librarian.net : librarians category

22Feb05 . . . . mazel tov Dan!

Hey my pal Dan won an award from LITA, congrats Dan!

Chudnov led in the creation of two online communities (oss4lib and usrlib) and in the organization of successful hackfests at Access2003 and Access2004. He has been described by a colleague as "a continual source of new ideas, and seems to be able to effortlessly bring people together to collaborate." Most recently, Chudnov led in the development of Unalog, an open source link sharing application that is finding wide usage and acceptance. Another colleague said, "no one is more influential in the area of Open Source software and the use of technology for social computing in libraries than Dan Chudnov."

21Feb05 . . . . 636.45 MICH redux

Nichole actually takes the time to ask Scott to explain his joke.

Without too much fanfare, Allen Weinstein became the Ninth Archivist of the United States last week. You might recall that the society of American Archivists expressed serious reservation with the process that brought Weinstein's name to the table though they stopped short of opposing his appointment. More over at Daily Kos. It will be interesting to see what happens during his tenure.

[outgoing US Archivist] Carlin was dismissed right before Bush 41's papers were to become available to the public under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act; this seems unlikely to be a coincidence. As someone working in a number of archives, I know from experience that it is VERY easy for an archivist to drag his/her feet on making a collection accessible; especially for a collection as massive as the files of a President's Office, the archivist really has to want to release the files to get them out on time. Bush 43, as evidenced by his executive order earlier in his term extending restrictions on presidential papers, does not want this; in light of what appears to be an obviously political appointment, it will remain to be seen whether Dr. Weinstein will want it, or will be able to want it.

18Feb05 . . . . take this survey

Any librarians who got their degree in 1996 or after [that's me, is it you?] please take a few minutes to take this survey about new librarians and the five year itch.

15Feb05 . . . . 636.45 MICH

Corny Library Pickup Lines, and How Librarians Effectively Shoot Them Down. What's that call number, something about pigs? [rochelle]

14Feb05 . . . . ranganathan has a posse

It warms my librarian heart to see the younger generation of librarians still enjoying a good Ranganathan joke.

10Feb05 . . . . tales of live-in librarians

In a strange little coincidence, LISNews has this little article about a library in Brooklyn that had living quarters for the librarian. Many of you know that this is my dream job, ultimately, and to see this in Brooklyn was just too crazy! Turns out, it wasn't the Brooklyn that I was thinking of.

4Feb05 . . . . please take off your name tag on the subway, thank you

A generalized version of the ALA Council Drinking Game by Jill.

29Jan05 . . . . who do you vaguely know? networking

Priscilla from LIScareer has a great article up on Free Pint about establishing and maintaining an online presence and how that all meshes with the complicated world of networking.

25Jan05 . . . . tattooed librarians

Way back when, before librarian.net and before Gail Kwak's excellent site, I was going to do a web site of tattooed librarians. Seems like the topic is coming up again, this time on WebJunction

14Jan05 . . . . rememberance of Noel Peattie

I am very sad to tell you that librarian, poet, and Revolting Librarians [and Redux] contributer Noel Peattie passed away yesterday. He was an amazing man and a wonderful contributor to the field of librarianship. My colleague Chris Dodge has written a remembrance of him which I have posted here.

2Jan05 . . . . want to be a librarian? do some homework.

Some straight talk about current and future jobs in the profession. For new librarians from working librarians. Remember, the MLS is just the beginning of your job qualifications, and the librarian job shortage has likely been overstated. [lisnews]

29Dec04 . . . . Jessica Baumgart wins Feedster accolades

The library blogger community's own Jessica Baumgart won two awards in the Feedster Developer Contest for her RSS tutorial and Feedster Search Documentation. Nice going Jessica!

27Dec04 . . . . an honest job ad

A public library I think I'd enjoy working for: McArthur Public Library, Biddeford Maine. From the job ad:

Above all, he or she will burn with a near-messianic zeal to provide the best possible library service to the diverse members of the community of Biddeford, by whatever means necessary. The usual technological and organizational skills are required too....Other duties include program development, participation in professional meetings, staff training, continuing education, tent construction, and unplugging toilets.

15Dec04 . . . . library outreach: pub trivia

Andrea and I were chatting outreach options recently. She may not have known that during my freelance lirbarian times, I actually did run a trivia night at a local pub run by a pal of mine from library school. The question lists I created are, naturally, online.

26Nov04 . . . . how to manage smart people, not rocket science

Not quite on-topic but definitely an article I wish every boss I ever worked with had read: How to manage smart people.

The following phrase is one of my favorite tools as a manager: “What do you need from me in order to kick ass on this project?” Asking this question of a report invariably scares the shit out of them. It’s a cut to the chase, where you, as manager, lay out on the table the magic wish list of possibilities, and asks them to put their cards on the table. If a good discussion ensues, you then have the opportunity to actually deliver some of the things they might need. All the pet complaints they’ve been harboring have a chance to surface, and perhaps, simply fade away in the face of your brutal honesty and openness as a manager.

24Nov04 . . . . the great librarian shortage debate

ALA's FAQ states there is or will be a shortage of qualified candidates for library positions. News articles support this assertion. It may be worth noting that their press kit about this shortage cites an article written January 1, 2002. Here are some stats from ALA's own placement center. Do these numbers jibe? New librarians know there is also a shortage of jobs, because they're looking for them. How do we explain the disparity between all these facts about the availability of library jobs? Here are a few ideas I have. Do you have others?

As librarians retire their jobs are eliminated due to funding crunches.
As librarians retire, senior librarians take their positions and open paraprofessional positions for the librarians who moved up.
Retiring librarians' positions aren't always available to newer librarians with less experience, so jobs requiring experience stay open as library students look for entry level jobs.
Professional organizations misrepresent the true state of library employment due to optimistic outlooks and in order to stay relevant and keep their own doors open.
As populations move around, some libraries are serving smaller populations with the same staff. Other libraries are serving larger populations with the same staff. Increases in population do not always reflect increases in staffing due to tight money situations and the false belief that automation has reduced our staffing needs.
It is not in library schools' best financial interests to tell you that there are not many jobs available, or to take on fewer students to meet a reduced demand. There are many ways to interpret statistics, they choose ones that are most favorable.

14Nov04 . . . . internet librarians + feed

Some of my favorite librarians gather in Monterey for Internet Librarian. Want to read about their various exploits? You can subscribe to the feed here.

11Nov04 . . . . examples of "on the fly" reference

One of the things I am known for, for better or worse, is doing "on the fly" reference work at places like Burning Man, the WTO and the DNC. I'm happy to be one of the inspirations for the Radical Reference project that bloomed during the RNC and is still going strong. Since I had an extra day off this week in addition to my usual two, I've been doing more of this. I thought I'd share a few examples since the more we equate our problem-solving and information-finding skills with our chosen field of librarianship, the better it will be for us and our profession.

helped Alison Bechdel get her RSS feed working on her Dykes to Watch Out For blog via IM
After getting an email that told me that the ALA-WA office's library copyright web site had been hacked, got on IM to a few people to spread the word, found someone who knew how to fix it, he called them, and helped them log in to their hacked site and take it down.
Someone posted a question on a web site I frequent about getting a back issue of a magazine from someplace more quickly than from the publisher. After some savvy reference interviewing, I figured out that she only needed one article from one magazine. I found it using Expanded Academic Index [available online from my library] uploaded a pdf and gave her a link to it.

My point, and I do have one, is that this isn't just me who is able to do this. Many librarians can. They save people time, money, frustration, and face. We should be communicating that every chance we get, so here's me, doing that.

10Nov04 . . . . do you believe me more if you paid for my advice?

Everyone needs to make personal decisions about how much weight to give a particular piece of information, particularly if that information conflicts with something you think you already know to be true. I often put it this way "You love your boyfriend and hate the Yankees. Your boyfriend loves the Yankees. Do you re-evaluate your boyfriend, or re-evaluate the Yankees. Or both? Or neither?" Put another way, if the New York Times prints something that goes counter to your beliefs, do you believe them because they're an authority? What if it were Wikipedia? What if it were an Indymedia site? What if it were your neighbor, or me? In any case, articles on this topic fascinate me. The Harvard Business School has published one recently called The Hidden Cost of Buying Information where Francesca Gino's research strongly suggests that people overweigh the value of information that they have paid for.

Gino's results are based upon an experiment where subjects were asked to answer different sets of questions about American history and were provided the opportunity to receive free advice as well as costly advice—the same advice, as it turned out. Gino's conclusion: When the advice is costly, subjects are more inclined to take it into consideration and use it. And that conclusion can have profound consequences for consumers, managers, and organizations in their decision making, she says. [lisnews]

9Nov04 . . . . political, personal, professional

I'm still working on it but my talk in Australia is going to have something to do with the overlapping of the personal, the political and the professional arenas in a librarian's life. We've all seen this issue popping up all over the place. Marylaine has written a very thoughtful piece about librarians taking sides in partisan politicking this week. It's a sticky wicket issue. As you all know, I am a fairly politically active person. However, I also try to be scrupulously fair at my job within the boundaries of the standards we set in my library, boundaries that were in place well before I got there. Those boundaries include protecting patron privacy, sometimes to the inconvenience of law enforcement, and supporting free access to information (i.e. unfiltered internet in most places in the library), sometimes to the inconvenience of our more sensitive patrons. I'm not talking about law-breaking, I'm talking about someone who is uncomfortable seeing a teenager looking at pictures of women in bikinis, or someone who doesn't think the library computers should be used for games or chat.

What to do? We respect and honor all of our patrons, but at the end of the day many of our professional rules are going to be seen as somehow politicized, and people are going to take that personally. I only speak for myself here, but I think that one of the things our new net-savvy networked society has shown us is that there's no such thing as a public institution that exists in the absence of politics. People vote to fund us, how can we pretend to not have an opinion about how they vote?

2Nov04 . . . . how we know what we know... collaboratively

The Wikipedia media attention lately has really gotten people thinking about the idea of truth, and truth in news particularly. The NYT this weekend had an article entitled When No Good Fact Goes Unchecked discussing how collaborative systems of evaluation and assessment can actually result in more accurate facts. My argument, when I discussed this in relation to blogs at an ALA Preconference is that this can be helpful for effective reference work as well. I'm sure it's no suprise that The Fact Checker's Bible is creeping up there in Amazon sales rank. The more we get over the Tyranny of the Expert and accept that there's more than one way of looking at many issues -- even with the same set of "facts" -- the more easy it is to actually utilize collaborative information systems to help us with many library oriented jobs like selecting vendors, providing news and reference services, making good referrals and connecting with our patrons.

23Oct04 . . . . extreme makover: librarian

Extreme makeover, librarian version. No, I am not kidding.

Amanda is a 24-year old librarian from Pueblo, Colorado. Her chubby cheeks are the reason why her friends and family have called her “Bubbs" her whole life. She is not happy with her looks and wants this opportunity to be on Extreme Makeover ™ the television series so that she can be the sexy librarian that causes others to come back to the library. Amanda got her wish when she found out she had been chosen for the makeover. [lj]

22Oct04 . . . . happy birthday andrea from techtonics

Welcome to your thirties Andrea, happy birthday.

Jay Leno on the Teresa Heinz "real job" gaffe

"In an interview in USA Today, Teresa Heinz Kerry said she didn't think Laura Bush was a public school librarian for nine years. You know, Laura Bush was a public school librarian for nine years. And she said she didn't think Laura Bush ever held a real job. That's what she said. Let me tell you something. If you're a librarian and you're married to George W. Bush, there is no harder job on earth."

20Oct04 . . . . meet the anarchist librarians

My friend Chuck0, perhaps the best known anarchist librarian has posted the notes from a post-ALA talk he gave in June: Meet the Anarchist Librarians. Chuck is a very good writer and he's thought about these topics a lot. Even if you're not into the whole radical politics thing, I think you'll enjoy his article.

Speaking truth to power is something that anarchists are good at. We are excellent gadflys, iconoclasts, critics, curmudgeons, activists. We criticize, we challenge the powerful, be it the state, the rich, or the guys who speak too much in a meeting. We are also good at criticizing our comrades, which often gets us into trouble with leftists who discourage dissent amongst comrades. Being able to speak your mind freely is important. Self-censorship among library colleagues exists and it is a problem. [lisnews]

Another post on the subject of public fora. Aaron has finally told the story about the cancelled showing of Farenheit 9/11 that was supposed to happen at his library.

The current political climate is hindering free speech. Not wanting to participate in a conversation is one thing, but to prevent the conversation from taking place is another. There are many people who do not want conversations taking place in which criticisms of the current administration might be found.Friday night from 6:45-7:00 I’ll be sitting on the bench outside of the library explaning to dissapointed patrons how their freedoms of speech and thought were violated. Public libraries are one of the last potential public fora. Let’s do our best to keep them that way.

17Oct04 . . . . let the NextGenners shine

I'm not a NextGen librarian though I am often in the market for jobs, the same as they are. I've been thinking a lot about library schools increasing their acceptance rates at the same time as available jobs are seriously dwindling. Andrea and I were chatting about this on the way back from the library tour.

"Do you think you should be able to go through library school nowadays without knowing how to use a computer?"
"No."

I'm not even sure who said what. I feel that the profession has enough experienced and able librarians who may not be tech savvy. The shift in the profession is leading us towards more and more technological solutions to library problems. I don't think everyone has to be a systems librarian, but everyone should be able to competently troubleshoot a public PC and/or use their own computer for basic office and reference tasks at a bare minimum. The next step is letting the NextGens -- or anyone who wants to really -- really apply these skills to the workplace environment.

13Oct04 . . . . nurture young librarians!

Marylaine has a short astute piece on the importance of younger librarians to the profession.

In the face of rapid demographic, technological and political change, we must do everything we can to make our entire organization smarter and nimbler, which includes hiring and listening to new young librarians. The fact is that "what everyone knows" is sometimes wrong, which explains the extended time-lag between when a revolutionary new theory is proposed and when it is generally accepted as true: it's the time required for defenders of existing theories to die and get out of the way. [thanks celia]

The name Itinerant Librarians and the concept it embodies has always appealed to me, sort of like the MyBrarian idea. I'm not sure I agree with the Distributed Library Project assertion that traditional libraries don't foster community [ours does, in at least some ways, I am sure of it] but the project concept is fascinating nonetheless. [thanks jude]

Gary Price interviewed in Library Link. He's been asked so much about Google and librarians, he's got a good answer handy.

LL: How can librarians stay ahead of the perception that everything people need is two clicks away on Google?

GP: Google and other web engines are fine for certain types of searching. However, it's not the best choice in some situations. The challenge for us is not only telling people about what Google and other web engines can offer but also showing them what's not available. Likewise, we can demonstrate how to be a better web search engine searcher. This is valuable info for many people. Why? With the help and knowledge of a good information professional we can help to save the time of our users. This is a commodity everybody wants to have more of.

10Oct04 . . . . a different kind of naked librarian

Library worker in India comes to work in his underwear demanding to have his temporary job made permanent.

7Oct04 . . . . not whine, WINE librarians

Wine librarians meeting, coming up soon.

4Oct04 . . . . more nancy pearl

Nancy Pearl's action figure is outselling all the other action figures at Archie McPhee. This means that in at least one sense, she's more popular than Jesus. More factoids about her in this interview. [lisnews]

It's National Medical Librarians Month and MLA has all sorts of good ideas of ways you can "celebrate"

Matt Wilcox, who you may remember [see 3/8 entry] as having a keen sense of humor, tries to help us understand why he didn't hire us.

I googled you and found that a) you are weird or maybe b) whine a lot on listservs with searchable archives or c) whatever. Do I know that this is wrong, that I should be evaluating your skills and not your personal life? Yes, of course. I am not stupid. Will I do it anyway? Yes, of course. After all, I am not stupid.

1Oct04 . . . . wanting to work someplace emotionally healthy

One academic librarian's personal search for what she terms an "emotionally healthy" academic library to work in. Check the list of characteristics of emotionally UNhealthy libraries. Does yours qualify? Could it be fixed?

28Sep04 . . . . pay me more, I know IT

Law librarians in Scotland are commanding higher salaries because they are responsible for more IT. Now how can we make this true for public librarians?

Legal librarians were now responsible for managing powerful online information services and practice tools, as well as for teams of researchers and for ensuring that lawyers knew how to use the latest research tools and had all the extra information they needed for the specialisations. [shelf]

18Sep04 . . . . unintended consequences for econtent

The law of unintended consequences, applied to electronic content and how it works for and against information professionals.

he creative info pro will look at any new information resource and think about how to hack, er, repurpose it for other uses. I use the search functionality of the Wayback Machine to track the emergence of a catch phrase or hot-button issue over time. eBay is a great source for images of virtually any object, as well as a way to find old (but often still useful) textbooks. And some of the Whois domain name registries can be used to glean information on emerging customer dissatisfaction by locating what are delicately called "sucks sites," since many of the domain names are some form of ThisCompanySucks.com. [lisnews]

Special ed teacher handcuffed at airport when bookmark is confused with concealed weapon. [thanks bjorn]

13Sep04 . . . . librarian writers, advice from someone who knows

Writing tires me out lately. In addition to my job at the library, I've been cranking out one or two articles a month for various publications. You saw the link to the WebJunction article a few days back. I also wrote a very basic "My First Library Web Site" article for the Vermont Library Association [not online] and a piece on the USA PATRIOT Act for Clamor Magazine [not on their site but my local copy is here]. Many librarians are librarian-writers. Marylaine Block who maintains Ex Libris has published a long essay by Steven Bell called What Works for Me: 10 Tips for Getting Published. Well worth a leisurely read.

a word about well-covered ideas, or what I might refer to as "done to death" or "jumping on the bandwagon" ideas. You know them - information literacy, blogging in the library, digitization projects, virtual reference. I don't think these are off limits, but you need to bring a different perspective to any of these topics. nmrtwriter

Another incidental big-media librarian mention, along the lines of what sorts of people vote for whom, from the New York Times.

There are two sorts of people in the information-age elite, spreadsheet people and paragraph people. Spreadsheet people work with numbers, wear loafers and support Republicans. Paragraph people work with prose, don't shine their shoes as often as they should and back Democrats.... For librarians, who must like Faulknerian, sprawling paragraphs, the ratio of Kerry to Bush donations was a whopping 223 to 1. Laura Bush has a lot of work to do in shoring up her base. emily

"What is a librarian?" according to Google.

I've been messing with Flickr which is a not-very-library-oriented web site that is useful for organizing and sharing pictures. My thoughts, of course, turn to books and libraries and I stumbled across the Independent Association of Armed Librarians. Here's their wiki.

10Sep04 . . . . research buzz hits 300

Tara Calishain is a tireless crusader and a savvy marketer. Her weekly publication ResearchBuzz just hit its 300th issue and she's used that milestone to also announce her new book Web Search Garage. Congrats all around!

6Sep04 . . . . Ask Me - radical reference at the RNC

Chuck posts a few pictures of the Radical Reference folks and others doing their thing at the RNC.

30Aug04 . . . . anarchist librarian Chuck0 makes the big time

My pal -- librarian Chuck Munson -- has hit the big time and gives a small interview to the New York Times talking about anarchism and the RNC. Close readers will notice that he got his plane ticket to the RNC from getting bumped from a flight at ALA.

26Aug04 . . . . whow [and why] to write for the profession

Rachel Singer Gordon has written a great feature article for Free Pint about writing for the library profession: where to write, how to start, and how to deal with rejection

As with anything in life, if you put your writing out there, you face the inevitable prospect of rejection. If you let the prospect of possible rejection paralyze you, you sabotage your own success.

20Aug04 . . . . are you a radical reference librarian?

Radical Reference wants you to help perform reference services [on site or remotely] during the upcoming protests at the RNC. They're specifically looking for people with foreign language experience or who work in law and/or government libraries. The RNC starts in less than two weeks.

16Aug04 . . . . our work and why we do it

Sometimes people ask me what my job as an outreach librarian is like. I can now tell them that it's a little bit like this, though not entirely, I also work at the reference desk

RIP Janet Foster Danbury Public Librarian, the librarian who once said "I can't believe I'm getting paid to have this much fun." [thanks rebecca]

15Aug04 . . . . DebW in Gawker!

So nice to see my long-time e-colleague Deb Wassertzug looking lovely and interviewed in Gawker. [thanks all]

9Aug04 . . . . I Love You, Madame Librarian

Kurt Vonnegut loves librarians, especially lately.

I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. [thanks dave]

2Aug04 . . . . thank you, nancy pearl

Nancy Pearl retires from Seattle Public Library this week to spend more time reading, and other things.

1Aug04 . . . . summer reading program dares getting out of hand

Librarian starts her cross-Iowa bicycle ride to raise awareness of the public library funding crisis.

"When times are tough, legislators need to know how to spend our money. They need to know that people value their library services and want them funded. It's not that hard to write your congressmen and tell them you support your library." [lisnews]

28Jul04 . . . . YourBrarian

Please tell me when they start hiring for this job. I feel that my experience here at the DNC might qualify me. Please see the DNC blog for some more recent observations.

21Jul04 . . . . ADD librarian requests ADA accomodation and sort of gets them

Long poignant story about a librarian and others who do [and lose] their jobs while having attention deficit disorder.

By April, it was clear that the fight was over. [The librarian] was told that she had taken too much time with too little result preparing a display for Black History Month and too little time updating the library's emergency and disaster manuals. She had introduced items in meetings that were not on the agenda. She had recommended the purchase of books without realizing that the library had already ordered them. She had recommended the purchase of electronic devices without first conferring with the electronic-services librarian. (''Your response when I questioned your recommendation was, 'Whoops!''')

18Jul04 . . . . important rules to remember: no fighting, no biting

More fun from my alma mater: There is No Biting in Librarianship [as much as we might wish there could be sometimes] [thanks all]

16Jul04 . . . . big shoes to fill -- california gets a new state librarian

CLA president Susan Hildreth has been selected by Governor Schwartzenegger to be the new state librarian of California. Guess she's not going to Tuscon after all.

11Jul04 . . . . Institution's Many Rare Works Included the Librarian Himself ...

RIP J. William Matheson, LoC rare book librarian, who got his Masters in Librarianship at UW -- same as me, same as where they are now making amateur porno.

6Jul04 . . . . IIII = 4 = IV

"Illiterate clock" in library has IIII instead of IV. Librarian has minor freakout, gets schooled on roman numerals by clock manufacturer. [thanks steven]

29Jun04 . . . . "She said her prize money would go to ... pay off loans for her master's degree in library science."

Former librarian [and now mommy, it looks like] wins a cool million in the Pillsbury Bake-Off.

13Jun04 . . . . librarian needed to throw out collection

Librarian needed for the Summer at the Lahey Clinic in Massachusetts. Your responsibilities? To purge the film library. update: according to a correspondent, the hospital designation "film librarian" bears little or no resemblance to the actual librarian positions we know and love, except perhaps for the low pay. And not to be confused with this fine web site: film librarian.

10Jun04 . . . . nancy pearl retiring

Nancy Pearl -- who has done a lot more great stuff than just posing for a plastic figurine -- to retire at the peak of her superpowers. Special thanks to LISNews for ensuring that her name will be forever keyword-linked to the world's finest love doll [do not click that link at work].

9Jun04 . . . . Gary Price isn't afraid to still call himself a librarian

Gary Price honored by SLA for "his unflagging and selfless 24/7 work in keeping the news librarians themselves up to date" [stuff]

8Jun04 . . . . librarian learns to dance on a bar becomes "more outspoken"

A little bit of follow up on that reality TLC show where the librarian got a job at the Coyote Ugly bar.

I still plan to audition for a job at the new Coyote Ugly in San Antonio. I think it would be fun to work there part time and in a library part time.

6Jun04 . . . . make sure someone is in charge @ your library

Greg has a scary tale with a happy ending about a weather scare that tested his new supervisor skills.

You know you are dating a librarian when...

26May04 . . . . librarina!

Who knew there was an entire listserv devoted to typos in library catalogs? Catalogablog has more. [unalog]

There's a newish Dispatch from a Public Librarian up on McSweeneys. Its writer Scott Douglas really is a librarian someplace in California and has a pretty amusing FAQ on his site.

They have a Masters in Library and Information Science?
Yeah. It's nicknamed the MLIS. It's a pretty silly thing that a lot of people don't take seriously. Basically it's two years of theory and such just so you can get a job getting paid less than a teacher.

18May04 . . . . ocial justice and librarianship is her specialty

Congratulations to Dr. Kathleen de la Peña McCook for winning ALA's Office for Diversity's Achievement in Diversity Research award. Now might be a good time to revisit her A Librarian at Every Table page.

One more librarian for the books: Barbara Johns who was one of the plaintiffs in a case added to Brown vs. Board of Education. She helped organize a strike at her school to protest the lack of indoor plumbing facilities. She went to college and became a librarian in Philadelphia for the rest of her life.[thanks jonathan]

You've got to wonder what it takes to be a pit crew in a Dewey Decmal Drill Team [thanks tom]

11May04 . . . . speaking of Seattle public

You know, I never call catalogers "catalog librarians" which is probably an oversight on my part. Seattle Times has a little profile on one of SPLs cataloguing librarians

"My husband would probably tell you I do a little too much thinking about the library after-hours. But it's not the kind of job where I get paged in the middle of the night for a cataloguing emergency."

2May04 . . . . librarian/musician, where is the line?

Why does a search for "crazed librarian" net the pages of two musicians: Moby and Nino Nardino?

30Apr04 . . . . Kevin Starr on retirement and more

Interview with California's newly retired state librarian, Kevin Starr.

Librarian secretly serves jail time on a sex abuse charge while on holiday and sick leave from his job at the Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. He was subsequently fired.

29Apr04 . . . . librarians ARE hot

We all know librarians are hot -- or some of them are -- but it seems that the book reviewers on Amazon.com know it too. [thanks jonathan]

26Apr04 . . . . hunting the elusive bookmobile job

If you are still hunting for the elusive bookmobile job, there's one open in Vermont. Pay's not great, but the bookmobile is brand spanking new.

25Apr04 . . . . librarians as preservers of historical record

My favorite link of the week, possibly the month. Librarian Tony Greiner tracks down a Time magazine sidebar article that went missing online, and in several -- but not all -- full-text databases. The sidebar was critical of invading Iraq and was pulled sometime right before Bush ordered the invasion of Baghdad. Greiner tries to find out why, and gets a weird collecftion of answers and non-answers. Mentioned over at info-commons a few days back.

The concentration of print media outlets into a few corporate hands remains cause for concern. Would this column appear here if Library Journal were owned by Time-Warner? It is vital that larger libraries continue to keep and use printed indexes and copies of the historical record.

How to apply for a library job. From the library link of the day guy, John Hubbard.

Einstein's librarian-girlfriend's diary found detailing Einstein's last years.

Librarians in Connecticut are leaving their union. [lisnews]

22Apr04 . . . . librarian parade, every X Librarian you've ever heard of

The wonderful folks at Librarism, in addition to having the best [and only?] Pubic Library t-shirt, have also compiled this handy list of all of those "The x Librarian" [where x is a variable] websites out there.

Eli informs me that in addition to this being Earth Day, it is also International Special Librarians Day. Apparently, this holiday is 13 years old.

Macho Librarians With Guns a special subset of the toungue in cheek role playing game Macho Women With Guns.

"These ladies might have gone on to be typical Macho Women were it not for one distinguishing attribute: Intelligence. Operating under the joint authority of the National Library Association and U.S. Special Operations Command, these gun-toting librarians lead a never ending fight to promote literacy, recover overdue materials, and oppose censorship." [thanks daniel]

19Apr04 . . . . fun with catch phrases

You are a librarian. Reload, reload reload. OK!

18Apr04 . . . . ranganathan

I talked a bit about Ranganathan in my talk(s) and was pleased that so many people knew what I was talking about. I like him, his laws are sound. I forgot that "Karen Elliot had mentioned him in her classic essay "What I Really Learned in Library School"

If you can't quote Ranganathan's five laws of library science verbatim, you suck.

6Apr04 . . . . our profession contains multitudes

As the Eclectic Librarian mentions, she too has a radio show.

26Mar04 . . . . the librarian dreams of rare items

Do you have collector dreams ever, where you find one fo the world's rarest things? I used to have dreams when I was a kid stamp collector of finding an inverted Curtis Jenny stamp. Apparently, one librarian in Maine had this dream come true and was recently verified to be in posession of the world's rarest silver dollar. [thanks belva]

One of the good things about library work is that it gives you all sorts of interesting information inputs that you can do neat stuff with. A lot of librarians I know have some creative side project. If you live in the Springfield [MA] area you might be lucky enough to catch the Librarian DJs on WSCB. If you can't, their playlists are online, at their blog.

19Mar04 . . . . shush, shush

If you keep up with the conservative librarian movement, there's a good chance that you may not be a frequent reader here and vice-versa, so you might have missed Rory Litwin's pretty interesting email on the subject of progressive librarianship that he posted in response to the anti-progressive posts going on over at shush.ws.

"Unlike the average mainstream liberals, progressives are strongly motivated by some of the same values that motivate you: honesty, integrity, human dignity, a view of the world as fallen and in need of salvation, a suspicion of commercialism and its influence, etc."

18Mar04 . . . . with apologies to kelis

Speaking of categories, I don't even have one for "humor" what does that tell you...? The livejournal hydra has sprouted another interesting librarian group [that I found because they are hotlinking to all my naked librarian pictures] which brings us this parody.

I can see you're on the OPAC,
you want me to teach thee,
boolean techniques that freak these boys,
it can't be bought,
just know the operators can be used,
in parentheses.

8Mar04 . . . . why DO you want this job?

Not all scintillating, but this list of 101+ commonly asked library interview questions can help get you started on your job search.

It's National Library Worker's Day on the 20th. Do something nice for your library worker. Might I suggest something like advocating for equitable pay, as opposed to yet another plate of cookies?

24Feb04 . . . . George Poland Henderson, RIP

George Poland Henderson, librarian, editor and publisher, RIP. [thanks bill]

21Feb04 . . . . earlham librarian is tops

People seem to be suprised when I tell them that Indiana -- parts of it anyhow -- are a hotbed for progressive and proactive librarianship. My sister went to Earlham college, home to Evan Farber, whose library director was just chosen as the top academic/research librarian of the year by ACRL. [thanks dsdlc]

You know, what sort of irks me about these "X for a Day" contests, like this one at Woman's Day magazine -- is the subtle implication that the job is really easy, you just have to be lucky enough to be able to get it. [thanks all]

18Feb04 . . . . liz kellison - helping OCLC and the Gates Foundation be more human

The Sophist has a neat little profile on Liz Kellison, a content manager and all around good egg at WebJunction. [thanks lisa]

Sometimes patrons in a library don't think they need "help" per se but they could use some assistance finding a particularly well-hidden book. The Lipstick Librarian -- responding to an ongoing PUBLIB thread -- offers some suggestions.

16Feb04 . . . . the salary thing, and a nice obit

At some level we as librarians have to be committed to our libraries as well. I firmly believe that this should be at a good - or at least equitable - pay rate. But would I take less to live in a place I loved, or with a person I loved? In a second. People used to try to get their foot in the door for good library work by working in libraries for free. My union forbids this sort of thing entirely. But Mary Jane Blackwell might not have turned out as the librarian she did if she had to wait for a paying job to come her way. Pay is important to our profession, but so is passion. [thanks beth]

12Feb04 . . . . cliques at libraries

LISCareer has a newish "articles by date" feature that makes it easier to say "hey, there's new articles up!" and have somethign to link to. I was immediately drawn to Michelle Millet's article called Libraries Have Cliques Too as someone who has recently started a new job at a library which has had very little turnover in the past decade.

11Feb04 . . . . dropping the subpoenas, not telling why

Looks like they're dropping those subpoenas against the activists [and the library worker]. [infocommons]

10Feb04 . . . . quiet local celebrity - and large local ruckus

Grinnell library assistant Chris Gaunt arrested in "bring troops back home" protest. She was involved in protests at the National Guard local HQ where several Midwestern activists were arrested and issued subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury. The local National Lawyers Guild chapter was also subpoenaed and asked for a membership list, among other things. [thanks all]

6Feb04 . . . . the greying of the profession does not equal more jobs for new grads

Rachel Singer Gordon has written an excellent article for Library Journal about the "greying of the profession" hype we've all been hearing and how it doesn't necessariy turn into tons of jobs for younger librarians.

"How old will you be in 2019? Will you be watching for the "next next wave" of new librarians entering the profession then? Sitting around waiting is not only macabre, it's against the very spirit of librarianship, which recognizes the importance of the varied experiences and contributions of every member of the profession and of every piece of knowledge each of us possesses." [lisnews]

The New York Times -- and my favorite library professor Joe Janes -- tries valliantly to convince people that librarians still serve a purpose. This article interests me for a few reasons. Librarians still beat out Google in terms of being able to provide definitive, properly sourced, information. I also like Janes's description of librarians as being people who have a "plan B" when Google fails them. However I wonder if most of our patrons value this level of detail? If you need the name of the party Perot started do you really need to look through more than one page of Google results, as the Times somewhat snobbily implies most people don't? How many times do our patrons really just want to know what most people think the answer is, which is Google's strength, and not the One True Answer, which is ours. [thanks all]

29Jan04 . . . . humor -- warrior librarian's life as an index

The Warrior Librarian has made an index of her biography, with amusing results.

16Jan04 . . . . matthew battles, hunky

My quote for this week comes from the book Library: An Unquiet History which you should all drop everything right now and read. Matthew Battles has also written adorable libraryish pieces for Hermenaut.

15Jan04 . . . . CEBI

Mostly not in English [like most of the rest of the world] the CEBI website is for encouraging and disseminating social responsibility among Spanish speaking librarians and library professionals.

I had the pleasure of getting to talk some with Trina Magi, ALA Councilor, noted Vermont librarian and, according to Mother Jones, hellraiser. [thanks liz]

6Jan04 . . . . patrons, can't live with them, can't ban them permanently from the library

Even though I generally dislike the smarmy tone of much of what appears in Mcsweeney's, I have been enjoying the occasional Dispatches from a Public Librarian. The content isn't really much different from what you find on RefGrunt, just the tone is somehow much different.

Later that day I received a call from another librarian at the city's main library asking if I had had any problems that day with a patron. I said yes, and asked the librarian why. He said the man had come into the main library and filed a complaint against me. I asked if he mentioned coming back after I got off work to beat me up. He had forgotten to mention that. [thanks rob]

I am presently reading Libraries: An Unquiet History which should be required reading for all librarians. I am learning all sorts of new things and getting many more quotes to populate the sidebar. Did you know that Melville Dewey originally had the middle names Louis Kossuth? Kossuth is widely known and the leader of the Hungarian Revolution. Dewey later dropped the middle names.

3Jan04 . . . . we're not all shussh and no play

Cute little school project about the image of librarians: Recataloging Librarians. [thanks naight]

30Dec03 . . . . the image thing

Laura Bush the First Lady & former librarian trails way behind Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and current US Senator, in the recent most admired women poll.

If it's a slow work week, go check out the long article over at Library Juice entitled "A Librarian's Work." A great view of the profession from way back in the 1870's.

28Dec03 . . . . what do you collect?

I joke that there are 300 santas in my house thanks to my decorating-fanatic landlady. This is nothing compared to this Knoxville librarian.

18Dec03 . . . . the dangers of drunken abstracting

In which the blogger discusses the [potential] dangers of abstracting while drunk.

Chief Librarian Barnius may look familiar to some.