Two pieces of library technology job news I’ve been meaning to mention:
Kathy Lussier Named MassLNC Project Coordinator
First, congratulations to Kathy Lussier, who was recently chosen to be Project Coordinator for the Massachusetts Open Source Project. She will begin February 1st, and I really can’t think of someone who would do a better job. Congratulations again, and I’m looking forward to Kathy moving everything forward.
Technology Librarian position available with GMLICS
Second, there is a great technology position open at GMLICS, a library consortium in southern New Hampshire. The basics details are:
The Technology Librarian will deliver hardware and software support for the central computer system and telecommunications network, maintain the consortium’s web pages and work with librarians in the member libraries to insure a well-functioning shared system. Weekly driving to member libraries. Strong customer service attitude, excellent communications skills and the ability to juggle multiple tasks with changing priorities are required. Experience working in a consortium is desired.
This position offers opportunities for learning and professional development.
Salary $45,000+ and a generous benefit package.
MLS from ALA accredited institution preferred. Will consider a candidate with equivalent training and experience.
Applications will be accepted until January 29, 2010.
Jessamyn links to an interesting article about Google’s switch to personalized searching - really, check it out, because it will impact patrons using public computers.
But it also reminded me of how much more prevalent Google’s autocomplete feature has seemed lately. I know it’s been around for awhile, but I’ve noticed it more for some reason, and have also been seeing it in Google’s ads on Hulu.com (which I oddly could not find to link to), failblog, YouTube* and elsewhere.
So I got curious about what the Google zeitgeist would say about library-related phrases - here’s what I found:
Since I first heard about it, I’ve been yappingonabout the Mass Libraries Open Source Project, trying to publicize and chronicle its progress. It became official a couple weeks ago, when the membership of the three consortia involved (MVLC, NOBLE and C/WMARS) each voted to go with the Evergreen ILS.
Now that the software has been chosen, the next step is to define the features we want. See, with open source, you can shape the software like clay to mold to your situation, rather than being handed someone else’s idea of what you need.
In order to figure out what we need, the December issue of the MVLC Connections newsletter [pdf] asks staff to create an list of ideal features (questions below). Obviously, one source of ideas is likes and dislikes of our current ILS (SirsiDynix’s Horizon), but they’re also encouraging staff to pull great ideas from other industries and websites - at this point, the sky is the limit.
I think we should also ask the larger library world - what do you think are important ILS features? If the questions below were handed to you, how would you answer? A quick internet search found someinformationonwhatan ILS/OPAC should really do. But if you have any ideas, please leave a comment below.
List the three most annoying “features” of Horizon in regards to Your Specialty and describe how they could be made less annoying.
What process or activity in Your Specialty is the most time consuming or frustrating and describe what it is that causes the problem. Is there something that the system could do to help?
Are there any procedures or policies in Your Specialty which seem cumbersome or awkward because they are based on what the system can do and not what is logical or needed?
As you are using the Internet copy the url or print out those sites which are exceptionally user-friendly or really cool. Also, are there any times when tie-ins with communication tools such as Twitter, email, or a blog could be useful to Your Specialty activities?
You are the librarian on the Starship Enterprise. Everyone knows that Your Specialty can not be fully taken over by the ship’s computer…it is much too complex for that. However, as long as you walk the computer through the process, the computer can do a lot of the nit-picky stuff for you. Outline some of the most tedious or complex procedures that you currently do and show where you need to “ask” the computer to do something and what it is that it should do.
I’m also giving this a try on the new Unshelved Answers website. It’s similar to other question-and-answer websites, but is a forum specifically for librarians. I didn’t find any related questions, so I asked one, but was informed it might get deleted because “we prefer questions that can be answered, not just discussed.”
This will be a long process, but at some point I’ll try to make sure all the various features and pulled together in a single list. Yay for having input.
This almost doesn’t count as a reference question, because it wasn’t on library time and it wasn’t even a question someone asked me personally.
But, it is an example of how libraries could use twitter to answer questions from people in the community (and why it’s more important to follow/friend your patrons rather than other libraries).
I woke up one morning this week and saw this tweet from @briansawyer
I had recently gone to a lecture sponsored by the Westford Conservation Trust, on how what people think are coyotes in this area are actually coywolves. So I responded to Brian with
A little while later he tweeted again with a link to his video blog:
In the video, I’m the “fellow Westford resident” he mentions at 2:14 - yay
I feel bad that the additional information didn’t help reduce Brian’s trepidation towards the animals, but based on the experience and facts, perhaps it’s justified.
Also: it’s holiday time again, so I’ll be in Ohio all of Thanksgiving week. Instead of blogging, I’ll be playing with my nieces and nephews. I’ve got a big stack of audio books for the drive, and I’ll be back the week of Dec. 1st - see you then.
Sometimes, being a librarian equates to being a packrat. At least in the virtual world, I can collect as many links as I want and it doesn’t take up any room. However, to be useful, it does take organization.
For awhile now I’ve been bookmarking posts about free resources for clipart, photographs and other artwork. I use them for library publications, and also for my posts here. But just this week I got my act together and started transferring those links from my Bloglines account to my Delicious account, and thought I’d share them.
If you’re curious how to do this with Delicious, check out my how-two post for creating library subject guides.
And just for good measure, here are a few web design tools I had bookmarked, too:
Two pieces of library technology job news I’ve been meaning to mention:
