Thursday 7/23/09

Okay, so I’m doing this today for yesterday and I have no memory for details, so this will be general.

• Before S arrived I made a new label for the serial that changed it’s name recently and made signs saying “magazines, journals and newspapers cannot be removed from the library” because we had a nursing student try to take some Wednesday. She complained that she couldn’t possibly have known that it wasn’t allowed because there are no signs. *sigh* So now there are signs.
• Also early in the a.m. I made a list of all the academic libraries in my state that are using “2.0″ technologies and/or social networking – blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
• Once S was here I spent the morning in my office fumbling around in Photoshop to try to improve the quality of the images in the web tutorial. They are only poor quality in the first place because my first fumblings around in Photoshop made them that way. They may just have to stay this way for now. Bleh.
• After lunch (pulled pork sammies, yum) I spent the afternoon at the desk gathering information on nursing journals and possible electronic access to them and trying to put said information in a format that will make sense to the nursing faculty.
• I also processed some new books – all for the popular collection, yay!

Thursday 7/16/09

I’m not a blogger. But since I have this blog I’m going to use it. I need a good way to keep track of what I do all day at work, and for the time being, this is going to be it.

• After getting everything up and running and the doors open, I spent the hour before S. came in finishing up the serials claim report and the list of titles available full-text in CINAHL that I didn’t finish yesterday. I also made 50 copies of the library card application to take to Student Affairs for orientation.
• Once S. arrived I delivered the applications and made a deposit with student accounts, then got to spend the morning in my office trying to get a grasp on nursing electronic journal packages and upcoming serials deletions while simultaneously responding to dozens of constantly incoming emails regarding those two subjects.
• I also spoke with a representative from PrinterOn, which I think we will not get, though I forwarded the information on to IT.
• My lunch break was interrupted due to printer problems.
• After lunch I had desk duty. I started to fill out the participation agreement for JSTOR, but need some information from IT, which I emailed them about. When I get a response I’ll finish that.
• At 3pm I spoke with a representative from OVID about possible full-text nursing journal packages, which I will need to follow up on in the upcoming week.
• After the phone call, I started clearing out my email inbox because earlier I couldn’t find an important email amidst all the junk.
• Interspersed, of course, I’ve given directions to a lot of students and checked out quite a few reserve items. Not much in the way of reference, though I did have one patron looking for information about the KKK.
• In the last half hour of the day I had two patrons ask for computer assistance and a professor unable to order books from the consortium because of an overdue book.

Enough already!

I’m finding myself increasingly frustrated with the ignorance of the students at my 2-year college. And please understand, I’m not specifically picking on my college, because I’ve been doing some research and find that as far back as 1998 Tagg, et al. were prefacing their article “The Decline of the Knowledge Factory” (The World & I, June 1998) with this: “At a time when high schools cannot persuasively claim to produce even literate graduates, we focus our hopes for the educated person on colleges and universities.” (emphasis mine). And yes, I know that this is not a properly formatted MLA citation, but who cares? I’ve given you all the information you need to find that article if you choose to do so.

Students come to me with sample papers given to them by their professors. Presumably, the professors are giving these out so that the students will read them and understand what a good, quality paper looks like. See how are the arguments formulated? See how the author supports his thesis? See that the author, in fact, has a thesis? No, they don’t see this. They see that their margins are supposed to be 1″ and that they are somehow expected to put their name and page numbers at the top of each page, and that their professor has required them to cite two sources, so they are going to write their papers and then throw in a couple of quotes for good measure.

What if instead of focusing on the minute differences between APA and MLA citation styles, why don’t we teach our students how to think? How to argue effectively? How to communicate their ideas effectively and convincingly to others? Is this too much to ask? Because that is what they will need when they go out into the world of grown-ups. No one is going to care if they italicized or underlined a title, but people will care whether or not they can get their point across. That’s what we need to be teaching them.

on Workflows and workflows…

Projects I’m working on right now:

1. Trying to make Workflows spit out spine labels for about 100 new law books. Unfortunately this involves many phone calls to our consortium leader in another part of the state, many miscalculated label reports, and much headache-y cursing on my part. Under my breath, of course! Project for one day? Oh no. No no no no. Going on two weeks now. Someone shoot me.
2. Preparing for a meeting with my boss and coworker on Thursday in which we will discuss starting with LibGuides and trying again to make something of WebCT.
3. Lots of changes to make to our Webfeat page. Good thing I’m making this list right now or I would have forgotten about this one completely!
4. Serials. Always serials.

I suppose really four things is not bad. Of course that’s just the big things. It’s the little things that get in the way. I spend five hours a day on live chat reference, which means that from 8-10 and 2-5 I’m stuck at the circulation desk. (This is especially difficult from 8-9 and from 2-4 when I’m also the only person working. “What? You’re standing in front of me and want help finding reference materials for your paper? But that would mean leaving the computer. What if someone asks a chat reference question?! You’re on your own, dude.”) Then there’s walking to the other building to get change/make a deposit/get the day’s mail. Checking in the serials every day. Constant circulation work, computers being down, general information questions, and even a spattering of reference. I have three paper calendars and an Outlook calendar and I still can’t organize my day to get productive. Maybe by next week’s post I’ll have it all figured out. Until then, I’m gonna go have a cuppa tea.

To Shush or Not to Shush

Is the 21st century library really supposed to be quiet? In 2004 I had the opportunity to visit the Czech Republic on a two and a half week trip with the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science. I was particularly struck by one public library we visited that had been acoustically designed to allow people to converse without disturbing other library patrons. I’m sorry to say I don’t remember where this library was – Prague or Plisn or one of several other metropolitan areas we visited.

Ever since that trip I’ve been invisioning my ideal library space as a place where students (I work in an academic setting, but I suppose public library patrons could be considered students of a sort too) choose to go, not just to use the computers or complete an assignment, but to learn and communicate and share. I would place one library staff desk right in the middle of the room to serve as circulation, reference, computer assistance and general information. Staff would all have computers with high-speed internet where they would be logged into services for chat, blogging, micro-blogging, etc., and they would have Bluetooth phones so they could answer questions on the go. Patrons, in turn, would have conversational seating areas, white boards with markers, and anything else they might need to facilitate group work. Books would not be separated into so many different areas (in my library we have separate sections for “popular books” and “multicultural books” as well as a reference section, a health reference section, and a ready reference section.

“Study rooms” would be used by individuals wishing to study in a quiet setting rather than by groups who we’ve pushed out of the common area for being too loud.

Alas, I’m just a low person on the ol’ totem pole. Maybe someday I’ll get to design a library from the ground up and make it into what I want. In the meantime I’ll keep sushing people…but only when my boss is around to complain if I don’t.