December 11th, 2010 Brian Herzog
A coworker of mine, who exercises regularly, was telling me that her daughter deliberately avoids exercising. The reason, the daughter said, is because she learned in health class that sweat is the same as urine, so when you exercise and sweat, you're basically peeing all over your body.
This made both of us laugh, and we weren't sure if it was just an excuse or a legitimate fear based on misinformation. I don't know if it would change the daughter's mind, but I thought I'd try to find some accurate information for her.
This daughter is in her early teens, so I thought internet sources might be more persuasive than scholarly journals. I searched the web for "is sweat like pee" and immediately hit on answer forums all saying no.
Sweat does contain a small amount of uric acid, which might have accounted for her logical leap, but they are definitely different fluids.
There is certainly more thorough research that could be done for this question, but I left off here. It might be a tall order to convince her that sweating is actually a good thing.
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December 7th, 2010 Brian Herzog
The following came in email from Peter W. Tobey, Director of Sales & Marketing for Salem Press. I thought it was something worth publicizing and supporting - check it out:
The Great Reference Idea Contest
Salem is tinkering with a way to learn more about the changing landscape of reference. In this particular instance, we're wondering about what new content areas (or emphasis) might be on the minds of students, patrons and librarians. So, we're asking.
We'd like librarians to suggest titles and/or subject areas for new reference. Everything is on the table. Every idea is welcome, covering any subject. Our hope is that librarians will ask for the reference their patrons and students need but can't find.
WINNERS
The first three librarians whose suggestions on any specific subject become new Salem Press reference will receive that reference free. That's it, very simple: Be among the first three with an idea and we'll give you the reference when (and if) we publish it.
SUBMISSIONS
Librarians should email [email protected] with their ideas. Librarians may submit as many ideas as they'd like. In fact, the more the merrier.
For a press release on the program, click Press Release. Hope you enjoy this...
Peter W. Tobey
Director, Sales & Marketing
Salem Press
Voice: (201) 968-9599
Email: [email protected]
I appreciate publishers taking an interest in the development and future direction of the library world, and this cooperative approach to identify need, rather than just pushing whatever they have to sell.
I haven't come up with any earth-shattering ideas, but I'll definitely submit something.
(Image: energy-saving light bulb by AA, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from sloth_rider's photostream)
Tags: crowdsource, crowdsourcing, evolution, idea, ideas, innovation, libraries, Library, public, reference, salem press
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December 4th, 2010 Brian Herzog
This reference question has actually been in the works for a couple weeks, and isn't officially closed. But I don't expect to get any better answer than what has already been found, so I thought I'd share it.
Before I got into work one day, a patron asked if she could use the phone. Since our pay phone was removed from the lobby, we've been more permissive about letting patrons use our desk phones. However, when the patron said she was going to call India, staff told her she'd need to use a pay phone. So of course she asked,
Where is the nearest pay phone?
They were pretty sure there was one across the street, but just to be sure they also searched online to see if there were any pay phone listings or directories. They found three, but each seemed incomplete or out-of-date:
When I got in, I also searched and found the same thing. I thought the best way to get a listing of pay phones in town was to contact the Verizon rep who handled our old pay phone - if anyone had a current list, it'd be them, right? So I called our Town Hall and spoke to the woman who handles the pay phone contracts for Town buildings. She said all of the Town-run phones had been removed to save money, and that dealing with our Verizon rep was a pain. She didn't have his phone number handy, but said she'd look and call me back (I still haven't heard from her, which is why this question isn't officially "closed").
In the meantime, I thought I'd just call Verizon and see how far I could get. I found a list of Verizon contact phone numbers, and called the Massachusetts support line.
After going through their menu options and waiting on hold for a few minutes, I finally got a nice guy in the billing department. I explained that I was looking for a list of pay phones in my town, and he laughed and said he didn't even know if they even still had a pay phone division. Eventually he found a "coin phone department" on his department list, and transferred me there. But he also gave me the number: 800-782-8355.
After waiting on hold for a long while, I spoke to a woman who didn't seem to like the idea of me asking for this list. First she said I had to go through Town Hall, so I explained that the Town pulled out their phones, which is why I was looking for a list of the rest of the phones in town. Then she put me on hold to confer with someone, and when she came back she said,
I can't give you that list, because a list of where all our phones are is proprietary information.
Yes, "proprietary information." She suggested I just walk around town and look for Verizon signs, because, "they're all well marked."
The good news is that there is indeed a pay phone across the street from the library, so we can just refer people there when necessary. And the woman was correct, it is well-marked.
Tags: libraries, Library, pay, payphone, payphones, phone, phones, public, Reference Question, telephone, telephones, verizon
Posted under Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
November 20th, 2010 Brian Herzog
This wasn't actually a reference question, but can be filed under "things you didn't really question until someone provided an answer that showed you weren't asking the right question."
Occasionally at my library, if falls to me to add new magazine issues that arrive. We have a variety of subscriptions, like any library (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc), and when I'm adding new issues, it always amazes me how early they arrive. Early, that is, based on the cover date of the magazine. I always just chalked this phenomenon up to a ridiculous marketing attempt to appear hyper-current.
Anyway, I was adding magazines in October, when the January 2011 issue of Old House Journal arrived. A month or so in advanced seemed the norm, so a magazine arriving three months early prompted me to tweet:
A little while later, and with this tweet in mind, my friend Chris emailed me with this:
Huh, TIL (Today I Learned):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek#Cover_Date
The date on a magazine is the date it's supposed to be pulled out the shelf, not the publication date or something else.
Wow - that actually makes a certain kind of sense. I tried to verify this with another source, but couldn't find one. However, Wikipedia did provide a little more information in the Cover Date article:
In the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the standard practice is to display on magazine covers a date which is some weeks or months in the future from the actual publishing/release date. There are two reasons for this discrepancy: first, to allow magazines to continue appearing "current" to consumers even after they have been on sale for some time (since not all magazines will be sold immediately), and second, to inform newsstands when an unsold magazine can be removed from the stands and returned to the publisher or be destroyed.
Weeklies (such as Time and Newsweek) are generally dated a week ahead. Monthlies (such as National Geographic Magazine) are generally dated a month ahead, and quarterlies are generally dated three months ahead.
In other countries, the cover date usually matches more closely the date of publication, and may indeed be identical where weekly magazines are concerned.
So there you go - I love learning things by accident.
Tags: cover, cover date, cover dates, date, dateline, datelines, dates, libraries, Library, magazine, magazines, periodicals, public, Random, Reference Question
Posted under Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
November 18th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Thinking about the new design of the San Jose Public Library reminded me that I've been collecting links to tools and articles about web design. I posted a few resources before, but the demise of Bloglines has prompted me to pull out all my bookmarks and do something with them.
I'll be using these when we redesign our website, and hopefully you'll find them helpful too:
Web Design Overview
Design Tips & Goals
Testing & Development Tools
And the final word on this subject will come from Chuck - Design Coding is not only hilarious, it's amazingly accurate:
But I'm sure there are tons of other tools out there, so please share your favorite in the comments. Thanks.
Tags: coding, design, development, libraries, Library, public, Resources, site, sites, Technology, tools, web, web design, website, Websites
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November 16th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Whoa - check out the new website for the San Jose Public Library:
Sarah goes into some detail about the features of the new website and their reasoning behind it, which is worth reading. Here's my two cents too:
- I love that they've done away with organizing their website along library department lines (Reference, Childrens Teens, etc.)
- The design is wonderful - so clean and simple, yet colorful, engaging and informative. It's so different it's shocking at first, but once your eyes and mind adjust to the new design, everything is just there
- Actually, now that I think of it, the homepage reminds me of the app icons on a smartphone - which is an interface that increasing numbers of people are becoming familiar with
- I like embedding functionality, so two things I'd be curious to try to see if they'd work are:
- In the New and Events block, instead of a picture to click on, embed a scrollable list of upcoming events to bring that info one step closer to the patron. Also include the link to drill down into the rest of that section
- In the Locations block, again instead of a picture, it'd be neat to just embed the Google Map right there, and have each of the branch location markers include address, phone, email, and hours. That would put so much information right on the homepage, and of course again include a link to get into the rest of the section
- But these might be overwhelming, so you'd have to try them to see
My library is planning to redesign our website, ahead of our migration to Evergreen. I'm definitely going to lobby to use SJPL's design as one of our models. Good job guys.
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