August 5th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Someone sent me a link to AllMyFaves.com recently - at first I ignored it, but now I kind of like it.
It’s a visual list of popular website, broken up into cataegories like Video, Maps, Search, Travel, etc. It reminds me of the early days of Yahoo, with two guys making a directory of useful internet websites. But seeing everything on one screen is helpful (and being a visual person, I like the logos).
And that’s it’s compiled by “a team of experts,” I can reasonably presume that these are the “important” websites in each category (at least, important to someone). Which is great for me to learn of a new website, or to use as a cheat-sheet to see what the kids are using. Plus, it helps with reference questions like “what’s another website like Facebook and MySpace.”
I did notice they didn’t have a “Books” category, so I made my own:
See Also
Posted under Library, Resources | 3 Comments »
August 2nd, 2008 Brian Herzog
It’s pretty rare that we get reference questions by USPS mail, so they usually earn special attention. This one in particular ended up receiving a great deal of special attention.
Postmarked 24 May 2008 and addressed to the library Attn: Reference, two things immediately stood out about the envelope - it was written on a typewriter, and the return address was Bay State Correctional Center, Norfolk, MA.
Getting letters or reference questions from prison inmates isn’t too unusual, and despite most peoples’ initial reactions, they are treated like any other reference question. This particular patron introduced himself as a student enrolled in a correspondence course from a Boston university. For his geology course, he was writing a paper on structures and monuments made from granite quarried in New England, and was asking us for help locating information on Chelmsford granite, a stone native to this area.
The question itself wasn’t really a problem; we have a book in our local history collection entitled Chelmsford Granite, a vertical file devoted to the Fletcher Granite company which has quarried here since the 1880’s, and we also found a few websites mentioning Chelmsford granite.
Between printouts and photocopies, we ended with quite a thick sheaf of papers. As I was packing it to mail, I faintly remembered someone sometime saying that prisoners cannot receive paper clips or staples or rubber bands, or anything I might use to organize the papers I was sending. It’d be unfortunate for this research not to make it to the patron, so I called the correctional center to see what rules they had about inmates receiving mail.
After a brief conversation with the guard, who had to consult with another guard a few times on the rules, I learned that 1) no metal or fasteners of any kind were allowed, and 2) inmates are limited to four sheets of paper per envelope.
The four-page rule certainly changed things. I selected what I thought was the most useful bits and did some double-sided photocopying to maximize space, and also typed a cover letter explaining what we found, what was sent, what wasn’t sent, and other organizations he could contact for additional information.
I felt bad not being able to get him everything, but I thought this would end here.
About a month later I received another letter from this patron, thanking me for the material. Also, he said that I had been misinformed about the four-page rule, and such policies were being challenged on Constitutional grounds. In addition, he said he would try to make other arrangements to receive whatever materials I couldn’t send the first time, and that an associate of his would be contacting me for the information.
A few weeks after that, I got an email from his academic advisor at the college, saying that I could mail whatever additional material I had to him, and he would get it to the inmate. I still had all of the information in a folder, so typed up another letter explaining what it was and how it fit with the first batch, and mailed it off.
That was just last week, and I haven’t heard back from either person. Hopefully, everything got where it needed to be, and the patron was able to continue with his research project.
It was a happy and interesting reference exchange, and I don’t mean to be glib, but I just have to point out the irony of helping a prison inmate research granite and stonework.
Tags: chelmsford, correctional, granite, inmate, jail, libraries, Library, mail, prison, prisoner, public, Reference Question, usps See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question | 5 Comments »
July 31st, 2008 Brian Herzog
In the course of working on a project to promote my library, I have been looking for quotes about libraries.
I guess I took for granted that it’d be easy to find really positive quotes, about why libraries are important, how people benefit from using their library, etc. And it was, but what surprised me were a few not-so-positive library quotes.
The first resources I checked were our various quotation books. One of them, The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations, had four library-related quotes, and they all were less-than-glowing:
People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway.
-Simeon Strunsky
If you file your waste-paper basket for 50 years, you have a public library.
-Tony Benn
A library is thought in cold storage.
-Lord Samuel
There is nowhere in the world were sleep is so deep as in the libraries of the House of Commons.
-Henry “Chips” Channon
Not that my frail ego was shattered by this discovery, but it was surprising. There’s a lot of cheerleading that goes on within librarianship (such as American Libraries‘ “How the World See Us” section), and I guess I’ve been so insulated by this that anything to the contrary was shocking.
But after the initial shock wore off, I could see the humor (and accuracy) in them, too.
And in case you’re looking for more quotes, here’s a few websites with library-related quotations:
Certainly not an exhaustive list, but they have a lot to pick from. I think my favorite of the moment is:
A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.
- Jo Godwin
See Also
Posted under Library, Random | 2 Comments »
July 29th, 2008 Brian Herzog
At the Simmons Tech Summit, we talked about more than just tech stuff - we had a good discussion on customer service in libraries, too.
A few of the attendees visit lots of libraries, and so witness different levels of customer service in action. Since good customer service is absolutely fundamental to libraries, we talked about a new trend that is a bit alarming.
We dubbed it “reverse justification,” but what it boiled down to was libraries claiming “customer service” as the reason for continuing to do something “the way it’s always been done” - regardless of whether or not patrons benefit from it. Examples:
- We only allow patrons to use the internet for 30 minutes a day … because it’s good customer service
- Bathroom doors are always to remain locked … because it’s good customer service
- Patrons cannot use flash drives, only floppy disks … because it’s good customer service
I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate reasons for rules like these - technological limitations, staff shortages, etc. - but “customer service” is not it. Customer service is very important, so some serious critical thinking should always be applied when customer service is cited as a justification for something. Are the patrons really being served, or it is that policy/rule/situation just easiest for the library?
See Also
Posted under Conferences, Library, Service | 4 Comments »
July 26th, 2008 Brian Herzog
This reference question is just funny. A coworker and I were sitting at the desk when the phone rang. She answered it, so I only heard her half of the conversation:
My coworker: Reference desk.
[a few seconds of silence]
My coworker: No, I’m not.
[a few seconds of silence]
My coworker: Sorry, no, I don’t.
[a long time of silence]
My coworker: Well, I’m not sure. I don’t think there is actually a list, that anybody keeps. Maybe you could put an ad in the paper?
[a few seconds, then the patron hangs up]
After the call, my coworker turns to me, smiling, to fill me in. Apparently, the patron first asked if she, my coworker, was going to the Olympics in China later this year. When she said no, the patron asked if she knew of anyone who was going.
With my coworker answering no to that as well, the patron explained her question. Apparently China is issuing special postage stamps for the Olympic summer games. The patron’s grandson collects stamps, so the patron was looking for someone who was going to Beijing for the games and could mail him a postcard with one of the special Olympic stamps affixed.
Which is a very nice thing to do, but I’m not sure why she thought the library maintained a list of people going to the Olympics. I thought the suggestion of putting an ad in the newspaper was a pretty good one - you never know who responds to newspaper ads, but it just might work.
In looking for a picture of the stamp in question, I found a few websites that might interest philatelists:
Tags: 2008, beijing, china, games, libraries, Library, olympics, postage, public, Reference Question, stamp, stamps, summer See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question | 2 Comments »
