February 2010

From Library Journal: They call them “paralibrarians” in Massachusetts now. The main reason for that is Allison Sloan, the 2010 winner of LJ’s Paraprofessional of the Year Award, sponsored by DEMCO, Inc. Her outstanding service and her championship of the term paralibrarian illustrates her passionately held and most fundamental belief: “This is not just a nice job, this is a career.”

Each year at the MLA conference, Sloan is instrumental in developing new and exciting programs to bring librarians and paralibrarians together in a partnership to grow library services, open communication, and demonstrate the strength of teamwork. The 2005 program, “Extreme Customer Service: Springfield College Builds a New Desk,” recounted an innovative project to combine the reference and circulation desks—and cross-train paralibrarians to answer reference questions and librarians to provide circulation tasks.

Sloan’s enthusiasm connected a dedicated group of library staffers who rejuvenated the MLA Paralibrarian Section.

How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

It possesses the seemingly magical ability to interpret searchers’ requests — no matter how awkward or misspelled. Google refers to that ability as search quality, and for years the company has closely guarded the process by which it delivers such accurate results.

How much money the library saved me in 2009

The truth is, I’d use the library even if it didn’t save me a bundle of money each year, if it hadn’t given me wonderful gifts like friends and an online community. I love libraries. I think they are a truly invaluable part of our community. So if you haven’t visited yours in awhile maybe you could give it another try?

Nice profile of University of San Francisco librarian Vicki Rosen, who wears her workout gear under her work clothes, just like Superman. Three times a week, Rosen, 60, goes directly to Fitness for Women Over 45.

Her mantra? “Showing up is half the battle.” More from the SF Gate.

If you’re like me (and you know you want to be), you only use In My Book® Bookmark/Cards for all your bookmarking needs. Maybe, just maybe, there are other things that we could use, like old computer parts…
IDE Bookmarks! New life for old cables! .

All over our great nation, thousands of discarded cables sit idle and unloved in garages, junk drawers, shoe boxes, and safe deposit boxes, wondering if they’ll ever see the light of day and the thrill of usefulness again. This is their story, and this is the beginning of their new chapter of life. They’ll rise again, not to stream music or to archive XKCD, but to mark our places in beloved works of literature, Firefly fanfic, or possibly programming command references.

Nazi spoons, robots vie for oddest title
Books about Nazi spoons, ethical considerations for lethal robots and how-to crochet geometric models are in the running for this year’s Diagram Prize, the quirky annual literary honour celebrating odd book titles.

U.K. trade magazine The Bookseller has announced a shortlist of six peculiar titles from the past year.

School librarian, man charged with running pot farm
A Chicago public school librarian and another person were charged with running a marijuana growing operation out of a home they owned in the South Deering neighborhood, officials said today.

“Photo Evidence: Michelle Obama Keeps Socialist Books In The White House Library,” blared the headline on conservative radio host Rob Port’s blog following a tour of the presidential residence last week, after he spotted books including The American Socialist Movement 1897-1912 and The Social Basis of American Communism on the library’s shelves.

Port ignited a storm, quickly drawing almost 300 comments to his post on the popular political blog SayAnythingBlog.com, and a rash of links across the internet. “I wonder if the liberals who mock conservatives who refer to Obama as a socialist still find it funny?” wrote All American Blogger. “By itself, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But [in] the context of Obama’s economic policies? Well, I’ll let you make your own call,” wrote Port, a self-styled bibliophile.

Full article

Technical issues continue to plague us at Erie Looking Productions. LISTen #107 is a lost episode as there will be no recorded audio for this one. The unedited script that has none of the usual handwritten corrections or any ad-libs by the presenter is instead released for consideration. Links to matters referenced are shown as footnotes in the attached PDF file. This peculiar release is made under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

While we plan to release LISTen #108 on March 1st, this is dependent upon us chasing down electrical shorts and other complications. Thank you for your patience and cooperation in this difficult time.

(Mirrored at Internet Archive)

Hopefully you’ve been following allong with the Essay Contest this month. Next month we’ll try something a bit different: A librarian joke contest! We’ll take joke submissions during the entire month of March, and annouce the winners on April Fools Day.
Stay tuned for the details. Prizes will include something from http://StitchingForLiteracy.com and something from http://inmybook.com and more!