December 2009

Over the past few weeks Kate had a bunch of conversations with colleagues who have recently gone through the process of hiring a new staff member in their archives, and many were surprised at how many people were making basic mistakes. So she asked for input from herfriends on Facebook and Twitter, and based on the comments of real-world archival managers, here are some things to keep in mind when you’re going through the process of applying for a job:

Former NFL star gets a kick out of rare books
After Pat McInally signed his rookie contract with the Cincinnati Bengals in 1975, the first thing he did with his new-found wealth was also the least likely: He bought a vintage book collection for the copy of “Winnie the Pooh” it contained.

The Challenges that Public Libraries face with eBooks
An interesting discussion with Robert White, Executive Director of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System (BCCLS, pronounced “Buckles”) one of the most modern library lending systems in the country, about the challenges libraries face when dealing with eBooks and other types of digital media.

Shocked into a library induced euphoria, Curious Expeditions has attempted to gather together the world’s most beautiful libraries for you starting with our own pictures of Strahov. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Ohio library puts brakes on chair wheels
An Ohio library whose chairs on wheels kept dumping patrons on the floor has solved the problem.

The wheeled chairs on the linoleum floor at the Lakewood library near Cleveland were causing nearly one fall each week over the course of a year. The library’s first response was a warning sign and making available a couple of stationary chairs.

Amazon.com today announced that Kindle has become the most gifted item in Amazon’s history. On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. The Kindle Store now includes over 390,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York TimesBestsellersand New Releases.

ResearchBuzz Points The Way to a neat site called Sprixi. “Sprixi gathers images from quality sites around the web and brings them together. Currently we get images Flickr and OpenClipArt, as well as our own images. “

Kindles, Nooks and Sony Readers, along with other e-book gizmos, might not be usable on some international flights to the U.S. At least that’s the case if we extrapolate from a Gizmodo post discussing the new terrorism crackdown. For six hours aloft, will you have to suffer airline magazines and other “diversions” in place of a Project Gutenberg classic or the latest bestsellers?

Blog entry at Teleread

Google sponsored research to detect differences in how children and adults search and to identify barriers children face when seeking information.

When Benjamin Feshbach was 11 years old, he was given a brainteaser: Which day would the vice president’s birthday fall on the next year?

Benjamin, now 13, said he typed the question directly into the Google search box, to no avail. He then tried Wikipedia, Yahoo, AOL and Ask.com, also without success. “Later someone told me it was a multistep question,” said Benjamin, a seventh grader from North Potomac, Md.

“Now it seems quite obvious because I’m older,” he said. “But, eventually, I gave up. I didn’t think the answer was important enough to be on Google.” Benjamin is one of 83 children, ages 7, 9 and 11, who participated in a study on children and keyword searching. Sponsored by Google and developed by the University of Maryland and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, the research was aimed at discerning the differences between how children and adults search and identify the barriers children face when trying to retrieve information.

Full article in the NYT

Fan of fictional detective looks forward to new film

Actor Robert Downey Jr. might seem an interesting choice to play the seminal fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He’s not British, and he doesn’t fit the physical description of the protagonist in the Guy Ritchie film opening Dec. 25.

“Sherlock Holmes was tall and thin with a hook nose. Robert Downey Jr. is too good-looking,” said Teresa Torres, a Cascade Park Community librarian and longtime fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the series.

Still, Downey Jr. and Holmes do have one thing in common some might find surprising. The actor famously battled drugs and alcohol for years, and cocaine was among the substances he struggled with. It was a drug Holmes indulged in as well, to the dismay of his sidekick and chronicler, Dr. John Watson.

Torres, a 57-year-old Vancouver resident, has been intrigued by Sherlock Holmes since her teens.

“I love (the stories). I like mysteries, and I love how Sherlock Holmes uses his brain to figure out the crimes. He was always very logical and precise,” she said.

Full article