kaijsa - Comments

Is it weird to still use the old business letter format with the mailing address of the sender and recipient? I mean, I'm not physically mailing it anywhere, but it looks wrong without it somehow. (for a cover letter)

Wednesday - Comment - Like - Share

I always do even though it is a little weird. - laura x

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what laura x said. I make my students do it on cover letters, too. - RepoRat

Yep. What Laura said. - Catherine Pellegrino

If you don't use a formal layout of some kind, it devolves into casual email. So, since a standard layout is needed, the one we're all used to makes sense. <-- my $0.02 - Bill Hooker

I do it for thing like cover letter and recommendations. - kaijsa

Way I figure it (and this is what I tell my students), a little extra unnecessary formality never did nobody no harm; that's why you dress one level up from your prospective employers for an interview. Whereas if you omit the formality and end up in front of a stickler for etiquette, you're screwed. - RepoRat

Thanks, all. - Rachel Walden

LSW: RudĩϐЯaЯïan

My Chair regularly takes lengthy phone calls over speakerphone. At least once a week. In the office next to mine. All days, this is annoying. Some days, I have to resist the urge to play P!nk at audible levels without headphones. today? Is a P!nk kind of day. *stabbity*

Wednesday - Comment - Like - Share

I hate speakerphone with the fire of ten thousand suns. *sending virtual xanax* - kaijsa

Ugh, speakerphone makes me angry. As does being able to hear people's music when they have headphones/earbuds. - Rachel Walden

wait...your chair talks??? :P (sory i couldn't resist) - Sir Shuping is just sir

LSW: kaijsa

This might be a long shot, but do any of you use KVM switches in your study rooms or collaboration areas? I'm trying to figure out the smoothest way to connect several devices to one monitor, and all options seem terrible. Advice and anecdotes welcome.

May 7 - Comment - Like - Share

We have that software *goes off to Google the name of the software* - Meg V. Meg

We have Teamspot, and I believe we considered getting one of the Mersive products. - Meg V. Meg

Thank you! - kaijsa

LSW: Stephen le Francoeur

I've recently become the psychology librarian at my college and am trying to get a better sense of what I should be buying and licensing. I hope to begin a series of one-on-one meetings with psychology faculty in the fall and am thinking of using this survey with them during the meeting to capture in a structured way what the overall needs of ...

May 6 - Comment - Like - Share

jönαthaη, copystar, Jason - The Opaque and 3 other people liked this

the department are. This is just my first draft of this survey. Any suggestions? Feel free to take it to see how it works (when I get to doing the real thing, I'll copy over the questions to a new survey). https://baruch.qualtrics.com/SE... - Stephen le Francoeur

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Bumping for the morning crowd. If you can kick the tires of this survey, I'd be most appreciative. - Stephen le Francoeur

Survey is here: https://baruch.qualtrics.com/SE... - Stephen le Francoeur

Aggregated results report is here: https://baruch.qualtrics.com/CP... - Stephen le Francoeur

I think the sliding scale doohickey is lovely. I have a suggestion (but it's admittedly geared towards my curiosity rather than your needs) : what steps of the research process would you or your graduate students like assistance or collaboration with. This was inspired by: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library... (and other sites, I've been tracking) - copystar

That's a nice page you shared, Mita. I think I may use your question for a separate project of assessing the services that faculty expect or desire, as I really want to focus on the subjects that are of interest to them so that I can better align acquisitions with their needs. - Stephen le Francoeur

do yo have any cognitive psychologists? psycholinguists? - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

Stephanie: not sure. I'm thinking I may try to do one-on-one meetings with a number of faculty before launching the survey. I may come up with different questions if I go that way. - Stephen le Francoeur

Are psychological tests a format worth asking about? I'm thinking of things like HAPI and Mental Measurements Yearbook. (Though I can't think of other resources in that area, so if you already own those, might be a moot point.) - Amandadon't

Also, do your subject categories come from LC classification? Which psychologists might recognize, but some of the verbiage from APA Divisions might also be useful? http://www.apa.org/about... - Amandadon't

The National Institute of Mental Health just announced they are going to use new, research-related categories rather than the new DSM. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about... Those might be good categories, too. - Rebecca Hedreen

Amandadon't, I used the topics in bold from this list of PsycINFO classification codes: http://www.apa.org/pubs... - Stephen le Francoeur

Good suggestion also about psychological tests as a format type to ask about. Rebecca, that's interesting about the DSM and NIMH. I saw a headline this morning that the NIH regards the new DSM as unscientific. I'll have to take a closer look at the NIHM research categories to see if they might be useful. - Stephen le Francoeur

I always forget about those PsycINFO codes! Those are awesome. - Amandadon't

APA's PsychTests are another resource full of tests and other instruments. We love them, but are waiting for them to get on EBSCO, as the native interface is worse. Another one I'd love to get is the Sage Research Methods Online, which is broader and more methods than instruments, but our social sciences folks would dig it. Sorry if this is too off-topic! - kaijsa

We have Sage Research Methods Online and are wishing we had greater usage of it. - Stephen le Francoeur

the PsycINFO thesaurus is the BEST!!! - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

LSW: Jennifer Arnott

Ways I know I work at a college and it is May: circle of people on our green drumming on buckets (one of them wearing a loincloth and facepaint.) What're your signs of the season?

May 7 - Comment - Like - Share

Marianne liked this

At my last POW, the students would start swimming in the big fountain in the middle of campus. - Laura Krier

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Bicycles everywhere. Glad I get to work earlier than most students go to class, or I'd never be able to park my bike at my building. - RepoRat

everyone has left and food services closes most outlets on campus - DJF from Android

Flesh on display. o.O - Running Slow

what DJF said - ellbeecee

Increased incidence and intensity of body odor. - Steele Lawman

Lack of a NY Times newspaper in which I can write in the Sudoku and crossword puzzles (campus subscription that's free for the taking only runs during fall and spring semesters, and not during finals week, which we're in the midst of). - Kirsten

The big summer exhibit is installed throughout the building. (Public library) - Betsy #TeamMonique

It's not warm yet, so flesh is still under wraps. It does smell of desperation and sadness in here, though, as it's finals week. - kaijsa

Flipflops instead of snowshoes - Hedgehog

LSW: kaijsa

Our awesome new county librarian is bringing her registered therapy dog to the university library a couple of times during finals week this year. I'm really excited to see how this works out. Do any of you bring in therapy animals?

April 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Yvonne, Running Slow, maʀtha and 5 other people liked this

yup. the students go nuts for'em. - jambina

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Staff just bring in their own dogs. - Steele Lawman

not a good idea. you want dogs that are certified therapy dogs and, especially, handlers who have undergone training. not that you asked me, of course. - maʀtha

I tend to agree, Martha. And I objected when we advertised as "therapy dogs," since they obviously ARE NOT. I think we now have a more realistic "meet our pets" come-on. And I have let people know how I feel, and now they can do it however they want. - Steele Lawman

I'm happy about this both because I think students will love it and because it's a public library-academic library partnership of sorts. Glad to hear jambina's students are into it! - kaijsa

Just bringing up liability and safety issues, which are important. :) You all know I'm all for anything having to do with dogs - maʀtha

we do it for finals week in the spring, and the students love it. They ask where the therapy dogs are when they aren't around for winter finals week - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

we're heading into our fourth time doing it. Students LOVE it. (we have trained therapy dogs). See my blog post about the one in December: http://parklibrary.jomc.unc.edu/content... (links to article about larger Univ. Library event too) - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

Thanks for the blog post! - kaijsa

We were just on the local news for our event! Students love it and we have trained volunteer therapy dogs. I can put you in touch with our librarian who coordinates it if you want - ~Courtney F

That's okay. I'm not in charge of this in any shape or form, which is awesome. - kaijsa

Love this. - Yvonne

courtney, I'd love to see that article. Therapy dogs are teh awesomesauceness. - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

Yes, theraphy dogs come every day of finals week. They are very popular, and some of the dogs have such a following that when the schedule for the dogs are posted, there's quite a crowd around huddled around the poster. - Galadriel C.

So fabulous. - Marie

Here's the video - http://tinyurl.com/c5c3now - ~Courtney F

popsicles too?! what fun! - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

Turns out MPOW has therapy...rabbits? I think? We just got an all-campus email about "come hold a rabbit to relax" that was rather short on details but heavy on the cute graphics. - Catherine Pellegrino

LSW: Meg V. Meg

"Oh, if it's for your thesis, maybe you should use the *real* databases" #discoverylayerburnout

May 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Sir Shuping is just sir, LibrarianOnTheLoose, Yo. Shark Dog. and 3 other people liked this

isn't that the whole point of a discovery layer? - kendrak

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to get tired of them, so we don't have to use them anymore? - Meg V. Meg

as far as I can tell, discovery layers exist to create conference talks about discovery layers - Pete #TeamMonique

Discovery layers exist because we're convinced undergrads are too stupid to learn how to use the real databases. - Zamms

Or maybe we're too lazy to use real databases anymore? - kendrak

or maybe small pots of data are less useful than larger pots of data to explore against? - awd

We're holding onto the dream of federated search. - Zamms

We should create a conference about how to create conference presentations about discovery layers. - Yo. Shark Dog.

"federated" was doomed from the start... response times take too long without holding the indexes locally -- and if you'r eholding the indexes closely, you may as well integrate them into one master index to rule them all with 3 or 7 or 9 subindicies that mkae sense depending on the data supplied in the original indexing - awd

It's not that undergrads are too stupid, it's that they're too busy. But for a thesis omg yeah. - Deborah Fitchett

Or maybe discovery layers are appealing partially because database interfaces suck? We should push to fix the systems we pay for instead of agreeing to buy more systems to stick over the top. (Side eye to Sierra, which I'm fairly sure we're going to get.) - kaijsa

I really should try writing a thesis with just summon, eds etc think it's doable in some fields if you willing to go deep and use other techniques. *ducks* - aarontay from BuddyFeed

It's not that Summon doesn't give you lots of good results; it's that you can't rely on it to give you *exhaustive* results, and for a thesis literature review you really need to make sure you've covered all your bases. Maybe some fields it would be okay, just not any I've ever been involved in. - Deborah Fitchett

exhaustive in what sense? Given that Summon, EDS etc are bigger than any 1 database & say, I use " Add results beyond your library's collection" + login before searching to get access to Wos/Proquest A&I/ERIC results etc or in the case of EDS uncheck "Available in Library Collection (Physical & Online)", how is this necessarily less exhaustive than the pre-discovery days of going to one... more... - aarontay

That's not exhaustive, that's *exhausting* ;) - Meg V. Meg

I do have sympathy for the argument that Summon , EDS, make it difficult to do precise searches to be fairly sure you have done a comprehensive search that you missed something though (I think I don't trust the relevancy enough so I would go very deep....). And of course no argument that Summon/EDS + databases would be more powerful than either alone. Lastly, I wonder does it really... more... - aarontay

Asking honestly: are 317 million results useful? I suggest subject indices for advanced research not just because of their depth, but because there's *some* sort of selection going on there. I'm really torn -- some days seriously anti-discovery, some days seeing its benefit for the naive searcher. But the tech doesn't live up to the promise, so usually I feel that the millions of results aren't actually that useful. - Amandadon't

"Less is more" argument has it's points. Still I wonder. Assume a case where you manually did a search separately in 5 quality databases. Then someone (say Ebsco which does have quite a few A&Is) came along and offered you a option to search all 5 of them at one shot. Would you take up the offer? Why not? How about we ramp it up to 10 ? 20? At what point do you prefer to search... more... - aarontay

Sure, but where exactly, among your 317 million results, is the stuff you would have missed out on? And if you can't point to all of that stuff, then aren't you still missing out on it? And, really, if you're getting 317 million results from a truly exhaustive search for your thesis lit review, then you need a more narrow topic, and subject indices tend to offer better ways of helping you move towards that. - Meg V. Meg

Staff you missed out on using only databases? That's more of an empirical matter on how often that occurs, but grad students have told me they found very relevant stuff in Summon they missed after months of looking at databases. I myself have had this experience. Of course the reverse happens as well, though i really think people who are not smart enough to use the articles they find to... more... - aarontay

Oh well, computer science. :-) (Though I suspect compsci students would still go to specialised subject databases like gitHub, they just wouldn't realise that's what they're doing.) It's different if you're doing something like chemistry where (never mind the utility of structure searching) key databases just aren't indexed by Summon. Or like fire engineering or earthquake engineering... more... - Deborah Fitchett

Who was the person back in the 80s who said that 30 results was a good amount of records to find in a narrowed down results list? I thought it was Mary something, but not Mary Ellen Bates. - Yo. Shark Dog.

I love Aaron's point (if I'm reading him right) about how easy it is to get caught up in databases as if research = searching databases. In my narrow experience, it seems like expert humanities faculty know and respect the subject databases in their field, but actually find most of their sources through the stuff they read and the citations therein, or through searching things like Google and Google Scholar. - Steele Lawman

Citation mining! It's a better rabbit hole to fall down because you're more likely to stay on topic. - Zamms

Yeah I usually end up finding more stuff mining citations (forward and back). But isn't there a empirical test we can do here? I vaguely remember someone posting a informal test of eds or was it primo here and was surprised at how well it did, but I can't remember the methodology. - aarontay

Empirical tests are hard--while we can measure recall, it's tougher to test whether a novice researcher with a vague question and limited understanding of relevant terminology will be able to find "relevant" items. I've lost count of the number of undergrads who come to me because they've tried the discovery layer and can't find anything but then have eureka when we go to a subject database (or even an aggregator). The items *were* indexed in the discovery layer, but they just couldn't get at 'em as easily. - Megan loves summer

Anyway I don't know, much smarter people than me have debated the virtues of discovery systems before me not sure what I add to the conversation. I do spend crazy amounts of times running through searches done by users including looking at refinements they do and staring at the top 10 results. Essentially even at this superficial level, when they do well they do very well but... more... - aarontay

I agree with kaijsa if the existing non discovery interfaces were intuitive in any way at all we wouldn't be trying to throw discovery layers on top - LibrarianOnTheLoose from BuddyFeed

Wonder if things like this will ever help us discover better http://cs.stanford.edu/people... - barbara fister

wow Barbara that is too effing cool - LibrarianOnTheLoose from BuddyFeed

maʀtha to maʀtha's feed, LSW

What is your primary personal computer? That is, the computer you use the most outside of work, not owned by your employer

May 3 - Comment - Like - Share

Sir Shuping is just sir and LB: #TeamMonique liked this

13" MacBook Pro. - RepoRat

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I've been limping along with an iPad and a keyboard and it is getting old. Before that, I had a netbook. - maʀtha

HP TouchSmart tx2. I wouldn't recommend it. - John (bird whisperer)

Since my lovely Dell died, I am using HP laptop. Don't remember model. Like it okay. Miss my Dell. Got a refurb Dell, but I need to add a bunch to it before it could be primary, and screen brightness is not good. I also have iPad, but use it only for some things. - Louise "Weezy" Alcorn

thinkpad x220 12" - kendrak

My iPhone. - laura x

These days, it's my iPad. But soon to be a Macbook Air. - Running Slow

are you getting an 11" or 13" Air? - maʀtha

Asus Netbook - going on 3 years! - Lily

13" Mac book pro - Mary Carmen from iPhone

A 5-year-old Gateway notebook, Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz CPU. But mostly the 8-year-old Sony 19" LCD display and even older Microsoft wireless Natural keyboard and mouse, since the Gateway mostly sits off to the right as a secondary screen. - Walt Crawford

in order: mac book pro 15" (6 mos old), iMac 27" (2010 model?), gateway i5 windows laptop 15", ... mbp goes with me everywhere. also have ipad 2, kindle fire, samsung note, which all get used in specific situations. - henry

MacBook Pro and iPad - ~Courtney F

HP Pavilion - Greg GuitarBuster

MacBook (not Pro) (13-inch Early 2008) (my sister's, then my nephew's, now mine), hooked up to my old desktop's 15" flat planel monitor. I got it when the desktop could no longer be updated because it's not an Intel box. - Betsy #TeamMonique

13" Air. - kaijsa

13" Mac book pro - Chelle Chelle Ro Ro

Samsung netbook. - LB: #TeamMonique

I've been using an Asus netbook for the last 2-3 years. Just got a hand-me-down Toshiba laptop that feels like the Enterprise computer by comparison. - Jason P

tossup between iPad and netbook. This summer I;ll be spending quality time with the good old Dell PC though - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

I probably use the iPad more often than any other computer outside of work, though. - Jason P

Misc win7 pc that Ray built me and my Google Nexus. It's about 50/50 - Hedgehog from Android

Asus K73E laptop. - Julian

iPhone; Toshiba Protege Ultrabook - LibrarianOnTheLoose from BuddyFeed

right now, a crappy hand me down HP pavilion. later this year, I'm probably going to get a Thinkpad. Have to decide between the t series laptop or the x series ultrabook. But I'll be running Linux on it, regardless. - DJF from Android

11.1 inch hp pavilion dm1z (the first issue of that model, so it's... almost 3 years old). I hug it and squeeze it and call it buttercup (and it's survived several droppings and at least 2 steppings-on). My 2ndary is Jay's primary, an hp demo model desktop from costco that's about 6 years old. - Marianne

Metro PCS phone - Starmama from FFHound(roid)!

15" MacBook Pro. And an iPod Touch. - Catherine Pellegrino from iPod

um... I have a 2003 (I think, maybe 2002) Dell... but I haven't used it in ~3 years? (I use my work (2010 lenovo) lappie at home and my work workstation (2012 dell) at work) but my Samsung Note II is what I use when I'm not on work-machines [eta: the kids use the 2003 dell as their primary, tho miss16 now tends to focus on her iPod] - awd

a dell something? - ellbeecee

13". Considered a pro, but my iMac is still going strong. - Running Slow

27" iMac - Soup in a TARDIS

11 in MBA ... - Kathryn is Blake in Hindi

I've got a 15" Lenovo laptop I got a good deal on last November. (Though I probably use my iPad more for non-work tasks.) - Laura H.

Motorola Razr lol. Little Toshiba netbook for editing etc... - Jason - The Opaque from Android

Justin's desktop, which he built, so it doesn't have brand specs. Runs windows 7. (I use my work laptop for everything; 13" 2011 MacBook Pro) - Jenica

A 3.6 Ghz gaming rig I got from iBUYPOWER with a 27" monitor. And the new Chromebook. My fiancee has my iPad these days. - Andy

Lenovo Ideapad 15.6" laptop - holly #ravingfangirl

LSW: kendrak

What's good - read free - mind mapping software?

May 2 - Comment - Like - Share

There are tons--depends on what you want to do! Web-based? Desktop? Need graphics? More formal concept mapping? Mobile? - Megan loves summer

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Popplet is super quick. http://popplet.com/ - Megan loves summer

I also like Mind Meister (http://www.mindmeister.com/) and Mindomo (http://www.mindomo.com/) - Megan loves summer

ooh thanks! - kendrak

The Brain is just fun: http://www.thebrain.com/ - Megan loves summer

i hate mind mapping. it makes no sense to me #totallytextbased - LibrarianOnTheLoose

LibrarianOnTheLoose, I mostly feel the same way. But I have used it for larger research projects. I can't use it for something small, like a journal article sized thing, because basic linear outlining works for me for that. - DJF

Neither mind-mapping nor Prezi works for me. I'm not visual enough or something. My husband loves Inspiration, but that's not free. - Rebecca Hedreen

freemind - Christina Pikas

I've tried a few and still prefer pencil and paper. I think when I'm brainstorming I don't want to have to think about how to work the damn software. - Deborah Fitchett

I've used bubbl.us with classes, and while not perfect, works well on desktop. - kaijsa

iPencil and iPaper are my favorite. - Rochelle's favorite Royce

For the record, I've found that some people get really excited and inspired when working with software as opposed to pen and paper (I've mostly given workshops with Cmap Tools). So if we're talking about helping other people to learn...multiple approaches are a good thing! - Megan loves summer

LSW: Running Slow

Aren't they announcing results today? #ALAelection2013

May 3 - Comment - Like - Share

Yes. - Chelle Chelle Ro Ro

2 more comments

Some of the results are out. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/inside-... - kaijsa

http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlins... - kaijsa

Not sure why I didn't just link this. http://www.ala.org/aboutal... - kaijsa

LSW: Blake

Am I the only one that had never heard about "Library Hand" before? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... (or maybe I wasn't paying attention that day in library school?)

May 2 - Comment - Like - Share

copystar, Yo. Shark Dog., LibrarianOnTheLoose and 3 other people liked this

We have lots of it here. - kendrak

30 more comments

I mention it briefly in org-of-info when I talk about the card catalog, but, y'know, if they don't remember that, I can't say I'm very much concerned. - RepoRat

huh, i've never heard of it before. - Sir Shuping is just sir

I would have failed library school for sure. (I've never heard of it either.) - Rebecca Hedreen

so would I! my handwriting is Lovecraftian. Utterly non-Euclidean. - RepoRat

yeah... it's shameful how bad my library hand is. - kendrak

It's actually pretty impressive if you look at a bunch of books with handwritten call numbers on them to see how uniform they are and you realize different people wrote them. I always wanted to learn it. - Zamms

Nope, me neither! #badlibrarian - Heleninstitches

Google Books has a how-to (from 1887): http://books.google.com/books... - Zamms

I can't remember where I learned about it (probably not library school, though) but yeah, I knew about it. I've definitely seen whole catalog cards done in the cursive version. With fountain pens. O.O - Catherine Pellegrino

I knew about it, I had a lib school prof who always talked about "that's gone the way of library hand and the paste pot" - LibrarianOnTheLoose

I think I am going to have the Dewey Library Blog do a post on it this summer. THANKS - LibrarianOnTheLoose

(We had to use cursive and fountain pens https://www.google.com/search... in my school through grade school. No ballpoints or printing allowed till high school (age 11). Being left-handed, I went through grade school with a blue-smeared hand.) - Betsy #TeamMonique

I saw Joe Janes speak last week and he mentioned it in passing like something "we" all know, and I had no idea what he was talking about and I felt dumb (well more dumb than normal when I'm around smart people like him) but maybe it's just not common knowledge outside of academia? - Blake

Prettier than drafting letters, but what is with the letter p? - Yo. Shark Dog.

No. - Yvonne

yeah. how many collections actually still have library hand books? old stodgy ones, wot wot. - kendrak

Catherine, we definitely talked about it in Dr. Saye's cataloging class, because that's where I learned about it. - Jason Griffey

I knew about it (and used it in a LITA Fuzzy Match Interest Group paper one time, simulating it with a calligraphic typeface). - Walt Crawford

What kind of catalogers ARE you people? ...oh. Right. - Jenica from iPhone

Yeah, see, Griffey, I didn't HAVE Dr. Saye for cataloging; I had some PhD student who tried (and failed) to be Dr. Saye. *sadface* - Catherine Pellegrino

In the future, it'll be the condition you get from clutching the mouse all day. - Andy

Don't make me use my library hand! - Steele Lawman

Catherine: I would have sworn you were in Dr. Saye's class with me. I am _very sorry_ for you that you missed him, he was awesome. - Jason Griffey

Thanks, Jason. I think it was a strategic scheduling decision, somehow, and since I *knew* I wasn't going to be a cataloger, it seemed a pretty small price to pay. - Catherine Pellegrino

"Don't make me use my library hand!" That is all. - Zamms

why i oughtta... - kendrak

I definitely knew about library hand before library school, and I'm sure Joe Janes talked about it in the classes I took from him. He probably doesn't realize that some of the "we" he's talking about are professionals who never even really used cards as kids. Even in the early 80s, we had dumb terminals for our publib catalog. - kaijsa

And by "we" I just meant all us librarians in the room. Joe was totally awesome. I introduced him by telling him he was the first person to speak at the first librarian conference I attended and I still remembered him he was so good. - Blake

I was going to say thanks, but then I saw you all were talkin about some guy named Joe Janes. - Yo. Shark Dog.

Hear hear, Blake. Also, HE HAS A PODCAST AND I JUST LEARNED ABOUT IT NOW???? https://itunes.apple.com/us... - Zamms

I came *this* close to taking his class second semester. I didn't know at the time that he was planning to leave after my first semester. Other people knew, but I didn't. *grumble grumble* - Betsy #TeamMonique

laura x to laura's feed, LSW

Pricing question: Some of you may recall that long ago I was working on a book. Life has been a wee bit hectic these last months, but I'm actually approaching publication. It will be a 106-page trade paperback, of which I think 92 pages actually contain text. I'm planning to sell the book book for $10 and the ebook for $2,

May 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Kelli H., ᏓᏰ #team Monique and 19 other people liked this

though if you buy a book book and you hang out here, I'll send you the ebook for free. Half the (small) proceeds go to Our Bodies, Ourselves. Sound good? - laura x

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Also, is Lulu.com and Amazon enough buying options? 'Cause I really don't want to spend money getting it for sale in more ebook type places. - laura x

Blurb, to pique your interest and/or help you decide if you care: "Laura Crossett was thirty-five years old, one month into a relationship, and six months into a new job when she sat in a staff bathroom and looked at a stick that told her something she already suspected. Almost half the pregnancies that occur in the United States each year are unplanned. Some of them happen to married... more... - laura x

That is enough buying options for me. However, if you want another free ebook place, I think smashwords.com is pretty good from what I've heard. Of course, time is also expensive... - Marianne

I'd go 4.99 on teh e-book leave you some room to play "discount" free games and that mprice point gets you above the 99 cent slush pile... Good Luck with your effort - WarLord

I should note that my scheme is designed to get me a little over $1 profit on each sale. I was going to go for $2, but that pushed the print price above $12, which I think is too much. - laura x

I also am not doing this as a money-making scheme and seriously do not expect anyone but people I already know to buy a copy, which is why I'm asking you all. :) - laura x

the ebook needs to be DRM-free, you know. - DJF

$12 is absurdly cheap. - maʀtha

Bump up the ebook price at the very least. But in terms of buying locations i just use Amazon though of course i'd buy directly from you if more proceeds go to you. - Surprisingly Monstrous

Your plan totally works for me. I'm an easy sell. :) - Catherine Pellegrino

*reads blurb.... gathers shekels .... waits* - MoTO #TeamMonique

If youre shooting for friends first, I'd bump the ebook - I'm sure we'd all be willing to toss $4+ in the kitty each to read the e-version (you can discount it if you want to sell more widely to bargain hunters). Paperbacks from teeny presses like mine have ranged from 9.99 to 17.99, so you have wiggle room on the print version. - ωαřмaiden ❤Marrit Woman❤

Laura: If you have Amazon *and* Lulu, you should be in good shape (are you using Kindle Direct?). Good luck with this. - Walt Crawford

I agree, I'd bump up the ebook price to start. $2 is very low. I can't wait to read it! Seriously great topic. - Heather Piwowar from iPhone

I dunno if you read Brain, Child but seems just the sort of book they review. Drop them a teaser? I dunno how that works, but guessing theyd like to know about it. - Heather Piwowar from iPhone

Ditto the mag 'Mothering' to a lesser extent. - Heather Piwowar from iPhone

I'd buy the ebook for $4.99 plus shipping even. - Yo. Shark Dog.

seriously, charge more, at least for the ebook. one can't even get a greeting card for $2 - maʀtha

I'm going to be stubborn and say to charge whatever the hell you want. but i would happily pay whatever that is. - Marianne

Depending on the book, we might want to put it in the collection here. Just saying. - kaijsa

What this seems to indicate is that allowing people to make larger contributions (with the same split of the proceeds between you and Our Bodies, Ourselves) would be something your target audience would welcome. - Steele Lawman

Yep, I would be in favor of "pay what you will, above this totally reasonable amount" kind of pricing system. - Meg V. Meg

Unfortunately, there's just no way to do that with Lulu or Amazon. - Walt Crawford

Direct people to PayPal for over-payments. - Steele Lawman

Someday, we will all have a gotdamned "appreciate" button on our whatever-comes-next-after-websites-and-social-media-profiles, and micropayments will flow like milk and honey. - Marianne

In terms of selling venues, how bout a site of your own? WooCommerce - the shopping-cart WP plugin - is free, as is WP. Hosting could be free if you don't have your own. (cough cough) - Mary B: #TeamMonique

I just remembered: On Lulu, you can have a thank-you note that's automatically delivered to anybody who buys your book--it's your message, and it could suggest PayPal for additional donations. So, actually, Steve's idea *is* workable--for Lulu at least. - Walt Crawford

I'd pay $4.99 for the ebook without hesitation, maybe even a bit more. But I have to admit I tend to get a bit lazy and forget when asked to "go chip in a bit more over there if you really want." - John Dupuis

Sounds interesting! - Paulette

Thanks, all! Food for thought. Now we just gotta get Lawson to finish the cover design. - laura x

STEELE! I GOT MONEY TO SPEND! - MoTO #TeamMonique

Whoa! OK! Monday all right for a deadline, Laura? - Steele Lawman

Nothin' like pressure from MoTO. :D Yeah, that's fine. - laura x

~Courtney F to ~Courtney's feed, LSW

Wouldn't you think that two requests for a quote, one copied to a manager, would be sufficient? Nope! Just sent a third (and added another person). Apparently they don't want our money after all!

May 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Interestingly, the vendors I do not want sales/invoices from are the ones who readily send them to me... and th eones I want/need AFSAP take forever - awd

I am having similar issues. - kaijsa

LSW: JffKrlsn

Me to EBSCO support: Did you know "Time" is marked as an "Academic Journal" in your MEDLINE? E: NLM does not distinguish between various source types, so we mark everything as academic. We regret the inconvenience. Me: You regret the inconvenience and will fix, or you regret and won't fix? E: The latter.

February 28 - Comment - Like - Share

Angel R. Rivera, Kathy, Yo. Shark Dog. and 5 other people liked this

yep - maʀtha

22 more comments

huh, I didn't know Medline indexed Time. - Hedgehog

Real slick, EBSCO, real slick. - Stephen le Francoeur

I don't think they index it consistently, but health-related articles are there. If you have EBSCOhost MEDLINE, do a search for TA "Time" and you'll see results. - JffKrlsn

Incidentally, the way I discovered this was through a search in EBSCO Discovery Service. Hence my concern. Students who have limited to academic journals in EDS would get results from Time... - JffKrlsn

to be fair, this is a problem with the MEDLINE/PubMed data that EBSCO receives. MEDLINE doesn't identify peer-reviewed journals. try using the publication types, e.g, clinical trial. that will help loads. - maʀtha

Those attending the EBSCO lunch at ACRL might find an opportunity to ask this question but with a "when will you be fixing the fact that ..."? Cause a default policy that its academic if we don't know otherwise is probably like of 180 of what faculty want their students to assume.... - Lisa Hinchliffe

I'm more concerned about problems with CINAHL, since EBSCO is the exclusive vendor for CINAHL, by which I mean, put in the damned DOIs. Yes, I've been complaining about this for years. *crawls back into grumpy cave* - maʀtha

martha, but with EDS, EBSCO could choose to show the record from Academic Search Complete rather than from MEDLINE. Yes, people searching MEDLINE specifically are likely to be able to see that the article is not research, clinical trial etc. I'm concerned about the very helpful, clear "Academic Journal" icon that appears next to the non-academic journal article in EDS. - JffKrlsn

Basically Ebsco is saying their academic journal limiter is useless. I am seriously grumpy with vendors right now, and this tipped me over the edge! - kaijsa

(i love love love these kinds of conversations) - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

Oh, I know, JffKrisn. Students run into this problem all the time, and it is a problem. - maʀtha

oh my god - Meg V. Meg

What? Time isn't scholarly/peer-reviewed? - Yo. Shark Dog.

so how should we go about asking them to solve such a thing? would we have a collective power if we all did x? - Marie

Keep in mind that they are probably reading this thread too :) - ~Courtney F

Couldn't hurt to email support@ebsco.com. Also remember, this is a MEDLINE-only problem. When I've sent them mislabeled titles in other databases they've been responsive. - JffKrlsn from Android

Huh. Would one want EBSCO to make their own call about what is/isn't an academic journal? Would one trust EBSCO to make that call? Would it not be preferable to get the NLM to do this properly? - David Rothman (☤)

EBSCO should be able to do something to remove academic limits from a database if it isn't useful. The EBSCO interface is designed by EBSCO to interact with a commercial database. What limits apply is an interface decision. And since MEDLINE is available through other interfaces *without* this problem, this is a real problem for EBSCO. Why should folks buy EBSCO Medline when it screws badly with the all important Discovery layer? - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

David, this isn't EBSCO making the call, this is asking EBSCO to respond, via indexing, to something that is a stated truth (I would hope they would verify it and not take our word on it). EBSCO isn't deciding what's academic, they make a decision about the search results based on NLM's statement that " NLM does not distinguish between various source types, so we mark everything as academic. " - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Exactly, Rudi. Honestly, isn't indexing the REASON we subscribe to databases in the first place? I'm also furious that MLAIB doesn't have abstracts--in a citation-only database!-- and I wish dbs added that value for searchers. We have most of the full-text, so it's not a huge prob for our users, but still. It's an essential piece of the evaluation process! - kaijsa

Oy, reply to a different support request late last night (not sure what continent that was coming from!) really has me seething, but it's probably too involved to post here... I've noticed that phone support is usually better than email, but I'm usually hesitant to devote the real-time commitment to it. - JffKrlsn

They fixed it. Now I'm seeing that a number of academic journals are classified as "periodicals" in MEDLINE, but that bothers me less. - JffKrlsn

Wow. Good for you. - maʀtha

Christina Pikas to Christina's feed, LSW

common behavior? Summon results list - clicking on the title takes you to the full text not a page with more detailed citation information... is this typical for discovery services? This is how our new article search is and I find it weird.

April 25 - Comment - Like - Share

I think it is. More Google like, I suppose. - Stephen le Francoeur

15 more comments

I think that's based on whether or not you have One-Click turned on. We don't, and I get a link resolver result page on articles with more than one access point. - kaijsa

EDL doesn't do this (or if it does, it's turn-off-able) - Meg V. Meg

We do have one click turned on for our Summon. We try to have it go to the most stable full-text sources, publisher first, then from a priority list of various vendors. We also have ArticleLinker set up on a top frame if the patron would like to see if the FT is available from other sources besides what was presented from the one-click. - Yo. Shark Dog.

What's EDL? Summon & other discovery services I think also has direct linking is independent of your link resolver settings. In our Summon instance, in some cases the link brings you to the landing pages like http://www.sciencedirect.com/science... , that's not directly the full-text, though in some cases it does bring you direct to full-text with pdf loaded though eg Oxford journals. - aarontay

Funny you should ask. I thought it was the new "EBSCO Discovery Layer"? Though their web stuff makes it sound like it's called EDS? But we have a trial now, and I am 99% sure that I've never heard it called EDS, because I would have made a Ross Perot joke. - Meg V. Meg

Definitely EDS. If you click the title, it brings you to a detailed record screen (usu. with abstract though not always), and there are links to either full text or link resolver that show on the results and/or detailed record screen, depending on how you set it up. (This is the same way that other EBSCO dbs work.) There's no option to make clicking the title go directly to the source. The one exception is their "Web News" database, which as far as I know is documented nowhere although it does exist. - JffKrlsn

Always heard it called EDS. It's quite interesting when you consider the main selling point of services like pubget is that you can do a search and download the pdf directly from the search screen without even seeing the native interface. That's one step up even from Summon with one-click 360link turned on. - aarontay

EDS (Summon, too, I thought) presents a "Full Text" button (or other specifically named option buttons to check for linked full text or ILL) right in the search results list by default. Click the Title for the record/metadata & click the Full Text (or other buttons) for the actual content. - awd

our new default is to go from citation to full-text without stopping at link resolver page. I prefer it the other way, but I think my colleagues' research supports the one-click thing - so I defer to the users. - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

I'm coming around to one-click. When we only have one full-text option, it goes straight to that from Summon, and it's nice. I think we're just worried about things breaking and not giving people options if there is more than one provider. We should probably stop worrying because things break all the time and we cope. - kaijsa

scopus has a separate button to grab and download the pdfs of any selected articles in your results set. I can see why that's handy. I'm not terribly keen on the title linking as there is a full text button in the record anyway - Christina Pikas

We hate the download button in Scopus, it's a bit confusing since it will download citation/abstract only if there is no full-text which confuses users. Plus we have this little thing about restricting downloads via ezproxy beyond a certain amt in a short time..... Plus the download manager uses java....sigh.. - aarontay

kaijsa, for 360link at least, you can do a helper window iframe, with links in the frame on what to do if the content below is broken. Disadvanatages are well it's a iframe, so some sites will not work well with it, and also for some browsers depending on cookie settings, there will be "cross-domain" issues with cookies or something particularly with ezproxy, there are ways around it..... http://laimages.s3.amazonaws.com/data... - aarontay

By the way, if you are talking about "page with more detailed citation information." in Summon, you can see this by hovering over the title for a popup or clicking on the small magnifying icon which will popup the detailed record in Summon. It is very easily missed (think Summon 2.0 changes this?), most people just click on the result, which will then go to the link resolver, which is... more... - aarontay

we have the same frame thingie that @aarontay mentions. except the peoples don't see it. still, good idea; I point it out in classes. dunno if this link will work: http://vb3lk7eb4t.search.seria... - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

Here is ours http://bb2sz3ek3z.search.seria... , think need lots of work on design/wordings.. One of the links leads to a online form for reporting broken links - aarontay

LSW: awd

HBR and EBSCO shenanigans... "As of August 2013, some changes will be made to Harvard Business Review (HBR) article access for Business Source customers. This change will not affect institutions that have already purchased the expanded rights from Harvard Business Publishing."

April 10 - Comment - Like - Share

Full text of email: "As of August 2013, some changes will be made to Harvard Business Review (HBR) article access for Business Source customers. This change will not affect institutions that have already purchased the expanded rights from Harvard Business Publishing. Further, customers buying a site license will not be impacted. As you are likely aware, full-text licensing agreements with publishers are subject to change in all databases, and EBSCO is committed to providing our customers with as much advance notice as possible on full-text content changes as often as we possibly can. With that said, we would like to inform you that as of August 1, 2013, all databases containing HBR will experience a change for 500 of the articles. These articles will become read-only, and will be clearly marked as such. For example, in Business Source Complete, there are currently 12,824 full-text articles from HBR, and 12,324 will continue to have the existing access functionality. If libraries wish... more... - awd

33 more comments

so, are they telling us which 500 articles? - ellbeecee

I love how they thank me for my understanding when I'm totally confused. Which 500 articles? "Read-only"? "Course rights?" - Rebecca Hedreen

Yeah. (our internal person just forwarded this to me as well). The "fuck you, HBR" part of me is assuming those 500 are articles they're republishing somehow (like this - http://www.amazon.com/HBRs-Mu... ) and this is a DANGER WILL ROBINSON thing. - ellbeecee

what Rebecca said. what the heck does this mean?? - RudĩϐЯaЯïan from YouFeed

(or will the 500 articles be a moving target based on what's popular at the time? Will they be the 500 most recent? This isn't telling us *anything* other than "there's changes a-comin'!") #grumpylaura - ellbeecee

I'm thinking their 500 most popular articles. - Yo. Shark Dog.

Yeah, I was surprised to read that my access to EBSCO content was something other than read-only! I think this has to do with direct linking to articles. - JffKrlsn from Android

how will this work technically? no links to the direct url? couldn't you reverse engineer a link? - Christina Pikas

They DO NOT LIKE faculty using their stuffs for electronic reserves. I'm sure they know the most popular articles and they will use magick to prevent us from linking to them without many extra dollars. - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

I'm assuming they mean: no linking, no downloading, no printing (and, by means of blocking those 3 things, no course reserves. unless you pay their special fees.). - Marianne

So, we will have to scan from the print to put into reserves? Can hbr stop that? Is there language in the print version that says what can and can't be fair use for reserve readings? - Yo. Shark Dog.

Yeah, if you own the print, that would be completely different. There aren't any licensing terms when you own something--just copyright law. (You really think they'll ban printing? Don't think I've seen that in EBSCO before.) - JffKrlsn

What Rebecca, Rudi said, "Read only" ??? - aarontay

Instead of a direct permalink, I guess we're to create a search which brings back only the one true result (like we are supposed to do now) ... and enforcement is unrealistic at best. Anyway, they're gonzo imho. - awd

I read that in a meeting and went "what the hell?" I don't understand how this is enforceable at all. - ~Courtney F

I love this sentence so much: "As you are likely aware, full-text licensing agreements with publishers are subject to change in all databases, and EBSCO is committed to providing our customers with as much advance notice as possible on full-text content changes as often as we possibly can." - Meg V. Meg

At a faculty meeting, got asked about ereserves for HBR articles..... immediately thought of this.... Told him will get back to him on this issue after checking with business librarians... - aarontay

Ereserves for HBR would require special permissions from HBR directly. I'm still waiting for the quote on access to the articles. It is a static list, though - ~Courtney F

the list of articles is static, courtney? Interesting. That would make me really suspect it's tied to their repackaging articles as books initiatives of late - ellbeecee

So what's the bottom line here? What's changed exactly? Any further explanation from EBSCOhost about what we can now no longer do on this already restricted journal? - Stephen le Francoeur

When I read the email a while back, I got the impression the list is of the articles most linked to and downloaded. I wish we'd drop our subscription because the terms of license make the materials next to worthless at a university. DO NOT USE THIS STUFF TO TEACH WITH. Okay, jerks. - kaijsa

Even if "ereserves" is just a link to ebsco platform from courseware? That's not allowed? I was told the 500 includes popular stuff such as on leadership... - aarontay

Aaron, the way I read the restriction, yes. Even that would not be allowed. - ~Courtney F

They have always been weird about links in syllabi and course systems for years. Whether or not it's okay to recommend an HBR article to a student in a hushed whisper is still unclear. - barbara fister

Yup, LBC, I confirmed twice that it's a static list (I was kind of surprised). Stephen, according to the quote I got, the "extended rights" would "include the ability to print, save to a folder and include PDF’s of these articles in course work". I'm not sure who they think will be able to afford this, because I can assure you, the quote I received is well out of our reach. - ~Courtney F

sigh. Apparently our Acq dep't read the EBSCO letter, verified that we don't have the extended rights, and left it at that. Why does it take ME to push them towards finding out what the language means, and which titles are effected, and that we need to know which of the titles are heavily used here and which spend much time on course reserves???Those are pretty obvious questions right? I'm not some kind of savant, right? - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Rudy, the ebsco license for HBR already disallowed reserves, IIRC, and I know they monitored for linking to articles from within a CMS because the business school at a former workplace got hit by that. - ellbeecee

Hmm. Then what's different now? - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Right now I can save a personal copy, I can print a personal copy, I can email myself a personal copy of all the HBR articles. Come August, 500 of these (apparently a static list) will be unavailable for saving/printing/whatever that personal copy - I can still read the article on screen. At least that's how I'm interpreting the letter. - ellbeecee

That is a correct interpretation of the letter. No download, no print, not even saving the article to a folder. - Zamms

On an unrelated note (ahem) that is totally disconnected from the content of the rest of this thread (ahem), I think libraries really need to make sure that students and faculty have mastered screen capture software, as it's essential for all sorts of scholarly work. - Stephen le Francoeur

^^^ hee hee hee hee hee - Catherine Pellegrino

I agree, Stephen, and have had similar thoughts. That's an important skill in the digital world. - ellbeecee

huh. Yeah. there's gonna need ot be some explaining of that... - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

ellbeecee to ellbeecee's feed, LSW

BRASS/RUSA EMERALD AACSB Workshop - http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researc...

April 26 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

maʀtha liked this

For the business librarian folks (or please share with those at your institution) - this is the Friday of ALA, in the afternoon, at no charge. - ellbeecee from Bookmarklet

5 more comments

I registered myself, fwiw, since our business librarian won't be at ALA this year. I've struggled to get what the AACSB looks at from libraries, if anything, so hopefully this will help? - ellbeecee

Why would you not just send me a confirmation now with an ics file so I can add it to my calendar?! "Thank you for registering to attend the BRASS/RUSA EMERALD AACSB Workshop on Friday 28th June 2013, 1-4pm room: MCP-S104b, McCormick Place Convention Center at ALA Annual. Your place will be confirmed by e-mail by 10th June at the latest. You will need to bring a copy of this confirmation of attendance e-mail to get into the workshop." - awd

Threadjack: I loathe the "you must bring a copy of this email" kinds of confirmations. And I never print them because I try not to print anything. - kaijsa

Fwiw, I will not be bringing a printout (I may, repeat may, show them the email on my phone... If it goes to the email account on the phone) - awd from Android

Sans googling, I know that RUSA is Reference & User Services something, but what is BRASS and AACSB? Acronym hell. - Yo. Shark Dog.

BRASS: Business Reference and Services Section, AACSB: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business - holly #ravingfangirl

LSW: barbara fister

OH how ridonkulous. Email from ACRL leads to a "Free!!" whitepaper about interlibrary loan - from the Copyright Clearance Center.

April 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Yo. Shark Dog. liked this

SERIOUSLY?! dang. Intervention Time. - RepoRat

45 more comments

LOL - lris

Imagining FREE whitepaper on open access from Elsevier! FREE whitepaper on establishing good customer relations from JOVE. - barbara fister

Oh jeez. That's sitting in my inbox right now, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. DELETE. - Catherine Pellegrino

FREE whitepaper on professional decorum from the Library Society of the World! - Steele Lawman

SRSLY. I had a big ol' "Oh, what the fuck" moment. - Jenica

I hate to think how many people blindly forward it thinking it's an ACRL publication. I almost did. - barbara fister

o.O - Marianne

Can someone forward to me? I didn't get and I am curious about the "from ACRL" part - Lisa Hinchliffe

On its way, Lisa. It came from acrldelivers@ala.org - Catherine Pellegrino

Also, not to be snarky (OH WHO AM I KIDDING) in order to download it, you have to give CCC your name, professional affiliation, email address, and job function. And the title on the cover appears to be set in Comic Sans. - Catherine Pellegrino

Got it. Yes, ACRL Delivers is a revenue stream to offset budget needs not met by dues, subscriptions, registration fees, etc. I complained awhile back and at least they moved the "this is an ad" to the top. - Lisa Hinchliffe

I didn't get that, either. Must be a list I am not on. Am okay with that. - kaijsa

Wait, what? ACRL Delivers is an official ALA spam program exploiting members' eyeballs for revenue? - Steele Lawman

Yes. Hey, gotta pay the bills. ALA delivers, too. - barbara fister

Sent, Lisa. Also has "best practices" in the subject line. Oh pleeeezzeeee. - barbara fister

Man, LSW has got to get in on this action. Except our ads would be for better stuff. But really, as far as the ACRL is concerned, when they are already pimping you out why should they care to whom? - Steele Lawman

This reminds me of the time InTech almost sponsored Open Access Week. Only worse, and SPARC did the right thing when it was called to their attention. - RepoRat

I haz it - maʀtha

As a white person, I'm insulted that it is called a whitepaper. - Andy

I thought our dues, and conference registration, and vendor fees for the exhibit floor paid ALA's bills?? Spamming me AIN'T ok - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Well, it's either raise dues and conference registration fees, or find additional revenue streams. Apparently raising dues hasn't had a lot of uptake, so... - Catherine Pellegrino

Maybe they'll sell the naming rights to the conferences. "Elsevier's 2013 American Library Association Conference" - Andy

Catherine, the association could also scale itself to fit what it can afford. I honestly have no idea where all that money goes (and I could probably figure it out if I wanted to spend the time, I just haven't). But the cost of ALA ALWAYS feels outsized compared to what I see as the benefits. Finding ways to raise more money instead of eliminating unnecessary programs just adds to my unhappiness. - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

I can't speak to ALA but I have served on the ACRL Budget and Finance Committee. From my perception, ACRL is about as lean and mean as you can get on efficiency. Especially since it isn't exactly easy to cut things (for example, I recall some pretty unhappy people at the idea of a certain committee or two being up for elimination last year/year before ... and yes, committees cost ACRL... more... - Lisa Hinchliffe

Obviously I'm not getting the emails, so if the membership is cool with it, who am I to complain. For me it's just another reason to avoid the overall annoyance that is ALA/ACRL. - Steele Lawman

And isn't taking ads in publications significantly different from sending spam? - Steele Lawman

Though people probably don't pay attention to it, when you set up your "relationship" with ALA - you agree to a set of communication parameters. So, not sure if it counts as spam if you agreed to receive it. - Lisa Hinchliffe

hehehehe-no, it still totally counts as spam :) - lris

(Lisa, at some point I'd like to hear more about how committees cost ACRL money.) - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

http://www.youtube.com/watch... - maʀtha

I think there's a huge difference between an ad in a magazine and some product ad emailed FROM an address of an org I'm a member of. And this is a really big part of why this specific practice bothers me. If it comes from ACRL, ACRL is putting it's stamp on the product. And I don't think ACRL vetted the CCC whitepaper, I think they just took the money and sold our eyeballs. And in that case, the *email address* should *explicitly* indicate it's advertising and not ACRL sponsored communication - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Top of the email: "You're receiving this email because of your relationship with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). It is paid advertising and does not constitute an ACRL or ALA endorsement of the products represented. For customer support or to stop receiving future offers through ACRL channels, please scroll to the bottom for instructions." - awd

Well, direct costs in that each ACRL committee has a small budget it can spend for its work. But, you know - staff! - it takes time to process reimbursements, confirm appointments are processed, keep membership rosters up to date, troubleshoot when people can't get access to ALAconnect, take responsibility when they want a listserv setup, listen to complaints that the volunteer chair... more... - Lisa Hinchliffe

Yeah, and if the members would rather that the money for all that overhead be raised though direct marketing rather than dues, why not, I guess. If organizations like ACRL have to exist, I'm sure they need the staff to keep doing all that stuff. - Steele Lawman

Because LSW could do everything ACRL does for no money at all? C'monn Ethel, your biases are showing :) - awd from Android

I think that we'd all be fine if ACRL closed tomorrow. (Well, except for those paid staff.) And yes, of course my biases are showing! That's what they are for. :) - Steele Lawman

Anyway. I'm obviously in A Mood and no longer adding anything to this conversation. Sorry 'bout that. - Steele Lawman

I love calling you Ethel - maʀtha

I just wish the acrl was a separate org from ala, but I know that the acrl would also probably cost more on its own, so says the ala. - Yo. Shark Dog.

I get a lot out of ACRL, and can't believe how much gets done with such a small staff. There are my biases. - kaijsa

I don't mind that much (and can opt out or filter into trash) - it was that combo of ACRL + ILL + best practices followed by CCC that was a shock. I obviously didn't read the fine print or notice that it was part of that advertising thing they do. - barbara fister

Just came across this bc of the ILL list and this thing is messed up on so many different levels in terms of what its recommending as "best practices." I understand ACRL has to have ad revenue but I think they should have blocked this one because of misinformation....especially since I know some administrative people that I don't want reading this thinking that it's true - Sir Shuping is just sir

I agree that ACRL should have some say about how their partners represent their products when it goes out under their name to their members. While we should be information-literate enough to figure it out, I have a feeling a lot of library employees are taking it as gospel. Also, it's kinda embarrassing to our organization to be shilling for these scoundrels. - barbara fister

Yeah, I got some well-meaning forwards yesterday from folks saying "Have you seen ACRL's new guidelines for ILL?" - lris

honestly, I went down that road for a minute when I first looked at the email, asking myself, "Why is ACRL sending me this thing promoting the CCC?" I figured out that it was an ad, but it was really odd, considering the emphasis ACRL puts on changing scholarly communication, etc. - maʀtha

Even though I generally defended ACRL above, I do agree completely with barbara and the rest of you about this spam. I think I must have opted out of those emails a long time ago, so I didn't even know about the paid messages. - kaijsa

Kirsten to Kirsten's feed, LSW

Do y'all get students/patrons hanging out in the stairwells? We have a handful who prefer to study on the landings on the old side of the building (bigger stairwells than on newer side), and I don't recall seeing that anywhere else I've worked.

April 25 - Comment - Like - Share

...not unless they're talking on their cellphones, nope. Not a thing here. - Catherine Pellegrino

4 more comments

Yes, it's annoying. They sit on the stairs and talk on the phone and block things up. I'm not above telling them to find another spot. - kaijsa

It's a favored phone-talking spot in our library, too, which is odd because the stairwells broadcast the conversations to all surrounding floors. - lris

On the phone, definitely. - Rachel Walden

yes. and the hall. and we totally get the broadcasting as well. usually in swiss german. - kendrak

Huh. Our aren't on the phone--they're camped out with their books and laptops, studying. The phone-talkers all just go to a "group" study area (where talking's allowed) or they hang out in the bathrooms. - Kirsten

Running Slow to Running's feed, LSW

Free Range Librarian › Life sans banana slicer - http://freerangelibrarian.com/2013...

April 23 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

John Dupuis, Jen, Chelle Chelle Ro Ro and Angel R. Rivera liked this

Dear somewhat-still-new librarian who did not receive a banana slicer (per a recent realia-based meme in which Some People were anonymously mailed banana slicers), was not anointed as a Mover & Shaker, has not been tapped for Emerging Leader, ran and lost for an association office or didn’t even get nominated in the first place, has been too busy raising a baby/goat/library/career/yurt to blog, tweet, post on Facebook, and publish all over the place, and at times feels a wee bit Uncool: Banana slicers are hard to clean. - Running Slow from Bookmarklet

15 more comments

People were mailed banana slicers? - Mary Carmen from iPhone

MC yes, as far as i know of it was never revealed who or why - Sir Shuping is just sir

Yeah, Sarah Houghton got one. I got the impression it was an ALA Think Tank thing. - Hedgehog

I wonder if the banana slicers could be put into the dish washer. Maybe that would solve the "Banana slicers are hard to clean" problem. - Yo. Shark Dog.

I'd rather buy my own banana slicer. I'm rather picky about kitchen gadgetry. ;) - Running Slow

I don't even like bananas. - kaijsa

All of the people that received banana slicers are ALA TT members, so far as I'm aware. I did not get a banana slicer but I've gotten other odd packages in the mail from someone who is mailing stuff to TT members. - Andy

... do we need to get you a bomb-sniffing dog, Andy? - RepoRat

I really like this post. Do your thing and be on the lookout for like-minded people. - Steele Lawman

I'm not sure why banana slicers are even a thing. I slice a banana every morning and my knife seems to work just fine. Maybe there's a subtle message in sending them to librarians... - John Dupuis

Heheheh. Librarians are the banana slicer of the information kitchen. - Steele Lawman

Mango slicers, sure, I want to be one of those. But bananas? - John Dupuis

*snort* "Once I figured out I had to peel the banana before using - it works much better. Ordering one for my nephew who's in the air force in California. He's been using an old slinky to slice his banana's. He should really enjoy this product! " http://www.amazon.com/Hutzler... - John Dupuis

I assumed those Amazon reviews were part of the ALATT joke. It's pretty amusing, imo. - kaijsa

Not a bomb sniffing dog, but I've gotten other cryptic ALA TT packages. One was from the IAMBUREAUCRAT person and the other wasn't marked as such but probably them. - Andy

I had to laugh at the Amazon reviews. Good stuff! But I'm kind of creeped out by the anonymous gifts. Weird! - Running Slow

LSW: John: Thread Killer

I want an ILS where I can set the max # of items out. If I place holds, they are all suspended if I am at my max # out. Then, when I return material to the library, the holds automatically become active for the next book. I could choose to have more than my 'max # items out' knowing that it would keep my holds suspended.

April 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Marianne and kaijsa liked this

This would be something I would have to turn on as the patron; it would not come automatically turned on. And that way I wouldn't end up with eight books coming in at once and never getting a chance to read any of them :( - John: Thread Killer

As a patron, I've long wished for a queueing system for holds. This would be the bomb dot com. - kaijsa

LSW: Amandadon't

Could library databases stop having such grandiose names? "OmniFile", or "Something Search Premier", or "OneFile Gold Complete" or "World of Knowledge of the Globe" or whatever.

April 23 - Comment - Like - Share

Steele Lawman, Galadriel C., lris and 5 other people liked this

and could they all stop having "academic" in the name? LexisNexis Academic, Academic Search Complete, Academic Onefile. How are the students supposed to tell them apart?! - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

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How about "The Little Database That Could"? "Academic Search Good Enough"? "Satisfice Search"? - Catherine Pellegrino

"Satisfice Search", yes! Or "Just Enough Fulltext for 3am Database". - Amandadon't

Oh! Or "The Paper's Due Tomorrow Database," or "For Undergrads Only Search Xtreme" - Catherine Pellegrino

"Git Yer LitCrit Here!" or "All Theory, All The Time" would help my students. - kaijsa

I'm going to recommend some of these for our branding if we ever get a discovery layer :) I like "Satisfice Search" and "Just Enough Fulltext for 3am Database" best, I think :) - ~Courtney F

"The Database That Isn't JSTOR" - MontglaneChess

SuperUltraMegaGinormousExtraAcademicDatabase+ - Yo. Shark Dog.

Google. ;) - ellbeecee

"Get your articles here with the data sliced and diced the way you want it--you know, that marketing data with demographics by county, city, zipcode and by age, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, and brand preference of soda or other beverage." - Yo. Shark Dog.

Mediocrity with Full Text - JffKrlsn

the data #joe's student wants ... from the 19th century. Online. Via Google. - $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian

MegaSearch JazzHands - Meg V. Meg

Somebody needs to name a database after a godzilla monster, just to see if anyone notices. "Megalon fulltext" - DJF from Android

Gamera Index Retrospective - Meg V. Meg

The database of pictures of historical figures and events from the Bible thru the Napoleonic Wars :p - Hedgehog from Android

It's all about jamming two words together with the cap in the middle. Maybe we need to brand ourselves as the LiBrary. What does that mean? It means whatever we want to mean! - Larry Schwartz

This is what we need - https://twitter.com/mreidsm... - barbara fister

Pop stars! You name ones aimed at undergrads after the youngest popstars: Justin Beiber Source Premier. Grad students, slightly older: Beyonce Academic. Pre-Tenure, a bit older: Courtney Love Abstracts. Full profs, classic rock city: Web of Kiss. (Please excuse my lack of knowledge of pop stars under 50...) - John Dupuis

I love so much of this. The ideal would probably just be called "Articles." That's what the Apple app would be called, anyway. - Steele Lawman

iJrnls - RepoRat

Or... http://www.papersapp.com/papers... - Meg V. Meg

iAcademic LiBrary GaMera Plus Premier Edition - Kathryn is Blake in Hindi

LSW: Yvonne

I'm part of a fledgling social media institute at my university. I oversee the committee in charge of posting on our various outlets. Problem: I only see interns once a week, for an hour, at a large-group meeting where there's not much 1-on-1 interaction. How do I "transmit" info to them?

April 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Sir Shuping is just sir liked this

We have a Google toolbox that we use for scheduling and I put tip sheets in here, which don't always get read. - Yvonne

3 more comments

Maybe you need a group on a social media site. Seems appropriate. Our faculty tech bootcamp uses a Facebook group. - kaijsa

Thanks for the feedback. We do have a Facebook group, which is helpful. But I feel like there's something missing. Maybe I need to give them quizzes to ensure they actually read the tipsheets? Or do screencasts? I don't know.:-/ - Yvonne

do you guys have an lms? could yyou do something there for the group? chances are, the interns log in there every day.... - RudĩϐЯaЯïan from YouFeed

We had some success with an anonymous-clicker-based in-meeting quiz with our circ student workers this year... the advantage of the clicker feedback is that it was really clear both to us and to them which questions everyone got and which ones we should spend some time discussing... (the topics didn't always have ONE perfect answer, which helped; it also helped that there were... more... - Marianne

LSW: awd

ALA Elections Update (if you're ionterested) -- "Well now….things are looking up! Attached are the latest voting statistics. As of yesterday we are ahead of last year! With four days left, 19.81% of eligible voters have cast their ballots as opposed to 19.14% at the same time last year. When voting closed in 2012, total voter response was 20.90%....

April 23 - Comment - Like - Share

kaijsa liked this

Well now….things are looking up! Attached are the latest voting statistics. As of yesterday we are ahead of last year! With four days left, 19.81% of eligible voters have cast their ballots as opposed to 19.14% at the same time last year. When voting closed in 2012, total voter response was 20.90%. Let’s see if we can pass that up this year! Polls close at 11:59 p.m. this Friday, April 26. - awd

2 more comments

If you're not ionterested... maybe you're interested? :) - awd

Also, if you have not yet voted, please vote! (if you did vote, please encourage your friends to vote, too) - awd

You beat me to the punch! I'm such a voting cheerleader, it's not even funny. - kaijsa

laura x to laura's feed, LSW

Okay, I don't understand Drupal at all.

April 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Jennifer Dittrich, John (bird whisperer) and Chelle Chelle Ro Ro liked this

Well, he just wants to express cert... oh, *Drupal* - Pete #TeamMonique

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10:29 a.m. EDT on Monday and Pete has already won the internet. Everybody, we can all go home now. - Catherine Pellegrino

*bows* It's one I've used before, nice and reliable :D - Pete #TeamMonique

Okay, this is insane. Surely there's a better way to run a calendar for repeating events than ENTERING THEM BY HAND EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TIME. - laura x

er...yes, there should be....do you know anything about what version of Drupal you're running? - ~Courtney F

Instead of the phrase, "there's an app for that," you will learn the phrase, "there's a module for that." Of course, this approach only works when you have a nimble IT team willing to try out modules. - Laura Norvig from iPhone

Courtney, I have no idea. The new web person starts on May 13, so I am sort of loathe to make any big changes before then, since she may well have her own way that she wants to do things. I'm just updating the site in the meantime and growling. :) - laura x

You can also clone a node and then would only need to change the date. - Laura Norvig from iPhone

It could be a permission issue, too - you might not have permissions to access the recurring events features? I *think* that recurrence is standard for the modern versions of Drupal's built-in calendar, but I could be wrong and it's included in some module I just *always* install. Shoot me a screen shot of the date entering form and I'll see what I can find out for you. - WebGoddess

Eh, I already put all the dates in for May, so it's sort of a moot point at this point, but many thanks! - laura x

My system switched to a Drupal calendar and I loathe it. No waiting lists, 13 million clicks to load things up, lousy signup tables, and a patience testing interface. This was done to save money or some such, but it wastes enough staff time to make any savings irrelevant. - Andy

What makes this even better is that we actually have two entirely different calendar systems. Plus apparently we add things to the city calendar. Make that three systems. - laura x

There's the problem right there. You need one system that you add events to. And then a bunch of systems that all read from that one master to populate their own displays. Probably the city system would be the core system, and then the library Drupal event calendar could get its data from the city and display it. There's a reason geeks spend so much time building standards like iCalendar and CalDav. - DJF

What DJF said. Somebody needs to take the lead and make that happen because otherwise, shit will get dropped or added to the wrong calendar or something... - WebGoddess

which sounds like a perfect project for your new web person :) - ~Courtney F

WebGoddess, or different calendars will say different things about a single event. The time management role that one should only have one calendar to manage one's time is just as true in this setting - DJF from Android

Exactly. More calendars = more complexity = more errors - WebGoddess

I used to blog on a Drupal site and it was 100% H.A.T.E. When I can't even use the html I know and have to use some BS specialized tags, it's a fail. My sympathies. - kaijsa

LSW: Marie

Will I see any of you at IUG in San Francisco this week?

April 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Not me, but my incredibly awesome coworkers LeDreka and Jon will be there. Say hi if you get a chance.:) - Marianne

Our heads of Library IT and Copy Cataloging are presenting. They have a pretty cool project on imaging kits and games in the catalog. - kaijsa

LSW: aarontay

Going to be a interesting week. Presenting on citation analysis to faculty (3 days), followed by a presentation at a faculty meeting on resources and to top it off a presentation to interested users on the results of our mass library survey. Normal week for most of you I guess, unusual for me.

April 21 - Comment - Like - Share

kaijsa and $tephanie•Cog$ciLibrarian liked this

Sounds like more than a typical week for most of us :) - awd from Android

That's a busy week for me, even if those are happening more and more. Best of luck with the presentations! - kaijsa

holly #ravingfangirl to holly's feed, LSW

library people, brainstorming on library re-organization. do you have a structure/framework that you feel works well? If so, can you point me to an org chart or other info?

April 18 - Comment - Like - Share

John (bird whisperer), Sir Shuping is just sir, kaijsa and 3 other people liked this

i find the crickets on this post most telling. ;) - holly #ravingfangirl

20 more comments

I think it's hard to know what structure might be a "works well" structure without more information. My structure seems to work well, but I don't know how similar or different it is from your staff size and operations. - lris

We are also pending a reorg discussion here; I collected a bunch of org charts; i cant say how well they work, but theyre interesting to see. Ill see fi I can add you to the dropbox folder - DM me your addy - ωαřмaiden ❤Marrit Woman❤

We have about 15 librarians and 10 non-librarian staff, plus about 80 student workers, all divided into 5 departments, each with a department head. Department heads report to the director. - lris

I don't think ours works especially well, but I also don't know what would work better. Departments mean less and less as the boundaries between functional areas break down. We're grappling with maybe reorganizing, too, so I'm paying attention to what everybody suggests. - kaijsa

i didn't want to limit it because, well, i don't want to limit it. :) we're totally at the pie-in-the-sky point, so I just want to see what others are doing. i'd love to see those, warmaiden. will be in touch. - holly #ravingfangirl

Have you read this piece on In the Library With the Lead Pipe about organizations and leadership? It is definitely pie-in-the-sky, but if that is where you're at, maybe it will be helpful. http://www.inthelibrarywiththe... - Freeda B.

Here's our dream org chart style: http://lis.luther.edu/about.... We have three teams, with tons of cross training (and opportunities for more), a total of 18 full-time staff and around between 25 and student workers. - Kathy

Rumor is that at Double Agent Fister's library the org chart is a blank white sheet of paper. - Steele Lawman

Actually, our first draft of it (during a meeting with admin) was called "the crude pie chart." The final version was called "the crude pie chart on drugs." I love it, of course. It works for us, but that may be because it's a good fit for our institutional culture. https://gustavus.edu/library... - barbara fister

Kathy, yours is really interesting. We don't have to wrestle with the dual IT / library identity. - barbara fister

We are fortunate to have a automation specialist and a librarian with a 2nd masters in computer science. Makes it both easier and more difficult with working with University IT folks. (Oh, and to be clear, I'm not at Luther. We just covet their org chart.) - Kathy

Too high level for me this discussion, but for me I think we often struggle between the issue of roles been too specialist/niche (in past) with the obvious disadvantages of silos vs been jack of all trades, until no one is really top flight at anything (right now apparently according to some people). My not so sophisticated thinking right now is we need a mix of generalists (I am one) and some extreme specialists. The exact mix I have no idea. - aarontay

Barbara - we have your same org chart - except we also have a library director. We are getting push-back about peer-governance because it is a serious time commitment. How do you make it work? I feel this overwhelming need to drive up, buy you lunch, and listen to all your wisdom. - Jen

We've got both library functions and academic support functions. (Incidentally: having seen an org where the library was subsumed into "learning resources" and an org where these were subsumed into the library, the latter works way better. At least from this librarian's pov...) So our groups are now a) Access - includes circulation and library IT; b) Content - acquisitions, cataloguing,... more... - Deborah Fitchett

thanks for the responses, everyone! - holly #ravingfangirl

Ours works best when we don't have a lot of administration bullshit going on. That can be draining. But the key to it is involving everyone in both the decision-making and the work. Everyone needs to read and understand the budget. Everyone needs to participate in organizational change. People need to own it and be willing to step up. The good thing is that it gives everyone leadership... more... - barbara fister

Oh, and yes, it is a time commitment. But we get stuff done. Thinking back, it's no more of a time commitment than when we had a traditional structure with a director. It's not as if every decision has to be negotiated with the whole group. We have individual / small group / larger group / all staff issues. Very few are all staff. - barbara fister

Deborah, yours is a fascinating mix. Especially when it's functions not subject areas. Hmmm. Oh, and Kathy - sorry for moving you to Luther ;) - barbara fister

My last job had a great organizational structure. There were 6 librarians who all reported directly to the director, and non-librarian staff/student workers reported to the librarians. Two librarians in research services, one research services/access services, one collection management, one systems/metadata, and one archivist. It wasn't hierarchical and we all worked together very well. Small staff FTW! - Laura Krier

We do that, but without a director. And without reporting. It's unusual, but works. - barbara fister

Barbara, does your chair step down from their regular responsibilities while they are serving as chair? Or is it a percentage that he.she gets relieved to take on chair duties? - Jen

LSW: Steele Lawman

Via the ALA Think Tank thing on Facebook: 1. Google "OCLC" or click this: https://www.google.com/search... 2. Look at the logo on the right and read the text. 3. Marvel at the Internet.

April 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Larry Schwartz, LB: #TeamMonique, kendrak and 11 other people liked this

LULZ. - RepoRat

14 more comments

Total lol. Sharing with colleagues! - kaijsa

Took me a moment, and then...*gasp* - Catherine Pellegrino

ha! - Marie

heheheheheheheh - lris

uh, wow. in honor of the launch of the DPLA? - barbara fister

Go Go Librarything :) - awd

High-larious! - Stephen le Francoeur

so is there a way we could logobomb the ACS? - RepoRat

Man. I think I missed this yesterday. Nothing seems to be weird today. - Laura Krier

Dammit, I *knew* I should have taken a screenshot. - Catherine Pellegrino

i know i saw a screenshot somewhere. now where was it? - holly #ravingfangirl

Here ya go. http://travelinlibrarian.info/wp-cont... - Chelle Chelle Ro Ro

Thankee! And that just pointed me to another awesome image/post that I'm about to repost here. - Catherine Pellegrino

It's gone now. SADDNESS. - Andy

It's still the 3rd hit on images. Maybe if you make sure you click on it, Google will sense it's popularity and bring it back. - Betsy #TeamMonique

LSW: lris

From ACRL post-conference survey, "How did you learn about ACRL 2013?: ... Electronic discussion list? Social media? Twitter"

April 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Steele Lawman liked this

Set a cataloger on THIS hierarchy of terms - lris

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I actually had a hard time answering that question. How *did* I learn about it? I have no clue. It's just there. - Catherine Pellegrino

I learned about the biennial conference back in 1994. Is there a place to put that down? - Yo. Shark Dog.

I learned about it about in my first job when I was asked if I wanted to go to the 2005 conference. In library school we heard about ALA and ASIS&T because of our student chapters, but I didn't really grok ALA divisions and other conferences. - kaijsa

I took it to mean less "how did you learn that it existed" and more "how did you learn that it was happening this year and where and when, ect" - lris

I...googled it? - Catherine Pellegrino

How did I first hear that it was in Indy? Not sure. Did they have an other/don't recall option? - Yo. Shark Dog.

I think the question is, what universe is the ACRL in where an answer could be "twitter NOT social-media" - Steele Lawman

That question seems dumb to me because I have been on the last three conference committees and therefore clued into where and when the conferences will be once that's finalized. But it's probably not dumb to a lot of others who don't participate in ACRL or its sections? - kaijsa

Survey question aside, I'm still amused that they thought of social media and twitter as two different categories. Oh, and I forgot that "facebook" was another option way up the list. - lris

Sometimes surveys list a larger category and specifics b/c people might not recall the specific social media but know that was the general mode. That may or may not be the case with this survey but ... it is a strategy. :) - Lisa Hinchliffe

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