Not a fan

There are words that we, in polite society, don't say.  Some of those words have been claimed, or reclaimed, by the group intended to be insulted by that word (eg, queer).  And some are supposed to be used only "in group". I raise this because one of our popular databases here is the online OED. …

The art of “yes… but no”

One of the big project we've undertaken has been to go shelf by shelf, moving books to better fitting DDC numbers so our students can find what they need more easily.  Sometimes the error was a simple transposition of the numbers, with something belonging in 973 ending up with 937 on the spine label.  Some,…

No time

One of the blogs I follow, Being More with Less, had a post recently called 9 Things I Refuse to Make Time For Anymore. Now, most of these are self-care things, like not rewriting the past or guilt and resentment.  I wholeheartedly endorse those, but that's not what I want to talk about just now. …

Feeling vindicated

I know that there's been very little blogging here the first half of the academic year.  In part it's because of a massive project we've been working on for the past two years that needed to be finished by the start of Winter Break.  Well... ok, part one of the project needed to be finished. …

The average day, fall version

Last October, the AISL blog had a post called What do you do all day? (sort of similar to the Library Day in the Life posts I did years ago).  I thought it might be interesting to share what an average day in my library looked like but quickly realized that we have two very…

Time to breathe

Because second semester is essentially Research Semester, with three months of classes (often 15-20 classes a day), we tend to tackle major projects in first semester.  Perhaps not the smartest idea, given the exhaustion I and the other librarians face by, well, now.  Luckily Thanksgiving Break is just around the corner, and then it's a…

Minor Musings

One final round-up before school begins. Books, Reading, etc. If you do any Dewey instruction or are moving books around in your collection, think about some of the problems with DDC and how of its time it was. PW talks about middle grade fiction, in case you need ideas or a refresher. School Life Do…

Minor Musings

As promised, here are more of those links I've collected.  Helpful tip: if you're saving things as Twitter bookmarks, you can access them on your laptop by changing from twitter.com to m.twitter.com. Books, Reading, etc. Things to be aware of when you suggest students (or friends, colleagues, etc.) search Google Books for a phrase. DPLA's…

Tackling the junk drawer

Over the years, as students are doing research and as new books have arrived for the collection, it's become clearer and clearer that the 300s ("Social Sciences") are the junk drawer of the library shelves. Sometimes, it's the fault of the catalogers at the Library of Congress. Years ago, at a previous school, I purchased the…

Minor Musings

A holiday gift of sorts from me to you: linky goodness from the past few months.  Enjoy! Books, Reading, etc. I so want to try this at work!  BPL now has personalized RA via email. Ever wonder what is required reading in another country? Wonder no more. They've got him, babe: The Sonny Bono Memorial…