tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11598472952301903562012-01-28T17:40:22.715-05:00Being professionally nice to people as a karmic lessonJPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.comBlogger1101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-33419786046405832222012-01-25T22:35:00.044-05:002012-01-26T12:57:51.821-05:00

A discouraging, though not surprising, message from Thomas Friedman on the Opinion Pages of the New York Times. In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-39965849829881728972012-01-22T15:29:00.000-05:002012-01-22T15:29:55.095-05:00

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-86062640767668047882012-01-18T22:38:00.003-05:002012-01-20T10:20:52.833-05:00

On multiple levels, this one's a dilly. A recent customer at the "Ask Here" (aka reference) desk was seeking the original print version of an article about Elvis Presley, but with incomplete citation information. "It was in the Time/Life magazine for 1956. Either in August or November," she said. "In 1956," I answered politely, "those were two separate magazines. But let's see what we can find

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-49433162031759822062012-01-09T12:39:00.000-05:002012-01-09T12:39:19.360-05:00

Brian Herzog of Swiss Army Librarian writes: This year, my library planned a program on using ebooks with library resources for the first Saturday in January. The plan was for me to talk about Overdrive, and give live downloading demos for a Kindle, iPad, and Nook. Also, we invited a sales associate from the local Radio Shack to come talk about the non-library aspects of ereaders - buying

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-57938021972436557372011-12-19T12:35:00.001-05:002011-12-19T17:11:17.644-05:00

Note: I've recently resumed reviewing books for Public Libraries magazine, after a hiatus of several years. In order to toot my own horn, I've added a new "Reviews" page to this blog. What follows is the introductory text. I've always believed in continuing education. Even the best degree program for any career only points your attention in the right direction. Any step along the way may turn

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-83545295643941671732011-12-09T17:06:00.015-05:002011-12-12T09:56:55.966-05:00

Since the late 1980s, my spouse Jim and I have been book people, in the Fahrenheit 451 sense of the term. We have both always been bookworms, but when we moved in together we decided to go a step further and NOT have a television. Still don't have one. You may recall, from the 1966 François Truffaut film version, a woman on the street trying to explain to the book-burning fireman, Guy Montag,

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-56807694956547755082011-12-06T13:41:00.003-05:002011-12-08T10:03:47.092-05:00

Thanks to Brian Herzog on Swiss Army Librarian, I've just learned about the neat blog of Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, Awful Library Books. This site is a collection of library holdings that we find amusing and maybe questionable for libraries trying to maintain a current and relevant collection. Contained in this site are actual library holdings. No libraries are specifically mentioned to

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-82233077536517339822011-12-03T15:24:00.003-05:002011-12-05T16:40:51.184-05:00

Remember the classic bumper sticker: Wouldn't it be great if schools had money and the Pentagon had to hold bake sales? The title of this blog post is a somewhat fanciful paraphrase of the following chart, created originally by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and republished by the blog Shakesville and the New York Times Economix column. The gist of that 2007 PCRM

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-79219048186853566872011-11-08T15:56:00.008-05:002011-11-22T15:48:20.677-05:00

Over the past few months I've been reading H.W. Brand's excellent 2008 biography, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Live and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As the Terry Hartle writes in his Christian Science Monitor review, the book is "detailed, insightful, and reads like a novel." More to the point, I keep finding myself longing for the complex and mature leadership this

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-34417107742773237922011-10-07T15:24:00.001-04:002011-10-07T15:25:04.157-04:00

Sometimes we library folk need to borrow some comic relief from an outside source. One of my favorite outside sources is Ruben Fletcher. His blog, Crack Skull Bob, is full of excellent sketches, and often his commentary is full of ironic humor. Rubin has a sub-category of posts which he calls "Common Mistakes." It's a sort of advice-for-artists category with a surrealistic twist. Here's my

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-38099167683026441762011-10-04T13:42:00.001-04:002011-10-04T22:05:01.186-04:00

Dan Barry of The New York Times reported on Friday, September 30th, that the little bankrupt city of Central Falls, RI, is struggling to save Adams Memorial Library: In July, a state-appointed receiver closed the library to save money. The six staff members lost their jobs, while residents lost access to the statewide network that allowed them to borrow from the libraries of other towns. The

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-62374474419712101172011-09-30T16:48:00.003-04:002011-09-30T17:22:05.130-04:00

Here's the latest from our Library Administration, now that City Council has chosen to restore part of the $2.6 million they were going to cut from our FY 2011-12 budget: JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 29, 2011 – The Jacksonville Public Library today announced a new schedule of operations for its 21 locations effective Oct. 15. The library’s fiscal year 2012 budget approved by the Jacksonville City

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-88964347856541531442011-09-29T11:53:00.001-04:002011-09-29T14:31:36.303-04:00

On Tuesday night, September 27th, Jacksonville City Council restored $1.7 million of the almost $2.6 which the Finance Committee had proposed to cut from Jacksonville Public Library's FY 2011-12 budget. We don't yet know how our administration will deal with the shortfall of nearly $1 million, yet we may not have to close all our branches on Mondays. Bountiful thanks are due to all of our

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-70688852450541400332011-09-27T14:47:00.000-04:002011-09-27T14:47:05.801-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, this blog now has both an About page and a Favorite Rants page, in addition to the Home page. The introductory text to the Favorite Rants page is important enough that I am reproducing it here: I take a couple of themes very seriously: First, the quality of human interactions between library professionals and their clients is far more important than collections or

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-37590339375478520582011-09-26T16:39:00.003-04:002011-09-26T17:23:05.479-04:00

Can someone adumbrate with precision? [Spoiler alert: Don't cheat!] A warning from the article on adumbrate by The Word Detective: A cool word should have cool ancestors, or at least a nifty story about how its parents met (“I was raised Middle English, but one day a charming Romany verb came into our tavern…”). But sometimes knowing a word’s history can dim one’s enjoyment. “Nice,” for

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-56637962274967881022011-09-20T13:58:00.004-04:002011-09-20T14:06:32.159-04:00

When I was playing around with vocabulary websites for the previous post, I stumbled onto The Word Detective by Evan Morris, who also produces My Favorite Word. On his About page, Morris explains that his father was Editor-in-Chief of Grosset & Dunlap and also wrote a syndicated newspaper column called Words, Wit and Wisdom, answering readers’ questions about word origins and language usage. The

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-8823607306689221022011-09-18T15:52:00.003-04:002011-09-18T15:54:41.201-04:00

Can someone luxuriate standing up?

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-46843085595683266582011-09-17T15:17:00.002-04:002011-09-17T15:47:12.416-04:00

It's science project time again! Worse news: I got the "radish question" again! Fortunately, this time I knew to ask if this was about chemical versus organic fertilizer and took my young client to the organic gardening books. Whew!

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-83772626346190909432011-09-16T10:37:00.010-04:002011-09-16T11:07:59.370-04:00

The Centered Librarian has an interesting post about Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer. The book includes a new collection of Edward Gorey's work—on postal envelopes and letters, of all things. As blogger David Booker write: Between September 1968 and October 1969, Gorey set out to collaborate on three children’s books with author and editor Peter F. Neumeyer

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-69513703449938470562011-09-13T02:00:00.004-04:002011-09-13T02:02:39.747-04:00

In Memoriam, Oral History Association VOICES: Stetson Kennedy and the pursuit of truth, Facing South Person of the Year: 2009, Folio Weekly

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-29490006104064335152011-09-07T19:18:00.015-04:002011-09-07T19:41:24.865-04:00

This post is a footnote to the previous one.I used an image there which I found on The Centered Librarian, a blog by David Booker which he describes as "Tracking innovation, development and experimentation in information studies and library science and spotting new technologies, trends, fun stuff and much more."I hadn't heard of The Human Library project before, by Booker's article certainly

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-1282072439645816342011-09-04T16:19:00.017-04:002011-09-04T16:50:41.670-04:00

I think we library professionals have been having the wrong conversation for the past few decades. We struggle to fund, deliver and market the content and technology we think our users want. We forget that what makes libraries unique among public agencies is the specialized research skills and service orientation of our professional staff. Granted, libraries are masters at delivering content,

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-35054040452243953862011-06-29T18:03:00.027-04:002011-06-29T18:34:46.697-04:00

A post by Carrie Straka, quoted in its entirety from Michael Stephen's excellent blog, Tame the Web: Libraries,Technology and People:Recently,ALA retweeted a tweet that originally came from @FSG_Books. It was a library haiku that read: A library card / is a 100% off / coupon for great books. This is a misconception throughout libraries everywhere.A library card isn’t a 100% off coupon. A library

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-56909357792629118862011-06-13T15:03:00.133-04:002011-06-20T09:49:40.707-04:00

In several recent posts (April 7, April 12, May 5, May 5 and June 2) I have written about the funding crisis faced by public libraries in Jacksonville, in the state of Florida, and across the country.For my colleagues, and even more so for those citizens who don't have the inside story, the fragmentary, headline-oriented reportage of the story tends to stir up angers and fears without giving a

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-26345877056175647742011-06-02T10:39:00.011-04:002011-06-02T10:48:10.440-04:00

"A Country without Libraries" is an important new article by Charles Simic, posted on the NYR Blog (New York Review of Books) on May 18, 2011.Here is the opening text:All across the United States, large and small cities are closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of operations.Detroit, I read a few days ago, may close all of its branches and Denver half of its own: decisions that will

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-4171105818657794992011-05-05T14:13:00.044-04:002011-06-06T17:27:09.707-04:00

...why did we have to go through this again this year?Last year, library supporters in Florida were put through the same torment when the legislature in Tallahassee threatened to cancel the $21.2 million state funding for public libraries. It took two months and over 60,000 messages from constituents to persuade the legislators to restore those funds—at midnight on April 26, 2010.And state

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-33357118325019422092011-05-05T10:15:00.010-04:002011-05-05T11:10:33.103-04:00

Thanks to the huge response from library supporters, Florida's legislators have not only restored the $21.2 million budget item for state aid to public libraries—which they had intended to zero out—they added $100,000 to the amount!We not only need to celebrate but also to take heart: public advocacy can have an impact.We also need to thank all those legislators and public officials who acted to

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-78628368952319325642011-04-29T15:45:00.001-04:002011-04-29T15:50:15.869-04:00

Ever notice how Friday and Saturday afternoons working in the library.......the clooocksss ssstooooppp mooooviiiinngggg?

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-21324343431997240632011-04-12T13:55:00.033-04:002011-04-15T12:47:00.380-04:00

We are doing the best we can at Jacksonville Public Library to get the word out to the public about how much they will lose if they allow City Council to push through the huge budget cuts we are facing for fiscal year 2011-12 (which starts October 1st).One of our approaches is the legal-sized flyer illustrated below.[This link and the image below both go to a Google Docs PDF version of the flyer.

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-85095100613158489592011-04-07T09:27:00.056-04:002011-05-05T14:55:38.497-04:00

We have now watched a decade of ill-informed and resentful rebellion by voters against supposedly outrageous and ever-increasing taxes.This is even though, in fact, tax rates and revenues have been decreasing throughout that same time.Even though Americans are taxed less that citizens of other developed nations, and corporations and the wealthy pay far less of their income than workers on the

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-89336817564953425252011-04-01T11:54:00.005-04:002011-04-01T11:58:36.759-04:00

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-8982058820441553072011-02-06T05:27:00.031-05:002011-02-06T06:35:48.382-05:00

Sometimes we old geezers are perversely proud of playing the-old-ways-are-best games.For over five years now, I have been milking the joke that I manage my library system's online customer services but don't use any mobile devices...except a cell phone which is just a cell phone. It's only been in the past year or so that circumstances have forced me to scramble a bit more, obliging me to hang

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-28176953178498402752011-01-31T10:17:00.027-05:002011-02-02T13:55:57.679-05:00

Quite a few readers have probably already seen the text of British author Philip Pullman's January 20th speech, "Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value." It was co-published on two blogs, False Economy: Why the cuts are the wrong cure and openDemocracy: Free thinking for the world.This passage gets to the heart of it: What I personally hate about this bidding culture is that

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-51572928439408196402010-11-13T15:01:00.012-05:002010-11-13T16:36:34.153-05:00

Jacksonville Public Library is spending a week celebrating the fifth anniversary of the opening of its new, downtown Main Library building.As part of the week long promotion, customers are encouraged to tour all five stories of the building. If they get their “passports” stamped at each service desk, they are eligible for a prize drawing. This way, we hope they will be introduced to public

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-19052179619140794972010-10-29T14:36:00.012-04:002010-10-29T15:18:59.349-04:00

Library professionals are appropriately wary of using Wikipedia, since it's not always possible to gauge the source(s) and authoritativeness of articles–at least, not without digging through the editing history.However, I've gradually developed a tactic for using Wikipedia as a first step toward finding those authoritative online sources.It's very straightforward. Search your topic, and then

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-76047222651263288532010-07-17T14:04:00.015-04:002010-07-17T14:44:41.819-04:00

Brian Herzog, on Swiss Army Librarian, has posted a thoughtful checklist which I think would work very well to guide one's thinking in doing a reference interview.Brian writes: "Some sort of checklist or decision tree is probably covered in most library school reference text books, but I thought I’d take a crack at it. Of course, any checklist like this could vary widely by library, depending on

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-2375289001518163082010-07-14T12:06:00.089-04:002010-07-18T13:40:19.287-04:00

As I've repeatedly suggested, sometimes the hardest part of doing an effective reference interview is overcoming my own annoyance with or even prejudice against customers who don't know what they're asking for.Apparently, I have a not-so-latent, A-student resentment toward people who not only don't know things but don't know how to find out for themselves. As I told a colleague: "Kinda makes you

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-57199140634245459052010-06-18T12:33:00.008-04:002010-06-18T12:41:54.715-04:00

Recently, I had one of those moments when reality sneaks past my prejudices, and my petty resentments toward customers transform into wonder.On this occasion, a man whom my eye stereotyped as a thirty-ish, blue-collar guy approached the Non-Fiction "Ask Here" desk, carrying a library basket of books.(Had I been paying more attention, the juxtaposition of "blue-collar guy" with "basket of books"

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-39222643548154767032010-06-17T17:46:00.003-04:002010-06-17T18:58:59.435-04:00

Okay, I know this is naughty, but...(The Customer Is) Not Always Right.:-)

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-57268884028351423962010-04-23T15:32:00.024-04:002010-04-23T16:21:07.944-04:00

Our library administration is gradually phasing in a staff development approach which uses the Leadership Challenge model designed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner.The key premise of the model is horizontal leadership: the notion that each person, regardless of position or rank, has the potential to improve the organization by sharing innovative ideas and problem-solving expertise…and that

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-6087943960045528372010-04-13T14:10:00.010-04:002010-04-13T14:22:11.024-04:00

Andy Woodworth, a librarian for the Burlington County Library System in New Jersey, has an interesting blog called Agnostic, maybe: the neverending reference interview of life.Andy says that his title "comes from a belief that a healthy dose of questioning leads to deeper meaning and understanding.... I believe that the total sum of human knowledge is a drop in the bucket as it relates to the

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-16667488098968721282010-02-25T12:35:00.044-05:002010-02-25T16:26:32.642-05:00

Today I had one of Swiss Army Librarian Brian Herzog's Reference Question of the Week experiences.A young woman came up asking to find information about boxer Peter B. Jackson.(Granted, it was another case of a mom doing homework for her kid, but that's another story.)As you can see from the link, she'd already Googled Jackson, and the two-page Wikipedia article was what she had found and printed

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-77820297538180653852010-02-05T09:18:00.112-05:002010-02-05T17:41:48.063-05:00

On several occasions (here and here, for example), I have written about the ways in which America's compulsive yet unreflective striving after the "next new thing" in technology has driven us far beyond our capacity to make certain we take all of our people along with us.An economy which is so broadly dependent upon consumerism must ever be coming up with new things to convince consumers that

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-22785061230869630902010-01-08T17:09:00.008-05:002010-01-08T17:27:23.707-05:00

Most of the folks I know, including many of my blogging friends, seem to be voicing some version of this:I’m feeling very stuck right now. Work, weather, season, what have you. I don’t know whether to get up earlier or later, go to bed earlier or later, walk more, work less, or what. I’ve got that “hamster on a wheel” feeling and nothing I do seems to kick me out of it.Yepper, sounds familiar.As

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-65972479253716622812009-12-31T13:17:00.021-05:002009-12-31T14:18:56.537-05:00

that calendars established by human authorities have metaphysical significance that the solar year should begin with the first day of the month of Janus—instead of at the spring equinox, or the winter solstice, or Samhain, or at some other astronomical or religious moment of the cycle round the sun that we should be using the calendar established by Pope Gregory XIII on Friday, Oct. 15, 1582, the

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-9367727492785218652009-12-16T11:09:00.002-05:002009-12-16T11:14:23.043-05:00

I’m pleased to report that, thanks to a recommendation from Traci Avet of Florida’s Ask a Librarian live chat reference service, I’ve had a Surly Librarian piece published in the December 15th issue of Library Journal: "Can I Go Home Now?."Thanks to Traci, and to editor Mirela Roncevic, for taking an interest in my grousing.:-)

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-49387289091871382052009-11-02T09:47:00.009-05:002009-11-02T10:18:44.390-05:00

First thing every morning, our street people regulars get their only exercise for the day...as they race each other up the Grand Stairway to Periodicals to get the three copies of the local paper and the one USA Today.Thereafter, it's a matter of rotation for turns. They watch each other like hawks...vultures?...till someone returns a copy to the desk. And new arrivals glance under the desk where

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-2795453527084145342009-10-29T13:24:00.020-04:002009-10-29T14:20:06.815-04:00

Yeah, it's been a while.And it looks pretty sorry that I got a Blog Award and then immediately vanished for four months.Phyllis Diller used to say, "See this body? There's no excuse for this body. Lots of reasons, but no excuse!"Well, substitute "blog" for "body" and....But I have been busy. In fact, that busyness has nudged me through several successive layers of attitude adjustment.When I look

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-86574475793404619542009-07-01T21:31:00.074-04:002009-07-02T12:33:18.300-04:00

I'm one of those people who tends to break chain letters and often fails to forward or respond to Internet memes.This isn't out of meanness or any sort of anti-superstitious inclinations.("If you don't send this letter to 10 friends, your cat will die in a bizarre shaving accident!")Even though I use computers and social software all day long—or perhaps because of that—not passing along memes is

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-37727521175271328922009-06-27T10:11:00.007-04:002009-06-27T10:46:58.754-04:00

I don't usually do politics on this blog (except for the pink triangle on the sidebar), but today is the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. I myself have been out as a gay man since 1973.It's way past time that people of sexual minorities had full civil rights in this country. As one approach to this issue, let me share something called the Dallas Principles.Preamble: President

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-66586834886010941452009-06-22T16:02:00.100-04:002009-10-09T15:26:17.892-04:00

This will probably be more than you wanted to know about me.When I started this blog as a Learning 2.0 exercise, I was already a blogger of several years running.In fact, I've been journaling in one form or another since high school (way back in another century). That means I have a private thirty-some-year archive of more about myself than even I want to know.The important point, though, is that

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-3783115324522088432009-05-22T13:29:00.008-04:002009-05-22T13:57:48.097-04:00

I seem to be stuck in a derivative loop, sharing other people's comedy rather than writing my own.Maybe I've gotten tangled up in all the overlapping time travel disruptions of the new Star Trek (which I've seen) and the new Terminator (which I'm waiting to see).Anyway....This is worth sharing.Ah, empathy....Note: Stephan Pastis has a blog!

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-28287474318791298042009-05-15T17:14:00.005-04:002009-05-15T17:19:59.523-04:00

While I'm on the techie comics roll, here's another funny insider joke from Dilbert:

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-9857536388633783592009-05-15T12:18:00.042-04:002009-05-15T17:10:29.023-04:00

I had forgotten about User Friendly till I stumbled across it again today.I used to read the strip daily back when I was on our Integrated Library Systems staff.User Friendly is a delight if you're a techie—or if you at least play one in the library. In fact, if you don't have at least a librarian's grasp of tech-ese, you may miss much of the humor.But it is funny if you get it. Trust me.For a

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-17805883416716147562009-04-19T23:07:00.018-04:002009-10-09T13:42:39.615-04:00

In Sunday's New York Times, Motoko Rich has an Ideas & Trends article entitled "Crowd Forms Against an Algorithm."Rich's starting point is last week's sudden online controversy over a major "cataloging error" by Amazon.com, one which "caused thousands of books—a large proportion of them gay and lesbian themed—to lose their sales ranking, making them difficult to find in basic searches."In fact, "

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-32725133967425481952009-04-03T11:31:00.011-04:002009-04-03T12:04:51.252-04:00

It is so fine when a book's cover grabs you like this one's does. I haven't even read it yet, but I want to.And, as I look into the blurbs and reviews, I can see how the image telegraphs the heart of the story.Here's a blurb from Martin Wilson's blog:Thoughtful and moving, What They Always Tell Us is a powerful debut novel about the bond between two brothers—and the year that changes

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-1097764796564233922009-03-24T11:36:00.112-04:002009-03-25T14:32:57.559-04:00

When I whined about science project questions not too long ago, an unexpressed part of the complaint had to do with the weird mixture of disinterest and expectation I sometimes get from customers.As in: "I'm not interested in doing this for myself. I expect you to do it for me."Back in library school, my fantasy was to work in an academic library. I foolishly imagined that my patrons—what we used

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-62804638072799883872009-03-12T10:58:00.007-04:002009-05-15T17:19:03.071-04:00

Just for fun—don't...*ahem*...take this as a comment on my own organization—I've added a Dilbert Widget to the sidebar. It's down below the links.Enjoy.

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-49545981927027319222009-02-25T19:08:00.040-05:002009-02-27T10:56:15.872-05:00

We were wrestling today...again!...with the frequent, annoying glitches in our public computer network's sign-in process. PCs that have just logged out will show as "faulty," customers won't be released from PCs they've already been booted off of, etc., etc., etc.Of course, this is all happening after a network software upgrade last fall.One of my techie buddies thinks the actual problem is that

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-60343681349960347272009-02-18T17:28:00.015-05:002009-02-18T18:20:40.448-05:00

Because she knows I like to follow Brian Herzog's Swiss Army Librarian, my friend Trapdoor Spider showed me the following:Now, granted, I sometimes feel as if my customers expect me to be this versatile, but......how in the heck do you actually hold it to do anything?!MikeBTW, note the price: a mere $1,400 (plus $6.95 for gift wrapping).

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-4733575243200857762009-02-04T12:17:00.116-05:002009-02-13T22:13:40.606-05:00

[Yes, I know. I haven't posted anything here since December 17th. As Phyllis Diller used to say, joking about her supposedly unshapely body, "There's lots of reasons, but no excuse."]One of the reasons is that I and my Remote Services colleagues have been busy with a major reorganization and expansion of our 21-branch library system's participation in Florida's Ask a Librarian (AaL) live chat

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-813643452880573652008-12-17T15:16:00.005-05:002010-06-18T12:43:25.288-04:00

This is from xkcd. No comment necessary.Mike

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-62688083259150624352008-12-13T12:27:00.010-05:002008-12-13T12:39:53.283-05:00

Peter Morville at findability.org has just posted "Finding the Common Good." It's a piece about the Library of Congress Flickr Pilot Project. Here's the full report to which he links.Morville adds:The statistics are impressive, and the analysis of tagging behavior is interesting. And, when you finish reading, you can wander The Commons, an unexpected public good that resulted from this

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-90281554585062010172008-12-02T15:26:00.020-05:002008-12-02T16:15:09.686-05:00

Yeah, maybe this doesn't exactly seem like a library-related post, but I'm working in a library...well, let's say "present" in a library at the moment, and I can't seem to get back in gear.Monday was hell. People out, both planned and unplanned. The new library associate NOT on the roster for the two-day training for new City employees...but then, we needed him, so maybe that wasn't so bad....Oh,

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-67480602676815870342008-11-20T16:00:00.005-05:002008-12-02T16:17:12.427-05:00

Wow! This guy gets some really interesting questions!Swiss Army Librarian had a customer who found a plaque made of stone in the woods with characters painted onto it. He went online and found Omniglot.com and, by looking at the alphabets there, decided they must be Runic characters. In front of the plaque was a little container which he didn’t open, but he photographed the whole area and....See

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-83619356187630107022008-11-18T10:54:00.017-05:002008-11-18T13:29:41.247-05:00

An exchange of teasing comments and email with our library system's training coordinator resulted from the previous post. This in turn led me to revisit some of the basic issues around which this blog revolves.I first addressed this in "Customer service for curmudgeons":I'm one of those introverted people whose temperament is most suited to solitary intellectual and creative pursuits, or to

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-25864910296851975272008-11-15T16:44:00.026-05:002008-11-16T15:22:14.959-05:00

There's no use pretending. I HATE science project questions!!!Aside from the usual issues, like it's the kid's Mom doing the research, while the kid is (a) not there (b) playing on the computers (c) playing one of those hand held idiot boxes (d) staring off into space (e) all of the above,......and like the fact that teachers who assign these projects don't seem to do any preparatory instruction

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-67067282685714499022008-11-14T17:25:00.009-05:002008-11-14T17:35:39.720-05:00

Yesterday, Brian Herzog published a very interesting post on Swiss Army Librarian.He had set out to represent graphically the complexity of flow in the library services hierarchy. Here's what he came up with:I'll let him speak for himself:I was thinking about library services, and why some good ideas get implemented while others don’t, and why libraries offer some things that seem to be of no

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-88790062368484465062008-11-12T18:14:00.025-05:002008-11-12T19:22:09.864-05:00

Since Samhain (aka Hallowe'en), things have been way too busy to keep up with blogging, what with the election, the imminent rollout of an expanded Ask a Librarian live chat reference service for Jacksonville Public library—not to mention the annual it's-November-and-all-the-overlapping-multitasking-library-projects-are-coming-due-at-the-same-time-stress-induced throat and chest cold...

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-27949533184958048282008-10-31T16:34:00.012-04:002008-10-31T17:11:18.530-04:00

This week we have a guest case, from Brian Herzog of Swiss Army Librarian.Brian's entry:Patron: I’ve never used a computer before, so can you help me find a job on craigslist?Sigh. For non-reference librarians, here’s why this simple request is especially hard: Almost any kind of job-related request can be difficultMost of the job resources available in the library are online, so having no

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-701140761451512342008-10-30T15:35:00.016-04:002008-10-30T16:41:09.282-04:00

Here are three interesting items from walking paper, the blog of Aaron Schmidt, director of the North Plains Public Library in SE Portland, Oregon.The first is "rolling answer carts," showing a novel idea from University of Kentucky's HUB info commons.The second is a simple yet profound comment from a young librarian:The third is a bit more involved: "NYT Visualization Lab." Here's part of what

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-82081670014118605162008-10-29T11:27:00.005-04:002008-10-29T11:41:21.103-04:00

You need to know about LISjobs.com, maintained by Rachel Singer Gordon, even if you aren't looking for a job.Read about it in her latest blog post: The new LISjobs.com launches — yes, finally!Take a look also at the message boards on LISjobs Online Community. And don't forget Info Career Trends Newsletter.Mike

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-2284028671087490062008-10-29T11:19:00.003-04:002008-10-29T11:25:31.783-04:00

Found through Tame the Web. Originally uploaded to Flickr by Silversprite.Mike

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-11050667501003100472008-10-10T16:09:00.012-04:002008-10-31T17:11:49.788-04:00

Okay. I can't resist.Our Call Center patched a customer through to me at Reference this afternoon. Here's the gist of the exchange:Customer: "I need to find eternal security on the Internet."Me: "Um...."[Glancing at Caller ID, I see that it's "_____ Shoes." My colleagues will know who I mean.]M: "Uh, what is that in this case? A book title? A website?"C: "It's a belief."M: "Oh. Um...let me put

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-1700792994192513882008-10-07T17:13:00.007-04:002008-10-07T17:28:50.123-04:00

Randall Munroe has come through again with a sequel to the xkcd comic I linked to a few days ago:Note: Again it's too big for Blogger to digest, so click on the image to see the whole thing.BTW, here's a neat Wikipedia article about Munroe and xkcd.Mike

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-5218309412352510492008-10-02T10:33:00.011-04:002008-10-02T10:49:19.134-04:00

Librarians' Internet Index: New This Week has some helpful recommendations today.First is this, about absentee voting:Absentee Voter Guide - "This guide contains all the information college students need to vote by absentee ballot from school." Click on the interactive U.S. map to view absentee voting details for each state, including deadlines, dates, and contacts. Also available as a

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-87768292866520433242008-09-30T17:56:00.007-04:002008-09-30T19:14:58.440-04:00

From my favorite bizarro comic strip, xkcd - A Webcomic, by Randall Munroe, here's a marvelous(ly huge) chart of the "Observable Universe," from the top......to the bottom....[Note: the image is waaaay too tall for Blogger to display, so you'll have to see it at the original site here.]Cool!Note: The disclaimer at the bottom of this web page reads Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-65448662554018154072008-09-25T09:26:00.008-04:002008-09-30T19:15:34.606-04:00

There's a new book, Library Blogging by Karen Coombs and Jason Griffey, which is highly recommended by Michael Stephens in Tame the Web.I haven't looked at it myself, yet, but I value TTW's opinions. Here's a little of what Stephens writes:If you are starting a blogging project in your library or teaching blogging, I’d recommend this one for sure as an up to date choice. I’ll be using it as a

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-15420425482297236352008-09-22T16:19:00.013-04:002008-09-30T19:17:19.914-04:00

Thanks to Tame the Web, I've stumbled across this sign on a pillar of a library:Turns out it's from this Monty Python sketch:Kinda like the notion.... Al Behrman / AP fileMike

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-64326732894550338052008-09-20T10:46:00.024-04:002008-09-20T12:04:57.061-04:00

I've been a Rachel Singer Gordon fan for a number of years, ever since I reviewed The Accidental Systems Librarian for Public Libraries magazine (pp.60-61) back in 2003.Her LISjob.com is a good source for job-searching, and Info Career Trends is a good online newsletter for library staff to subscribe to.More recently I've subscribed to the RSS feed of her blog, The Liminal Librarian. Gordon

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-68133739943668006552008-09-17T19:11:00.007-04:002008-09-17T19:22:48.967-04:00

I don't think I mentioned this blog in any of my earlier posts, but Librarians' Internet Index: New this Week is an excellent RSS feed to subscribe to.Each week you get about twenty or so links to professionally vetted websites, with annotations. Great reference resources.Here are some of the ones I've saved recently:The Politics of Satire - This small slide show features a "collection of

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-60144152668255324572008-09-14T13:14:00.025-04:002008-09-30T19:17:36.993-04:00

I decided I could finish this project in time if I came in to Main as a customer on Sunday.My home PC is allergic to the Internet. I can log on, but the browser claims it cannot find any servers.>:-[So...here I am in the Grand Reading Room, the first one to arrive!I've already been using Bloglines, del.icio.us and PBwiki for several years, because I like their functionality and they are directly

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-8091175648145314272008-09-13T17:32:00.007-04:002008-09-13T17:46:53.716-04:00

Okay. I've never tried to use OverDrive myself for a few simple reasons:I still have only dialup at homeMy 'Net connection has been on the fritz for months. I can login, but my browser can't find any sites. :-(I don't listening to books. I read books.Guess which one is my main reason.But, I think it's excellent that JPL makes this resource available for customers.In order to try it out, I've

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-36950132152246818732008-09-13T15:10:00.005-04:002008-09-13T17:55:36.030-04:00

Not at all sure about this one. Not meaning I'm not sure it's well-designed or valuable, generally. Just meaning I probably will not use it much.That's only because I'm no longer someone who listens to audio media much...except for All Things Considered on the way home from work, and Car Talk during Saturday morning chores.I decided to try Podcast Alley, partly because I didn't want to wait 20+

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-24420826534153136682008-09-12T14:59:00.045-04:002008-09-12T17:00:54.698-04:00

I've always admired the work of Maurice Sendak. His stories are delightful, and his artwork is so clear, friendly and beautiful.This week, in his eightieth year, he came out as a gay man. Patricia Cohen's New York Times article on 9/9/08, "Concerns Beyond Just Where the Wild Things Are," says of Sendak:Maurice Sendak’s 80th year — which ended with his birthday earlier this summer and is being

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-56681406359651587542008-09-09T16:02:00.008-04:002008-09-09T16:21:18.138-04:00

No question about this one. It's one of the most valuable things to come along since the 'Net got started.Even given the importance of respecting the intellectual property of those who create videos, the whole idea of "civilians" being able to broadcast is excellent.Also no question as to my choice for what to link here. I went to YouTube, searched Acrentropy, my favorite blog by a JPL librarian

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-44289742660707701602008-09-08T16:08:00.016-04:002008-09-08T17:05:08.896-04:00

I thought for this exercise that I would look at several categories and mention or discuss those which I use, or which caught my eye.Bookmarking: I already use de.licio.us, though mostly as a quick storage for URLs of sites I stumble onto and might want to get back to laterBooks: The one that really caught my attention is Lulu. I'm a life-long writer who wants to have an audience but is less

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-81822758482250406432008-09-04T16:50:00.009-04:002008-09-05T11:15:40.156-04:00

For some reason, my first few attempts at using Zoho Writer were bombs. I couldn't figure out how to get a new document started. Even though I was clicking the New button, it didn't work right.However, anything I'm trying to do online while at the REF desk is likely to blow up. All those pesky customers interrupting. (See "Customer Service for Curmudgeons.")Having now gotten a document started, I

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-59362547111074312082008-08-28T16:33:00.012-04:002008-08-29T11:12:26.625-04:00

Every time I not only have to walk the whole length of the Main Library from my workroom to the one, one-seater staff restroom on our floor......but also have to take the elevator to another floor because our restroom is in use......another pin goes into my Robert A.M. Stern voodoo doll.>:-[

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-62825732511542058242008-08-28T13:36:00.003-04:002008-08-28T13:39:21.568-04:00

If you need to do a self-check to find out if you've been doing too much computer multi-tasking, click here.

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-76107909219009188472008-08-26T13:13:00.006-04:002008-08-26T17:09:54.086-04:00

I've been editing websites since lib'ary school, and I've been using blogging sites since 2006, so I enjoy experimenting with how to configure and post online.Hence, I liked this sandbox, especially since I've already used "Peanut Butter" Wiki a bit for other purposes.I added a Favorite Book, a Favorite Vacation Spot, and a new page with a book review which was just published in the July/August

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-62311710221885417932008-08-25T16:03:00.007-04:002008-08-25T16:23:58.498-04:00

I can't give as much time to this topic as I have for others, thanks to Fay. There's too much I was going to catch up on last week.:-(I've considered creating a wiki for Remote Customer Services, at least for the Ask a Librarian team. We have a webpage on JPL Neighborhood which we use to give chat team members schedules, contact information, training how-to's, etc. It might be useful to be able

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-39212684533584256772008-08-16T16:05:00.029-04:002008-08-16T16:59:11.077-04:00

Here's an interesting article by Williams Hicks of Digital Web Magazine which could be read as a counterargument to Rick Anderson's Away from the “icebergs”.I found the article linked from "Why use a library?" on Tame the Web.What first caught my eye was this blurb:It says succinctly what I've been blathering about for several posts now.Hicks is addressing a readership of Web professionals, and

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-12338275995074856882008-08-16T13:31:00.027-04:002008-08-18T17:28:23.885-04:00

I'm seeing a theme emerging in my own posts throughout this Learning 2.0 process: "This is really great, and I can appreciate its value to global culture...but I'm not interested in using much of it myself."Hmmm...I guess this is why I named the blog The Surly Librarian. I could have called it Old Dog Librarian, except that I can learn new tricks. They just have to be ones I intend to use.

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-78036274348574398012008-08-15T11:10:00.007-04:002008-08-18T17:25:51.453-04:00

Unlike del.icio.us, which helps me keep track of sites and pages I am interested, Technorati seems less useful to me personally.I do have an account, and I have claimed my blogs. Again, this is a tool I learned about in the "Social Software in Libraries" course, so I tried it out during that course and have puzzled over it since.For my purposes, Technorati would mainly be useful in pushing my

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-72652523866402916312008-08-14T15:38:00.018-04:002008-08-14T17:10:09.863-04:00

I've been using del.icio.us for almost two years, ever since I learned about it in the "Social Software in Libraries" course I mentioned in "#8: RSS and Bloglines."Since I'm often browsing away from home and/or away from my own workstation, it's extremely helpful to be able to quickly bookmark a website or web page in my del.icio.us account.I don't always use the bookmarks. Often I don't even go

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-81392287353046470902008-07-18T17:31:00.007-04:002008-07-18T17:49:32.390-04:00

I was talking with my friend and colleague Johnny at the reference desk this afternoon, showing him another neat online toy, del.icio.us, a social bookmarking tool which lets you save and tag your favorites in a web-based environment.We were marveling over the rich and complex online resources like LibraryThing, Technorati, Blogger—plus all the open source stuff, from Linux on—all of it available

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-86252177096478552082008-07-17T16:03:00.005-04:002008-07-17T16:15:46.392-04:00

Somewhat confusing sequence of steps for getting this onto my iGoogle page, though it eventually worked.I've added it to my blog page on the lower left...but no matter how I tweak the width and height, the right side gets chopped off in the blog template I'm using.I'm not going to switch templates, so I've got this somewhat ugly search window on the page. Oh, well....Actually, I thought what we

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-29220501435648382112008-07-16T19:19:00.024-04:002008-07-17T08:58:54.246-04:00

This is a very interesting resource. I can see how could be valuable in various ways.However, I don't see it as serving immediately important needs for me. I need to explore it over time.I'm not concerned to have other people know what I read (though it's not a secret), and I'm not necessarily interested in knowing that about others (particular people I don't know).Perhaps looking at similarly

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159847295230190356.post-47063071656957583722008-07-14T17:05:00.007-04:002008-07-14T17:18:06.020-04:00

I found this rather uninteresting...though in theory it could be a lot of fun. Many of the offerings were silly, trivial things, while the ones I really wanted to try—"Make Your Coat of Arms," for example—didn't work right when I tried them.However, I finally went to BIG HUGE LAB's Flickr Toys and used Create a Magazine Cover to make the following:This was sort of fun. I only wish I could have

JPL Call Centernoreply@blogger.com0