Swiss Army Librarian » libraries

Reference Question of the Week – 2/27/11

March 5th, 2011 Brian Herzog

About once or twice a year, we get reference questions via USPS from a prison inmate somewhere in the US. One came in a week or so ago - the question itself wasn't difficult, but I laughed when I addressed the return envelope:

[inmate name] #[number]
Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex
200 Road to Justice
West Liberty, KY 41472

Good job, Kentucky Department of Corrections.

Tags: address, clever, correctional, inmate, jail, libraries, Library, mail, prison, prisoner, public, Random, Reference Question, usps

Copyright on Campus Video

March 3rd, 2011 Brian Herzog

I think this is reatively new - the Copyright Clearance Center has released a very good overview video about "Copyright on Campus"

This is a follow-up to their "Copyright Basics" video, and is among others in the series of educational tools and guidelines. Hopefully the next one will be "Copyright in Public Libraries," but it's all useful - thanks for sharing, Katie.

It also occurred to me that this format might be a good vehicle for an "ebooks basics" tutorial - except, regardless of how informative it might be, I think that would be an ultimately unpleasant video.

Tags: academic, animation, campus, ccc, college, copyright, copyright clearance, educational, fair use, libraries, Library, professor, school, student, teacher, university, video

Library Use Value Calculator Updated

March 1st, 2011 Brian Herzog

This post isn't about the current ebook debacle, because Bobbi and Kate are doing a better job than I could.

This is just a quick announcement that I've updated the Library Use Value Calculator - here's a rundown of the changes:

Updated costs, in conjunction with staff from the MLA
Added lines for ebooks* and music downloads
Removed the distinction between magazines/newspapers browsed in library and those checked out (my feeling was, if they used them at all, it counts)
Changed some wording and reordered the services to (hopefully) make things more clear - materials at the top, services at the bottom
Added additional instructions on how to host or modify the calculator code yourself

I also wanted to add a "Share on Facebook" link, but I haven't tackled that yet. If anyone is looking for a project, let me know.

All of this is available at http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/librarycalculator. If you already had the calculator embedded in your library website, the updates will take effect automatically.

If anyone has any questions, or needs help with the calculator, please let me know.

*Ironically. Perhaps I need to add more javascript so that if someone enters a number higher than 26, the calculator automatically adds additional copies to the cost.

Tags: calculator, cost, economic justification, embed, funding, libraries, Library, library calculator, library use calculator, library use value calculator, library valuation, library value, Marketing, public, value, value of libraries

Reference Question of the Week – 2/20/11

February 26th, 2011 Brian Herzog

Ten minutes to eleven one morning, a patrons comes to the desk in a little bit of a panic. He asks,

Can you look up to see what's on Jerry Springer today? It starts at eleven.

On our entertainment subject guide page, we have a link to the Boston Globe's television listings. I scrolled to find Jerry Springer and read the show description to him:

Jerry Springer
Episode: I'm Leaving My Wife for a Tranny (NEW)

A man wants to leave his wife for a transsexual; a woman reveals a secret; a man worries his one-night stand could end his marriage.

When I finished, the patron said, "whew, nothing that I'm interested in" and went back to his computer.

But wait, there's more!

About 11:45 the phone rang, and it was this patron - I didn't see him leave, but apparently he went home to watch the show anyway. He was calling to ask what Jerry Springer's phone number was to get tickets, because they said it too fast on the show and he couldn't write it down.

In the course of looking for that, I found a listing of other Jerry Springer phone numbers - one for each of the show's areas of specialty. Now that was enlightening.

Tags: jerry springer, libraries, Library, public, Reference Question, show, television, tv

Hack Library School

February 24th, 2011 Brian Herzog

Here's something to check out: Hack Library School.

It's mainly a tech sandbox for library school students, but since today's students are tomorrow's librarians, keeping up with what they're doing is well worth the time. Librarianship is increasingly technology-based, and libhackers are well-positioned to be the innovators and leaders.

From the website:

The Web is our Campus.

This is an invitation to participate in the redefinitions of library school using the web as a collaborative space outside of any specific university or organization. Imagine standards and foundations of the profession that we will create, decided upon by us, outside of the institutional framework. Ideas like the democratization of the semantic web, crowdsourcing, and folksonomies allow projects like this to exist and we should be taking advantage of it. What will the information professions be next year if we define it for ourselves today? If we had a voice in the development of curriculum, what would that degree entail? This is our challenge to you; participate or come up with a better idea. How would you hack library school?

Besides, they rank Swiss Army Librarian at #5 of library blog to follow, so you know they've got good taste.