not your mother’s librarian…

“…too many academic librarians are so focused on “the library” that they can’t clear their thinking to see how our skills as information managers are becoming increasingly vital in helping people sort through this maddeningly complex information world in which we now live…

…a couple of our librarians … talked about what we can do to help with the training of junior faculty, with efficiently connecting researchers to the latest sources of information, about helping to develop a robust, integrated informatics infrastructure…

Librarians are about getting people to the information they need in the most effective and efficient way possible. Building collections was just the means that we used to do that given the constraints of the print world.”

Many insightful comments over on T. Scott’s blog. Read the whole post…

Can librarians learn from Disney?

Tame the Web posted some notes from a new book about operations at DisneyWorld. I’ve inserted some wording in brackets to suggest library equivalents replacements in their original text and bolded some really important aspects of “the team”:

Michael writes: “I’ve long advocated for managers and library administration to dive in to the trenches as needed. I think directors and managers should be able to staff desks anywhere in their buildings. I was happy to read this:

“In busy periods the salaried [unclassified] folks would fill shifts stocking store shelves [sorting & shelving books] or flipping hamburgers [unwrapping or wrapping mail, checking out books, labeling new materials] next to hourlies. In addition to providing much-needed manpower such cross-utilization reminded everyone that they were all part of the same team. And that every role was equally valuable in creating magic for guests [users]. Cast members [All library staff] would also be regularly transferred to different departments or attractions to keep things fresh.”

Michael notes “Sometimes, looking at the negative impact on guests [users/patrons] of a new policy might sway admin decision making”. But we also need to consider that there may be tough times ahead. We are looking at new tasks and new ways of doing things, so I think we need to be considerate of each other and the work we need to do together to make this place a great experience for our user community.

Let’s create some magic here at K-State Libraries!

Oh, and while it might scare the wits out of my staff, I can still do a bit of cataloging!

weekend accomplishments – NOT!

I did not:

• get the living room & hallway vacuumed
• watch either of my Netflix rentals
• get through more than 3 chapters of the book I’m currently reading
• get the cat hair off the sofa
• re-attach the little arm-thingy on the sundial (oh… it’s called a “style”)
• balance my checkbook statement from JULY!
• call my mother!
• get this posted on Monday as I’d intended….

Nostalgia

Kent Anderson’s post about 1993 over at the Scholarly Kitchen made me sit back and reflect on my life back then… OMG… that was 15 years ago. That was the year I:

• started graduate school at USF
• used electric erasers on catalog cards (agh!) while working part-time at Rollins College
• had occasion to use a typewriter at work and regularly referred to the NUCs
• started writing Star Wars fiction
• separated from my now ex-
• bought my first desktop computer that had a 20MB harddrive! woo-hoo!
  • I never would have written fiction if the desktop computer hadn’t come along
  • I got an AOL account and discovered there were lots of women Star Wars fans though I didn’t go to my first chat room until sometime in 1994

I’d say most of 1993 was a blur so I imagine I’ve forgotten a number of other significant events from that year. Becoming “single”, dealing with 3 young children, working part-time, going to grad school & taking a GRE review class at the same time, and burying myself in writing as an escape from real life does that to a person.

tropical storms

I have friends & family in hurricane-prone parts of the country, so I try to keep up with storms that impact those areas. I was relieved when tropical storm Edouard barely made a peep in Houston earlier this month. Now Fay is producing tornadoes and a lot of rain in Florida. My contacts in Cocoa Beach tell me that water is covering their dock and the canal would be great for surfing! The Orlando area is getting rain, rain, and more rain.

I did have to chuckle when I saw this on cnn.com today:

Four catfish kept a Delta Air Lines flight from landing on time at Melbourne International Airport on Wednesday, CNN affiliate WFTV reported.

The walking catfish, which use their pectoral fins to move and can stay out of water for some time, were on the runway and airport crews had to move them before the plane could land.

Besides the catfish, crews also encountered two gopher tortoises, a blue indigo snake and an alligator, WFTV reported.

(Melbourne is on the eastern coast of Florida and has experienced some really severe weather related to Fay.)

Kudos to K-State librarians

Better late than never!

From http://alaskanlibrarian.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/reference-renaissance-beyond-the-hashmark/ at Reference Renaissance earlier this month in Denver:

“It was a fun and informative session. Enough so that I recommend seeing KState librarians whereever they present. They are a fun-loving group who communicate knowledge well.”

Congrats to Danielle, Laura, Jason & Erin!  You folks rock!

Obsessed with Star Wars

Yes, I am, but you already knew that. But that’s not what this post is about!

Obsessed with Star Wars is a new trivia book written by acquaintance and Club Jader Ben Harper! Congratulations to Ben!!

I have already had reports from other Club Jaders, obsessed SW fans like me, who claim this book is filled with extremely challenging trivia. One CJer reports she missed the first 2 questions! Another says she only got 50% of the questions right! Should I test myself? Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi….

Reading list

Articles & websites I stumbled across today* but didn’t have time to read:

Open Access Basics – a wiki – a great idea from the folks at PALINET, which is an eastern seaboard equivalent to our BCR.

Is the NIH Mandate Working? – from Library Journal

LibraryThing: Abebooks news – this reminds me that I need to update my StarWars LibraryThing!

+++++++

*I’d cite the blog sources if I could find them again! I opened the articles, left them open on my browser most of the day but never managed to read them. Guess I could be reading them rather than writing this post, but I thought you might be interested in them, too!