. The current reading room will just about double in size, which will take up the space occupied by the 900s and some of the 800s downstairs.
Because this is a once-in-30-years kind of occurrence, we're seizing the opportunity to do a number of other things, too:
1) Clearing out space for ourselves. Right now, there's zero space for the collection to move into. This is mostly because the very beginning of the General Stacks is hemmed in by a set of microform cabinets. Those cabinets contain our historical records of The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and ERIC, the government's repository of education research. However, it's kind of silly -- we've got electronic subscriptions to the same stuff, this collection is duplicated across the Consortium, and it sees very little use for such a large collection. We're not the only ones facing this kind of issue, either; the other Consortium schools who have the same collection have been talking about moving one school's collection to the WRLC storage center and getting rid of the rest. We plan to follow through on our end and clear out space for more shelves at the beginning of the collection. However, even that won't be enough, because ...
2) We're moving Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences materials to the General Stacks from the Deaf Collection. The Library and Archives have been in a yearslong process of evaluating the Deaf Collection and its institutional role in general, especially within a larger cultural context. One of the results of this is that there's been increasing consensus -- within the Library and Archives, elsewhere on campus, and out in the rest of the world -- that deafness as a cultural phenomenon is markedly distinct from deafness as a physiological phenomenon (as in deafhood versus deafness). So all the items in the Deaf Collection -- from books to periodicals to films -- that focus on deafness in scientific and medical terms (audiology, genetics, speech pathology, etc.) will be moved to the corresponding sections in the General Stacks.
If this sounds complicated, by the way, it is. Patrick Oberholtzer, the librarian who's taken over the subject area in the past year or so, has been spending almost every working hour for the past few months figuring out the logistics of the move. Kudos to him!
However, given that our space is shrinking, even with the removal of the microfiche cabinets, and the collection is getting larger, this means we're doing yet a third thing:
3) Weeding. Weeding. Weeding. And more weeding. I've lost count of how many books I've cleaned out of the General Stacks in the 800s alone. If you end up in the Library this summer, you'll notice some odd patches where shelves are nearly empty, kind of like the "after" photo in this post. That's because we've been at work. So far these past few months, I've focused on getting rid of large, old sets of books between 801 and 840, clearing space in the language-related areas (e.g., linguistics, language education, foreign languages), and slashing and burning my way through 801-810, which are mostly focused on both theoretical and practical aspects of literature, ranging from discussions of Aristotle's thoughts on rhetoric to how to write a term paper.
Don't worry. I'm leaving the best stuff. It's astonishing how many books we have about computers and composition ... from the 1980s! These books are great if you want to learn word-processing, except I think they stopped making word processors a few years ago. It was very forward-thinking of my predecessors, but these books are museum relics! Once I've hit -- and cleaned out -- 810, I'll backslide to the 700s, most of which relate to the fine arts. Why am I not tackling the 810s just yet -- American literature?
The truth is, I'm a little scared. We have such a diverse collection of fiction that I keep thinking that someone will show up in the Fall and feel that we've completely neglected readers of his or her proclivities and might, in fact, be hostile to lovers of books about, I don't know, coincidental apples or something.
Not that there's anything wrong with those. Anyway, we are focused on shrinking the collection, which is complicated by ...
4) Ordering. Yup. Even while we're streamlining the collection, we're adding more to it. At this point, though, we're getting close to the end of our major annual purchasing period and the money's starting to dry up. We're also doing it in conjunction with the weeding -- don't view both activities in isolation! For instance, we do have a lot of relatively redundant books from varying periods that cover more or less the same topic. In my particular case, weeding often informs my ordering -- if I end up getting rid of 20 books on how to speak effectively in public, published between 1898-1988, I'll generally plan to replace them with three or four comprehensive overviews from different angles -- rhetoric, overcoming anxiety, organization and structure, stuff like that.
Of course, all of this gets more interesting when you consider that we're ...
5) Cleaning out the reference collection. We've got a huge number of dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, and other reference works that need to go. Most of that is because almost everything is either outdated or available online through our electronic resources or for free on the open Internet, and part of that is because we're moving the General Periodicals up to the first floor. This particular shift is relatively easy; as we've increased our electronic subscriptions, we've cut way back on our print material, which doesn't see anywhere near as much use as the digital stuff and isn't searchable besides.
Now, the reference collection is pretty sizable and is being cleaned out at the same time as the rest of the collection, so that's a lot of work! If you stopped by the Library last week, or plan to this week, there are a lot of carts full of books congregating on the first floor over by the Deaf School Yearbooks, which is not-at-all-coincidentally right by my office.
That's right, I'm fulfilling the "other duties as required" clause of my job description and removing a lot of the material from our system, along with our director, Sarah Hamrick. Because of that, I probably should warn you that this blog will go quiet for a week or two. We'll still get a post up later this week -- and this will be a fun one! -- and most likely a vlog if we're lucky, but then I go on ...
... wait for it ...
... VACATION! For a week. Sorry, guys. Even librarians need a little R&R from time to time. But after June 20, things should be a lot more active on the blog front!
Anyway, that's the big what's-the-Library-doing-this-summer update. You'll hear more as the summer wears on, though -- the list above is far from the only thing happening around here. Keep an eye out!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Guest post: Setting minds at easel
To make up for such an execrably long period of silence, as mentioned in yesterday's vlog, I'm offering something new today: a guest post! Elizabeth Henry, our Electronic Resources/Instruction & Reference Librarian, had the brainwave a few weeks ago of putting up easels with large blank pads of paper and inviting people to write on them with comments about the Library. They were placed at various locations around the building, and we got quite the response!
She's written up a summary of what people had to say, as well as our responses to it all. It's very interesting reading!
Hi everyone! Remember those easels that we set up with those big pads so you could write comments about the Library? The easels had three questions total, which were:
We were thrilled to see the large number of responses! We felt it was only appropriate to give you a summary of what everyone had to say; after all, you took the time to write your thoughts!
We were glad to hear that people like to visit the Library because it’s a quiet place to study and work on assignments. There’s plenty of space here! Of course, a nice bonus is being able to bring in food and drinks to enjoy while studying -- totally understandable! I enjoy drinking and eating while reading too.
We were also pleased to see that our support for Gallaudet’s students, faculty and staff is appreciated as well! We are always more than happy to help where we can. All you have to do is come in, e-mail us, or use the chat widget on our home page -- we’re here for you!
Now, down to the nitty-gritty: How can the Library improve?
First, some people wanted longer checkout periods, maybe up to a full semester. That’s understandable. But did you know you can already have a book for an entire semester? How you ask? All you have to do is renew your books! You can do it up to three times. Our shortest borrowing period for books is up to four weeks, and if you renew it 3 times, then you can have a book for another 12 weeks for a total of 16 weeks. That’s an entire semester right there!
We set it up that way because we’re a Library -- people like to check out books from us! So we like to try to make sure that the books are available to everyone within a reasonable time. Yes, I know, it can be a pain in the neck to have to renew a book over and over, but if someone else had a book you wanted, then you’d want a fair chance at it, wouldn’t you? By the same token, if you find a book you need for class, but it's checked out to someone else and doesn't look likely to come back soon, you can ask us to place a hold on it. When that happens, the other person with the book will bring it back instead of renewing it, so you'll have a chance to use the book, too. For more information on this, just ask at the Service Desk any time!
Other people asked for more computers, and we are working on it! We are aware that there are a few issues involved with the computers, such as the long log-in times you’ll sometimes experience on our computers, plus there can be such high demand that there’s nary an available computer to be found when you visit the Library. But the good news is that we’ll be replacing many of our public computers this summer! Also, we’re looking into improving our wireless Internet signal in the basement so students with their own laptops can be more flexible in where they work.
Many people mentioned how gloomy the Library can be! Yes, we know -- the basement can get dark! Every summer, we check all the study desks in the basement to make sure the bulbs are working, and do our best to replace any burned-out bulbs both there and in the rest of the Library. Still, bulbs don’t die on schedule! If you see one and it’s causing a problem with visibility, just let someone at the Service Desk know which light needs to be replaced and we’ll happily report the problem to be taken care of as soon as possible.
Another thing we noticed is that there seems to be a lot of people who love coffee! We got a lot of requests for free coffee to be provided all semester long, or at the very least a café in the Library building.
To be frank -- I need my caffeine fix myself too! I love to get my caffeine fix by drinking mochas. Mmm! -- the truth is, I can’t figure out where we can put a café in this building, as much as I’d love one! As for providing free coffee all semester, that does sound like a pretty nice idea, but that can take a lot of money. So what we do instead is that we target the most important parts of the semester -- midterms and the last week of classes! We know our statistics really shoot up during those times of the semester, and we know students’ stress levels do too, so we try to make the coffee available when it’ll do the most good. Some people have also asked for alternatives, like tea and hot chocolate, which we think is a great idea. We’ll let you know if that suggestion will become a reality!
As for the leaks, yeah. We know about the leaks. We’ve been working on them since the day the Library opened; although they’re a fact of life, we won’t stop until they’ve been eradicated. Lots of people also had suggestions about how to improve the general feel of the building -- the color scheme, the smell, and the furniture. We’re taking all those suggestions very seriously and are already kicking around a few ideas that might see some new things in the Library this Fall!
We also noticed an odd issue with this building … vampires? Ghosts? Really? Well, I’m not so sure about the vampires, but ghosts … well, now that’s definitely a possibility. If you see any, please let me know. I’m curious about which areas they usually haunt…!
Again, we really appreciate all of the responses we got. One person actually filled two or three big pages with all of her reasons for coming in to the Library, while others had a little fun. Did you know that the word "Library" spelled backwards, is y-r-a-r-b-i-l? Some of our librarians had a hard time figuring that out! There also plenty of useful comments, concerns, ideas and suggestions on top of it all.
So we want to thank everyone who participated and had their say. You’ve been heard and listened to.
Have a great summer!
She's written up a summary of what people had to say, as well as our responses to it all. It's very interesting reading!
Hi everyone! Remember those easels that we set up with those big pads so you could write comments about the Library? The easels had three questions total, which were:
- I visit the Library because…
- I like the Library because…
- I wish the Library had…
We were thrilled to see the large number of responses! We felt it was only appropriate to give you a summary of what everyone had to say; after all, you took the time to write your thoughts!
We were glad to hear that people like to visit the Library because it’s a quiet place to study and work on assignments. There’s plenty of space here! Of course, a nice bonus is being able to bring in food and drinks to enjoy while studying -- totally understandable! I enjoy drinking and eating while reading too.
We were also pleased to see that our support for Gallaudet’s students, faculty and staff is appreciated as well! We are always more than happy to help where we can. All you have to do is come in, e-mail us, or use the chat widget on our home page -- we’re here for you!
Now, down to the nitty-gritty: How can the Library improve?
First, some people wanted longer checkout periods, maybe up to a full semester. That’s understandable. But did you know you can already have a book for an entire semester? How you ask? All you have to do is renew your books! You can do it up to three times. Our shortest borrowing period for books is up to four weeks, and if you renew it 3 times, then you can have a book for another 12 weeks for a total of 16 weeks. That’s an entire semester right there!
We set it up that way because we’re a Library -- people like to check out books from us! So we like to try to make sure that the books are available to everyone within a reasonable time. Yes, I know, it can be a pain in the neck to have to renew a book over and over, but if someone else had a book you wanted, then you’d want a fair chance at it, wouldn’t you? By the same token, if you find a book you need for class, but it's checked out to someone else and doesn't look likely to come back soon, you can ask us to place a hold on it. When that happens, the other person with the book will bring it back instead of renewing it, so you'll have a chance to use the book, too. For more information on this, just ask at the Service Desk any time!
Other people asked for more computers, and we are working on it! We are aware that there are a few issues involved with the computers, such as the long log-in times you’ll sometimes experience on our computers, plus there can be such high demand that there’s nary an available computer to be found when you visit the Library. But the good news is that we’ll be replacing many of our public computers this summer! Also, we’re looking into improving our wireless Internet signal in the basement so students with their own laptops can be more flexible in where they work.
Many people mentioned how gloomy the Library can be! Yes, we know -- the basement can get dark! Every summer, we check all the study desks in the basement to make sure the bulbs are working, and do our best to replace any burned-out bulbs both there and in the rest of the Library. Still, bulbs don’t die on schedule! If you see one and it’s causing a problem with visibility, just let someone at the Service Desk know which light needs to be replaced and we’ll happily report the problem to be taken care of as soon as possible.
Another thing we noticed is that there seems to be a lot of people who love coffee! We got a lot of requests for free coffee to be provided all semester long, or at the very least a café in the Library building.
To be frank -- I need my caffeine fix myself too! I love to get my caffeine fix by drinking mochas. Mmm! -- the truth is, I can’t figure out where we can put a café in this building, as much as I’d love one! As for providing free coffee all semester, that does sound like a pretty nice idea, but that can take a lot of money. So what we do instead is that we target the most important parts of the semester -- midterms and the last week of classes! We know our statistics really shoot up during those times of the semester, and we know students’ stress levels do too, so we try to make the coffee available when it’ll do the most good. Some people have also asked for alternatives, like tea and hot chocolate, which we think is a great idea. We’ll let you know if that suggestion will become a reality!
As for the leaks, yeah. We know about the leaks. We’ve been working on them since the day the Library opened; although they’re a fact of life, we won’t stop until they’ve been eradicated. Lots of people also had suggestions about how to improve the general feel of the building -- the color scheme, the smell, and the furniture. We’re taking all those suggestions very seriously and are already kicking around a few ideas that might see some new things in the Library this Fall!
We also noticed an odd issue with this building … vampires? Ghosts? Really? Well, I’m not so sure about the vampires, but ghosts … well, now that’s definitely a possibility. If you see any, please let me know. I’m curious about which areas they usually haunt…!
Again, we really appreciate all of the responses we got. One person actually filled two or three big pages with all of her reasons for coming in to the Library, while others had a little fun. Did you know that the word "Library" spelled backwards, is y-r-a-r-b-i-l? Some of our librarians had a hard time figuring that out! There also plenty of useful comments, concerns, ideas and suggestions on top of it all.
So we want to thank everyone who participated and had their say. You’ve been heard and listened to.
Have a great summer!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Amazons shifting into OverDrive
This might be a little bit overdue, but lots of other things have been happening, so please bear with me.
For a little background, read this article that I ganked off our Facebook page.
As news go, this is pretty far-out. In summary, Amazon's agreed to make it possible for people to borrow e-books from their local library on their Kindles. They've partnered with OverDrive, a major vendor for lendable e-books to accomplish this.
For a variety of reasons, most of which are known only to them, Amazon has historically been resistant to the idea of e-book lending. That's why, for instance, when I talked about EBL last month, I had to note that it didn't work on the Kindle. Ditto OverDrive, which I wrote about the month before that (I seem to be turning into quite the e-book blogger).
Up until this deal came along, it was a truism that if a library made e-books available for lending, those books would not be Kindle books. It's sort of a format-war thing -- VHS and Betamax, DVD and LaserDisc, HD DVD and Blu-Ray, Microsoft and Apple, Kindle and ePub.
ePub is the other format that's most widely used to disseminate e-books. It's readable on a large variety of devices and can be distributed with digital rights management (DRM) software baked into the e-book so that it either can't be copied, or can remove itself from the user's device after the borrowing period expires.
There are just two problems with ePub, a general one and a specific one.
First, the general one. The ePub format is an open standard, so it suffers from what I call the "Android Syndrome."
If you're not familiar with this, some background: Android -- the smartphone operating system created and distributed by Google -- is an open standard, meaning it's free for anyone to modify to their heart's content. Predictably, this has led to a huge variety of personalized versions of Android, depending on what phone company you use, what kind of smartphone you have, which third-party software developer you particularly like, or your own personal taste.
This means that when Google releases newer, faster, and better basic versions of Android, millions of people miss out because:
In ePub's case (back to the point!), as an open standard, it doesn't require or enforce a specific digital-rights mechanism, which means it may become difficult for a given device or app to support all the possible forms of DRM applied to different e-books, leading to a fragmentation of usability. This is still a relatively small concern -- ePub isn't all that old as standards go -- but then it was also a small concern in the early days of Android. Still, most public libraries use large e-book vendors, like OverDrive, that require that users download a specific app or use a specific format in order to read their e-books, which makes the DRM consideration a pretty small one!
So that's the general problem with ePub, which really isn't much of one these days, despite the lengthy exposition!
The specific problem with ePub is just that they're unreadable on the Kindle. Sigh ... and the war goes on.
In general, the Amazon-OverDrive deal seems to be a good thing for libraries. A lot of kinks still need to be ironed out -- how much control will libraries have over their Kindle e-books? Will they have to pay again for a Kindle copy, even if they already have an ePub version from the same vendor? -- but there's cautious optimism about the implications for libraries that are facing the growth of e-books.
It's certainly made us sit up and take notice here at the Gallaudet University Library, but we have to admit to being uncertain that there actually are all that many people on campus -- or off, in the case of our online students -- who would use a mobile device to read one of our e-books. Working with EBL will help us learn a little more about whether or not that feature gets used, but we also don't know how many people own Kindles, for instance, as opposed to Nooks or Sony Readers.
Or would more people use their devices for this purpose after the e-books became available?
It's kind of a funny little dilemma. Either way, we're still buying e-books and they are still being used, even in the current, relatively-limited format that's available.
One way we could get around this is to get feedback. If you're reading this and you use a device of some kindto read e-books, let me know! Just e-mail me at james.mccarthy@gallaudet.edu and let me know what device you use to read e-books and your thoughts on whether or not the Library should start thinking about stuff like OverDrive and its Kindle e-books.
We may also do a survey about it over the summer, depending on how quiet it is here. Nevertheless, you can still expect to hear more about it in the coming months ...
For a little background, read this article that I ganked off our Facebook page.
As news go, this is pretty far-out. In summary, Amazon's agreed to make it possible for people to borrow e-books from their local library on their Kindles. They've partnered with OverDrive, a major vendor for lendable e-books to accomplish this.
For a variety of reasons, most of which are known only to them, Amazon has historically been resistant to the idea of e-book lending. That's why, for instance, when I talked about EBL last month, I had to note that it didn't work on the Kindle. Ditto OverDrive, which I wrote about the month before that (I seem to be turning into quite the e-book blogger).
Up until this deal came along, it was a truism that if a library made e-books available for lending, those books would not be Kindle books. It's sort of a format-war thing -- VHS and Betamax, DVD and LaserDisc, HD DVD and Blu-Ray, Microsoft and Apple, Kindle and ePub.
ePub is the other format that's most widely used to disseminate e-books. It's readable on a large variety of devices and can be distributed with digital rights management (DRM) software baked into the e-book so that it either can't be copied, or can remove itself from the user's device after the borrowing period expires.
There are just two problems with ePub, a general one and a specific one.
First, the general one. The ePub format is an open standard, so it suffers from what I call the "Android Syndrome."
If you're not familiar with this, some background: Android -- the smartphone operating system created and distributed by Google -- is an open standard, meaning it's free for anyone to modify to their heart's content. Predictably, this has led to a huge variety of personalized versions of Android, depending on what phone company you use, what kind of smartphone you have, which third-party software developer you particularly like, or your own personal taste.
This means that when Google releases newer, faster, and better basic versions of Android, millions of people miss out because:
- The particular type of Android they have on their phones doesn't play nice with the new stuff.
- Their phone company is too slow to release a new version of their personalized Android that works with the new stuff.
- The smartphone they happen to have just doesn't have the hardware necessary to run the new stuff.
In ePub's case (back to the point!), as an open standard, it doesn't require or enforce a specific digital-rights mechanism, which means it may become difficult for a given device or app to support all the possible forms of DRM applied to different e-books, leading to a fragmentation of usability. This is still a relatively small concern -- ePub isn't all that old as standards go -- but then it was also a small concern in the early days of Android. Still, most public libraries use large e-book vendors, like OverDrive, that require that users download a specific app or use a specific format in order to read their e-books, which makes the DRM consideration a pretty small one!
So that's the general problem with ePub, which really isn't much of one these days, despite the lengthy exposition!
The specific problem with ePub is just that they're unreadable on the Kindle. Sigh ... and the war goes on.
In general, the Amazon-OverDrive deal seems to be a good thing for libraries. A lot of kinks still need to be ironed out -- how much control will libraries have over their Kindle e-books? Will they have to pay again for a Kindle copy, even if they already have an ePub version from the same vendor? -- but there's cautious optimism about the implications for libraries that are facing the growth of e-books.
It's certainly made us sit up and take notice here at the Gallaudet University Library, but we have to admit to being uncertain that there actually are all that many people on campus -- or off, in the case of our online students -- who would use a mobile device to read one of our e-books. Working with EBL will help us learn a little more about whether or not that feature gets used, but we also don't know how many people own Kindles, for instance, as opposed to Nooks or Sony Readers.
Or would more people use their devices for this purpose after the e-books became available?
It's kind of a funny little dilemma. Either way, we're still buying e-books and they are still being used, even in the current, relatively-limited format that's available.
One way we could get around this is to get feedback. If you're reading this and you use a device of some kindto read e-books, let me know! Just e-mail me at james.mccarthy@gallaudet.edu and let me know what device you use to read e-books and your thoughts on whether or not the Library should start thinking about stuff like OverDrive and its Kindle e-books.
We may also do a survey about it over the summer, depending on how quiet it is here. Nevertheless, you can still expect to hear more about it in the coming months ...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
A peek behind the scenes
This week, I thought I'd do something a little different: bore you out of your minds!
I'm just kidding. Or am I? It depends on whether or not you think librarian work is interesting in any way whatsoever.
I've been working on a number of things this week, but this morning was fairly quiet, so I took the opportunity to do some weeding. We need to clear out some space in the collection in general, and it's a great opportunity to trim the fat of old, unnecessary or unused books in order to make way for new and more useful ones! But this time, I brought along a camera.
You get to come along and see a little bit of what we do! Revealing photos and all. I just wish National Geographic saw us for the feral entities we are; taking pictures and weeding, like walking and chewing gum, are not two activities that go together well. Still, the truth must be told!
Here's the basic equipment I use (click to enlarge):
Book cart, laptop with our circulation system up and running, barcode scanner. Obscured in this photo: The most recent issue of American Libraries I'm using to cushion the laptop on the metal cart!
A lot of times, when you're combing the collection, you'll usually find an oddity or two:
Not a bad idea, right? But there are a number of issues with this book. First, it's fairly out of context with the section it's in; we're looking at the study of linguistics, after all. However, it's multilingual and kind of weird, so it ended up in 413, which is for specialized and/or polyglot dictionaries -- of which we don't actually have many. Most of our foreign-language dictionaries are for specific languages and are fairly pedestrian, so end up higher in the 400s. Another issue is just that it's old. There are no drawings of computers, for instance, but there are plenty for things that simply don't exist anymore.
Plus the fact that the spine has been taped up -- can't miss the tape, it takes up a good portion of the cover -- indicates that it's not in the greatest of conditions. Still another problem is that it's relatively limited in terms of actual translation ability. If you're relying on the pictures, for instance, how do you convey that you're looking for a library if there's no textual translation of a "LIBRARY" sign on a drawing of a building? How do you get around that without making someone think you're looking for a decent bookcase? Or a policeman, who may be wearing a different uniform from the one depicted? And what really bothers me is the picture in the lower right-hand corner. What is that?
Let's look inside.
Hmm. This is interesting and might actually be pretty useful. Then you hit the watering-can thing in the bottom-middle row on the right-hand page. Why does one need to water one's flowers when one is traveling in a foreign country? Or is it a coffee pot of some kind? What's that thing floating in midair next to it? Or the upper right-hand corner -- is it true that American tourists were once in the habit of accosting strangers for their keys? Or the drawing of the parking lot just below that one; the symbol "P" doesn't necessarily denote "parking" in every language.
This leads to another limitation: more than the fact that only four European languages are represented here, a good deal of these drawings display a Western bias. I have to wonder if, say, a rural Cambodian knows what a garage is.
Either way, it's taking up space in the collection. Don't worry, we didn't spend a lot of money on it:
It's a donation. Historically, the Gallaudet University Library has been lucky enough to benefit from the largess of University students, staff, faculty, and alumni, as well as local community figures, and continues to do so; because of this, a pretty significant portion of the collection has come from private libraries over the decades. Although this particular case does not mean, in any way, that we're less attached to donated books than ones we purchase, it does mean that our collection is full of truly random things that may not have been added to the collection with strict utility in mind.
But all of this is really just my own evaluation of the book as a librarian. Let's see if it's backed up by our circulation records:
Lasers from space! And on the laptop, we see ...
This is the dirt: the history of the item since the record was entered into our system, which was August 2, 1997. No last transaction listed, which means this book was last checked out at some point before 1997. Actually probably long before 1997; when we switched over to electronic, every effort was made to enter information about the book's history before then, so if there was a card in the back of the book with stamps indicating that it had been checked out, that information would probably have made it into this window (and no, we don't keep any more information than that; we don't keep data on who borrowed what, just on whether or not the book was borrowed at all). There's been zero activity on this book in at least 14 years. Toss!
It's not easy to find books like the picture dictionary, though, that are so clearly out of step with the collection and which haven't been used at all since we began keeping electronic records. Some books that we weed have been used, but not enough to justify their place within the collection, and especially considering how misleading they can be sometimes. For instance, take a look at this one:
Current approaches! Pretty nice; it's always useful to get up-to-date information on the state of the field. But then you look at the call number label:
Sure was nice of a former staffer to point out the important information. This book is three decades out of date! I can see why it's still here in the collection, though; it probably provides a useful look at the state of phonological theory as of 1979, which might be good for historical research. However, one important aspect of weeding is knowledge and understanding of the academic departments involved and the ability to keep their needs in mind. And not a whole lot of research into the history of linguistics itself goes on here; we do have much more recent historical overviews that include this date, as well as the perspective that comes with hindsight. Toss!
I'm not going to take pictures of each and every book I took, so we'll skip right to the end:
I have to admit to feeling a certain kind of thrill when I see a large set of books that are clearly outdated, irrelevant, and unused, like -- and I'm male, so forgive my color sense -- the mauve-ish set of books in the middle of the second shelf from the top. Toss!
In any case, the process you've seen here gets repeated anywhere from 75 to 150 times per cart, depending on the size of each book. With that in mind, it may not surprise you that some books have been on our shelves for a very long time -- some for a century or so -- and with a collection as large as ours, it can take a long time to get through with weeding.
Long enough, in fact, that by the time we've finished weeding, we've added enough new books in the meantime to require that we start over again as soon as we're done!
It's moments like this that I realize that our collection -- library collections in general, all over the world -- are dynamic, living things. They grow, shrink, and change according to the nature of the times and the people who manage them. In times like these, I wish we had a book: The Care and Feeding of Library Collections.
I'm just kidding. Or am I? It depends on whether or not you think librarian work is interesting in any way whatsoever.
I've been working on a number of things this week, but this morning was fairly quiet, so I took the opportunity to do some weeding. We need to clear out some space in the collection in general, and it's a great opportunity to trim the fat of old, unnecessary or unused books in order to make way for new and more useful ones! But this time, I brought along a camera.
You get to come along and see a little bit of what we do! Revealing photos and all. I just wish National Geographic saw us for the feral entities we are; taking pictures and weeding, like walking and chewing gum, are not two activities that go together well. Still, the truth must be told!
Here's the basic equipment I use (click to enlarge):
Book cart, laptop with our circulation system up and running, barcode scanner. Obscured in this photo: The most recent issue of American Libraries I'm using to cushion the laptop on the metal cart!
A lot of times, when you're combing the collection, you'll usually find an oddity or two:
Not a bad idea, right? But there are a number of issues with this book. First, it's fairly out of context with the section it's in; we're looking at the study of linguistics, after all. However, it's multilingual and kind of weird, so it ended up in 413, which is for specialized and/or polyglot dictionaries -- of which we don't actually have many. Most of our foreign-language dictionaries are for specific languages and are fairly pedestrian, so end up higher in the 400s. Another issue is just that it's old. There are no drawings of computers, for instance, but there are plenty for things that simply don't exist anymore.
Plus the fact that the spine has been taped up -- can't miss the tape, it takes up a good portion of the cover -- indicates that it's not in the greatest of conditions. Still another problem is that it's relatively limited in terms of actual translation ability. If you're relying on the pictures, for instance, how do you convey that you're looking for a library if there's no textual translation of a "LIBRARY" sign on a drawing of a building? How do you get around that without making someone think you're looking for a decent bookcase? Or a policeman, who may be wearing a different uniform from the one depicted? And what really bothers me is the picture in the lower right-hand corner. What is that?
Let's look inside.
Hmm. This is interesting and might actually be pretty useful. Then you hit the watering-can thing in the bottom-middle row on the right-hand page. Why does one need to water one's flowers when one is traveling in a foreign country? Or is it a coffee pot of some kind? What's that thing floating in midair next to it? Or the upper right-hand corner -- is it true that American tourists were once in the habit of accosting strangers for their keys? Or the drawing of the parking lot just below that one; the symbol "P" doesn't necessarily denote "parking" in every language.
This leads to another limitation: more than the fact that only four European languages are represented here, a good deal of these drawings display a Western bias. I have to wonder if, say, a rural Cambodian knows what a garage is.
Either way, it's taking up space in the collection. Don't worry, we didn't spend a lot of money on it:
It's a donation. Historically, the Gallaudet University Library has been lucky enough to benefit from the largess of University students, staff, faculty, and alumni, as well as local community figures, and continues to do so; because of this, a pretty significant portion of the collection has come from private libraries over the decades. Although this particular case does not mean, in any way, that we're less attached to donated books than ones we purchase, it does mean that our collection is full of truly random things that may not have been added to the collection with strict utility in mind.
But all of this is really just my own evaluation of the book as a librarian. Let's see if it's backed up by our circulation records:
Lasers from space! And on the laptop, we see ...
This is the dirt: the history of the item since the record was entered into our system, which was August 2, 1997. No last transaction listed, which means this book was last checked out at some point before 1997. Actually probably long before 1997; when we switched over to electronic, every effort was made to enter information about the book's history before then, so if there was a card in the back of the book with stamps indicating that it had been checked out, that information would probably have made it into this window (and no, we don't keep any more information than that; we don't keep data on who borrowed what, just on whether or not the book was borrowed at all). There's been zero activity on this book in at least 14 years. Toss!
It's not easy to find books like the picture dictionary, though, that are so clearly out of step with the collection and which haven't been used at all since we began keeping electronic records. Some books that we weed have been used, but not enough to justify their place within the collection, and especially considering how misleading they can be sometimes. For instance, take a look at this one:
Current approaches! Pretty nice; it's always useful to get up-to-date information on the state of the field. But then you look at the call number label:
Sure was nice of a former staffer to point out the important information. This book is three decades out of date! I can see why it's still here in the collection, though; it probably provides a useful look at the state of phonological theory as of 1979, which might be good for historical research. However, one important aspect of weeding is knowledge and understanding of the academic departments involved and the ability to keep their needs in mind. And not a whole lot of research into the history of linguistics itself goes on here; we do have much more recent historical overviews that include this date, as well as the perspective that comes with hindsight. Toss!
I'm not going to take pictures of each and every book I took, so we'll skip right to the end:
I have to admit to feeling a certain kind of thrill when I see a large set of books that are clearly outdated, irrelevant, and unused, like -- and I'm male, so forgive my color sense -- the mauve-ish set of books in the middle of the second shelf from the top. Toss!
In any case, the process you've seen here gets repeated anywhere from 75 to 150 times per cart, depending on the size of each book. With that in mind, it may not surprise you that some books have been on our shelves for a very long time -- some for a century or so -- and with a collection as large as ours, it can take a long time to get through with weeding.
Long enough, in fact, that by the time we've finished weeding, we've added enough new books in the meantime to require that we start over again as soon as we're done!
It's moments like this that I realize that our collection -- library collections in general, all over the world -- are dynamic, living things. They grow, shrink, and change according to the nature of the times and the people who manage them. In times like these, I wish we had a book: The Care and Feeding of Library Collections.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
