I read about a dozen student blogs. I learn about their lives; I get a good picture of when the semester is crazy and they are feeling swamped. They write about their love lives, which seem to have changed little in the past 30 years...And quite by accident, one of the blogs is written a student who works in the library. It feels a little bit voyeuristic and I'm not entirely comfortable doing it. BUT... I can't stop myself. She wrote the *sweetest* post when she promoted to circulation supervisor -- honestly, it made my day. I guess that's justification enough.
I've helped the same graduate student twice this week find the journal Nature. Of course finding it in the OPAC is a well documented, living nightmare. I'd forgotten that it's even hard to find in the list of electronic journals. I know it's Nature (London) - but she sure didn't! Who would know to look under that title except someone who works in the library? Sigh.
I chose a painting this year for our art prize. It's titled, Lab Rabbits, and was done by Sheila Tripathy '09. She's coming by next week to find a good place to hang it. I love it. But I love all our student art.It's spring and academic librarians are writing annual evaluations. Sigh. I would hate to think how many of these I have written over the years - TOO MANY. At our department meeting we each named the one thing we were most proud of last year. I'm always fascinated by this exercise. Sometimes, I know exactly what people are going to say and other times, it's a total surprise. People's major accomplishments were wide ranging, including:
Four major shifting projects
Two presentations
Two new instruction sessions
Review of and improvement of signage
Hiring and training new students
Extensive reference work that led to acknowledgment in a faculty paper
Working with faculty to purchase new serial titles
1. I had one of our circ students, Sarah, take pictures at our study break.
2. I posted them on flickr for staff. It was much easier than putting them in a power point slide.
3. I posted them with 365 libraries group.
4. Then I posted all the pictures with students to my facebook account as well as to the Carlson Library group.
5. Sarah tagged all the student pictures for me.
6. I got a facebook message from at least one of the students tagged in the picture.
Sweet.
When we interviewed students a year ago, we found that very few of them brought their laptops to the library. It's exam period now, and almost every table of students has at least one laptop. In fact, I walked by a table with four students, and four laptops. They have even started to plug in their laptops at the same table with the library computers. I think I understand what's different - they bring their laptops to the library during *exam* week, because they don't have classes all day. Ah so!
I honestly think students will take anything we put out if it's free.
empty boxes (yes, just empty boxes) - gone
discarded books - gone
superseded maps - gone (they even ASK when we're going to put out more...)
boxes of miscellaneous cables and wires - gone
old posters - gone
O.k. We are now officially a full, service library. We have Kleenex, we hand sanitizer, we have white boards on wheels, we have laptop locks, we have coffee, and now, we have extension cords!
10:30 p.m. the night before exams
Checking Out Laptop Locks
Circulation so far this year for laptop locks. This is a lot for a science library on the "other side" of campus.
LOCK 1: 144
