LISNews: Librarian News

* 1. Grab the nearest book.
* 2. Open the book to page 23.
* 3. Find the fifth sentence.
* 4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"Their biodiversity is among the most threatened in the world and their ecosystems provide ecological corridors linking major areas of biodiversity around the world."
from Moon Handbooks Micronesia

I don't know who has seen this but I came across it in my daily news searching. Looks like AOL is raffling off a nice nice car... all as a thank you for it's members helping them fight spam. Story

Wonder if anyone else will start this?

More funnies! If you're bored, click Here to join the Free The Gnomes movement. I wish I could find the link to the articles out of France from a year or two ago where people stole garden gnomes and lined them up at roundabouts. LOL...

People are being confused by the printer... "It says Powersave, but I want to print something."

Others are complaining that their desks are too loud. Well, their desks aren't what is loud, that would be scary, the area around their desks is loud. However, THEY chose that desk and are frequently the noisiest person in here. Geez... The joys of working in the basement. I maintain we are not technical services, we are occupational therapy. Seriously. Why else would we have an Oprah cutout dressed as a jailbird Martha Stewart? (I wish I had a picture to show you guys)

I've been here less than 2 hours and already I'm at my "wtf?" quota for the day...

Thank heavens for Lisnews, the entertaining and interesting debates have been most interesting today. Loved the Hagar thread and the Privacy wars thread. Anyways, back to work for me.. I'm sure there'll be more weird people stories later.

Hi all...

Has anyone out there in Lisnews-land been using ContentDM? We're going to be starting a project using it later this spring. (We're having a training session at the end of April) I've looked through the information on OCLC's webpage but am curious to hear how others are using it.
In all honesty, I am not sure how it's going to be used here. We're going to put 500 images into the database (that will probably be less than 300 records, figuring 1-2 images per record) from materials in our special collections. I've seen some of the success stories on the oclc page, but I'd like to hear any experiences with it from those who've worked in it. Any help would be nice, I just want to know what to expect. What questions to ask during training? Etc...
Thanks!!

I wasn't sure whether this would be a news worthy story or not but thought that you guys might be interested. I saw this on Excite this morning...

Pretty cool. At only 289 bucks, I might invest in one and dump my XP... LOL... except I probably couldn't play Sims anymore.

This is for all you tech services people out there... I've been working on some books on cassettes today and have seen some wacky orders. There doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern to how these things were ordered. (I'm not even going to go into the extraneous notes placed in the order records. Yikes!) I have multi-part titles that are each order differently. One title gets a single order record, and another gets individual orders for each part. Whee. Now, this is a HUGE order... like takes up the shelves on the back wall huge. These inconsistent orders have made it difficult for our receiving staff to receive and for me to catalog. For example, I have a 3 part set of Lonesome Dove. I only have parts 2 and 3 in my hands because they were all ordered on separate order records and part 1 hasn't come in yet. Whee! The icing on the cake? There are holds against it! So now, I have to hold the parts I've got in my hands because I don't have the whole set. Grrr... (end rant now)

Now for the constructive part. How do you handle ordering multi-part titles? I'd like our a/v acquisitions person to pick one way, either single orders for all parts or separate orders for each. It'd make the rest of our lives tons easier. What do you guys think?

Okay, it's getting to get Easter time again and that means Peeps. That's right, I said Peeps. For those that don't like (or can't eat) these sugar filled creations I give you these websites. Enjoy.

Center for Peep research

Peeps in Millikin U library

If you're bored on a chilly spring weekend, I suggest nuking some of these peeps... it's rather fun. :-)

"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress."
- Joseph Joubert

I just thought that was a neat quote to start my wednesday off. With all the emotional debates we get into over here I think sometimes we forget that no one ever really "wins" an argument or discussion. The goal is to learn or at least expand your horizons a bit.

I didn't think that this would work as an article but thought all Lisnews-ers would like to see this.

Hopefully, this will help make classical education seem a little less stuffy.

Somewhere there's a digitization project in the works. I really don't know using what or when yet but I know who, so I guess that's something.

The way it's going to work (tenatively) is that the selected members of our special collections will create records in WorldCat for whatever collections/items/etc... they choose. Then, we catalogers, will be downloading them from Worldcat into our system. In theory, we'll all get trained on entering these records into Worldcat.

My problem with this is that none of these people are catalogers. Some have little to no understanding of what standards are (for anything, let alone metadata). The catalogers will have no quality control on these records until we go into Worldcat and download them into our ils. So, in effect, we'll be entering potentially dirty records into Worldcat for public consumption. The expectation here may be that we can rely on others to edit our records for us. I'm thinking it would behoove us to upload the cleanest records possible. IM, that's part of being a good OCLC member agency.

Has anyone out there in the lisnews wastelands come across a situation like this? Any advice on how to handle it? Since this is still in the planning stages, I think that any input from us peons might actually get used. How have others approached digitizing a special collections? We're a public library with a budget that just went in the crapper (that's another entry) so funds are very limited. Any help/advice/rants would be appreciated.

Thought you all might enjoy this-- Steffers

Do you keep falling asleep in meetings and seminars?
What about those long and boring conference calls?

Here's a way to change all of that.

1. Before (or during) your next meeting, seminar, or conference call,prepare yourself by drawing a square. I find that 5"x 5" is a good size.

Divide the card into columns-five across and five down.

That will give you 25 one-inch blocks.

2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each
block:

* synergy

* strategic fit

* core competencies

* best practice

* bottom line

* revisit

* take that off-line

* 24/7

* out of the loop

* benchmark

* value-added

* proactive

* win-win

* think outside the box

* fast track

* result-driven

* empower (or empowerment)

* knowledge base

* at the end of the day

* touch base

* mindset

* client focus(ed)

* paradigm

* game plan

* leverage

3. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrase .

4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"

Testimonials from satisfied "Bullshit Bingo" players:*

> "I had been in the meeting for only five minutes when I won."- Jack W., Boston

> * "My attention span at meetings has improved dramatically."- David D.,Florida

> * "The atmosphere was tense in the last process meeting as 14 of us waited for the fifth box." - Ben G., Denver

> * "The speaker was stunned as eight of us screamed 'BULLSHIT!' for the third time in two hours."- Kathleen L., Atlanta

First off, thanks to all who responded to my last journal entry. There were some great stories in there from people who've been through the same thing. :-)

I still haven't gotten a straight answer about it all but I have made an appointment to talk to the head of Branch Services. So, he should have some insight into the whole thing (I hope). If he doesn't then I am back to the HR director. Anyways, thanks to all who wrote me. I'll let you know what (if anything) I hear.

Hi all.

I need to pick the collective brain. What do you consider a reasonable length of time between an interview and notification of filling the position?

I interviewed for a public service position around 3 months ago and I heard this week that they still have not made a decision. (This would be a promotional position for me) It boggles my mind that they would treat staff this way, and I wonder whether outside applicants have gotten the same treatment. I should add that this interview was to fill 2 positions, one of which has been filled. When that position was filled, they notified other applicant but not me, even though I interviewed to be eligible for BOTH positions. I am irritated by this and wondered if anyone out there could give me advice on how to tactfully express my indignance over this. TIA

Is this some sort of comment on tech services work?

This morning we came in at the butt-crack o'dawn to find the biggest (seriously, it was huge) cockroach I have ever seen sitting on the wall above a desk. We had to call a maintenance man to come "take care" of it, since we're all wussies when it comes to bugs that can take off a finger. I tell you what, a large bug like that will wake you up faster than coffee though.

Okay... So I just wanted to share this link in honor of International Talk like a Pirate Day. Take the quiz to find out your pirate IQ. I'm a cabin boy! Which is odd since I'm a girl... Anyways, happy friday!
Pirates!

I've got an interview in exactly 4 days. It's a job that I am (in theory) qualified for... however, I am spending my freetime studying for the interview.
Has anyone ever had to do that?

It's a metadata librarian job. They are looking for someone to be a young expert on metadata. I am familiar with the issues surrounding metadata but not working in a very professionally nurturing environment I haven't been able to pursue it with any focus. Any advice from anyone on how to cram a semesters worth of metadata stuff in my head over a weekend?