Checking out Print Journals

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

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

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

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

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.

More Reading on the Kindle

Now that I have my *own* kindle, I have more to say about the reading experience. At my nieces recommendation, i bought the first book in the series, "The Warriors". The book is about cats, with very similar names - firepaw, moonpaw, starpaw, etc. etc. If I had read the book in print, I would have occasionally flipped back to the beginning to review the list of characters. I think you can do it on the kindle, but I don't know how and it's not intuitive. The barrier is too high for me to bother to figure it out. There is also a map in the front of the book, that my niece went out of her way to point out to me. I never even thought to look at it on the kindle. The resolution was poor and again I was flummoxed by how to flip to the front of the book.

I also find it difficult to *find* books on the kindle. It's not made for browsing, which is surprising, because the Amazon site is all about browsing.

On the plus side, I *love* being about to download a sample chapter for FREE. I downloaded at least a dozen sample chapters over the weekend. I will try them and if I like them, I can just buy them while I'm travelling. O.K. That's the best thing about the kindle - I can buy a book almost anywhere, anytime!

Nine Screens in My Daily Life

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.

1. itouch
   
2. kindle
   
3. t.v. 
   
4. t.v.
   
5. MacbBook at home
   
6. laptop at work
   
7. cell phone
   
8. portable DVD player
   
9. camera
   

Abbreviations

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

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!

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

This Reference Librarian Made a Difference

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.