The Vital Library

I'm a Shover and Maker and so are you!

2009-04-23T10:37:00.002-05:00

I'm a Shover and Maker! Check out all the other winners at The Library Society of the World's Shovers & Makers.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

2009-04-01T12:07:00.004-05:00

I've become quite fond of The Cult of Done Manifesto created by Bre Pettis and Kio Starr. I decided there needed to be a color version, though, so here it is.

Librarian Heroes!

2008-08-09T17:10:00.003-05:00

Created with Hero Machine 2.5.

See more Librarian Superheroes here on Flickr.

Shelving of Doom

2008-07-13T09:40:00.002-05:00

For years now, I've had the notion that someone should write a murder mystery in which the implement of death is compact shelving. A quick check of YouTube reveals that I'm not the only one who is fascinated by it.

Short and sweet.

This one is a bit long and could have used some editing, but is still amusing.

Finally, here is a less scary take on compact shelving.

The Compassionate Community

2008-07-05T14:47:00.003-05:00

I've been ruminating about InfoSciPhi's recent and moving post about suffering and compassion. I very much respect and admire his forthrightness and honesty in talking about both his difficult experiences with his family members and what he has learned from them. InfoSciPhi's stories about his brothers have sparked some amazing dialogues on Twitter and FriendFeed, in which people express their support and empathy for him and his family.

During the past couple of weeks, others in my online communities have disclosed similar struggles. In one case, the recent suicide of a family member. In another, a child's attempted suicide. I have participated in several thoughtful and meaningful discussions about how mental illness directly effects each of us with folks in the LSW Meebo Room. I am reminded that suffering and mental illness is part of all of our lives, even those folks who seem so very together, professional and well-adjusted. In two days, it will be the thirteenth anniversary of my brother's suicide. For several years prior to his death, we had witnessed with horror and shock as John lost bits and pieces of himself to schizophrenia. While I still feel a painful ache, like a missing limb, I am no longer quite so angry with him. Time has changed my experience of loss.

As InfoSciPhi says, each of us can choose how we respond to traumatic events that are beyond our control. I am proud and moved that my peeps in Libraryland have responded to him with kindness and compassion.

The Twitter vs. FriendFeed Smackdown

2008-07-05T13:56:00.004-05:00

I've recently migrated from using Twitter on a regular basis to instead trying FriendFeed. FriendFeed (FF) is a social networking application that allows one to follow specific people's posts from up to forty one applications, Web sites and services. It also allows one to post directly on the FF site. Why this defection, you ask? Because, as Tinfoil + Raccoon so eloquently expressed the other day, Twitter has been so full of fail recently that it's been breakin' my heart. I mean, what kind of application lures me in with promises of constant connectivity and cracklike social networking capabilities and then is broken in one way or another for weeks at a time? I don't like being taken for granted as a user. These days, we have enough viable choices that if an app is frequently broken or hard to use, people will leave it (we in Libraryland should know this better than most, right?). And so, even though today Twitter is functioning perfectly, it is with great reluctance and and a heavy heart that I follow my libr* peeps over to FriendFeed.

Here are some of my initial thoughts about FriendFeed:

I love that it keeps discussion threads together, which makes them very easy to follow.
I enjoy seeing which posts get rated favorably with "like".
Some folks are taking advantage of FriendFeed's aggregation functionalities to display their posts from Flickr, del.icio.us, Pandora, their blogs, and more. While I for some reason feel reluctant to aggregate my entire online life in one place, it is kind of interesting and handy to see other people's stuff all in one place.
FriendFeed also allows one to create rooms (such as the LSW room) that allow one to easily share posts with a specific group of people. This kind of room doesn't facilitate the social chattiness of a meebo room, but it still could be useful for asynchronous communication.
I loved being able to direct message people via Twitter when I wanted to say something to a specific person more privately, so I'm disappointed that FF doesn't have this feature.
FF makes it very easy to post links, especially since there is no 140 character restriction.

Presently, my loyalties remain divided. Time will tell whether Twitter can win me back or whether FriendFeed will ultimately triumph.

A window inside my mind

2008-06-21T09:00:00.006-05:00

Want to peek into my mind? I've used Wordle to create a lovely tag cloud from my del.icio.us account.

One thing I don't like about Wordle: I don't see an easy way to export or save the image of the tag cloud.

Midwest Library Technology Conference

2008-06-03T22:29:00.004-05:00

Last week, I went to the very first Midwest Library Technology Conference, held in St. Paul, MN. The first day consisted of two plenary sessions plus shorter, thematic presentations. On the second day, we participated in longer, more in-depth, hands-on sessions. Thanks to all the planning committee members who made this event manifest.

A few conference highlights:

Blessed, glorious, free, easily accessible wireless in all conference facilities! I couldn't be more excited about this (especially after not having access to free wireless at the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting in Chicago this year). The planning committee gets an extra special, very shiny gold star for this.
Hanging with both my online peeps and my work peeps, plus meeting new peeps! Yay! The conference was a fine venue for professional networking.
The hands-on sessions on Friday were an admirable experiment. While a couple of the sessions were a bit large for hands-on work, it was nice to be able to get in there and try some stuff.
The Ning conference site provides a place for presenters to post their slides, handouts, links and other supporting materials. It also provides a forum for attendees to interact with each other. It will be interesting to see to what extent folks participate in the social networking aspects of this site.
I liked the thought provoking usability session with Dorothea Salo very much. We got a tiny taste of what usability testing is like, presented in an engaging, interactive manner.
Plenary sessions with John Riedl, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota and Rachel S. Smith and Alan Levine of the New Media Consortium (producers of the Horizon Report), all of whom talked about the future of the interactive, collaborative Web. Please note that these keynote speakers were not libraryfolk, which I found strangely refreshing.

Ideas for next year:

Many of the sessions were at the 101 level, which is fine, but there also need to be some more advanced sessions for those of us who already know the basics.
In-depth session about using content management systems (CMS) to create library Web sites. Perhaps a Drupal vs. Joomla Smackdown? Or, a comparison between using Drupal vs. a homegrown CMS?
How about a hands-on session about planning technology initiatives &/or project management? I hereby nominate my LSW buddy Tim Keneipp to teach this session.
I would love to attend a longer, hands-on, more substantive session about designing lesson plans that incorporate clicker technology (aka audience response systems) into library instruction.
Folks from the University of Minnesota Libraries could present on creating home grown databases, such as HarvestChoice and EthicShare.
Online social networking tools are fabulous for professional networking in Libraryland. I would be happy to offer an introductory presentation on this. :-)
While I appreciated and enjoyed the session about AskMN - the new, statewide virtual reference service in Minnesota - fifteen minutes was too brief for me, especially since the University Libraries are in the process of evaluating and possibly implementing this servce. Next year's conference would be a good opportunity for current AskMN libraries and potential AskMN libraries to get together and discuss the project.
Last, but not least: more coffee, more of the time! In my book, there's nothing uglier than a bunch of undercaffeinated librarians.

These are, of course, just my initial thoughts about the conference, but I promised Iris that I would get something down in writing before to much time passed. Were you there? I welcome your comments.

What should I do this summer?

2008-05-31T11:18:00.019-05:00

Boy, howdy, was May a busy month. A good month, but very, very busy. Let's pause for a moment to take stock:

Participated in major weeding of the print reference section at my library, the first time this had been done in any kind of comprehensive way in many years.
Graduated from the College of St. Catherine/Dominican University MLIS program. W00t!
Presented my Extreme Googling: Tips & Tricks for Expert Searching workshop at a family medicine conference at the medical school and at Enhancing Quality Staff.
Presented my poster Why Wufoo? Collecting Data About Reference Transactions Using an Online Form Builder at the Medical Library Association (MLA) Annual Meeting.
Attended the MLA Annual Meeting in Chicago.
Attended WisCon in Madison, WI for the very first time!
Also attended the Midwest Library Technology Conference here in St. Paul.

So, for me, May was a very busy and momentous month. Now that I've had 24 hours to catch my breath, however, I already find myself thinking ahead to what I want to accomplish this summer. I fear this will be a very long list, but here's a first draft of my professional goals for the summer and beyond.

Publish
Thus far, I have a database review and an article about the Wufoo poster in the works, so I need to finish these and get them submitted. Both of these opportunities came at me serendipitously and unexpectedly. I would also like to write something about professional networking using online social tools.

Reference competencies
At my library, we will be writing competencies for folks providing reference services. These competencies will be particularly useful as we integrate our reference and circulation desks. I'm quite excited to be part of this team.

Virtual reference services
Specific tasks include implementing a Meebo Me widget on our Web site and creating a custom search bar. I also want to become fully involved with the initiatives of the Libraries' wide Reinventing Reference Collaborative.

Diversity outreach
I am very excited about being on the Diversity Outreach Collaborative at the University Libraries because I believe that making sure that we are reaching and well-serving both our current and potential users is the most important thing libraries can do. If we aren't reaching and serving our people, all we have is a big warehouse of well-organized stuff (including both physical and virtual collections). I've offered to participate in a literature search for this committee, so that will be fun and useful, because I want to learn as much about this area as possible.

Consumer health and community outreach
Working in an academic health sciences libraries, I see oodles of opportunities to serve not only our institutionally affiliated users, but also our community users. I want to explore ways that my library can do more in these areas.

Actively seek a librarian job
This pretty much speaks for itself. I adore my job, but am ready to add the "librarian" title to my business card. I would prefer to stay in the Twin Cities, of course, because it is the Best. Place. Ever., but am open to other options as well.

Figure out what to do about this blog
I started this blog just a little over a year ago to fulfill a class assignment, but now I don't know what to do with it. I know that successful blogs should have a mission/vision/voice/purpose, but I've never taken the time to figure out what these are and thus this blog has often languished. Is it time to let it die? It is certainly time to decide.

Maintain a healthy balance between my personal and professional lives
Libraryland is awesome and grand, but I know I need create more balance and definition between my personal life and my professional life, to avoid going barmy.

Information literacy and teaching
I'm looking forward to opportunities to do teaching beyond one-shot, drop-in library workshops. I know I have lots to learn about teaching. I especially want to get better at incorporating active learning into my teaching. Also, I want to learn much more about information literacy (I would *love* to participate in the info lit immersion program). So, I need to do some serious reading, thinking and planning in this area.

Expand my Extreme Googling workshops
Both of our classes (Tips & Tricks for Expert Searching and Productivity Tools for Your Online Life) have been extremely successful. We of course continue to refine the workshops, but I would like to produce some additional material. I would like to create a Web site where I could post handouts, slides, links and online tutorials to support the workshops. I would also like to create a custom Google class, which would involve mashups, custom search engines and doing stuff with APIs.

Write and present about social networking
Specifically, I would like to explore professional networking via online social networking tools, both within librarianship and other professions. Also, I think social networking tools could be used by public health and community health workers to disseminate information to clients. So, I really need to read up on this and learn a bit about social networking theory. I will also need to familiarize myself with more online social networking tools.

Since I originally wrote this post this morning, I've added three more goals! Eeeep! Someone tell me to stop!

Well, David told me to stop, but I can't! Here's another goal.

Searching
I would like to learn how to do much more sophisticated, high-level searches, at the level necessary for systematic reviews. I love literature searching, but I need much more practice, especially with more complex searches.

On having a health information need

2008-03-29T12:10:00.017-05:00

During the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday, my partner and I were awakened by my beloved elderly border collie having a seizure on the living room floor. Having never seen a seizure before, I was aghast to see Zeke foaming at the mouth, eyes glazed, feet paddling away rapidly as if he were running full tilt. The seizure was prolonged, lasting at least five minutes after we woke up, plus, we don't know how long Zeke had been seizing before we woke up. Once the seizure itself subsided, Zeke was compelled to keep moving, unable to stop trotting around for the better part of two hours. A couple of calls to the emergency vet revealed that this is normal behavior for dogs post-seizures, but we still felt horrible and helpless, unable to do anything to assist Zeke other than try to reassure him. Eventually and gradually, Zeke was freed from compulsion to move and the three of us were able to get a few hours rest. He seemed to suffer no permanent effects from the seizure and the aftermath, only exhaustion.

When we visited our regular vet on Tuesday, we found out that seizures over two minutes in duration are considered to be severe in dogs and can cause significant brain damage. The blood work indicated no toxins in his system and nothing unusual except some markers that Zeke had indeed had a seizure. Because of the severity and duration of the seizure, the doctor immediately prescribed phenobarbital as a preventive measure against recurrences. She warned us of side effects, such as excessive thirst and especially balance, gait and disorientation problems, but said these would lessen after a week or two. True to the vet's prediction, our Zeke has indeed been extremely wobbly since Tuesday and somewhat disoriented. Our valiant, hyper, Frisbee dog was reduced to stumbling and falling, struggling to stand upright on the linoleum kitchen floor.

In the wake of this health crisis in our household, did I use my spiffy librarian skillz to seek additional information to address my concerns about the side effects of the medication? Did I search PubMed, Google Scholar or any reference materials to learn more about phenobarbital or seizures in dogs? Did I consult Healthypet.com from the AAHA for more information or consult my colleagues at the Veterinary Medical Library for assistance? Did call the vet? No. I talked to friends and co-workers, talked to my partner, and posted on twitter and Facebook. I talked to the dog, who waggled and licked my nose. In other words, I fretted and sought social support, but took no steps to acquire additional information to help me understand what was happening.

This morning, I woke up, drank a cup of coffee and said to myself, "Self, I think the Merck Veterinary Manual is available online." I consulted the Merck, searched PubMed, looked at the AAHA site and did a Google Scholar search. All of the sources reiterated exactly what the vet originally said about the side effects of phenobarbital subsiding after two weeks. Even so, I feel much better with additional information at hand.

I spend every day helping other people find information. I know that finding consumer health information can be helpful in coming to terms with a new diagnosis, yet, when a crisis presented itself in my life, I froze like a stunned bunny. What if, instead of a dog, the seizure had happened to my partner or elderly parent? What if I didn't understand English very well? What if I had no computer or searching skills? As librarians, we are trained to treat every information need with respect and all due seriousness, but, frankly, there are days when this is easier said than done. The reality is, however, that when people are scared and distressed, they just aren't always very rational. So, the next time Definitions Guy calls five times for the same definitions he requested last week or someone asks if they will get burned if their flame-retardant mattress catches on fire or a freaked out student approaches the desk for help on the verge of tears, I hope I will remember this week with Zeke and treat their questions and concerns with consideration, patience and attention.

Web 2.0 101: Week 1 RSS Feeds & Blogs

2008-03-17T21:53:00.003-05:00

During week one of MLA's Web 2.0 101 CE course, we have been asked to reflect on how we envision using RSS feeds at our library and how we think our patrons could use RSS feeds.

At my library, we have set up an RSS feed for our library news posts. This is a good idea, but I don't think we have many subscribers. A couple of our liaison librarians write blogs to update their academic departments; again, they don't have many subscribers and the librarians end up sending notifications of posts via email. Apparently, we would need to do much more marketing to get folks to subscribe to the feeds. We have also discussed setting up a patron centered blog. An excellent example of such a blog from an academic library is Library Hacks from Duke University Libraries. Typical topics range from search tips to library hours to citing sources, all very practical and succinct. My concern about starting such a blog is writing sufficient content to post frequently and substantially. Time is a scarce resource at my library, as it is at many academic libraries, and I wonder how I or other library staff would carve out enough time to make the blog successful.

One of my projects for this summer is to develop a series of Web 2.0 workshops for our patrons, which is one of the reasons I am taking this CE. We envision that the series would include an introductory class about "What is Web 2.0 Anyway?", one on creating Wikis, online tools for collaboration, organizing and sharing information using social bookmarking, and, of course, staying current using RSS feeds. I hope that teaching these workshops is one way we can educate our users about tools like RSS readers so that they will take advantage of the RSS feeds we offer.

I'm also interested in teaching our users how to subscribe to RSS feeds to the tables of contents of journals. We haven't done much to support this, but I know that many libraries have pages on their site which indicate which journals have TOC feeds available, so that would be something we could consider doing. I've figured out how to successfully save and subscribe to feeds from saved searches in PubMed (see my previous post), but am extremely frustrated with the new RSS feeds option for saved searches in Ovid MEDLINE. There doesn't seem to be any way to embed the Libraries' link resolver in the feed. The notifications regarding new articles in my Bloglines doesn't even link to the complete reference in Ovid. So, receiving notifications via Bloglines is frankly darned frustrating, because I then have to go look up the citation in Ovid MEDLINE or PubMed. This is so inefficient that I don't see any reason to burden my patrons with it. The Krafty Librarian and Ratcatcher have written intelligent posts about this OvidSP goofiness.

I look forward to reading other folks posts about how they are using RSS feeds or envision using them at their libraries.

Web 2.0 101: Introduction to Second Generation Web Tools

2008-03-17T20:59:00.005-05:00

I've embarked on a new little adventure by enrolling in an eight week online continuing education (CE) course offered by the Medical Library Association called Web 2.0 101: Introduction to Second Generation Web Tools. So, I'll be documenting my progress here on my existing blog.

The tasks for week 1 are all things I've been doing for a while. I've had the blog for about a year, but have never figured out exactly what I want to do with it; recently, I've pretty much ignored it. Perhaps this course will be an opportunity for me to revitalize it. Also, I already have numerous (147!) feeds in my Bloglines account, including feeds from journals and all kinds of blogs from Libraryland.

By the way, there has been some discussion amongst course participants about subscribing to PubMed feeds. If I am already in PubMed via my proxy server, I get the open url links to full text content via my library when I click on the link in my Bloglines. The order is important; I have to go into PubMed via my library's Web site first and authenticate via the proxy server in order to get the links. Also, as I already commented to the listserv (sorry about that, by the way), the PubMed support folks told me that there is a known bug that causes problems with RSS feeds from searches constructed from combining set numbers in the History tab. If you log into your MyNCBI account before you try to save the RSS feed, it seems to work fine.

I'm looking forward to learning some new skills as the course progresses. Stay tuned!

Library Journal Movers and Shakers 2008

2008-03-16T07:59:00.012-05:00

The March 15 issue of Library Journal includes the list of Movers and Shakers for 2008! Trying to browse the list of recipients on the LJ site, however, will cause you to beat your head to a bloody pulp on the nearest wall, so take my advice and don't even try. Jessamyn has created a nice brief list of recipients with hyperlinks to the articles about each and Connie Crosby has compiled a list with annotations on her blog. Librarian By Day took Jessamyn's list and added links to the recipients' blogs. Librarians are ace problem solvers, don't you think?

Here are a few highlights from the list, based on my initial reading:

Jessica Moyer and Jennifer Nelson are two librarians in the Twin Cities. Moyer is doing research on readers' advisory and has published Research-Based Readers' Advisory. She is also is adjunct faculty at my own College of St. Catherine. Nelson has created the MicroEntrepreneur Resource Center (MERC), a partnership between the Minneapolis Public Library (now part of the Hennepin County system) and Neighborhood Development, Inc. She has also developed teen technology programs in conjunction with the Science Museum of Minnesota (for more information, see this article in School Library Journal). Thanks to Library Journal for introducing me to two librarians doing great work in my own neck of the woods.

I'm delighted to see the impressive and indefatigable David Rothman on the list. LJ highlights Rothman's LibWorm, which is indeed a very handy aggregator and search engine for RSS feeds in in Libraryland. As a library professional in a academic medical library, however, I rely heavily upon Rothman's excellent blog to keep me current about all things pertaining to "Medical Librarianship and Web Geekery".

I'm very interested to learn more about the health education and outreach work to Hispanic communities of Annabelle V. Núñez at the University of Arizona, such as the Arizona Hispanic Center of Excellence, created in partnership with the University of Arizona College of Medicine. I would love to see more academic medical librarians and libraries doing this kind of work in their communities.

Even though he isn't a librarian, Tim Spalding of LibraryThing is most deservedly a Mover and Shaker for showing us all what libraries could be doing with social apps, tagging, personalized virtual collections, integration with Google Books and just plain making data about books fun and findable. Sometimes, it takes an outsider to show us what is possible.

Congratulations to all of the 2008 Movers and Shakers!

Looking ahead to next year, it would be great to see some of our colleagues from outside the United States on this list. Submit your nomination here. Also, maybe someone could give the nice folks at Library Journal a little refresher course on Web site usability so that they pay a little more attention to their site design.

Update: Cindi at Citegeist is adding to the aggregate knowledge of the hive mind by creating a Google spreadsheet to collate date about the Movers and Shakers from 2002-2008. If you want to help gather this data, please let her know.

Weed Whacking My Feeds

2008-01-19T15:22:00.000-06:00

Holy cow, when I checked my Bloglines today, I had over 400 posts waiting for me. Yikes! I suppose that is what happens when one subscribes to *cough* 175 feeds. So, I've been weed whacking, unsubscribing to feeds where 1) no one has posted in months, 2) I never read the posts, and/or 3) there are just too many posts published too often. I've even had the courage to unsubscribe to some famous bigwigs. I doubt Stephen Abrams will miss my subscription and, if he posts something earth shattering, I trust you all to let me know via your own posts, Twitter, del.icio.us, the LSW Room or other social networking venues. I'm even reconsidering my subscriptions to ResourceShelf and the ReadWriteWeb, much as I love them, simply because they are so prolific that I can't keep up. I don't necessarily have to subscribe to every feed myself to keep current. I'm prioritizing feeds from LIS job sites, people I know, other LIS students, and LIS blogs that are funny, inspiring and/or incisive. I'll also keep some feeds from people who write about medical librarianship, Health and Medicine 2.0, academic librarianship and Google. I'm also keeping a few personal favorites (well, obsessions, really), like Chowhound and the Daily Puppy. Of the feeds that I drop, we shall see which ones I truly miss over the next few weeks.

Gosh, this is hard. Right now, I'm down to 152 feeds, aiming for 125. Wish me luck!

Carnival of the Infosciences #86

2008-01-06T19:12:00.000-06:00

When we Minnesotans hear the words "carnival" and "winter" together, we immediately think first of the Saint Paul Winter Carnival. Since 1886, we have celebrated the coldest days of winter with festivities and events including parades, ice skating, tournaments, ice carving, building spectacular ice castles and, most notably, a dramatic reenactment of the epic battle between the Vulcanus Rex and His Krewe and the Realm of Boreas.

In Libraryland, we also celebrate winter according to the ways of our people. We feast with our families and friends, play DDR, Guitar Hero and Wii, read fat, fluffy novels, meet in hotels and conference centers to discuss matters of the greatest importance, frantically prepare for the work of the new year, and, most especially, we blog. Here are a few recent, notable posts from the biblioblogosphere.

Both Anna Creech and Connie Crosby submitted yeah, that might work from Attempting Elegance, in which Jenica P. Rogers-Urbanek discusses the trend of publishers pulling their journal content out of the aggregators in favor of publisher-specific stand-alone platforms. According to Jenica, while this model might benefit the publishers, it may not be cost-effective or efficient for libraries.

Anna Creech also submitted a post in which Mark Lindner of the Off the Mark responds to the recent LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. Anna says, "What's the point of having cooperative cataloging if only certain blessed individuals can correct or enhance OCLC records? Mark is probably not the only frustrated cataloger reacting to the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control's report with a strong dose of apathy."

Peter Bromberg of Library Garden wants to know: Librarians, Got Information Literacy? In this post (submitted by Kate Sheehan), Bromberg responds to a post by Marshall Kirkpatrick on ReadWriteWeb about how librarians of the future will be able to help patrons upload videos to YouTube. According to Bromberg, in order to promote true information literacy, librarians need to be able to teach such technology skills to patrons. He says,

"In days of yore librarians took pride in our information literacy knowledge and in our ability to instruct others, and help them navigate through the myriad of resources and finding tools (indexes, handbooks, specialized encyclopedias, etc.) I am hopeful that we can tap into that shared professional passion for connecting people and information and continue to manifest it by learning how to navigate through the NEW myriad of resources and finding tools."

See also responses from Kate Sheehan at the Loose Cannon Librarian and the Carnival's own Chadwick Seagraves at InfoSciPhi.

Meanwhile, over at librarian.net, Jessamyn West thinks about why exactly the digital divide matters (post submitted by Kate Sheehan). Jessamyn says, in summary, "We are a democracy. People who vote need to have access to as much reputable information as possible so they can make these and other choices. The internet is becoming an important ‘place’ to find this information. Unequal access to the internet creates unequal access to government."

Science librarian Christina Pikas considers Implications of newer models of popularization of science for science library collection development on Christina's LIS Rant. She summarizes, "Here's my point: research science libraries should make more effort to collect and market popular science materials. These materials should be an important part of the service we do -- plus they're cheap."

I've been pondering two posts by Meredith Farkas on Information Wants To Be Free. In Darn that dream, Meredith talks quite openly and honestly about her thwarted efforts to move into a management position at her library. In the follow up post Women, career, and getting a fair shake, she reflects upon a comment on the first post that said, in effect, that Meredith's job would mean less to her once she had children. Meredith examines this assumption by the anonymous commenter that all women necessarily want to have children. I recommend also reading the comments on both posts.

Alrighty, folks, that concludes this installment of the Carnival! Please be sure to submit posts to the eclectic librarian for #87. You can use the online form or tag posts carninfo in del.icio.us.

Carnival of the Infosciences Coming to the Vital Library

2007-12-20T14:33:00.001-06:00

Picture 006
Originally uploaded by Lexinatrix

Yes, all the rumors you've heard are true! The Carnival of the Infosciences is indeed coming to the Vital Library on January 7! So, I know that over the next couple of weeks you all have lots of feasts to eat, sleds to ride, snowballs to throw, DVDs to watch and hours to sleep, but, in between all of that, please find some time to take notice of your favorite posts in the biblioblogosphere and share them with the rest of us.

You can submit posts in a couple of ways: you can use the email form, but my favorite way to submit posts is to tag them carninfo in del.icio.us. Please tell me who you are (screen name or blog name is fine) and include a few words in the notes field about why you think the post is notable. For more information about submitting to the carnival, please consult the Submission Guidelines.

See you at the Carnival!

I AM the Annoyed Librarian

2007-11-12T22:35:00.000-06:00

Unless you have been living under a large pile of boulders, you should know by now that the Annoyed Librarian is not Meredith Farkas. It could be any of these people, or these. So, maybe it is you. Or, maybe, just maybe, I am she.

Zombies in Plain English

2007-10-24T20:32:00.000-05:00

I revere and worship Common Craft, don't you?

Kids in the Academic Library

2007-10-15T19:47:00.000-05:00

The big topic of discussion at MPOW today revolved around what to do about the kids in the library (by kids, I mean high school, junior high, or younger). Our particular library has a proud tradition of being extremely accessible to the community. We offer a consumer health collection, provide reference services to anyone who walks in the door or calls, and allow anyone to use the computer workstations without a university username and password. Gradually, over the past year or so, the word has gotten out to neighborhood kids that we don't lock down the computers and they have naturally gravitated to us. Most of the kids are well-behaved, orderly and respectful of the space and other users . They come in, borrow headphones, listen to music, chat, check their email, do homework, surf, and play games (we have no library policies against any of these activities for any of our users). I have never seen an affiliated patron not be able to find a workstation. Even so, significant problems have recently arisen. Especially on nights and weekends, their numbers have increased considerably. Some of the kids are noisy and disrespectful, others have started to bring their younger siblings and our university patrons have started to complain.

So, where does this leave us? The requisite committee is being formed to consider our options. I would hate to see us resort to extreme measures, such as locking down all the workstations, banning activities such as gaming, chat and social networking, or prohibiting kids entirely. On the other hand, I am concerned about the increasing numbers of young kids who are being left unattended in the library or who are in the care of siblings who are only slightly older. Were something to happen to one of these kids, what responsibility would the library have? I'm also concerned that some of our university patrons are starting to feel like they are unable to work in the library because of the kids. Only a few kids behave inappropriately, but they can be truly disruptive. As word continues to spread, I'm a bit concerned that we will be absolutely besieged when summer rolls around. Even given all of this, I'm quite concerned about the fact that kids are not being adequately served by the library community as a whole. Due to ongoing budget shortfalls, the closest public library branch has been closed and the remaining libraries are open very few hours, especially during nights and weekends. How can we make something good come out of all of this? Call me naive and a starry-eyed idealist, but I very much hope we can figure out how to respond to this situation in a creative, constructive, positive manner without resorting to draconian measures.

No Impact Man

2007-10-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

Blog Action Day seems like the perfect time to promote my new, favorite super hero, No Impact Man. For a year, No Impact Man (aka Colin Beaver) will, along with his wife, daughter and dog, endeavor to figure out how to live in New York City without impacting the environment. The blog makes for fascinating reading. Check it out.

bookish meme

2007-10-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling cranky, distracted and overwhelmed so, despite the best of intentions, I haven't posted in a while. I picked up this meme from Kaijsa at Jag söker job and it seems like something I can handle, so here goes:

1. Hardcover or paperback and why?
Paperback for everyday and hardcover for formal occasions. Seriously, paperbacks are so much easier to carry around and they are cheaper, but it is wonderful to own books that I treasure in hardcover, like The Annotated Alice, for example. I desperately want someone to give me a Lord of the Rings set in hardcover, perhaps with Alan Lee illustrations.

2. If I were to own a book shop, I would call it...
I've actually given this lots of thought over the years, because I've always wanted to own and run and bookstore (although I would hate to have to live off of my earnings). For a long time my chose name was Wild Iris Books, because there is so much one can do with the word and the image. Irises are my favorite flowers in the whole wide world. Alternatively, one could create a groovy eye logo, perhaps using a psychedelic spectrum of colors. Now, however, I have a friend named Iris, however, so it seems a bit odd to use the name for my bookstore, so I'll go with my second choice, which is Bibliomania (hands off -- no stealing this name!).

3. My favorite quotation from a book (mention the title) is...
The only one that comes to mind at the moment is from Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons: "I saw something nasty in the woodshed." If that means nothing to you, get thee hence immediately to go read the book or watch the excellent, funny movie.

4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be...
Heavens, I have no idea. When I've met authors or other famous people in the past, I tend to sit there paralyzed like a stunned bunny in the middle of a road who thinks that by staying perfectly still they can avoid harm. Alternatively, I envision myself stuck in a harrowing scene like unto the dinner party with all the famous women in Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine. To answer the question, I suppose it would be cool to meet Anne Lamott. She seems like the kind of person with whom one could drink a cup of coffee, chat and just hang out for a while.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be...
Hmm, is it a cop out to say the collected works of William Shakespeare or one of the Norton anthologies? I might bring Jane Eyre, because I love it so, or perhaps I should bring something more ambitious and time consuming that I've been to lazy to tackle, like Faulkner, Dante or Joyce.

6. I would love for someone to invent me a bookish gadget that...
Well, obviously, I want a device that could transport me in and out of books at will. I thought of this way before Jasper Fforde, I'll have you know.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of...
bookstores, libraries and my grandmother's house. Not very original, but there you have it.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be...
As a child, like many girls, I identified strongly with Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) and Jo March (Little Women); also, Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings). I don't really have a good answer for this at this point in my life, though. I'll have to ruminate on this.

9. The most overestimated book of all time is...
I very much dislike The Catcher in the Rye, I'm sorry to say, mostly because I absolutely can't stand Holden Caufield as a human being. I just don't like spending time with him. I know that is a silly, superficial reason to dislike a book, but that is the honest truth.

10. I hate it when a book is...
Like Kaijsa, I hate it when a book is the only truly great book an author ever writes. Kind of like all the bands that only produce one great album.

Do you want to complete this meme? I hereby dub thee tagged.

Minnesota Library 2.0 Summit

2007-09-15T16:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I attended the Minnesota Library 2.0 Summit, co-sponsored by Health Sciences Libraries of Minnesota (HSLM) and the Minnesota Chapter of SLA. Michael Stephens (of Tame the Web and Dominican University) was the featured speaker. I need to read through my notes and ruminate a bit, but here are some initial impressions:

The Introduction to Library 2.0 morning session consisted of pretty standard fare, but probably provided a necessary foundation of Library 2.0 philosophy and history to those in the room who haven't been reading the literature and biblioblogs.
I found the Best Practices in Social Software for Libraries afternoon session to be substantive, specific and useful regarding how libraries can and could use Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, tagging, gaming and Second Life to enhance and provide library services.
I came away newly inspired to blog in earnest, with about fifteen ideas for posts.
I had hoped to be presented with more models of how medical libraries are using Web/Library 2.0 tools.
I enjoyed chatting and networking with the mix of academic librarians, public librarians, medical librarians, special librarians and MLIS students who attended.
Michael Stephens really does have the most fabulous hair.

HSLM and especially Melissa Rethlefsen deserve hearty congratulations on a job well done.

Apply now for the 2008 Medical Library Association Scholarship

2007-08-31T14:43:00.000-05:00

Interested in health sciences librarianship? A scholarship for up to $5000.00 will be granted to a student who is entering an ALA-accredited library school or who has yet to finish at least one half of the program's requirements in the year following the granting of the scholarship. For further information contact Lisa McGuire at lmcguire@umn.edu. Applications are available online at: http://www.mlanet.org/pdf/grants/schol_app_20050712.pdf

Please spread the word about this scholarship within your institutions and on your blogs!

Sesame Street Quiz: Who Are You?

2007-08-29T17:45:00.000-05:00

Which Sesame Street Character Are You?
	You are Big Bird. You are something of an eccentric, and not everyone always gives you credit for your inventiveness and intelligence. You may not always know everything, but people turn to you for your sound, unique logic. Plus, you have a big heart. Really big.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Phew, I was a little worried I might be Oscar. It would have been fun to be Grover, though, but that wasn't an available choice.

The Van der Zanden Memorial Pirate Research Center

2007-08-16T15:08:00.000-05:00

"Promotional video for The Van der Zanden Memorial Pirate Research Center, a fictional archival institution dealing with the history of pirates and piracy in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The video (and the Research Center) was created for LIS 654 -- Management of Information Agencies, a course in the graduate program of Library & Information Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin in 2006. The video was directed/edited by Stacey Erdman, and was written by Erdman along with fellow classmates Deirdre Joyce, Shawn San Roman, and Abbie Norderhaug. Billy Vermillion is the host and narrator."