Reference Question of the Week – 5/27/12

This was one of those questions that was was only of throw-away curiosity to the patron, but made me wish we could have spent more time on it.

One day about lunchtime, a patron walks up to the desk and said:

I just stopped in on my lunch hour to pick up some things I had on hold, but while I was here I thought I'd ask: is there a measurement for smell? Someone in my office uses our microwave to cook his lunch and usually it smells bad. Is there a way to measure how bad it smells, so we can tell him he can't cook things that smell worse than X?

Let me tell you right now, I love this question.

And honestly, I had no idea. I know sound is measured in decibels and light is measured in candlepower or lumens, but I've never heard of a measurement for smells (or for taste, for that matter. Touch I suppose is PSI).

My favorite go-to source for questions like this (definitions in search of a word) is the Descriptionary, but it turns out our copy is missing. So, being pressed for time with the patron on his lunch break, I just searched the internet for unit of measurement for smell, which brought us to the Wikipedia article for Odor, which has a "Measurement" section.

Our quick skim indicated two aspects involved in measurement - concentration and intensity - and that it appears there is no easy way to measure smells (nothing like a convenient light meter, for example). Measurement seems to be done in labs by professionals, using carefully controlled sample. We did learn, however, that there is a 0-6 scale for smell intensity, and that the unit of measurement for smell concentration is the European Odor Unit, (OU_E).

We were both kind of disappointed at this point - I think we were hoping for a little handheld device that you could stick in a room and it would give a quantitative reading like "42 stinks" or something. The patron had to go, so I took his name and email address, and told him I'd send him anything else I found.

And I did find more, but nothing that would really help. Here are some of the highlights:

• Devices that measures smells are an olfactometer and an electronic nose
• Glossary of scent and smell terminology
• From a different glossary:
  • Olf: an empirical unit of indoor odor intensity introduced by the Danish environmental scientist P.O. Fanger in 1988. One olf is defined as the odor intensity produced by one 'standard' person (a standard person is also defined). The name comes from the Latin olfacere, to smell. Ventilation reduces pollution, and the resulting pollution in ventilated, enclosed spaces is measured in decipols.
  • Decipol: an empirical unit of indoor odor intensity introduced by the Danish environmental scientist P.O. Fanger in 1988. One olf is defined as the indoor odor intensity produced by one "standard person", and one decipol is the perceived odor intensity level in a space having an odor source of strength one olf and ventilation at the rate of 10 liters/second with unpolluted air. Measurements are recorded by human observers using protocols laid out by Fanger and his colleagues.
• Popular Science article on two Cornell students who created a machine to quantify farts
• Further reading:
  • Discover Magazine article on how the brain processes smells
  • What is an odor unit
  • Is odor measurement subjective or based on science

That was the academic information I found. For non-academic information, I also found:

• Hobo Power: Coined by Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew on the radio show Loveline as a measure of how bad something smells. Ranging from 0-100, anything near 100 hobo would smell bad enough to cause death by asphyxiation.

Although more colloquial than OU_E, I don't like this, because ever since I was little I wanted to be a hobo. But not everyone must share my romanticized view. A quick breakdown of the Hobo Power scale can be found here, and it's also listed in the Urban Dictionary.

I liked the "Olf" the best, but without any way to really measure it in the field, it's still not very helpful to the patron. I sent him what I found, with a note that I'll keep looking, but unfortunately I don't have much hope for finding something that will prevent his office lunchtime odors.

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Reference Question of the Week – 5/20/12

It's been a very slow week in the library (school winding down + beautiful weather), so this week's question isn't an actual reference question - but it is something I recently learned.

Did you know Wikipedia has a reference desk?

The Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk. Users leave questions on the reference desk and Wikipedia volunteers work to help you find the information you need.

Questions/answers are broken up into categories, and are both interesting and sophisticated. I also like the format of crowdsourcing answers - even when someone had given what I thought was a great answer, subsequent responders added new information or aspects that were useful.

Actually, it reminded me of any other online forum, which I use all the time for answering questions (especially for coding problems or frustrating technology issues). No one response provides a complete answer, but putting all the bits and pieces together often solves the problem.

Not that using the internet as a big Help archive is anything new - I was just happy to find another source to search when I get a real stumper. But if nothing else, the Wikipedia Reference Desk Guidelines does make for interesting reading.

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Library Anytime: Highlighting 24/7 Library Services

Here's an idea that my coworkers and I had talked about for a little while, but really saw take shape at PLA12.

We wanted to create a webpage that really focused attention on all of our library services that patrons can use without having to come into the library. Good idea, right? We went round and round coming up with a name, but eventually settled on Library Anytime.

The PLA session that gelled everything was Designing and Building a Social Library Website, with Rebecca Ranallo (Cuyahoga County [OH] Public Library) and Nate Hill (San Jose Public Library). Their talk was inspiring, and we tried to blend* all their ideas into a single website:

• Cuyahoga PL has a "library after dark" website, that pops up on their homepage when the library is closed over night - it focuses on resources and services people can use from home or elsewhere
• San Jose Public Library's website looks great - very distinctive and eye-catching. However, Nate said that after using it for a couple years, they're going to be making some changes (which made me feel less bad about completely lifting their design)

We didn't create any new content for this website - it's just a (hopefully) easy-to-use portal to get to tools that already existed on our main website. But: having a second website to supplement the main website probably means the first website needs work, so our plan is to use this as a basis for a complete redesign of our main website.

Anyway, we launched Library Anytime during National Library Week (which, for those who are counting, gave us a three week development window following PLA), and so far patrons seem to like it. And I can't tell you the number of "I didn't know you guys had..." kind of comments I've heard since.

*steal

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Reference Question of the Week – 5/13/12

This question wasn't difficult in the least, just kind of fun - and great because I got to give a patron very good news.

On Friday, a patron called in and asked if I could go to the website of Skinner auction house. He said he had an item that was included in their auction that day, and wanted to see how much it sold for.

Finding the website was no problem, but it took me a little while to find the right auction results. The auction went from noon to 4pm, and the patron called about 2:30. So, although I found the auction results, it turned out his item hadn't come up yet. We did learn that his item was estimated to sell for between $1,200-1,800, which sounded good. He thanked me and said he'd call back in a little bit.

About 4:30 he called back, thinking that since the auction ended at 4pm, all the results would be posted. But they weren't - they were still only about halfway through, and his lot was towards the end.

I told him we were open until 5:30, and he's welcome to call back, or I could keep checking and call him. But, he said he was leaving for the day, so he'd just stop in the next morning.

It was my Saturday to work, so I was at the desk when he came in right at 9:30. I think we were both kind of excited as we went back to the website and looked up the auction results. Everything had been posted by then, so we scrolled down to his lot number to see how it did. Amazing: $4,148.

The patron was astonished, and had to ask me a couple times if that was the actual sale value. We doubled-checked by looking at the individual item listing, and sure enough, his painting sold for $4,148. However, because of Skinner's 15% commission, he'll only receive $3,500, but he still had a big smile on his face as he walked away from the desk.

Wow, what a nice way to start a weekend.

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Highlighting the Value of Library Use

Here's a more in-your-face twist on the Library Value Calculator. Another library in my consortium figured out how to display the total cost of a patron's items on their checkout receipt, and since we never let a good idea go to waste, we adopted it in my library, too.

Basically, it's a little macro that pulls the cost figure from each item's record, adds them all up, and provides a total. We present it in kind of a cutesy context, but the intent is to show people how much they save by using the library. Check it out:

Our phrasing is deliberate - if people bought the items themselves, they'd get to keep them (which obviously isn't the case with libraries). Also, we only print out receipts if people ask for them (to save on paper), so I'm not sure what impact this will have - we'll see.

Also: speaking of valuable things, I'm off for the next week to see my family over Mother's Day weekend (hence all the audiobooks I'm checking out above). So no Reference Question of the Week this week, and I'll be back next week.

Update 5/17/12:
This is how I was able to add this to our receipts - as far as I know, this only works with Evergreen version 2.1 and later. If you have a different ILS, contact your vendor and demand they offer it:

1. In Evergreen, open the Receipt Template Editor
2. Choose the checkout template
3. At the bottom of whatever you have in the Line Item, add this:
   <span style="display: none;" sum="sum1">%price%</span>
4. Somewhere in the footer, add this:
   You saved: $<span sumout="sum1" fixed="2"></span>
   (or whatever you'd like it to read. Also, the fixed="2" rounds to two places.)
5. Click the Save Locally button

Keep in mind that if the items checked out somehow don't have price values assigned to them, the receipt will read "You saved: $0.00" at the bottom.

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Reference Question of the Week – 4/29/12

I always feel bad when I can't find an answer for a patron, but can still be amused by the situation. One afternoon, an older woman walked up to the desk and asked for help finding reviews of floor mops.

It took me a second to register this - and immediately I was skeptical that we'd be able to find anything at all.

We started with Consumer Reports magazine and their online database. We found reviews of steam mops, but not the old-style floor mop that she was looking for.

Next we tried Amazon and other online review places for "wet floor mops" and other descriptors, and there were lots of the Swiffer-type mops, but again, not what she was looking for. The only thing that came close was the (appropriately-named) Libman Wonder Mop.

She was disappointed, but wasn't surprised, and I really liked the way she expressed this:

Well, I guess it makes sense that something as fancy as the internet doesn't care about mundane things like an old-fashioned floor mop.

In the end, she just decided to go to the hardware store and ask them which they liked - and as long as it was light enough for her to use, it would be good enough.

I was impressed that she was willing to put this much effort into just a minor purchase - but if you mop a lot, I don't suppose it's all that minor after all. Not finding anything for her really made me want to go to the store with her to keep helping, but I hope the hardware store people find something for her.

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