The Liminal Librarian

Moving to WordPress

2007-11-08T15:55:00.000-06:00

If all goes well, I'm moving this blog over to WordPress today. Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions; this URL will no longer be updated after Nov. 8 2007.

New blog: http://www.lisjobs.com/blog/
New feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiminalLibrarian

Info Career Trends has Moved! / Call for Papers

2007-11-08T14:07:00.001-06:00

* Please distribute widely *

Info Career Trends has MOVED:

Just a note that Info Career Trends, LISjobs.com’s free electronic professional development newsletter, is winding down the year and celebrating the season with a few changes:

First, individual articles are now online at the new Info Career Trends blog. This means a new RSS feed: feeds.feedburner.com/InfoCareerTrends, so please update your subscriptions. But also, and more importantly, it means YOU now have the ability to comment on articles and add your own ideas and input.

The Library Career People column you know and love is also changing over to a blog format in order to facilitate communication and to provide more timely answers to questions. Q&A columns will no longer appear in their entirety in this newsletter, but will be replaced by highlights from recent blog posts and conversations. Subscribe to the Library Career People blog separately at feeds.feedburner.com/CareerQaWithTheLibraryCareerPeople.

—-

Call for Papers:

Why not think about writing for Info Career Trends? I’m currently seeking queries for the May 2008 issue, for which the theme is “Show me the money!” Potential topics for this issue include: finding and landing personal grants, awards, and scholarships; getting funding for conferences, workshops, and other continuing education opportunities; financing an MLS, Ph.D., or LTA degree; strategies for earning a raise or promotion at work; negotiating starting salaries.

E-mail queries outlining your proposed article to editor@lisjobs.com, and see ICT’s contributor guidelines at: http://lisjobs.com/career_trends/?page_id=3.

Computer Book Prepub Alert

2007-10-23T21:58:00.000-06:00

Speaking of LJ, why not apply for my old gig?

Library Journal is seeking a librarian with knowledge of computer books and technology to manage and write Computer Book Prepub Alert, a quarterly, online-only column that forecasts what will be big three to four months in advance. Interested persons should email a resume and writing sample to Heather McCormack, Managing Editor, LJ Book Review, at hmccormack@reedbusiness.com.

Call for Nominations: Movers & Shakers 2008

2007-10-23T21:05:00.000-06:00

The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. Our seventh annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers & Shakers 2008 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead. Movers & Shakers 2008 will be distributed with the March 15 issue of Library Journal.

Deadline for submissions is extended to November 15, 2007! You can nominate someone here (scroll down the page).

One Down...

2007-10-23T20:58:00.000-06:00

Beyond the Job can now be found at its own URL: www.beyondthejob.org.

New RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/beyondthejob/HAwA

Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions. While old content will still be found at the old Blogger blog for some time, it will no longer be updated.

Middle Management Survey

2007-10-23T09:34:00.000-06:00

Hey -- do Laura Savastinuk a favor and fill out her survey for middle managers in libraries.

(Laura is, of course, the fabulous coauthor of Library 2.0 -- help her make her new book just as good!)

The Law of Unattended Wikis

2007-10-23T09:30:00.000-06:00

I'm sure someone at ALA will clean this up soon, so hurry if you'd like to see what can happen when an unmonitored wiki meets a disgruntled poster.

The Law of Unattended Children

2007-10-15T09:30:00.000-06:00

A couple of things over the past week made me revisit the perennial issue of unattended children in libraries. First, my son had to have minor surgery. In two preoperative phone calls from the surgical center, they stressed that a parent had to stay in the building the entire time. "Of course!" said I. "You'd be surprised," said they. And you think libraries have problems...

Then, we visited IKEA this weekend. A main reason we chose IKEA? Smalland, their free drop-off childcare service. Your (toilet trained) kid can stay up to an hour in a wonderland of ballpits, toys, and Disney movies while you shop in peace; my son begs to go to IKEA.

This got me thinking: I'd drive miles out of my way to go to a library that offered a similar service. I'd pay for this service! (Logistical issues aside), how many parents would appreciate a quiet hour to study, use the Internet, or just browse the stacks?

Any Wordpress Gurus?

2007-10-08T14:39:00.000-06:00

So I'm planning to convert this blog to Wordpress. It's installed on my ISP's server, and the test blog is up and running. However, the Wordpress import function doesn't work on Blogger FTP blogs, only on Blogspot.com blogs. The only advice I can find online is to first convert this blog to a Blogger-hosted blog on Blogspot.com, then to import it into Wordpress.

My thought is, if I do this, I lose the current URL and it will be very difficult to point people to the new blog. Anyone have suggestions on how I can import to Wordpress with minimal disruption?

Mudflapping

2007-10-03T10:15:00.000-06:00

So is it hypocritical not to get all up in arms about Wyoming's mudflap "girl" image, yet to think that this cartoon simply rocks?

I wasn't going to write about the mudflap flap (and at this point, it's pretty much flapped out), but, let's just be brief: I'm not particularly offended. When I first saw this image, I laughed. I think that reclaiming historically sexist images in a way that makes people take a step back and think can be positive. I think this is pretty clearly a parody and that it pretty clearly does its job in getting people's attention. And, I think I'm still a feminist.

Information Tomorrow, Today

2007-10-03T10:11:00.000-06:00

I promised to tell you all when links were live for the table of contents and other Information Tomorrow ... information! And then, well, life got in the way.

But, today I'm pleased to direct you to the book's site, where you can access the table of contents, foreword, and other info.

A Letter to Mary Pope Osborne

2007-10-02T11:44:00.001-06:00

A Letter to Mary Pope Osborne
Originally uploaded by lib_rachel

Someday, I wish to be a children's author, so kids would write me letters like this one.

That is all.

Whoops, I'm Training Again

2007-09-24T13:09:00.000-06:00

While I'm talking about ITI in general, and Internet Librarian in particular, I want to mention a new fantastic resource for anyone who does (or might get sucked into doing!) technology training in their libraries. Stephanie Gerding's The Accidental Technology Trainer also debuts at Internet Librarian -- I'd love this book, even if I weren't her editor! I know I could have used this title when I was thrown into planning and teaching technology training classes way back when, and recommend it without reservation to anyone in a similar situation.

Meet Me in Monterey

2007-09-24T13:03:00.000-06:00

I'm heading to the Internet Librarian conference in beautiful Monterey next month, wearing my ITI consulting acquisitions editor hat. If you'll be there too, look me up!

You can find me at the ITI booth, where I'll be signing Information Tomorrow with a bunch of the chapter authors from 2:30-3:15 Tuesday during the no-conflict exhibit time.

or

You can e-mail me at rgordon@infotoday.com should you have a book idea, want to chat about the publishing process at ITI, or otherwise talk book publishing, meet up, have coffee.

"Ice Cream"

2007-09-24T10:48:00.000-06:00

It's "funny" because it's "true" -- the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. Not to be confused with Apostrophe Abuse...

(You don't have any of this going on in your library's signage, right?)

To wiki or not to wiki

2007-09-24T10:43:00.000-06:00

As part of reorganizing and redesigning LISjobs.com, I'll be adding more info on the LIS career process as a whole, including choosing a library school. I'd like to add some kind of scholarship database, because the information on LIS scholarships is currently so fragmented and hard to find. Logistically, though, I'm not sure how well this would work as a database (tracking down this info and keeping it current), so am thinking that perhaps a wiki where people could add and update scholarship info might be in order, and would also serve well for other content.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions for the semi-wikilliterate?

LOLday

2007-09-19T13:14:00.000-06:00

Via Reading the Past, a bunch of LOL fantasy cover art. If that doesn't do it for you, try LOLTHULHU. Now, back to work with me...

Got Netflix?

2007-09-18T15:37:00.000-06:00

I have 4 "friends and family" codes for a free trial month of Netflix. Since those of my friends and family that want Netflix already have it, the first 4 people who comment on this post with a valid e-mail address get these.

Search WHERE, Now?

2007-09-12T09:15:00.000-06:00

Here's some inadvertent "product placement" on Amazon. Careful, I almost spit out my coffee at this one (via Smart Bitches).

Answers!

2007-09-12T07:55:00.000-06:00

Toe duly taped and iced, I woke up this morning to an e-mailed answer to my virtual reference question from my local library. I'll leave them alone now...

(And, to the person that e-mailed with concerns about whether I'd ever be able to get a job in an Illinois library now, I think I'll be all right, thanks!)

Tuesday Brain Twister

2007-09-11T17:10:00.000-06:00

Wrap your head around this little NPR video: A Four-Dimensional Tribute to the Late Madeleine L'Engle.

Slushee

2007-09-11T11:09:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting take on the wisdom of crowds: Slush Pile Reader:

At Slush Pile Reader authors' manuscripts will be showcased to an audience of on-line readers. The readers then get their say by answering a simple question: Should this manuscript be published?

If enough readers agree that, yes, it should be published, Slush Pile Reader will do just that. We will publish the most popular manuscripts.

This may be an interesting alternative to self-publication, if nothing else...

Then Again...

2007-09-11T09:45:00.000-06:00

I cracked my toe pretty good in the middle of the night and now it's bruised, swollen, & painful. Trying to decide if I should call the doctor, I found some fun Yahoo! Answers results. My favorite answer to "how can you tell if your toe is broken?"

"Um, an x-ray, moron."

Yeah, a librarian could probably do better than that -- or at least skip the "moron" part. Although, there is my second favorite:

"if it is black and blue i broke my toe and my father said it was broken but not all the time mean the if it's black and blue all the time but if u put ur finger right were it hurts o n ur toe and feel a space and get bend it and the other one can't."

I'll shut up about QuestionPoint now. (Hmm, maybe the toe thing is bad karma?)

Sweating the Small Stuff

2007-09-10T22:14:00.000-06:00

So today I received a very nice message in my Hotmail account (aka, all-purpose-spam-catcher that I use to sign up for things like virtual reference services) from a very nice virtual reference coordinator at the state library regarding my recent post about my Ask a Librarian experience. She apologized, said they're reviewing the interaction, that a "technical difficulty" caused Librarian Bruce to disconnect, and that:

When a technical difficulty occurs or if the chatting librarian believes that the patron's home library can be of better assistance the question is sent to shared follow-up. Your question, for example, can be found in shared follow-up for Downer's Grove Public to complete the answer. This prevents a question and patron from being "lost", so that the home library can answer the question.

My question is still showing "pending" in my QuestionPoint account; today is day 8.

While I do appreciate the personal response from the state library -- and the original question isn't even particularly relevant at this point -- my point still remains: what impressions do patrons get about librarians and library services from their online interactions? I have yet to hear from Bruce or my home library, even with a note saying that my question is taking long than expected, sorry, or that they need more clarification, or even an autoresponse that says it's been kicked back to my home library. Nothing in my online account indicates it's been kicked back to my own library. In Internet time, 8 days is an eternity.

I wonder about what good it really does us to "slam the boards" if, as K.G. Schneider comments, we're engaging in "half-right reference." If expertise and personal service is what we're marketing, then we should do a bit better than that.

I don't mean to single out QuestionPoint or my state's virtual reference in particular -- I've had both abysmal and fantastic experiences in person at library reference desks, too, and know you can't judge a service from a single interaction. I think it goes back, though, to the need to "sweat the small stuff." I have years of positive library interactions and work experience behind me, so one negative interaction is negligible. To someone who doesn't visit libraries, who doesn't love libraries, who never worked in a library, one negative experience might be all they are judging us by.

Ads for Doctors

2007-09-10T09:29:00.000-06:00

The New York Times reports today that Reed Elsevier just launched a new online portal for oncologists. Register with personal information, and get free access to the latest articles from 100 medical journals, including The Lancet and Surgical Oncology. The catch? Ads, sponsorships, and sale of their direct mail list to advertisers, especially "pharmaceutical companies with cancer drugs to sell."

I'm not sure how I feel about this, and need to let it settle for a bit. On the one hand, this is an interesting way to get around astronomical journal prices. On the other, should oncologists be bombarded with ads from pharmaceutical companies (OK, yes, like this doesn't already happen), and is it possible that sponsorship could affect content?

The article mentions the potential for additional future portals in other specialties -- definitely a model worth watching to see how it develops.