LISNews: Librarian News

"Libraries are metadata specialists and many librarians are metadata search specialists. Our training for users too often tries to turn them into mini-librarians too, as though being a specialist at finding things in the library is or should be a crowning achievement in life. So I really do think libraries are NOT experts at search. In fact, compared to Google I think we pretty much suck at it. I also think most librarians are specialists rather than experts at search. But what I don’t understand is why this seems to be such a challenge to librarians."

http://carolbycomputerlight.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/the-difference-between-an-expert-and-a-specialist/

This has shades of "Reference is dead" posts (here , here , here, here etc) and "Libraries need to give up the notion that question answering is a core service of the library" -- Read More

The new issue of code4lib as a interesting article "Tools for Reducing and Managing Link Rot in LibGuides".

From abstract

"This article describes tools for managing links in SpringShare’s LibGuides, a popular web platform for libraries. LibGuides includes a built-in link checker for only some links. Instructions are provided on how to run an automated link checker on all links within a single guide. Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURLs), hyperlinks which are maintained centrally and rarely break, are recommended for library electronic resources. Special consideration is given to the fact that many libraries using the LibGuides platform may not have easy access to in-house information technology (IT) personnel. A method is presented for implementing PURLs entirely within the LibGuides platform."

The automated link checker suggested is Xenu Xenu Link Sleuth which is fairly well known though clear instructions are given.

The second part of the article using LibGuides “Redirect URL" feature coupled with "Friendly URL" feature is pretty clever though, allowing you to create a PURL using just Libguides.

Full article here

http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/7019

Aaron Tay

From the New York Times: Yonkers, NY library worker embezzled late fees over a period of seven years and now faces jail time.

Margo Reed, who earned about $43,000 a year and was described as a conscientious, trusted and well-liked longtime employee, was responsible for taking $163,582 in library fines collected by the three public library branches in Yonkers. It was her job to collect fines — 10 cents for most books, 50 cents for new seven-day ones — and turn them over to the city for deposit.

According to her guilty plea, from July 7, 2004, to Dec. 7, 2010, she would regularly alter the collection paperwork to reflect a lower amount of fees and pocket the difference after taking money out of the library deposit bag. Stephen Force, the Yonkers Library director, said officials discovered that she regularly used correction fluid to alter the receipt sent to her and then entered the new number on the paperwork she filed when she sent the money to the city. The difference between what she received and what she reported was usually $100 or more, he said.

Story at BoingBoing - Award-winning book-burning hoax saves Troy, MI libraries