Practical Katie

Seventy Nine Books in 2011

2012-01-01T06:57:00.002-05:00

Here's the list of the books I read in 2011 - seventy nine! I met and surpassed my goal of reading a book a week. Of course you will see a strong leaning towards children's literature and thus, shorter books. I read the Harry Potter series in a big gulp. I only read a few non fiction books, but they were some of the best I read all year -- Packing for Mars, The No Assholes Rule and Franklin and Eleanor. I had never read Jane Eyre or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?? Hans Brinker really isn't about Hans but is about his sister? National Velvet is very funny and the horse wins.

I don't really know how I chose these books. I read Lee Child because he was on a list of favorite authors of Bill Clinton. There were advance copies I picked up at an ALA Conference. Most of the books were sitting on my own bookshelf. Friends gave me books. Some (but not the majority) were from the library. Some were books for our children's book club at work. Have to decide what my goal is for 2012.

Hitty by Rachel Field
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones
When You Were Mine by Elizabeth Noble
Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
Belles on Their Toes by Ernestine and Frank Gilbreth
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Instead of a Letter: A Memoir by Diana Hill
Falling Out of Fashion by Karen Yampolsky
Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya
Rat by Fernanda Eberstadt
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
City of Light by Lauren Belfer
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
Hans Brinker of the Silver Skates by Mary Naples Dodge
The River by Rumer Godden
Indian Captive by Lois Lenski
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
The Mango Season by Amulya Mauadi
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Esio Trot by Roald Dahl
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
The Tall Woman by Wilma Dykeman
Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch by Alice Hegan Rice
These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
Dobry by Monica Shannon
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Love the One You're With by Emily Griffen
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
A Year at the Races by Jane Smiley
Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go by Dale Basye
The No Assholes Rule by Robert Sutton
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Are you Somebody by O'Faolain
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Franklin and Eleanor by Hazel Rowley
The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine
The Affair by Lee Child
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
Wendy and the Lost Boys by Julie Salamon
We Followed Our Hearts to Hollywood by Emily Kimbrough
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspread
The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
All-Of-A-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor

The Bare Essentials

2011-10-26T16:49:00.000-04:00

This is my first post forBathroom Blogfest 2011. It's kind of weird to admit that I've been takingpictures of bathrooms all year with this in mind...

Let's start at the beginningwith toilet paper. Is it really too much to ask to have a roll of toiletpaper that actually rolls? A roll of toilet paper that doesn't force me to clawlike a hamster to pull out a thin, square of paper? These two pictures weretaken in a Wegman's (of course) restaurant. Not only was there freerolling toilet paper, there were extra rolls! Talk about customerservice.

I would like to wash my hands with water. I don't want to wave my hands up and down and side to side in front of a faucet. I want water when I want water. How many times have I had to simply GIVE UP and use the little bottle of Purell I've learned to carry with me every where for just these situations. Sigh.

And last but not least, if and when I am successful at getting water, I want to be able to dry my hands on PAPER TOWELS. I don't want to hot air blowing on my hands. Note I specifically didn't say hot air *drying* my hands, because it never does. And the automatic hand dryers have the same flaw as the automatic faucets do; I can never figure out how to wave my hands in such a way as to turn them on.

Next post will include photographs of public bathrooms that exceeded the bare essentials standard.

A Few Observations on Books

2011-10-18T14:06:00.001-04:00

Another fall, another group of freshman. Here are a few comments about books from the beginning of fall semester.

Freshman are clueless as to how to buy their books. It makes sense. They never had to buy their books in high school. Though you would think an RA or someone would tell them about buying books. (This observation comes from seeing dozens of hysterical comments in the freshman facebook page.)
Freshman still buy a lot, maybe even most, of their textbooks from the bookstore. They pretty quickly figure out that it's less expensive to buy them online. But initially they think they MUST have the textbook for the first day of class. Of course that's not true, and there are many classes where the textbook is rarely used. By sophomore year, they mostly seem to buy them online.
Anecdotally we seemed to have lots more inquiries at the circulation desk from students asking if we have their textbooks. Is it because of the downturn in the economy? Are tour guides telling them we have textbooks? WE have some, especially in the Carlson Science and Engineering Library, but certainly not all of them. I wonder if we should pursue them more aggressively?
I have one freshman who is renting an online textbook. Who knew???

First Day of School

2011-09-01T06:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first day of school for the Class of 2015. I took a minute to jot down my impressions of my six freshman advisees and I guess advising in general. And yes, some of them are contradictory.

1. This is the first group I've ever had who weren't afraid to email a professor or go ask questions at the Advising Fair. What a huge advantage to already know they need help and can ask for it.

2. And yet, they are overwhelmed by the amount of new information they have to absorb. What is "R"? Answer: Thursday in the online schedule.

3. Like all my previous classes, they are already thinking about majors (double), minors (lots) and of course, jobs when they graduate.

4. I periodically read through the 2015 Facebook page. Where are my classes? How do I know what textbooks to buy? I forget that in high school, i.e. 2 months ago, all their classes were in one building. They were given their textbooks. They worry if they'll have enough time to eat lunch. Oh yeah, there was a lunch period in high school.

5. They're very excited to be choose classes that let them sleep in past 9 a.m.

I love their unedited enthusiasm. Advising definitely keeps me humble. Every semester I learn some huge thing that I should have known. I also have a view of the university I never had before. I'm certainly not the best advisor there is, but I also know I'm not the worst. As long as they'll have me, I'm going to keep doing it.

Undergraduates Have Never Used a Phonebook

2011-04-22T13:23:00.000-04:00

My goodness. It's been a long time since I posted anything. This is sort of a cheat because it's really Trina's story not mine.

"We got new phonebooks delivered today. As I was switching the new ones for the old ones I asked the 4 student employees who happened to be around if they had ever used one before. ALL shook their heads, mystified as to why anyone would have a need to. Plus one of them (super smart, going to the Simon School right now) shook her head and admitted she had no idea even how to use one.

A little while later, I was coming upstairs with a 2nd set for me, and a student who is applying for a job saw that my hands were full and offered to help me. When I gave him the white and yellow pages, he asked: “what are these”? He found my answer amusing I think!"

We could start our own "Beloit" list. They probably don't know what a "dial tone" is either...

Video with an iphone app

2011-02-03T16:59:00.004-05:00

I took pictures with my iphone as I went through my day last Tuesday of Rush Rhees and Carlson Libraries. Using a free app, animoto, I created this fun "video".

Library Day In the Life

2011-02-03T14:26:00.002-05:00

I had every intention of writing at least one blog post for the Library Day In The Life Project but ran out of time. I even had a fantasy at the beginning of the week that I could keep track of what I did all day. Ha Ha! It also turned out that a significant percentage of what I do is confidential and I can’t share the details. So how about some broad comments about what an AD does over a the course of a “typical” week?

I go to meetings, a lot of meetings. I have on average four hours of meetings every day, sometimes more. I eat my lunch at my desk almost every day. Most days someone still comes in and talks to me. I don’t know exactly what that says about ME that people are content to watch me shovel food into my mouth….
In addition to attending a lot of meeting, I schedule and reschedule meetings. It seems that one of my roles is nothing more than bringing the right people together into a room with a problem to solve.
Over a week, I have staff vent anger at me. I have staff cry. I encourage. I cajole. I give candid feedback. I am a cheerleader. I am a problem solver. I organize parties. I write and edit emails, job descriptions, and announcements.
I accomplish very little on my own. Almost everything I do involves working with other people. So I never feel I should really take credit for much of anything because I didn’t really do it myself.

And that’s all I can write in a few minutes of unscheduled time!

Books Read in 2010

2010-12-31T07:41:00.004-05:00

I read more books than last year and averaged more than one a week! Of course the majority of them are children's fiction; five Newbery Award winners. My favorites were "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever", "Still Life", "The Lonely Polygamist", and "The Help". My favorite REreads were "A Little Princess", "Winnie the Pooh" (surely I had read this) and "Straight Man". I read books in print, on my kindle, on my itouch, my iphone, and my ipad. I have a long plan trip next week and I am determined to read "Watership Down" and "The House of the Spirits". There, I've made a public commitment.

Pollyanna
A Little Princess
Stuart Little
The Doll's House
The Chisselers
Henry and Beezus
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
The Summer of the Swans
The Big Steal
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Freaky Friday
Winnie the Pooh
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Straight Man
The Corrections
The Hills of Home: A Vermont idyll
Five for Sorrow Ten for Joy
Digging to America
Adam of the Road
Little House on the Prairie
Plainsong
A Candle for St. Jude
The Botany of Desire
The Railway Children
Bergdorf Blonds
The trumpet of the Swan
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Devil Wears Prada
Winter Solstice
The Lightning Thief
It's Like This, Cat
Breakfast at Tiffany's
My Side of the Mountain
The Urban Hermit
Pretties
The Wanderer
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Sizzling Sixteen
Tangled
Every Last One
Uglies
The Graveyard Book
Too Much Money
The Lonely Polygamist
Mostly Good Girls
Savvy
Brave Girl Eating
Dark Song
One More Theory About Happiness
Listening Is an Act of Love
Charlotte's Web
Wicked
The Professional
The Ballad of West Tenth Street
Howl's Moving Castle
Siam
Mrs. Mike
George's Marvelous Medicine
The Help
Ginger Pye
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes
Blue Willow
Looking for Alibrandi
Still Life
Warriors #1
A Year in the Merde

Tweets by Undergraduates on the library

2010-12-16T16:33:00.000-05:00

I've collected (in an extremely unscientific sample) comments on the library and books by the undergraduates I follow on twitter. Lots of procrastinting especially in Gleason and lots of comments about food!

should change her permanent address to somewhere on the academic quad... class/lib-ing it up is really taking a toll on my drunk bitch time.

Lazy day in Gleason with Camille, the Brownie, and the Bear. I love my life. Oh and James brought me steak...beeeyatchesss!!

Too tired to function at the moment. My shift ends at 6 and I still have to lib it up today. Can someone please shoot me?

Once again in the lib...so this makes it over 2 weeks of my life. Anyone up for a euthanasia?

@ Let me know when you want to do that quick walk through Rush Rhees

@ thanks katie haha I'm just sleep deprived from the late nights at the lib...it's awful.

Cracking up at the fact that our library is on the cover of the Princeton's Review top college book. Our lib must be so baller

Me + Garrett + Lib+ Late Nights = why the hell am in the library on a Friday night? What the hell has happened to me?

In the lib trying really really really heard to do this French workbook. It's not really working for me...shiiiit.

yeah sitting in gleason and I really need to find a table. PRONTO.

After waking up at 3, I'm finally in the library. Wooo!

It's so quiet in the Art and Music Library that I can actually hear the silence... maybe I should just stick to Gleason.

Is doing anything but studying. Thanks, Gleason.

doing nothing at Gleason like a TRUE U of R student.

In Quieter Study Area of Gleason with Julia and Christina :D... @UR_FASA study session!

The library is so full on a Saturday night, it's hard to find seats #onlyatuofr

Added "Gleason Library" to my places on twitter because it's basically my home and deserves to be repped.

girl with obnoxiously loud ringtone at a quiet study area got stares from everyone #learnyourlesson

I get to make a pyramid out of books and take a picture of it for 15 points extra credit. #awesome

Is it weird that I love using books but hate using online sources when I write research papers? Stuck in the 20th century, heh.

super quiet library. super loud stomach growls. match made in hell.

Restless in Gleason. Methinks I need Chinese food to concentrate on my readings for "Politics of Insurgency and Terrorism."

Why yes, I am that crazy girl who brings a bag to library to hold the 30+ books that I need to check out.

To all the engineers that go to UofR, please stop thinking that since you have a "hard" major you can play Blink 182 loudly in library.

The library is incredibly peaceful right now.

Procrastinating in the Wells-Brown Room. Typical finals week.

Curled up in the Wells Brown room, editing a book review on "Lying Awake," and drinking a fantastic cup of coffee. Life is good.

sitting in the library. no noise other than someone quietly hacking up phelgm and someone else cutting their nails. awful awful awful.

I've rekindled my love with Carlson...yes, Carlson Library <3

apitlyk I think that the only thing that I'm going to miss about the U of R is Rush Rhees (the library, not the tombstone of the man).

Not happy that the PRR and Great Hall will be closed for #meliora. Three midterms in the next two weeks AHH.

Waiting for the Mail is Old School

2010-10-27T09:45:00.004-04:00

When I was a college student our mail boxes were inside the front door of our dorm. We checked them several times a day -- when we left for classes, when we came back from classes, walking by on the way to the television (no, we didn't our own televisions in our room...) etc. Fast forward. University of Rochester students each have a CPU box in the university building that houses the post office, but not in their dorms. They rarely get print mail. Their parents call them and text them. They facebook and text their friends. They almost never GET mail so they almost never go and check their CPU boxes. As one student told me, they're mostly filled with chinese take-out menus...

So why does the University still send *important* notifications in print to CPU boxes?? As an adviser, I get copied in on these official letters. I immediately scan the letter and resend it by email with a follow-up on facebook. On more than one occasion, my email is the first time that the student has learned that they are in danger of failing, being expelled, etc. etc. Yikes!

Why on earth do we insist on communicating with students the way we did when we were undergraduates?

We need stack locations

2010-10-19T09:38:00.002-04:00

I sat next to Stephen a few weeks ago in a Stackmap demo. He pointed out something to me that I had never registered in TEN YEARS. Sigh. Our catalog records don't include a floor location for Rush Rhees library. This isn't a problem for art books with the notation "Art Stacks - Art/Music Library". However this is a HUGE problem when you're looking for a book on one of the thirteen floors of stacks in Rush Rhees. Users have to take the call number, go to a little map on the wall which translates to the floor and then go to the floor. Not only are our stacks scary (lights on timers...), we make it really hard to find things. I over heard a campus tour guide the other day announce to her group "books are really hard to find". I'm afraid I would have to agree.

I'm sure there was a good reason for not include floor locations originally, but I think it's time to revisit that decision. Yes, we do shift books from floor to floor. But we don't shift them every day. While the current arrangement makes OUR life easier, it makes finding the books really really difficult for users.

Checking out Print Journals

2010-03-18T06:27:00.004-04:00

I've been following a conversation on the PAMnet list serve about policies for checking out bound journals from an annex. I feel out of sync with the general sentiment which is to limit circulation anywhere from no circulation at all to just a few days. Last semester under my direction (pressure?) we standardized our circulation policy for bound journals; we now circulate all bound journals for two weeks. This is a huge change for us. Our circulation policies differed from library to library and even from journal to journal. The loan period ranged from two hours up to two weeks. Obviously the policy was confusing to users. But the more compelling argument was looking at the circulation statistics and noting that they were very low. With a commitment from our fantastic Inter Library Loan department to get, without question, articles from any volumes that may be checked out, we took the leap and all our bound journals now have a two week circulation period. To *my* knowledge, there hasn't been a single problem or complaint. (I hope I'm not cursing myself with that statement.) I predict than in a year or two, we'll have the same circulation period for journals that we do for books.

More textbook prices

2010-02-25T16:06:00.002-05:00

I pulled up one of my advisee's course listing for this semester and looked up the cost of textbooks. It turns out that the bookstore has an online site, of course. The only question I have is why does anyone buy any books from the bookstore???

Biology 113
Biological Science by Freeman - package
Bookstore New $76 Amazon New $70
Bookstore Used $57 Amazon Used $20

Chemistry 132
Chemical Principles - package (used for fall and spring)
Bookstore New $335 Amazon New $237
Bookstore Used $ 251 Amazon Used $119

German 102
English Grammar for Students of German
Bookstore New $19 Amazon New $17
Bookstore Used $14 AmazonUsed $13

Na Klar
Bookstore New $222 Amazon New $109
Bookstore Used $167 Amazon Used $30

Math 165
Linear Algebra
Bookstore New $148 Amazon New $99
Bookstore Used $111 Amazon Used $15

TOTALS
Bookstore New $800 Amazon New $532
Bookstore Used $600 Amazon Used $197

The Cost of Textbooks

2010-02-24T11:29:00.004-05:00

The use of reserves is on the rise this semester. There are more books being put on reserve and they are being used more often. Why? So during a fire alarm I went over to the bookstore to see how much textbooks actually cost. Unfortunately the textbook area was roped off, but the student behind the desk was bored and happy to look up prices for me.

Introductory Biology - $76
Introductory Chemistry - $300 (used for both semesters)
Calculus - $228 (used for the whole calculus series)
Physics 114 - $200 (they actually use two text books)
Mechanical Engineering 120 - $163

Yikes! A freshman science major could spend more than $500 their first semester on books? Of course, it would be much less the second semester, but that's a lot of money even to me. I need to go back with a real course schedule and see how much the textbooks would cost.

By sophomore year they know to buy their books on Amazon. I'll have to check that out with a list of real books to see how much money they save.

Sophomores

2010-02-09T09:13:00.002-05:00

What a difference there is between freshman year and sophomore year. I met with one of my sophomore advisees this week.

1. She has learned she can save a lot of money by buying her textbooks used from Amazon rather than full price from the campus bookstore.
2. She is choosing a subject matter she loves as her major even though the classes are hard and her grades aren't the hardest.
3. When she has papers and exams in the same week - she gets the paper done a week ahead of time.
4. She's in a sorority but knows she often has to say "no" to parties because she needs to study.

Yes, I take some of this with a grain of salt, but in general I don't think they have much to gain by impressing *me*...

Advising

2010-01-14T04:39:00.003-05:00

Advising goes in spurts. Weeks go by and I do nothing and feel guilty that I'm being paid (yes, that is correct) for doing it. Then I have a week where I think I'm not being paid enough. Letters of academic probation?? Another steep and fast learning curve about that topic. I've decided I need to go to some sessions on getting into medical school. I have so many advisees who are "premed" and I don't think I'm giving them good or honest or realistic advice. And that's all I'm going to say on that topic.

Nine Screens in My Daily Life

2009-12-31T07:51:00.005-05:00

I just heard a commentary on "Morning Edition" about the number of screens people use in their daily life. I have eight, wait nine. Is that average?? Frankly I wish I could consolidate some. It's a pain when I travel and take my itouch, kindle, camera, cell phone, and laptop.

itouch
kindle
t.v.
t.v.
MacbBook at home
laptop at work
cell phone
portable DVD player
camera

Abbreviations

2009-12-30T16:10:00.002-05:00

When I first became a reference librarian, I spent a lot of time deciphering journal abbreviations. Once you had the title you could search the online catalog, which initially didn't have keyword searching! I just saw that CAS has come out with an abbreviation tool for free on the web. Helen and I have been arguing about whether anyone but librarians really use these kinds of things anymore. Certainly the number of questions coming to us has decreased dramatically. I've seen lots of students use google to figure out abbreviation.s You type in as much of the citation as you have and maybe a more complete citation will come up or even the full text of the article. Cool tool but that horse may have already left the stall.....

A Book a Week for 2009

2009-12-29T19:08:00.010-05:00

I set a goal for myself last January to read a book a week and lo and behold I did it! Many were children's books and several were re-reads, but they still count!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley 2009 KINDLE
When You Reach Me Rebecca Stead 2009
Un Lun Dun China Mieville 2008
Cocktails for Three Madeleine Wickham 2001
Fantastic Mr. Fox Roald Dahl 2007
Diary of a Wimpy Kid #1 Diary of a Wimpy Kid Jeff Kinney 2007
Anywhere but Here Mona Simpson 1992
Seven Up (Stephanie Plum, No. 7) Janet Evanovich 2002
The Tennis Partner - A Doctor's Story Of Friendship And Loss - Abraham Verghese 1998
The Moorchild Eloise McGraw 1998
Cutting for Stone: A novel Abraham Verghese 2009 Hands down the best book of 2009
Room for One More Anna Perrott Rose 1950 Reread
Finn Family Moomintroll. Tove. Jansson 1989
Moominsummer Madness (Puffin Books) Tove Jansson 1973
Light a Penny Candle Maeve Binchy 1983
The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 2008 Reread, but still love this book
Matters of Chance: A Novel Jeannette Haien 1998
My Family and Other Animals Gerald Durrell 2004
Certain Girls: A Novel Jennifer Weiner 2009
Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) Stephenie Meyer 2006
A Fatal Grace Louise Penny 2006 KINDLE This was a close second for "best"
The Archivist: A Novel Martha Cooley 1999
Elsewhere Gabrielle Zevin 2007
Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann 1997
All-of-a-kind Family Sydney Taylor 1980 Reread
The Witches of Worm Zilpha Keatley Snyder 1986
The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2007
Fearless Fourteen Janet Evanovich 2008
The Whistling Season Ivan Doig 2007
Talk Before Sleep A Novel Elizabeth Berg 1997
Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung Martha Mason 2003
Finding Betty Crocker Susan Marks 2005
The Senator's Wife Sue Miller 2009
Coraline Neil Gaiman 2006
The Great Gilly Hopkins Katherine Paterson 1987
Eat Cake Jeanne Ray 2004
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World Vicki Myron 2008
The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger 2004
Homeless Bird Gloria Whelan 2001
The Addict: One Patient, One Doctor, One Year Michael Stein 2009
Water for Elephants: A Novel Sara Gruen 2007
Lucky Everyday Bapsy Jain 2009
I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti: A Memoir Giulia Melucci 2009
The Know-It-All A. J. Jacobs 2005
The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 2006 Stanza
Twelve Sharp Janet Evanovich 2006
Hungry Monkey Matthew Amster-Burton Good enough to read twice in one year.
The Laws of Harmony: A Novel Judith R. Hendricks
Academy X: A Novel Andrew Trees 2007
The Middle Kingdom Andrea Barrett 1992
Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited Elyse Schein 2008
Back When We Were Grownups Anne Tyler 2004

This Reference Librarian Made a Difference

2009-12-14T19:27:00.007-05:00

Frankly I live vicariously through my reference librarians. I push papers all day. I guess I do make sure my advisees remember to register for classes, but what I do seems very far removed from real students most days. Here is an email (with personal information removed) from a student to one of my reference librarians. Wow. This made my day and the praise isn't even for me!

"Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with me! Your help was just what I needed to finally get my paper right. It hasn't been graded yet, but the TA really liked it when he reviewed my rough draft! It was a really fun paper to research and write, and I honestly would not have written a paper as good as this one without all the sources and database know-how you taught me. I am very grateful and I hope you have a great holiday!"

A Bad Bathroom Can Ruin a Trip

2009-10-26T09:43:00.016-04:00

Am I overstating my case? No! A bad bathroom can ruin an entire trip. I went to a conference in Philadelphia in January 2008 and arrived late afternoon. The hotel was overbooked and the only room that was available was a handicapped room. It was dark. It was January. It was a big city. What else could I do but grab the room? It never even crossed my mind that it would be a nightmare. I didn't understand that handicapped bathrooms do not have tubs or even show stalls. There is a shower (with a curtain for what that's worth) in the corner of the bathroom with a drain in the middle of the floor. The theory being that you can just roll your wheelchair under the shower head and away you go. The theory is good, in practice, not so good. Apparently my bathroom floor was not leveled correctly because instead of water going into the drain, it covered the floor. I don't mean a little dampness on the floor, I mean an inch of standing water all over the entire bathroom floor. I had to use every towel I had to blot up the water after every shower. I was afraid if I dried my hair standing in an inch of water, I would electrocute myself! No matter how briefly I showered, all the water pooled onto the floor and I had to go through the towel blotting exercise. After four mornings of this, I could not wait to come home to a functional shower. Other people come back from Philadelphia with memories of Reading Market. I will never forget the standing water covering my bathroom floor every morning.

I was recently at a conference in Chicago. The hotel front desk asked me whether I would accept a handicapped room. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Follow Bathroom Blogfest on Twitter at #ladiesroom09 or check out the website http://www.bathroomblogfest.com/.

You can visit the participating bloggers for Bathroom Blogfest ’09:

Susan Abbott at Customer Experience Crossroads http://www.customercrossroads.com/

Reshma Anand at Qualitative Research Blog http://onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/Shannon Bilby at From the Floors Up http://fromthefloorsup.com/

Shannon Bilby and Brad Millner at My Big Bob’s Blog http://blog.mybigbobs.com/

Laurence Borel at Blog Till You Drop http://www.laurenceborel.com/

Jeanne Byington at The Importance of Earnest Service http://blog.jmbyington.com/

Becky Carroll at Customers Rock! http://www.customersrock.net/

Leslie Clagett at KB Culture http://www.kbculture.blogspot.com/

Iris Shreve Garrott at Checking In and Checking Out http://circulating.wordpress.com/

Julie at Julie’s Cleaning Secrets Blog http://cleaningsecrets.greatcleaners.com/

Marianna Hayes at Results Revolution http://www.resultsrevolution.com/

Maria Palma at People To People Service http://www.people2peopleservice.com/

Professor Toilet at Professor Toilet’s Blog http://www.professortoilet.com/

David Reich at My 2 Cents http://reichcomm.typepad.com/

Bethany Richmond at The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/

Carolyn Townes at Becoming a Woman of Purpose http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com/

Stephanie Weaver at Experienceology http://experienceology.blogspot.com/

C.B. Whittemore at Flooring The Consumer http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/ and Simple Marketing Blog http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/

Linda Wright at Lindaloo.com: Build Better Business with Better Bathrooms http://lindaloo.com/

Photo Contest in Gleason Library

2009-10-16T09:05:00.003-04:00

Someone (Vicki? Nora?) had the great idea of inviting students to submit pictures of Gleason for our new homepage. We assume that there is the library is quite a different place after all the staff have gone home. Only one photo submitted so far. I am going to write something on the white boards and also personally invite my advisees to send me pictures.

To Follow Or Not To Follow

2009-09-29T10:06:00.002-04:00

I've received criticism in the past few months for making some unpopular decisions. On the one hand I've been criticized for just following what other libraries are doing. I have also been criticized for not following what all the other libraries are doing.

Hmmm. To follow or not to follow? I guess the answer is neither and both. I am a strong advocate of paying attention to what other libraries are doing. And I don't just mean other ARL libraries. I look at what public librarians are doing. I look at what school librarians are doing. I don't have all the answers or all the ideas. I think it would be foolish NOT to occasionally follow. The league of librarians cards weren't our idea; we followed Carlton College library.

And on the other hand, we can't be paralyzed and only do things if everyone else is doing them. Sometimes we do have good ideas and good solutions. We never would have hired an anthropologist to do user research if we had waited for everyone else to do it!

So I guess the answer is, it depends.

Excuses to Email my Advisees

2009-09-21T12:51:00.003-04:00

Rereading the title of this entry, makes me think that maybe I have created my own problem... I feel weird/creepy/over protective emailing my advisees very often. Probably they would just ignore my email if I sent too many.... Instead I'm come up with a "reason" to send them an email. At the beginning of every semester, I look up the syllabus of the big, survey classes - bio, chem, econ, etc - and put the exam dates on my calendar. Then I have a justified excuse (at least in my mind) to send them an email before/after the exam. I also know when to expect a flurry of correspondence, i.e. after the first bio and chem exams of fall semester.

News of League of Librarians Cards Spreads!

2009-09-08T16:18:00.006-04:00

I posted the set of League of Librarians cards to both my personal facebook page, the libraries flickr site, and to several flickr groups (Libraries and Librarians and 265 Library Days Project) on August 19.

Nothing much happened. There was a little flurry of activity on my facebook page when my friends saw the cards but not much else.

Wednesday, September 2, there is a mention of the cards on PAMNET with a link to the flickr set. Thursday, September 3, there is a short paragraph with a link to the flickr set in American Libraries Direct.

Stand back! When I left work on Thursday there were more than 10,000 views on the flickr set.

By Friday morning, there are another 5,000 views.

There was also a flurry of activity on twitter. bckaemper from Germany (!!!) read the PAMNET post and twitters. Wow. At the end of the day, there were 49 tweets on "league of librarian(s)" These were the twitter comments: fantastic, awesome, too cool, adorable, we need some, funny, love this, wow.

Of course I've pretty much died and gone to social networking heaven. Now let's see if our STUDENTS think they're as cool as librarians. ;)

Don't Judge a Book by It's Cover or

2009-08-28T05:46:00.004-04:00

a freshman by their facebook page. I looked at the facebook pages of my six freshman advisees; all but one of them was completely open. I had a very strong and very wrong impression of them after looking at their profiles. The student with the "come hither" profile picture turned out to be a shy, sweet pea. The frat boy turned out to be smart, articulate, and one of the sunniest people I've ever met. The student with the slightly creepy, goth-like profile turned out to be super smart, shy, and totally on top of it. The cocky athlete turned out to be eager, enthusiastic, and excited to be at college. I thought their profiles created a negative impression, but of course they probably want to look hot and confident. I guess I've just never had any experience with such large disconnects between the online and actual person. Once again my advisees are opening my eyes!

League of Librarians Trading Cards

2009-08-25T05:45:00.003-04:00

Credit goes to the librarians from Carleton College who created the "original" librarian trading cards. We just took their idea and expanded on it. Our amazing Marc Bollman came up with the league of librarians concept, took the photographs, and then made magic happen. We're going to roll them out at the technology expo today and Parent's breakfast tomorrow. I'll be interested to see if they're silly enough to be popular... Check out the whole set on flickr.

Messinger Library Staff of the Year Award 2009

2009-08-13T07:37:00.003-04:00

Susan announced the winner of the Messigner Library Staff Award at yesterday's general staff meeting. It was super cool because Ann was surprised! It was definitely the highlight of my day.

"In her 7 years at the River Campus Libraries she has blossomed into an exemplar subject librarian. She has built an ideal and enviable relationship with her academic department. She is heavily involved with the curriculum of the undergraduates, graduates and faculty of the department to such an extent that they have provided her with space within the department to hold regular office hours.

She was one of the first volunteers to become a writing tutor and was so talented in that role that she was asked to teach one of the WRT 105 courses.

She has been a very active and creative colleague; very involved in the undergraduate and graduate research projects; experiences which she has both written and presented on numerous times. She is also one of the ECO coordinators. She took it upon herself to learn Cold Fusion so that she could create a database-drive subject guide; which has become the model for the subject guides that will be launched with the new website.

She is very active at a national level as well. She served as the Vice Chair of the Law and Political Science Section of the ACRL, wherein she worked hard to raise the visibility of librarians within the American Political Science Association. Under her leadership the LPSS held its first ever virtual meeting so that librarians unable to attend ALA could still participate. This virtual meeting has now become a model for other committees within the ACRL.

If you have not guess already, this year’s Messinger Library Staff of the Year award goes to Ann Marshall."

Reading on the Kindle

2009-07-29T05:38:00.002-04:00

I finally borrowed my mother's Kindle for a trip and actually *read* several books. I want to capture my impressions before I read this week's New Yorker article by Nicholson Baker...

The Kindle is fantastic for a trip. There was none of my usual agony about choosing which books to take. I didn't run out of books to read, which is deadly. The device itself is tiny and easy to tuck in the outside pocket of my bag. I recharged the battery once, but I don't think I needed to.

I love the wireless Amazon bookstore. I was in Oak Park and decided I wanted to read a book about Frank Lloyd Wright. Presto. I bought one and read it. I *love* that feature.

I quickly got into the reading experience and got caught up in the book rather than the device.

The book cover and reviews on the back of the book influence my choice much more than I thought. I actually had a hard time browsing Amazon online. The awkward keyboard was also a contributing factor because it was a pain to use the "if you like this book..." feature. Next time I will bring the Kindle to the bookstore with me and buy Kindle books after looking at the physical book.

Initially I struggled with my itouch because of the touch screen. Apparently I've acclimated because I was very frustrated that the kindle did not use a touch screen.

I don't know why I missed this, but I found it disorienting to not know how much of the book I had read or had left to read. The kindle shows me what percentage of the book I've read, but it wasn't quite the same.

Someone needs to invent a single, universal recharging cord!!! I had a cord for my phone, my camera, my itouch AND the kindle. Enough is enough.

Overall the Kindle is definitely a good reading experience and it is ideal for travel. I must like it because I checked out a book from the library yesterday and instead found myself reading the title on the Kindle! Which reminds me of my last wish for the next generation Kindle - a light. I would love to be able to read in bed or on a dark plane.

Wilder Winter Wonderland

2009-06-30T08:50:00.003-04:00

We had a fun going away party for Stanley on Friday. The them was a "Wilder Winter Wonderland". We all wore scarves and ate snow cones. (I thought it was hilarious.) Each department gave him a funny gift to remember the UR. The Access Services department each made a "flat Stanley"; I also thought that was hilarious. Nora made a movie, which was amazing. And oh yeah, we all wore Wisconsin tattoos (temporary).

I will miss Stanley most at budget time. He has the best budget gestalt of anyone I have ever worked with. He knew when it was the numbers just didn't seem right. He knew when we were overspending. He could tell when we were "where we expect to be". It was both years and years of working with budgets and a natural ability. It is going to be rough without him.

Rotated and Condensed?

2009-06-24T10:57:00.003-04:00

I feel like I'm the only one who is shocked to learn that the American Chemical Society (ACS) will be "publishing the print editions of most of its journals in a "rotated and condensed" format that will fit two pages of content on one printed page." In other words, we won't really be able to actually READ the print. And the price for the print is increasing significantly at the same time. At least in my library, the chemists have been one of the most vocal defenders of keeping print. This feels like a sea change to me. Of course, I didn't think email was any big deal the first time I used it, so what do I know about predicting the future....

Not Quite Ready For Adult Books

2009-06-20T09:58:00.002-04:00

Lois and Margaret organized a "not quite ready for adult books" reading group at work. We are reading children's books. To date we have read "The Wind in the Willows", "The Borrowers", and "All Of A Kind Family". It has turned out to be fun and informative. Some people have read the books as kids, some are reading the books for the first time. Some people do research (!) about the author, book setting, and vocabulary terms. And it brings together people from all parts of the library, who rarely work together. It's been just terrific. Next we are reading "Mary Poppins". I think it is going to be a shock for people who only know the story from the movie.

We Should Do This

2009-06-11T14:49:00.002-04:00

I was reading an article from nytimes.com this morning and noticed that I could send it to my phone and to facebook. When did that happen? I predict they'll add twitter soon too. We should do that for the catalog. Grrrr.

We were inspirational????

2009-06-09T15:18:00.001-04:00

Wow. How cool is this? Our book was inspirational to Char Booth!

Chatting with Char Booth ALA TechSourceBy Daniel A. Freeman Char Booth is a Library Journal Mover and Shaker and one of ALA's Emerging Leaders, and is a voice of growing prominence in the Library Technology community. As the E-Learning Librarian at UC Berkeley, Char works at a unique .... The Foster and Gibbons Studying Students report from the University of Rochester was inspirational in that it illustrated the value of detailing the results of local research project in order to provide insight and motivation for similar studies ...

Only electronic

2009-06-05T07:46:00.004-04:00

I had a interesting dinner conversation last night with a science faculty member. He admitted that rather than coming to the library to copy an article only available in print, he would simply request it through ILL. Why? Because the ILL article is delivered to him electronically as a pdf. He didn't want a paper copy. He wanted the article in electronic form.

Because you can’t sleep in the library every night

2009-06-04T06:39:00.002-04:00

I was invited to a facebook event, "Residence Halls Open for New Students", subtitle."Because you can’t sleep in the library every night ". I'm of the philosophy that any publicity is good publicity.

Reasons for Choosing the UofR

2009-06-03T06:47:00.004-04:00

According to their facebook posts, here are some of the reasons students (class of 2013) chose UR over other schools. Campus atmosphere and people they met during their visit, flexible curriculum, , and financial aid seemed to be the factors most mentioned.

just love Rochester
had everything
traditional campus
atmosphere is "me"
scholarship
portable research grant (4)
people less intimidating
almost no one offers a microbiology major
fits my personality
feel most at home at UofR
has everything I want - engineering, great location, beautiful campus, amazing resources
feel more comfortable
better financial aid (yet several turned down full rides at other schools)
money was a huge issue
open curriculum
sciences
research situation always trumps an arts and science college
from rochester
cool program - I can study art and be premed
homey feeling
most money
people extremely nice
campus is gorgeous
incredibly nice people - left with such a happy feeling
people were great
gave off the right vibe - great place, awesome people, awesome campus
aid
balance between social and academic life
curriculum would easily allow you to study art and still fulfill all your premed reqs
opportunity for someone interested in both music and sciences
campus gorgeous
people were nice as could be
after visiting the Rochester campus allowed me to easily discard the other 7

Some students (posted in April) were still deciding. Financial aid was certainly a big factor as well as pressure from parents. Reasons given for NOT choosing the "other" school --- heard that the bio program is not as great as the UofR. Afraid of big class size at X.

What Did YOu Choose Rochester Over?

2009-06-03T06:38:00.002-04:00

I was reading discussion board at (one of) the University of Rochester Class of 2013 facebook group this morning. "Rochester is clearly the best, but what did you choose Rochester over?" I'm always fascinated by this list. Why does the some kid who applies to Purdue also apply to the University of Rochester? Why did they turn down Yale for University of Rochester? Hmmmm.

Northeastern

Purdue

Dickinson

NYU

Brown

Naval Academy

Washington University

Amherst

Emory

Vanderbilt

University of Vermont

Franklin and Marshall

Connecticut College

Brandeis

Tufts

Middlebury

Yale

Vassar

Cornell

Ithaca

Clark

American

University of Delaware

SUNY Binghamton

Carnegie Mellon

University of Iowa

Indiana

University of South Carolina

Ole Miss

Appalachian State

George Mason

Michigan State

University of Scranton

Pitt

Dartmouth

Penn State

Rutgers

Leheigh

Fordham

Sarah Lawrence

Tufts

Middlebury

Geneseo

Rice

Seton Hall

Alleghany

Time to Remember

2009-05-30T05:37:00.010-04:00

librarian

gardener

shopper

Disney World vacationer

teacher

QVC fan

gift giver

cat lover

pony owner

beader

reader

t.v. watcher

sister

daughter

my friend

Clean and Go Green Week

2009-05-29T06:39:00.005-04:00

Wow. It's been a long time since I've posted to my blog. Time definitely gets away from me. We had a clean up WEEK at work. I wasn't sure if anyone would bother to participate. What was I thinking??? We're all drowning in paper. Suzanne (whose office is spotless) spent two days cleaning out her file drawers. Even she threw away a huge pile of papers, literally. Interesting how we all needed permission (?) to take the time to clean, sort, and throw away.

Mentioned in the student newspaper

2009-01-30T15:35:00.004-05:00

I love to find the library mentioned in the student newspaper. We were listed 5 times in an article, "Almost 30 reasons to love UR".

You dress up to go to Gleason [library], considering you will probably run into more people there than you will anywhere else on campus.
You have a straight face when you tell your friends back home that a library is the social hub of the campus.
You realize that the graffiti in the stacks is better than PostSecret's could ever be.
One of the things on your to-do list before you graduate is doing some promiscuous acts in the stacks.
There is always one person in the Gleason cubicle with a bathrobe on, and, yes, he probably lives there.

Student Grades

2009-01-08T09:28:00.005-05:00

More on freshman advising. I was able to see first semester grades for my advisees.

mostly B's with a few A's. Hmmmm. I guess I also shared the impression of my advisees that most students got A's in most classes. If my six are representative, that is not a true assumption.
one student made the dean's list. I have much greater appreciation for a what a big deal this is now that I have seen every one's grades.

a student who nearly withdrew from a class, buckled down and pulled off a good final grade. Impressive. First semester was a shock for all of them. Some were shocked on the first day of classes. It took some of them until the first exam...

one student did quite poorly in a key class and yet had been totally confident the entire semester. I'm not sure what to make of that one.

Subject line: naked student

2008-12-17T13:53:00.002-05:00

Email from Marylou, "There are jeans on the floor next to one of the tables near compact shelving and there are socks hanging over the back of one of the chairs. BTW, there is a book bag on the floor & books on the table." Gotta love exam week!

Day 2 Exam Week

2008-12-17T12:52:00.003-05:00

I Think I Might Know Why They Use the Library

2008-12-10T09:01:00.003-05:00

We had a dinner for our freshman advises sat their dorm on Tuesday night. It was great. The RA really did all the work. She ordered Indian food, which turned out to be perfect. The kids are sick and tired of pizza. Some of them had never eaten Indian food! The RA also arranged for one of the students on the hall to give an informal Indian dance performance. It was super fun. The boys all sat squeezed together on one side of the lounge, punching each other. The girls all sat squeezed together on the other side of the lounge, giggling. I forget that they were in high school last year...

I came away with another reason why students might be coming to the library in droves. The dorms, at least the dorm I was in, was pretty grim. I saw four sterile, ugly lounges. The first thing that greets you when you come in the door are the washing machines and the smell of wet clothes. There are no elevators. To get to the fourth floor, I had to trudge up an ugly, cement brick stairwell. In comparison, the library must seem like the Ritz. Beautiful furniture. Big tables. Clean. Attractive. What will we do if they ever upgrade the dorms?

Less is More

2008-12-04T15:33:00.005-05:00

I had the opportunity to be a user the other day. The only difference is that I knew better than to just give up or go buy the book from Amazon when faced with an error message. I wanted to request a book, but didn't notice that it was already checked out and so chose the wrong form. If it happened to me, I'm pretty sure it happens to other people too. There are actually FIVE different forms to choose from if you want to "request this item".

Pick up item at my circ desk
Get checked out/overdue item for me
Put on reserve for my course
Request a pdf of article or chapter
Email a pdf of this microform

I can see that each choice is different. I realize that there are probably at least five different back room processes for each of these choices, but do users really need to know about them? Haven't we learned anything from google? One box please.

A Place for Everyone

2008-10-22T13:58:00.002-04:00

I was over in Carlson Library this afternoon and Trina showed me this list (edited slightly) her circulation students have made. It made me laugh. I love it that there are fans of *everyplace* in the library!

Reasons Why We Are Better Than Rush Rhees:

We have Trina
Carlson has coffee and tea
Overall super awesome staff of epic proportions
We have Ferdous (Super TA) & 2 human calculators
We have earplugs
We have Sony headphones and real calculators and Rush Rhees has 99 cent headphones and calculators
We have a glass staircase
We have better bathrooms
We are not attached to Gleason
We have study rooms
Carlson is fireproof
We have good lighting
We have a combine 8,000,000,000 credit hours worth of science knowledge
You can't get lost in Carlson

Writing a Book

2008-10-07T12:43:00.004-04:00

This morning Alan showed me the gorgeous book he helped his wife write. It made me dream again about writing a book. Well, not actually writing a book. I would love to HAVE WRITTEN a book. Sadly, not only is writing a very painful process for me, I don't think I have a book worth of content in me. Darn it. Brenda just finished a book. Susan has written two books. I'm following two people on twitter who just finished their books. Everyone around me is writing books and I'm writing dorky blog posts. Sigh.

Is Anyone Suprised?

2008-09-24T16:11:00.002-04:00

We saw some usability footage the other day for our new website. We asked some undergraduates to find a book on x topic. A librarian of course would immediately go search the OPAC by keyword or subject. What did one of the undergraduate do? Go search the subject in wikipedia and scroll to the end of the section looking at the references. When the references turned out to be only articles and not books, they just jumped over to Amazon. Not only were they able to find books over there, they could read a review which helped them choose one book. And then and only then, did they go to the OPAC to find the call number.

You Can Do That???

2008-09-17T10:41:00.003-04:00

We, we libraries, are just terrible at marketing our services. We had a design workshop for graduate students this week. In the course of drawing a picture of their ideal library space, they also made suggestions for new library *services*. One enthusiastic and articulate student suggested that we offer a new service where you could request a book and it would be delivered to a circulation desk. Great idea. In fact, we HAVE this service. We offer this service. The graduate student has been at the UofR for seven years and has never found the service, despite actively looking for it. Groan. We're rolling out a new interface today for our request forms. Hopefully this will help. We have no where to go but up.

Making Shields - Kid's Day

2008-09-09T11:30:00.001-04:00

We offered a new activity for freshman orientation this year -- a session for kid's day (activities for the younger brothers and sisters of freshman). Kids signed up to make a shield in the Robbins Library, a medieval special collection in Rush Rhees Library. Of course it was fantastic thanks to Alan, Barbara, Rosemary, and Nora. Barbara cut shields out of heavy paper. The kids could draw or paste things on the shields. When they were done, Alan took their picture with the shield. The shields were fabulous. They were decorated with ballet shoes, cows, hatchets, and pink pompoms! It was a lot of work for us, but I bet it made a huge impression on those kids.

Freshman Advising

2008-09-08T10:48:00.004-04:00

I am doing freshman advising this fall. Six freshman. I have so much to so say about the experience, I hardly know where to start. It has made me remember back to when I was a freshman. I was often afraid, alone, lonely, uncertain. I spoke on the phone to my parents once a week. I communicated with my high school friends entirely by letters. We never even spoke on the phone. What a different experience my freshman year was these first year students. My advisees talk to their parents on their cell phone all the time. I know they had long discussions about what classes to sign up for. I made my choices entirely on my own, for better or for worse. They talk and text and facebook their high school friends. Even when they haven't made any friends at the UR, they are still very much in touch with their old friends. I'm guessing it's easier to be a freshman now than it 30 years ago. But maybe it's harder to make new connections when the old ones are never broken?

Always Connected

2008-09-07T16:34:00.002-04:00

I went to convocation on Friday. I frankly sat on the grass and kind of spaced out in the gorgeous weather. But not so, the students all around me. Every single one of them was either texting or listening to their ipod. I had one of those "ah ha" moments. They simply are always connected. I'm still struggle to understand what that's like.

Ice Cream Give Away

2008-09-04T09:27:00.003-04:00

Our last event for orientation week was giving away ice cream to the freshman when they come off the buses from their day of volunteering. It was cold. It was drizzling. We gave away 900 pieces and for the first time ever, RAN OUT!!! We wore our new t-shirts - thanks to Marc and student from the Art Library.

Book Sale -- Orientation Week

2008-09-02T05:43:00.002-04:00

Good grief. What were we thinking? We had three events on the Tuesday of Orientation week. Helen and Eileen (with many volunteers) had a small book sale in the reference area. We used to have our major book sale before school started. The parking was ideal, but there were no students. Now we deliberately have more frequent, smaller sales while the students are on campus. It's fun.

Parent's Breakfast

2008-08-30T06:10:00.002-04:00

This is the third year we've had a parent's breakfast. If I do say so myself, it was the best year yet. I'm not sure exactly what the difference was, but librarians and parents were deep in conversation for the entire hour. The first year was reminiscent of a high school dance - librarians and parents awkwardly standing in separate groups. This year, Susan wondered if she should even interrupt and give her welcome. My initial advisor training left me feeling completely overwhelmed and unprepared for the task. Ha ha! It turns out, I did learn something and was able to answer all kinds of questions from parents about classes, withdrawal, writing requirements, etc. Very satisfying! The librarian in the picture is Stephanie, head of the Art and Music Library. One of her students came up with the original idea for our t-shirt. Marc translated the idea into the actual design. Very sharp.

Presidential Jeopardy

2008-08-30T06:01:00.003-04:00

Day one of freshman orientation. Students and their parents have to sit in their cars waiting to move into the dorms. While they're waiting, they have a big bag of information to look through. We always include a handout with a piece of candy taped to it (so ours stands out from all the other paper...) This year the theme for orientation was board games. Our invitation to the parent's breakfast on Tuesday had a candy land theme. On the other side of the handout Lisa made a presidential jeopardy game. They can call the reference desk and enter a contest to win a flash drive. We don't get a lot of calls, but we hope they see the invitation and maybe the game helps pass the time for those trapped in the car.

Book Cart Drill Team

2008-08-11T07:28:00.003-04:00

Last week was a shocking one for Cynthia. She learned about the fall out shelter, pornography, and last, but not least, book cart drill teams. There are two camps. Those who think the book cart drill teams are silly (Susan and Stanley). Those who think the book cart drill teams are FABULOUS and go out of their way to watch the competition at ALA (Katie). I wonder which camp Cynthia will fall into?!

The Newbery Project

2008-08-06T05:32:00.008-04:00

This is going to be fun. Kathy found a group of people who are reading all the Newbery Award winning books. I am onboard! I've randomly read 14 so far. (I'm not counting books I read as a kid and can't remember anything about like "Johnny Tremain".)

The Higher Power of Lucky - Sweet story with a happy ending. My favorite kind.
Criss Cross - Hmmmmm. Read it twice and appreciated it more the second time.
The Tale of Despereaux - Started very strong, but petered out...
Holes - very scary. I had to keep telling myself it was only a book.
Maniac Magee - My first Spineli book. No wonder kids love him.
Sarah, Plain and Tall - The words in this book are beautiful.
The Westing Game - This is a fantastic book. Of course I couldn't figure out the mystery.
Bridge to Terabithia - Oh boy, I didn't see THAT coming.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - Loved this book!!! What a surprising plot line.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Another great one.
A Wrinkle in Time - Can you believe I had never read this book before? Fantastic.
Onion John - Sweet and sad at the same time.
The Twenty-One Balloons - Liked the premise, but found the book a little boring.
Caddie Woodlawn - I remembered liking this book as a kid and it held up after all these years.

I'm going to take a systematic approach and start with the first winner in 1922 and work my way to the present. Here we go with "The Story of Mankind" by Hendrik Willem van Loon! I wonder how long it will take me to read the remaining 72 books?

Lending Library at the Beach

2008-07-26T07:02:00.002-04:00

Oh this was great. I went to Tod's Point Beach for my family reunion. There was a lending library of paper back books by the concession stands. Sweet. I borrowed a book and read it for a few hours. Great idea Perrot Memorial Library.

Freshman Class of 2012

2008-07-08T06:23:00.003-04:00

Here is a list of electronics a UR freshman (on facebook) is bringing this fall:

Alarm clock
Laptop, charger
Printer
Desk lamp
MP3 player
headphones
Cell phone
charger
Extension cord(s)
Multi-plug power strip
Digital camera
CD/DVD case
External hard drive
USB flash drive
Calculator
Batteries
Fan

I highlighted the items that didn't even EXIST when I was a freshman. I was very popular on my floor because I owned a popcorn popper - yes - I went to college before there were even *microwaves*!

newlib listserv

2008-06-24T12:28:00.002-04:00

I have re-subscribed to the newlib listserv. Some days it makes me want to tear my hair out. The complete lack of direction and advice that seems to exist in many library schools is shocking.

But today there was a message that made me smile and smile. It was from a young woman who thanked everyone on the list for help getting a position. She said,

"I'm so happy to be in an academic library that I hardly know what to do. "

She's right. I have a great job. I am lucky.

2008-06-23T16:50:00.003-04:00

We had an "Alternative Coronation" for Susan last week. Alan read a proclamation. We gave her a crown, a velvet robe and a septor. There was harp music, cake and presents from each department. They were fabulous! The real installation was lovely, but nearly as lively. More pictures on flickr.

I love award ceremonies

2008-06-06T08:57:00.003-04:00

I love award ceremonies. I love to attend them and I especially love to speak at them. Last night I got to present the Friends of the Library award to Stephanie Frontz, art librarian extraordinaire. Here is my text.

I have a big long list of accomplishments for Stephanie:

Stephanie has been an Art Librarian since 1973;
she currently manages the Art/Music Library ;
for many years she was also in charge of the Multimedia Center in Rush Rhees Library;
she managed the Library at the Memorial Art Gallery for a ten years;
she was a member of the College Teaching, Learning, Technology Roundtable;
she is also a long-standing member of the Friends of the University of Rochester Libraries Executive Committee;
she has been very active in the planning of the annual Book Sale and Holiday Reading;
Stephanie is a member of the Art Libraries Society of North America;
she has written articles and given presentations at national meetings;
she created an annual student art prize on the River Campus;
she is a member of the Gleason Library Art Committee;
and she has served on zillions of library committees over the years

But the list doesn’t really tell you why we chose Stephanie for this award.

Stephanie is passionate – she is passionate about art, about libraries, about librarians, about her students and her faculty.

Stephanie never cuts corners – Everything she does – from arranging flowers for orientation breakfast to teaching a class for graduate students – is done to perfection.

Stephanie sets the bar very high for herself and for everyone around her.

When Stephanie is on a project –everyone wants to be part of it – because they know the end result will be amazing and they will have tons of fun working on it.

Stephanie accomplishes more in a day than the rest of use do in a week. She is the original energizer bunny. And she doesn’t carry around piles of paper or even a big notebook. She carries a tiny, black calendar with her everywhere she goes and jots microscopic notes in it. Stephanie never forgets a detail or drops the ball.

Stephanie represents the very best of what being a reference librarian is about. She knows her subject and her users and her collection and works tirelessly to bring them together. I think that all of us who have worked with Stephanie over the years consider ourselves very, very lucky.

I know I consider myself privileged to have worked with Stephanie and would like to be the first to congratulate her on winning this award.

It Feels Like the "old days"

2008-05-07T16:44:00.004-04:00

Trina told me yesterday that circulation in Carlson has increased 46% since 2004 . Wow!

She and Delores observe that "more professors use multiple textbooks and are not expecting their students to buy the books. Instead they are putting them on reserve and using a chapter or two from several books."

Our statistics may also be "affected by the number of unusual items we have on reserve – lamps, locks, headphones, etc. And those all have high circulation. "

Wow. As Trina observed, "it feels like the old days".

Paper helicopters - Carlson Study Break

2008-05-06T11:31:00.001-04:00

We tossed paper helicopters from the third floor stairs in Carlson Library at our Study Break Sunday Night. It was fun. And this is our first youtube video - go Kenn!

The Very Public Phone Interview

2008-04-24T14:40:00.004-04:00

Where: main staircase in Rush Rhees Library with a constant stream of people going up and down the stairs

What: young woman on her cell phone clearly answering interview questions (job? graduate school?)

Yikes!

The point here is that I would never ever do this. I separate my work (interview) and personal (talking on a cell phone in a public space). Undergraduates don't, or don't to the same degree that I do.

Campus Tour

2008-04-18T11:42:00.002-04:00

Just came back from a campus tour. The library was the only academic building we actually entered and the tour guide was pretty accurate.

The library is the "center of campus"
The library has "tons and tons of material"
She (the tour guide) loves studying in the periodical reading room, though it gets crowded. (Really? I wonder when that is?)
You can eat in the library.
She knew about the senior thesis exhibits in the Art and Music Library.
Multi media library is a "mini-blockbuster".
The pit is very popular in part because you can buy food there and take it to the library.
Not a single mention of reference, reserve, or even circulation.

Other miscellaneous statements:

The tunnels are "awesome". (Of course I beg to differ)
The buses are "really great". Really???
The University has pledged to buy only local food for the dining halls. (?!)
One of the mothers asked if the showers were open 24X7. ???!
Tour leader didn't have a clue as the significance of the dandelion .
She mispronounced Louvre, as in THE Louvre.....
We have a tanning salon on campus. Who knew?
Lots of questions from mothers about what hours the dining halls are open. What was that about?

The 2008 Student Employee of the Year

2008-04-11T14:05:00.008-04:00

works at Carlson Library - Phuong (Lucy) Tran. We are sooooo proud! I don't think a student worker from the library has ever won this award. In fact we almost didn't submit the nomination we were so sure one of our students could never win. Here are few quotes from her nomination letter:

"She is a delight to work with and represents perfectly the highest standard of service we strive to provide in Carlson. "

"Lucy not only is an asset to large scale projects, she shines performing everyday tasks with a strong commitment to the library and a recognition that all of the small tasks are necessary for the library to succeed, allowing her to achieve a high level of excellence as a work study student. "

"Lucy approaches all tasks with enthusiasm and excellence. She puts herself into everything she does from the mundane to the complex. "

"Another student commented..., “who is that girl at the desk who always smiles and is so helpful to me?” Again it was Lucy."

We have very mixed emotions about Lucy graduating this May. Of course we're excited for her. She has worked hard and has been accepted into Pharmacy School for the fall. This summer she is taking a long deserved vacation home to Vietnam. But darn it - we're just going to miss her like crazy.

Library Myths

2008-04-09T15:08:00.005-04:00

Blue moon? I feel that the misinformation about library services is running rampant this week.

1. You have to pay to get articles through InterLibrary Loan. Ouch!

2. You can't recall books. What?

3. And one patron didn't know how to find articles you "don't need to pay for". Turns out they were searching via the web (not Google) and didn’t know about our databases page.

Happily all were thrilled to find out that we do not charge for ILL, do subscribe to online journals and do allow books to be recalled. Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about getting the word out about the NEW services we offer, but go back and review the basics....

Anyone Else Here Not Sure?

2008-04-05T15:27:00.002-04:00

Acceptance letters were sent out last week. I love to read the facebook posts from incoming (potentially) students. My very unscientific observations:

1. Many are having a hard time deciding which school to attend. At least two high school seniors were accepted by 11 schools!!!

Got into 11, grararrrr
I’m really confused
I’m really undecided
It’s so overwhelming
Difficult decision time
I have no idea what I’m going to do
I’m VERY confused
It’s driving me nuts

2. Financial aid is a big factor in their decision.

“U of R has been my first choice but I really didn’t get enough financial aid”
“I guess we’ll see when my financial aid comes…”
“The decision pretty much comes down to financial”

But of course, you can never make a blanket statement about students – sometimes financial aid does not seem to be the deal breaker.

“XX offered me a really nice aid package, but I think I like UR more”

3. A few mentioned academic program, i.e. that UR has programs they want – premed, political science , Bio, BCS

4. Quite a number are concerned about the CITY of Rochester, especially those who currently live in a big city. They worry that “Rochester the city isn’t gonna do it for” them.

5. Who are the current UR students who respond to these posts? RA's maybe?

I Do Not Care Why

2008-04-04T14:53:00.002-04:00

I do not care why.

When I look for the online version of Cell in our catalog (journal title), it's entry number 30.

Searching for Scientific American online by title -- number 76.

Philosophy (online) is entry number SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE. (search by journal title)

I don't care about the cataloging rules. I don't care about the serials solutions load. I don't care. All I know is that people choose google and Amazon over the library catalog for good reason -- it's almost impossible to find things in our OPAC.

I gave a talk about how difficult it was to find PRINT serials in the OPAC at ALA in Miami in 1994 - almost fifteen years ago. I feel like I'm in clip from "Ground Hog Day".... The journals are online, but it's still just as hard to find them in the catalog.

Mobile Rush Rhees

2008-03-28T14:32:00.004-04:00

Eileen and I are in Gleason Library on our first afternoon of "mobile Rush Rhees". Eileen selected some books from the popular reading collection and we put them on a book truck and we're in business. w00t! We brought a laptop and a scanner but the two wouldn't plug together, so we're using the low tech approach; we're writing down names and titles. So far we've had four people check out books - not bad for our first try. Eileen can go into sales if this librarian thing doesn't pan out.

P.S. We really stole this idea from MIT - a library with many great ideas!

P.P.S. Eastman student, Gregory, suggested the name "mobile Rush Rhees".

Fabulous new signs

2008-03-19T13:04:00.004-04:00

Marc made us the greatest signs for our trash campaign in the Gleason Library. They are everything I wanted in a sign. They are edgy. The pictures are gross. The message is not immediately obvious. We're going to leave them up for about two weeks and then take them down.

Wish I'd Had My Camera

2008-03-02T06:11:00.002-05:00

Oh rats. I wish I'd had my camera with me on Friday. I would have taken pictures of

The young woman lying on the couch in Carlson totally engrossed in reading "The Double Helix"
The young man trying to fit in the last, few all black pieces in the Mona Lisa puzzle
The optics graduate students playing the piano for a concert in the lobby of the BME building.

Darn it.

Collection Development 101

2008-02-27T13:58:00.002-05:00

This has been a humbling two weeks. I never was a very good selector and apparently what little I knew, I have completely forgotten. Oh yeah, and of course I've waited until a few weeks before the deadline to figure all of this out. Sigh.

1. It took Alison and me over an hour to figure out how to actually ORDER a book through GOBI.
2. Oh yeah, you need to double check the catalog so you don't order a title we already own. Sigh.
3. Those rascally book series are going to be the death of me. By the time I remembered I had to search the series title, well, I'll probably end up with some dupes unless the people in acquisitions catch my goof ups.

And this is just the easy part, the book selection. By my accounts there are between 4 and 6 places to pull serial information from. That's definitely for another day.

Houston We Have a Scanner

2008-02-22T11:09:00.002-05:00

Finally, finally, we can turn this "no" into a "yes". We just got our own scanner. Yeah. I am not making this up. WHILE Stuart was installing the equipment, I had two BME students say to me "this is great, I need to use a scanner this afternoon". Sweet. Thanks Nora for convincing me to finally DO something about this!

We will miss Raphael

2008-02-01T15:21:00.001-05:00

Raphael worked for the housekeeping department and was assigned to the first floor of Carlson Library. He has been at the University for 30 years. I don't think any students or faculty knew him. He didn't select books or teach classes or work on the reference desk. Yet, the work he did was vitally important to create an environment that students and faculty find attractive and comfortable. Without that, the rest of it really doesn't matter much. We will miss him. A lot.

No to reserves. No to ebooks

2008-01-25T16:32:00.000-05:00

This was interesting. I just had someone desperate to get a copy of "Numeric Recipes in Fortran". Of course all the copies are on reserve. The reserve loan period was absolutely not long enough. A link to an electronic version of the book was useless; he needed to "flip through the pages". Hmmmm. So much for my stereotype that computer scientists find e-books useful.

Visitors

2008-01-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

We had visitors yesterday from Cornell. I love to talk to people from other libraries. They were curious as to why we hadn't installed lockers in the new Gleason Library space. Students hadn't asked for them; I guess we just don't have a "locker culture" here. One of the women told me that before she left Ithaca, there was a line snaking around the library (I'm not exactly which one) of students waiting to sign up for lockers! Lockers are given out the first day of the semester on a first come first serve basis. Wow. They definitely DO have a "locker culture" there. It's always useful to remember that what's a big issue for one campus, may not be on another.

Serrandipity at Midwinter

2008-01-16T13:19:00.000-05:00

This is the second time that I have accidentally stumbled onto the meetings of the YALSA committee that chooses the Best Books for Young Adults. Wow. It is an amazing process. The committee must read over a hundred books. They discuss and vote on them several times. They also get input from teens who have read the books. I think they met Friday, Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday of Midwinter. I was amazed at how much work they had done, how very seriously they took their work, AND how very open the process was. I probably sat in on the their meetings for several hours just listening and watching. I was wildly impressed and now I can't wait to go read some of the books on the list!

Please Use Elevator

2008-01-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

Bat in Stairwell.

Sigh. The first Monday of 2008....

End of the Year Book List

2007-12-28T15:43:00.001-05:00

I love end-of-the year lists -- top 10 books, movies, dvds, celebrities, news stories, etc. I love a list. I have been reading a lot of juvenile fiction this year. I initially started so I could give my mother recommendations of books to buy for my niece. But I found that the books were great and so I have continued. Here is my personal top 10 list.

The Golden Compass
James and the Giant Peach
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
The Westing Game
Wide Window - A Series of Unfortunate Events
Nancy and Plum
Sarah, Plain and Tall
The Egypt Game
The Last Book in the Universe

First semester in a foreign country?

2007-12-20T09:37:00.000-05:00

This is a facebook message from a first year student who came to the UofR from China. I was so clueless at 18. I didn't know how to use a washing machine... I can't imagine myself moving to a foreign country and starting college. I would have floundered and probably failed. But this young woman certainly made it. Amazing.

I feel that my first semester in college perhaps taught me more than all I learned in high school. I came to this new country without even knowing the different names of cheese. Now, I know that there are provolone, swiss, and American. I made lots of great friends and I'm satisfied with all my courses=) See, I survive^_^ Thanks so much for all the kind encouragement and warm help. I'll see you again in the new year, lol Merry Christmas!

Bat Did Not Attack Student

2007-12-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

We had a bat in the library last night just before our study break. We called facilities to come remove it - bat poop near food and people and books, doesn't seem like a good match. We were told that facilities wouldn't (couldn't?) come remove the bat because it hadn't attacked a student. Hmmmm. And attaching staff still wouldn't have been grounds for removal? I wonder how that conversation was recorded on the dispatch log...

Innkeeper at the Roach Motel

2007-12-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

I just read a great piece by Dorethea Salo about institutional repositories. The title is from her statement, " [The institutional repository} is like a roach motel. Data goes in, but it doesn't come out." It's a very interesting article and I'm very impressed that she has the guts to point out that the emperor is buck naked.

This is my favorite quote, "Simply put, the institutional repository and services associated with it must provide value to faculty on faculty terms before it will see more than scant, grudging use."

Check it out.

New Signs for the Bathrooms

2007-12-12T09:14:00.002-05:00

Suzanne just walked by and commented on our new, visible bathroom sign. It has been a huge success. We have had virtually no "where is the bathroom?" questions since we put it up. Yeah! I won't tell you how long we lived with a handmade sign on green cardboard.....

Another great idea from flickr!

2007-12-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

I saw a picture on flickr of a fabulous Christmas tree made out of books by Plymouth Libraries. I loved it. Marylou and Alison immediately found some red and green (how lucky!!) volumes that had been withdrawn but not discarded and went to work. I love the final result!

Houston, We Have Self Check Out.

2007-12-08T08:16:00.000-05:00

Finally, our self check our machine is ready for business. The security gate is installed and working. AND the Millennium bridge to the Goergen Building is open. Phew. Is it called the Millennium bridge because it took a millennium to finally open???...

Only 12 Days to Exams

2007-12-04T13:57:00.000-05:00

The students make me laugh. There are only twelve days left until exams. There seems to be a direct correlation between deadlines and work on our jigsaw puzzles. They have finished more puzzles in the last two weeks than they have all semester. Ah - procrastination!

Friday afternoons in the library

2007-11-30T16:44:00.000-05:00

Friday afternoons are very festive in the library this semester. I don't seem to remember that they were always this way. The library is filled with students working in big groups, studying by themselves, writing papers on the computers, scrawling formulas on the white boards, etc. The place just buzzes with good energy. I have always had a theory that the circulation desk sets the tone for the entire library. This is a picture of two of our circ students happily cutting snow flakes together. Case closed.

The Library in Gleason Library

2007-11-16T11:56:00.000-05:00

The new Gleason Library is a huge success. Students love it. Though because there are no books and no desk, how to insert "library" into the space is an interesting challenge. Judi and the other reference librarians have made a point of meeting with students in the space. So every time they have an appointment, they go to Gleason Library. I think it's a great idea and a way to insert librarians into the space every day.

We're Big on the Little Things

2007-11-15T12:43:00.000-05:00

We're big on the little things in the Science Libraries. One of Pat's ideas that has been a resounding success,was to put out bottles of hand sanitizer. Frankly I thought it was kind of nutty, but I learned a long time ago that I'm not very good at predicting what will and won't work. Students love it. Pat even had a faculty member thank her for it last week. Who knew?

It's Important to See and Be Seen

2007-11-08T05:33:00.000-05:00

I was talking to some of our circ students last night who were RAVING about the new Gleason Library. The space is pretty much one big open room with floor to ceiling windows at one end. One of the reasons they like it so much (this is after less than one week of use!...) is that "people can see you" and "you can see your friends".

I had never thought of that as an important consideration.

They then proceeded to tell that of course, that was part of the reason that people liked to study at Carlson library -- you can see your friends thought the glass windows as they come up and down the glass staircase. I knew the windows gave the library an open, airy feel. I had never considered that the reason it appealed to students was that they could see their friends through the windows.

It's important to see and be seen.

You found what in the stacks?

2007-11-06T11:26:00.001-05:00

I forwarded this very funny blog post entitled "amazing things found in the stacks" to my staff. And much to my amazement, it turns out that we too have found some pretty amazing things in OUR stacks over the years.

one pair of boxer shorts
on vodka bottle (empty)
several small cartons of milk (spoiled)

Who knew??

"This is the New Facebook"

2007-11-03T04:29:00.000-04:00

After the dedication of the Gleason Library last night, Lorraine stayed around and watched what happened when the space was open to students. She typed up their comments which are just dreamy.

Some initial reactions:

"Sweet!" (An exclamation by a student as he reached the top of the stairs, followed immediately by a cell phone call to a friend.)
Students liked the colors, and the art. (Very excited to find out that art will rotate.)
Some girls tried out every type of furniture in the room, and liked it all. One girl's favorite was the padded stools.
Many students are enjoying the cup holders and writing tables on the chairs.
The TV's were of great interest (until someone interrupted the feed).
Students are moving the furniture already to suit themselves (eg: comfy chairs pulled up to the PC's)
Students are already using the studio rooms (the ones I spoke to were studying for the GRE's tomorrow)
An amateur film maker went nuts over the theatre room and declared his intention to "camp out" there.
Looking in the windows from the outside is already bringing people into the space.
Some students brought dinner in for themselves and ate at a table by the window.
13 laptops and 5 PC workstations being used at 8:25 pm
Many, many, many questions about "how long this room will be open?" All are thrilled to find out that the space will not close when the IT Center does.
"Oh my god, this is a whiteboard?!" "This is so awesome!"
Don's student: "This is where we used to do the pasting? I'm actually excited to study!"
There are people using the benches in the landing.
There is already someone asleep on bench couches outside Studio B (which speak to the management of noise in here. There is a ton of activity right now, but there is only a gentle buzz in the room.)

Basically, every area of the room is being used in some way.

Some notes left on the white boards:

This is awesome! I think I may live here
I love Gleason. Love. Really love. (<--she's serious)
All it needs is coffee. Nevermind. (The "nevermind" was added when I told her that there would be coffee on level G)
I love the colors.
This is really awesome! The new hotspot on campus
This is so cool!
This is the new facebook

I think a man designed this

2007-11-01T16:49:00.000-04:00

This is the sink in the women's bathroom of the new Gleason Library. At first I thought "yeah". The gunky pink soap will go directly into the sink rather than on the counter like it does in all the other bathrooms. Then I thought, "wait a minute". Where am I going to put my purse when I'm washing my hands? Or my toothbrush? Or my book (this is a library after all). Hmmmm. No counter, only sink. I have a feeling that a man designed this sink.

A Day to Just be Silly

2007-11-01T12:30:00.001-04:00

I dressed up for Halloween as a piece of candy corn. It was handmade and dorky. Students laughed and gave me the thumbs up. One of my class of 2011 friends (I've never met her) saw me in the stacks and we had a little exchange on facebook about it. (How can you miss a woman in a bun dressed as a candy corn?...) The mail guy and the janitor were nearly speechless when they saw me at the reference desk. It was a huge success. I had fun. They had fun. I think we all need more fun.

Just say NO to hand dryers

2007-10-31T06:41:00.000-04:00

When it comes to women's bathrooms, I do know more than my boss, who is a man. Interestingly I rarely disagree with him about facilities - because he's usually right and I'm usually wrong. But when it comes to women's bathrooms - I am the expert.

He is excited about the hand dryers he put in the women's bathroom in the new Gleason Library. I know, it's open 24 hours and accumulation of paper trash will be a problem, BUT....

What is wrong with hand dryers?:

It takes way longer to dry your hands using a dryer than it does using paper towels, even those cheap, non-absorbent brown towels that we use.

If and when your hands are ever do DRY, they are also chapped from the heat.

Need to brush your teeth? Need to splash water on your face after a plane ride? How does the hand dryer work with that?? Not. No amount of toilet paper, folded or crumpled, can dry you.

Just say NO to hand dryers in women's bathrooms.