Thursday, May 31, 2007

Facebook Status


Cynthia has informally gotten a whole bunch of us (me, Sue, Brenda, Eileen) to start using facebook more. We're posting pictures and changing our status. Wow. It's really interesting. Two people commented to me today about my status. I feel like people know more about me, in a good way. I could get addicted to this!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Anniversary Exhibit


Marylou and Sue did a fabulous exhibit in honor of the 100 year anniversary of Chemical Abstracts Service. Yes, we are a geeky science library!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Reading Student Blogs

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.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Why is so hard to just find Nature???

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.

Carlson Art Purchase Prize 2007

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.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

What are we most proud of

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

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Sharing pictures on Facebook and Flickr

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.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Lots of laptops during exam week

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!

Friday, May 11, 2007

If it's free, they'll take it

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

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Update: White Boards on Wheels

No one used them initially, but now the white boards on wheels have taken off. Not only are groups of students writing the *white* boards, they are using the boards themselves to create a little private spaces. Phew. We were right after all!

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Extension cords?

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!

All 4 of the cords were loaned out on Sunday, and at this moment, all of the cords are currently loaned.
The cords were put on reserve 3/6/07 and the loan stats are as follows:
Cord 1: 23
Cord 2: 35
Cord 3: 7
Cord 4: 3

Monday, May 07, 2007

Carlson Library Study Break May 2007

10:30 p.m. the night before exams
150 students
soda, cookies, candy, doughnuts
20 minutes
all gone

Friday, May 04, 2007

Two books by my cousins


I just found out that both of my "little" cousins have written books. I am so impressed. I bet I can get a personal autograph!

Margaret (left) co-edited the latest volume of the Adams Family Correspondence published by Harvard University Press. Yikes! And Mary Kate who writes for Good Housekeeping just came out with 37 Houseplants Even You Can't Kill.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

I'm technostressed

I signed up for Library Thing, Twitter, and Delicious yesterday. This morning I created a facebook event. I'm suffering from technostress!

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The best part of my day - Wegmans


What a horrible day I had yesterday. I should have predicted it -whenever I have big blocks of unscheduled time AND have big plans to finish a project, the day falls all to hell. I spent several hours editing two separate documents, only to discover that in both cases, I was not working off of the latest version. Grrrrrrr. The phone rang off the hook with - well I guess I probably shouldn't go there. But suffice it to say, many issues were brought to me that did NOT need immediate attention.... Oh yeah and I accidentally submitted a correction form and marked it **urgent**, when it wasn't at all. And even worse, I have a bad feeling that I got the problem wrong all together sigh. The only redeeming thing about the day was that I went to Wegmans after work and got to eat a bunch of free food. Though even there, I managed to knock down a display of ttravel cups not just once, but twice! Hopefully today will be a better day.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

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

LOCK 2: 109
LOCK 3: 133
LOCK 4: 119
Who would have ever thought that students would check out LOCKS for their laptops??? I even had an email from a graduate student asking that we buy MORE because they were all checked out the other night. Sometimes it is the little things.