My creation

My creation,
originally uploaded by sueone162002.

Computers in Libraries 2008

I was really impressed with the first keynote speaker, Jane Dysart. She gave a prophetic view of libraries as problem solvers. That said, the Pew Charitable Internet and American Life Project, presented by Lee Rainie, showed the responses of libraries by age and ethnicity, and the use of the Internet to solve financial, health and education and other personal issues during the last 5 years. The next keynote speaker on the second day spoke of libraries as places of happiness. Taking a leaf from Dysart, R.I.T. librarian spoke at the end of the conference on how gaming gave the sense of accomplishment through friendly avatars and awards. She commented that games should be widely known as "productive games" not "serious games".

Once programs opened up, I attended "What do Users do in their Native Habitat?" the first morning of the conference. I listened to librarians from Guelph University plainly drawing the relationships students made with libraries and online access, and how Delft's librarians felt that the undergraduates emphasized searching subjects in print or specialized directories and left the high technology for social networking. Students felt very frustrated when urged to use high tech in research assignments and were reluctant to share assignments and work online.

The second set of programs on Tuesday involved the use of blogging and social networking. I found it useful to create yahoo pipes and widgets on our home page. Widgetbox is an excellent and free online tool to add small software applications, links and feeds to the library homepage. No computer language is needed and the expertise from technical standpoint is not needed to add a widget to a page. Binghamton University has an example of how widgets help users gain access to the library catalog and other resources on their Facebook account. Similar to wikis, the facebook account allows posting, but you may also ask a librarian for help anytime.

2007 Best reasons to be a librarian

1. Ending on a good note with a Tim Lahaye reader, he and I saw several perceptions on the series, such as the end of days and the birth of Christ, these events happen to be documented on the same day, December 26th and thereafter.

2. The collection is being weeded:>


3. Book orders are done:>

4. Using the web to find books is getting easier.

5. Dickens in wikipedia is cool!

6. I don't have to admit to latte's affect until January 1st, 2008.

7. A new administration!

8. A coming new administration!!!

9. Balmy weather in January, compared to December in the Northeast!

10. Wishing those a Healthy and Happy New Year!!!!!!

2007 Best Books

My creation,
originally uploaded by sueone162002.

Best books to read are Water for Elephants and Eat, Pray, Love. I am now reading Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy in African American Achievement, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Digitization projects http://www.futureofthebook.org/

See link above for:
Will Google Book Search Change Anything?

Rescuing orphans from obscurity
Orphan works are those books, records, images, compositions, manuscripts, movies, screenplays, paintings and drawings -- in short, any work protected by copyright -- whose owner cannot be determined, located, or who does not respond when contacted. We have always had orphan works, but a number of factors have converged to turn their existence into a [...] digitized work.

Posted in irrelevance of law, Congressional paralysis, orphan works | No Comments

Case in point:
Do not stand at my grave and weep is a popular poem, largely considered to be written by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1904-2004), but of disputed origin.

There is some ambiguity as to the poem's writer, and it was neither published nor copyrighted by Frye, although she was the only living person to credibly claim its authorship. Frye is near universally cited as the author, and her literary significance is based almost entirely upon it, but other sources, including traditional native American origins, have been suggested over the years.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_stand_at_my_grave_and_weep

Source:http://blogs.tdl.org/digitize/category/orphan-works

Report on Cataloging

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6497275.html

Inventory comes slowly

Billington also told the committee that the library has inventoried less than 20 percent of the 17 million print items it aims to include in its Baseline Inventory Project (BIP), which began in FY02.

While in 1998 LC estimated that the BIP might be completed in eight years (by 2010), costing $1.1 million a year, now it could “take ten more years to complete with available funds,” Billington said. Nevertheless, LC Inspector General Karl Schnornagel told the committee, “I do not believe that this has significantly impaired the library's ability to secure its collections.”

The answer is in your face!

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6497259.html

Something is still wrong with reference services and how serious or passively we take our jobs. ...The jobs of Public libraries are roughly the same as it ever was over twenty years ago. In May 1984, William Miller published a comprehensive critique of reference service entitled “What's Wrong with Reference: Coping with Success and Failure at the Reference Desk” (American Libraries). Some 24 years later, I wish I could say things have improved, but, in
fact, they have gotten even worse. David Isaccson, Library Journal.

My feelings are the same..
Cataloging materials may never change in the traditional respects, and I realize that this could kill the collection, however the author speaks truly to the spirit of libraries, that more is not better. We can't ignore quality over the collection and having a quantity of materials means quality of service. That means that the reference desk is fully aware of the way library books, videos and audiocassettes are purchased and placed on the shelves, and the longer it is put off the longer our expertise is wasted for vanity sake. Poke around for a while and notice the obvious fact that shelf ready books add dubious collections in a library, thereby duplicating collections into nonsensical libraries. Libraries exist by their unique locale, history and communities they serve. No library should resemble another's collection.

If the public outlook on libraries continues to be as negative as the author Mr. Miller states, I think that all library professionals are going to buy into a self-service library. My case especially is how we are pointing out those self-fullfilling acquistion folks in libraries who do not acknowledge libaries as places where people visit, rather than a library as a containment for books.

Another case in point, serving the public by referral to the community outside of the library, can save an unnecessary trip. So, in order to answer the public's questions, one must be able to reinterpret and reframe a question in order to reveal the facts. Librarians are good at this point of questioning the question, and are very good at passing the information on to the user, sometimes reluctantly. It is very crucial that we teach in our profession, how to give up the secret, so to speak. It is also crucial to be honest about how the answers are ultimately refined by subject specialists, ie lawyers or medical professionals, and not by the generalists in the library.