Check to ALA from 1919

In 2008, Chelmsford started a town-wide history project, to index the historical records in all the various locations around town. We're still chugging along, and a volunteer found something interesting in the library's archives.

This check for $1.50 was written by the treasurer of the North Chelmsford Library Association to the ALA Publishing Board in 1919. The back of the check is interesting, too. We're still discovering things in the archive, so I'm hopeful we'll be able to figure out what this check was for.

There's three more things about this, if you're interested:

1. The signature on the check is Stuart MacKay, brother of Anna C. MacKay, who the Anna C. MacKay Branch Library in North Chelmsford is named after. North Chelmsford has been, and is now, very supportive of the library, and I like this continuity of history. Also interesting that he was working on Christmas Eve.
2. Also uncovered in the archive are circulation records from the early 1900's - including every book each patron checked out. An interesting philosophical question is this: at what point do library records go from being a matter of patron privacy to a matter of historical record or curiosity?
3. For our indexing project, we're using Past Perfect, and will be providing access through Past Perfect Online (but nothing's been uploaded yet). Until that's ready, we're using a Google Custom Search Engine to index all the existing online resources we could find. It works well enough for the time being, and I know this is going to be a long-term project, but I'm looking forward to having a real index available.

Neat, huh?

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Geolocation Database Access from MBLC

Last week, my Director gave me a letter she received from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) with good news - the database access they provide through Gale and Proquest now offer geolocation authentication for any computer in Massachusetts.

Good for patrons:

• Just click a link on the library's website to get into the database - whether the patron is in the library or at home (within Massachusetts), they get right into the database without having to also enter their library card barcode or anything else
• If they're traveling outside of Massachusetts, they can still access the database using the same link, because they'll be prompted to enter their card number
• Patrons from other states who are traveling in Massachusetts can access all of our databases without having to be in the library - any internet connection within the state will do

Good for librarians:

• We just need to put a single link on our website that works for both in-library and at-home access - much easier to manage
• Each link includes a library identifier, so we still get usage stats on anyone using the links on our website
• The MBLC provides a list of all the links for each library (ours look like this), so we just need to copy/paste them onto our website and it works

MA libraries have until Oct. 31, 2010 to get the new links posted, because that's when the old links stop working. If you need help, or didn't get a letter like this, contact Marlene Heroux and the MBLC. And libraries outside of MA, contact Gale and Proquest to see how to get this to happen for you, too. They can do it, so ask for it.

Way to go, MBLC!

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Reference Question of the Week – 5/30/10

I was alone at the desk one morning, helping a particularly frustrating patron locate something online. It took about ten minutes, and as soon as I finally finished with her, the next patron in line steped up and said,

I need to find some, ah, inky, um, chemical information. Where is your book on that, or better yet electronically?

As a result of the latent frustration from the previous patron, the first words out of my mouth were,

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I immediately felt bad, but it didn't seem to phase the patron at all. I asked him what general subject he meant, and he said it had to do with the ingredients in cosmetics. He had a page with him, with a small table printed on only about 1/4 of the sheet - in about 3 point type. It was tiny (I needed to give him our desk magnifying glass to read it). But the patron explained it was a table of a few cosmetic ingredients, listing their common name, chemical name, purpose, ID numbers, etc., and he wanted to find a table with the full list of approved cosmetics ingredients.

I was still thinking about the word "inky," and knew we had nothing like this in print, so I typed "inky chemical information" into Google. Not much, but when the patron saw it, it corrected me, saying it was "inci" not "inky." So I change my search to inci chemical information, and we start to make progress.

The fourth result was the Wikipedia article for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients, (INCI) which did provide a table, but not with enough information. The References and External Links sections at the bottom of the page provided a few more leads, including another Wikipedia article, List of cosmetic ingredients - which again offered a table, but (also again) without the right information.

While searching, the patron tells me why he needs the information in such a specific format:

He's doing IT contract work for a company that makes cosmetics. To get approval, the company needs to submit their list of ingredients to the FDA, but it needs to be in a certain format and with specific information. To produce this, the company's Vice President has been retyping all the information out of a book the company has (he didn't know the name).

The patron thinks it's a waste of a Vice President's time to retype information, and leaves a great deal of room for typos (especially with all the ID numbers and scientific names). The patron wanted to find an electronic version of this book, or the information online, so he could teach the VP to copy/paste the information faster and more accurately.

I thought the FDA would provide a list, but I couldn't find it after an initial search. The patron started suggesting other search terms, so we switched to general internet searching, finding websites that offered partial lists, or some information but in the wrong format:

• http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/cosmetics/cosing/ is a great searchable database, I think providing all the information the patron needed, but not the right format
• http://www.makingcosmetics.com/INCI-63.html grouped the 6,000 most common ingredients (of 17,000!) into 35 functional categories, which each had a table almost exactly like what the patron needed - but he wanted a single list, though, not 35 individual tables. The website also offered an A-Z list of ingredients, but that was less useful

Then we noticed this sentence on the site: "the complete INCI list can be obtained in CD-ROM, book format or as website access through provided by the Personal Care Products Council." That sounded good, so we found the Personal Care Products Council, which had a Consumer Ingredient Information page, which indicated that CosmeticsInfo.org was their "in-depth online resource for consumers to learn the facts and science behind ingredients used in cosmetics and personal care products."

That sounded perfect, but after searching through CosmeticsInfo.org, all we found was superficial safety information, not an ingredients list. So we went back to the Personal Care Products Council, and found a link to "On-line INFOBASE – the ultimate ingredient resource" - but both their searchable database and ingredient info list required passwords.

After these continual strike-outs, the patron concluded that online access wouldn't be free, so he was willing to settle for the book. We went to the Personal Care Products Council bookstore and found that web access cost $495 ($995 for non-members), and that the book was called the International Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary & Handbook, 13th Edition (Member Cost: $495, Nonmember Cost: $795, no CD-ROM available).

I searched WorldCat for the title, and found editions at both the Boston Public Library and the MA College of Pharmacy and Health Science (although not the latest editions). On a hunch, I checked the Pharmacy College's library research databases to see if they had online access to the database, and found one called "Healthy Ingredients"

A database of herbs and other ingredients used for cosmetics, aromatherapy, and dietary supplements; Overviews highlight the historical and current uses, modern research from human clinical studies, and the future outlook which addresses the availability, market statistics, and sustainability of each plant (when available). UN/PW MAY BE REQUIRED

We couldn't get in remotely (not too surprising), so I gave the patron contact information and directions to BPL and the Pharmacy College (also in Boston), and the patron said he'd drive into Boston over the weekend. I suggested he contact the Pharmacy College library first, and tell them what he was looking for, as I'm sure they have more specialty in this area than I do.

The fun part about this question was that the patron was really motivated and excited to find the perfect list. I might be pessimistic, but I never really expected to find a table that was exactly like what he wanted, but I do think we found some good options, and I'm also hoping the Pharmacy College will be able to help. I still think the FDA should provide this information, but I forgot to go back and check before he left. But wow, 17,000 ingredients is a lot.

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Salem Press Library Blog Awards

The winners of the first Salem Press Library Blog awards were just announced - congratulations to:

General Library Blogs

• First place: Libraries and Transliteracy
• Second place: Centered Librarian
• Third place: librarian.net

Quirky Library Blogs

• First place: Awful Library Books
• Second place: Library History Buff
• Third place: Going Green At Your Library
• Another Third place: Judge a Book by its Cover

Academic Library Blogs

• First place: No Shelf Required
• Second place: Resource Shelf
• Third place: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Public Library Blogs

• First place: Agnostic, Maybe
• Second place: Blogging for a Good Book
• Third place: Library Garden

School Library Blogs

• First Place: Bib 2.0
• Second Place: Not So Distant Future
• Third Place: 100 Scope Notes

I hadn't heard of most of these blogs before this award, so yay for having a bunch of new people to listen to (which I end up doing every year when LISNews announces their 10 Blogs to Read, too).

Another nice side effect of this contest is that Salem ended up with a Library Blog Directory, of all the blogs that were submitted or nominated for the awards. They're divided into categories, General Interest Blogs, Quirky Blogs, Academic Library Blogs, Public Library Blogs, School Library Blogs, which makes finding even more points of view relevant to your field easier. Thanks for doing this, Salem Press.

One last point: my website earned a gold star in the Public Library category, meaning it was judged "to be of significant quality that they stood above the norm." This made me realize one huge drawback of the online world - it's much more difficult to hang something like this on the refrigerator. Too bad for the kids who have to turn their homework in by email or Google Docs - they're missing out.

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Google Offers Secure Searching

I read last week that Google is now offering an encrypted search option, and was surprised the story didn't get more coverage.

Anyone wanting to use it needs to go to https://www.google.com (note the https:), and it appears it only applies to web searching - not images or the other searches. Read more at:

• Official announcement on Google's blog
• CNET article
• Google's "About SSL Search" page
• Wikipedia article on SSL and how it works

This is good for those library patrons who want extra privacy while searching the internet. However, online privacy increasingly seems to be an illusion (remember, Google will still see and track these searches - this just cuts down on other people monitoring the searches).

via

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Reference Question of the Week – 5/23/10

This entire interaction was strange. A man gets off the elevator, walks the ten feet over to the reference desk, and says to me in a not-quiet voice,

Herpes.

Just to verify that we're on the same page, I ask him if he's looking for information on herpes, and he nods.

My strategy with general medical questions is to take the patron to the 610's and get them browsing general books like The Merck manual of medical information and The Harvard Medical School family health guide, while I go back and search the catalog for more specific material.

This time however, when the patron saw that I had brought him to the medical section, he said,

I don't mean that kind, I mean the kind that live in the ocean.

I was taken aback, because I couldn't think of a kind that lives in the ocean. But I'm not perfect, so I thought either I was just missing it, or the patron might have been confusing the word herpes with a similar-sounding sea creature.

So I took him to the 590's, again thinking I'd employ my strategy of letting the patron browse the shelf while I searched the catalog.

Although this time, the first thing I did was search the internet to see if there was a kind of herpes creature that lives in the sea (not that I could find), or a sea creature that had a name that could be confused with herpes. The only thing I really came up with was sea urchin, but even that didn't seem that plausible.

I went back over to the stacks to try to get more information from the patron, but he was nowhere to be found. I looked around the floor, but I think he had left the library. I feel bad that I didn't get him an answer, but hopefully he found what he was looking for - I just can't imagine what it was.

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