Job Description : Part-time Reference Librarian

Just got a request to describe my activities as a part-time reference librarian. Here's my response:

Basically the part time job is totally reference (i.e. public service) work. Questions run from 'where is the copier/bathroom/color-printer' to 'I'm writing a research paper on advances in chemistry in the 18th Century and need to find some research articles'.

Am I an expert on advances in chemistry in the 18th Century? No, but I know where to get the student started and I can also show the student how to find articles and, equally as important, how to evaluate search results so that they branch out into even better material. I also know, finally, what the limits are and who and when to refer them to other people.

That's pretty much what I do.

MPOW: The Gravy Train

Hard to go on a diet in a place like this. 

Current Cites for March 2016

 

Current Cites for March 2016 is out! You can find the issue here...

This month I recommended an article that took text-based content analysis and applied it to tweets from the Twitter accounts of 10 different academic libraries. Interesting results.

Current Cites for January 2016

 

Current Cites for January 2016 is out! You can find the issue here...

Starting the year out right. I pointed to the "big anniversary issue" coming from the Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) celebrating its 20th year as an open access journal.

'Join the Conversation' Makes It to This Year's Banished Word List

 I've lived to see the day!  "Join the conversation" has made it to this year's LSSU Banished Word List!

University Releases 2016 Banned Words List (WGN)

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. – A university in Michigan has come out with its annual list of banished words.

Each year Lake Superior State University bans words or phrases it deems overused, misused, or in poor taste. Top contenders for 2016 include “vape,” “break the Internet” and “conversation.”

Now if only "disruptive" and "iconic" could make it to next year's list! Puh-leeeeeeezzzzeee!

Note to Google

 Note to Google: No, we aren't open till 2am tonight. It's intersession.

UPDATE: I contacted Google through the "Feedback" page and they fixed the thing in about a day. Not bad.

On the Importance of High School Libraries

Student protest at DeSable High School against the firing of their librarian. The students were right to do this. In fact it would seem more of a survival tactic than simply a protest.

It's amazing to think of an institution that claims to be about education that has no library function. What are the students going to do when they hit college? They'll each have to learn how to do research -- that's what going to college involves -- and this is infinitely harder to do if they have no prior familiarity with what a library is and how it functions.

What's next? Take away the textbooks? :-(

UPDATE:  Good news...

Old Pal Unexpectedly Drops By

 

Current Cites for November 2015

 Current Cites for November 2015 is out! You can find the issue here...

I recommended an article titled, "When IT No Longer Remains Anonymous -- For All the Right Reasons" (EDUCAUSE Review). It looks at two approaches to academic IT depts. -- one reactive (okay) and the other pro-active (better).

Ask a Librarian

 

Interesting article looking at the transitory nature of the web. Technology and formats change all the time. In a sense, you never step into the same web twice. That said, the article subtitle, "If a Pulitzer-finalist 34-part series of investigative journalism can vanish from the web, anything can" -- just isn't true. I found most of the original "vanished" articles using the database Newsbank.

Current Cites for September 2015

 

Current Cites for September 2015 is out! You can find the issue here...

I recommended an article from Computers In Libraries that's near and dear to anyone who's experienced the same on a website they've managed, namely "Hacked! Lessons Learned From An URL Injection".

File Under, 'Things I Don't Usually Think About'

So I was at the local Subway Sandwich place, ordering a Ham and Cheese. The guy at the counter asked me what I wanted on it.

"Mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato," I replied.

"In that order?"

I was stumped. I mean, I don't usually get down to that level of detail.

"Go with whatever works best," I finally blurted out.

First Saturday of the New School Year at Depaul

First Saturday of the new school year at Depaul -- with colleague Jim.

Free Books: Tough Choice

 

At the Reference Desk: Free Books on the 'book truck' near the library entrance! It's either "WordPerfect: The Pocket Reference" (1987) or "Minute Manual for Apple Writer IIe" (1983). Tough choice.

I finally went with the "Minute Manual for Apple Writer IIe" -- I mean, how could I pass such pertinent pieces of information as:

How Much Can I Save on One Disk?

A normal Apple disk can hold a total of about 143k or 143,000 characters of information. The amount of usable space on a disk is equal to 128k to 136k or about 40 single spaced pages or 80 double spaces pages of text. When you run out of room on a disk and attempt to save a file, the computer simply beeps and displays the message, 'DOS :DISK FULL'. Put another disk in the drive and save the file again. (p.115)

At the Tech-in-Motion Timmy Awards in Chicago

 

Happy New School Year! (UIC)

First day of classes at UIC.

A Higher Authority

Personal Confession: Nowadays there's all this talk about 'STEM' in education. That's nice but frankly what got me going -- starting in high school -- was the notion of the 'Renaissance Man'. ‪#‎LongLiveTheHumanities‬

Funniest Reference Question of the Year (By Phone)

Patron: "Sorry, I know you probably get this question all the time..."

Me (interrupting): "Ask what you want -- we're here till 9pm!"

Patron: _SILENCE_

Patron: _MORE SILENCE_

Patron: _EVEN MORE SILENCE_

Me (finally): "Did you have a question"?

Patron: "That was it -- I wanted to know how late you're open."

Message to Box.com

You call this a slideshow? By default, over a third of the photo is covered up with usage data (of all things) on the right. Why not make showing usage data optional through a setting in the embed code?

Site Launch: GermaniaBroadcast.net

Today was the official launch date of GermaniaBroadcast.net. I announced it on all the usual social networks.

It's actually been up for maybe a month -- with me fiddling around, adding content, rearranging it and the like. I guess, an alternative name for the thing could be, "Fun with Drupal and Content Management".

The site is built around various digital records that we have of daddy, William Klein and his radio show, "The Germania Broadcast" (1927-1970). Working with the data, I managed to organize everything into four principle categories, Events, People, Places and Library (or 'Documents').

The neat thing with Drupal is how you can connect one item in one category with items in any other. Say, the name of a singer pops up in the description of a concert in 1928 which happened at the Auditorium Theater; You can relate the person to the event and location going backwards and forward. The magic is called "Entity Reference" but again, I like to call it, 'Fun with Content Mgmt".

In any case, there's a slightly fuller explanation of the original radio broadcast plus background here: The Germania Broadcast : An Introduction.