The Very Public Phone Interview

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darn it.

Collection Development 101

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bat in Stairwell.

Sigh. The first Monday of 2008....

End of the Year Book List

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.

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

First semester in a foreign country?

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

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

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.