LISNews: Librarian News

The LISNews Bulletin has just been transmitted to the location of our printing partner closest to the venue of Computers in Libraries 2010. Blake will have 125 copies available to him to distribute at the conference for free. I want to thank our patrons for their generous financial support in allowing the Bulletin to be distributed at no charge.

There will be artwork. We've got an excerpt from a Cleveland-area artist's memoirs about life in India in the 1990s. The owner of Erie Looking Productions offered up a "quick hit" piece from Tech for Techies never heard before on the podcast streams. This issue may be small but it is intended to be a tasty appetizer for a larger serial that might perhaps follow.

If you are not going to be attending the conference, you can still get a copy of the publication. Please contact the publisher, Producer Gloria Kellat, at mrsnicelunchlady@yahoo.com with your physical address so we can determine if our printing partner has an office near you. If there is, it will cost about USD$2.00 to have a special "RetCon" copy printed for you to pick up. If there isn't, we'll discuss options with you.

Oct. 25th blog post, www.merrylibrarian.com

Book drops. It seems simple, doesn’t it? A name like “book drop” doesn’t leave much room for mystery…you’d think.

A recent poll of librarians has proven otherwise, however. Across the nation, patrons of public libraries have confused a book drop with trash receptacles, a donation box, urinals, chicken coops… The list goes on and on.

While we may never understand how or why this confusion occurs, we do know that the result of patron confusion–though sometimes disturbing–is frequently amusing. So, until the government provides libraries with several billion dollars to launch an education campaign on proper book drop use, we have taken it upon ourselves to provide you with this useful list of book drop dos and don’ts–all based on the true stories that have been sent in from around the world.

1. Situation: You work at a library in the city of Las Vegas, NV. As you approach the book drop, you hear the sound of squawking and scratching.

Don’t…Assume you’re crazy. You may be miles from the nearest farm, but there actually are chickens in your book drop…complete with food and water. Hey, it happens.

Do… Tell your coworkers to fire up the bar-be-que, baby!

2. Situation: Upon opening the book drop, you are pummeled by the stench of garbage. And on top of the rubbish heap in your book drop? A used maxi pad.

Don’t…Toss your cookies into the book drop. You’d only have to clean that up, too. -- Read More

The following is a post from The Merry Librarian (www.merrylibrarian.com) dated Sept. 27th, 2009. Check out the website for all postings!

"Tough Love from a Tough Dad"

This week’s Story of the Week is one of the rare stories that is genuinely heartwarming (though we’re sure there are more out there!). As librarians–as with any public service profession–we so often see the sad and traumatic family interactions. It is refreshing to witness powerful and positive relationships like this one. Thank you, “Diane”, for this great story!

I work at a small library in an area of town that tends to house the lower-economic demographic. It is not unusual for things to be stolen from our library on a regular basis–most frequently our DVDs. One day, I was at the reference desk when a man came in with a young, teenage boy. The man looked pretty haggard. He had tattoos everywhere (even a cross between his eyebrows! Ouch!) and lots of piercings. He looked like he’d had a pretty hard life. When he came up to the desk, he set a very tall pile of DVDs in front of me–at least 20 DVDs.

“I found these in my son’s room,” he said. “He didn’t check them out. He stole them.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond, so I (rather stupidly) said, “Oh. Okay. So none of them are checked out?”

“No, ma’am,” he answered. Then he knelt down on the ground so that he was eye to eye with me. His son knelt beside him, looking deeply humiliated and angry. -- Read More

The 30th Anniversary edition of the Collins English Dictionary includes words like 'mankini' and 'boomburb.' But the most fertile soil for new words seems to be social media and the global downturn