A few months ago, I listed online services that provide answers to peoples’ questions.
In the library world, the big concern is usually the quality of the answers - do these services provide the same level of quality in the answers that someone would get from a librarian?
As I read on studio twentysix2, perhaps we should be more concerned with the quality of the question.
So apparently, in 34 years, I’ve never looked up in the phone book a business name starting with the word “The.”
While looking up a phone number of someone whose name started with “Terr,” I happened to glance at the rest of the page. I was surprised to notice that there were business listings filed under “the” - The Pizza Place, The Family Eye Care Center, etc.
Since listings like this in a library catalog would be an error, it caught my eye. It seems like it should be wrong for a phone book, too, but I could understand there are business where “The” is an official part of their name.
But I was amazed I’d never noticed this before. Just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, I looked up some of these businesses where I would have thought they’d be - under “P” for Pizza, “F” for Family, etc. Some were listed, and some weren’t. How strange.
So I checked the other phone books we have, to see if all the publishers did it that way. I found that some businesses are listed under “The,” some aren’t, and some are under both. And then I found something even stranger.
On the “T” page of one of the books, there were listings for “Test Test.” This is something I commonly do when entering junk information to test a new system, and I was thoroughly entertained to see it published in a phone book.
All of the various “Test” entries were listed at the same address, but with different phone numbers. Curiosity got the better of me, and I tried a few of the numbers - but they all just went right to a generic voicemail. These “Test” entries were listed in the other phone books, too, so I’m guessing it tracks back to whoever complied the data originally and sold their database to the publishers. Ha.
But again, this underscores the important of knowing the appropriateness and limitations of your resources.
And so, now the world knows that I can entertain myself for a good twenty minutes reading the telephone book.
Not that anyone looking couldn’t find these on their own, but I read about these book binding videos on the studiotwentysix2 blog and like them.
As Tom says, they’re not edge-of-your-seat exciting, but they are very useful and instructional. Actually, they’re very reminiscent of a book binding and repair workshop I took in library school, except in nice, short chunks instead of a five hour workshop.
The sewing template is available on the paperdesign.de website.
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 StrunskyIf you file your waste-paper basket for 50 years, you have a public library.
-Tony BennA library is thought in cold storage.
-Lord SamuelThere 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
I noticed this interesting juxtaposition of the difference in the way the Democratic and Republican parties are approaching technology at campaign events.
The Arizona Star reported that the GOP wanted to prevent any attendees of a Tucson fundraiser from recording the event, out of fear of what might show up on YouTube. Bush himself asked the attendees to turn off all recording devices, and was quoted as saying
I don’t know a lot about technology…but I do know about YouTube.
On the other hand, an email from the Obama campaign goes in the exact opposite direction. The email mentioned an upcoming rally in Massachusetts on August 4th (Obama’s birthday, incidentally), and read in part:
…remember to bring your camera and snap a few photos! You can share them with us at eventsforobama@gmail.com. We’ll start posting photos soon!
Not that there is any one right way to approach technology, but I did find this contrast telling. The Bush Administration has a long reputation of trying to suppress and control information and keep things behind closed doors, whereas the Obama campaign has embraced modern technology and has put effort into learning it to use it to their advantage.
Politics is politics, but I am all for being encouraged to participate. Besides, I like misunderstanding or fear.
Hiya. My name is Brian Herzog, and I am, among other things, a reference librarian at a public library in MA, USA. more about me...
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I’ve never met a certainty I couldn’t misconstrue.
- Mary Prankster
