Fall '09 Semester and Unshelved Answers

So, yeah, a blog that I started over the summer...I kind of forgot about it didn't I. Well in short I'm sorry. I have always gotten annoyed with bloggers that start a blog and just let it go after a couple of weeks (I have become what I hate the most). But anyway I am back and ready to give this another go. SO, today's post comes in two parts...

Part one - I am still in library school. As semester one comes to a close I think of the original excitement I had when entering the university for the first time. I had thought I was going to learn some unknown knowledge that I would be able to come back to my library and share my intellectual gain. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do this. As a whole I am enjoying my time at UB, however, I feel like I could be learning so much more. Following my completion of this semester I plan to have a review of all of my classes and I will have my own personal critique on them explaining what I liked, disliked and assignments I had to complete. I will also talk about some extra reading material that helped me get through the semester.

Part two - Unshelved Answers. These guys have yet again outdone their selves. On the website unshelved.com Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum have started an "Unshelved Answers" section where professionals and paraprofessionals can ask questions and get feedback from the library community. Their description says:

The public ask librarians for help. Who do librarians ask for help? Other librarians, of course. At work and, increasingly, on the Internet, using listservs, message boards, Twitter, etc. Your question may even have been asked before. The problem is finding it, sorting through the answers, and telling the good from the bad.

Introducing Unshelved® Answers, a place to share your expertise about libraries and everything in them: reference resources, reader's advisory, customer service, cataloging, administration, or anything else. Already people have asked:

What CMS does your library use?
How do you get rid of pushy vendors?
What are great graphic novels for early readers?
What are some ideas for displays for young adults?
What's that one book I read in the early 80's?
... and much more!

We've got an easy and effective system for grading both questions and answers so that you can quickly and easily solve your problem and help others solve theirs. Every time your work is voted up you gain more reputation, which unlocks more functionality of the site for you. Eventually our most prized contributors become de-facto moderators. The site is really run by you, for you.


We hope this will become a useful tool for the library community (and anyone else, including booksellers and individuals). Visit Unshelved® Answers today to share your expertise!

I have not answered or asked any questions yet but I'm sure I will. I link to it in the side bar, check it out.

Unshelved and NYLA

Today's post is going to come to you in two parts. Part 1: I just wanted to touch on how great the library comic strip "Unshelved" is. If you have never read this strip I recommend you check it out. In the strip a librarian by the name of Dewey (I wonder where they got that from) is a sarcastic, book loving, movie watching, apathetic individual that has to deal with odd requests from patrons and co-workers on a daily basis. It is a wonderful strip and they have a bunch of cool T-shirts you can get (I'm a sucker for T-shirts).

Part 2: Is a little funny because it seems much more important that post 1. Anyway, I'M GOING TO THE NYLA ANNUAL CONFERENCE AT NI AGRA FALLS IN OCTOBER! The director at my library invited me along. NYLA is the New York Library Association. They have a huge get together every year where librarians come from all around the state and talk library stuff. I applied for an award a few months back and if I won I would have been sent for free. I didn't win, but that's ok because I'm going any way. I'll give you some more updates on what is going to happen this year at the conference in a later post.

For now, be safe and keep reading!

Ohio Libraries in Despair

There has been an awful lot of news referring to Ohio Public Libraries suffering devastating budget cuts resulting from a news conference on Friday, June 19th. I have read that Governor Ted Strickland has proposed a 30% budget cut ($227.3 million) for Ohio Libraries during the 2010-2011 fiscal year as part of his plan to fill the $3.2 billion gap in the budget that must be balanced by the Ohio General Assembly's Conference Committee by June 30. This 30% cut is not including the 20% cut that the libraries are already facing from the economic decline. This will affect approximately 251 library branches in Ohio, many are faced with cutting back hours and supplies along with complete closures. This is a devastating loss in numbers for public libraries. Funding has been slipping away from many things in this current economy but a cut like this will inevitably close the doors on many libraries in this area. Ohio needs to take a stand to show how important these libraries are to the community. If these libraries do close I hope that research is done to see how important libraries are to communities not only in economic crisis but as a general asset and necessity to the community.

Who is S. R. Ranganathan?

I ran across this name a few days ago in the collection development workshop (explained in previous post) and I got to wondering who is this S.R. Ranganathan. Turns out he was a mathematician and a librarian from India. Most noted in the field of librarianship for his "five laws of library science" and the development of the first major analytico-synthetic classification system, the Colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science in India.
This is incredible! I never really thought of the "power house" librarians that shaped the domain as we know it. I mean we obviously know Melville Dewey, but after that who do we look up to? I have decided to cure my ignorance by doing a little digging to discover some of the most influential people that have changed the way we check out books. I'll keep you updated. My first step is to continue with the Ranganathan topic. I have found a book titled The Five Laws of Library Science written by Ranganthan (I figure this short post will not do Ranganthan justice, so I'll tell you a little more at a later date. I apologize for anyone who realizes this post does not thoroughly answer the title question). Due to the fact it is summer break obtaining this book will not be easy. I found it at a few academic libraries on worldcat.org. I think I'm going to have to put out an ILL. I post any findings on these important librarians as I find them.

The Wonders of Collection Development

I attended a training the other day that focused on the ins and outs of collection development (those who are unaware of what collection development is should click here. Those who are savvy with their library lingo can parenthetical interruption and continue reading). Overall the training was interesting and helpful in my quest to librarianship. I have recently taken on the task of collection development for ages 0-3 (I must say it is an interesting area of development...) which is one of the main reasons I attended the class. One of the first things that was introduced was Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science which are:
1) Books are for use
2) Every reader his book
3) Every book its reader
4) Save the time of the reader
5) A library is a growing organism

This sparked my interests considerably. I wondered: Who was Ranganthan? Unfortunately I'm not going to answer that right now, never fear, I will talk about him in a future post. Anyway, the five laws are important. Then we went on to talk factors of a collection: Components of Collection Management
-Evaluate
-Plan
-Fund
-Build
-Organize
-Provide access
-Market

Evaluation of a collection
-Enough? Too much?
-Collection level
-Age
-Usage
-Demand
-Average price
-Loss rate
-Physical condition
-Access

This was all fun and exciting...Then we spoke of how budget affects the development of a libraries collection (interesting because of the current state of library budgets). This 20% is divided up among all of the materials for all age groups based on the population served at the library. The population served is one of the biggest things. A population of older adults is not going to be reading Manga, so, that would be a bad collection development decision.

It was a long workshop so this is just a quick gist of it. More can be found at the ALA website.

Some interesting websites that were pointed out for collection development:

http://www.lib.az.us/cdt/

http://www.overbooked.org/index.html

http://www.metacritic.com/

These are mainly sites about upcoming books.

LibraryThing.com

When I was younger I had a spreadsheet of all the books I had read. It was cataloged by title, author, and when I read it (pretty simple). It was my way of keeping track of all the wonderful (an not so wonderful) books I had read over the years. Nowadays however, I have upgraded (like most people do) to keeping track of my reading online. I found this wonderful web site called LIBRARYTHING.COM that helps me keep track of every book I have ever read. I weed regularly to keep my list up to date, but it is a wonderful tool for networking and sharing your personal libraries with others. Try it out...

Book Sale

One thing that is inevitable in public libraries is the notorious "book sale." This is when the library decides to empty the storage rooms that are plagued with hundreds of Harlequin romance novels and old/tattered hardcover’s in order to raise a little extra cash. The quality of these books is disastrously poor however, the people in this community (which I would assume in others) love the fact that you can buy a irrelevant Why Your Child is Hyperactive (random book I picked up from the sale which is, coincidentally, also listed on http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/) written in 1975 for only a buck. What a deal!

This is where my first nugget of advice is going to come in. When I become a library director I am going to require some quality rules for the books sold in a book sale. Some of the books are in okay condition, however, others I would not take them for free let alone pay a dollar for them. Call me cheep but a book that has its signatures completely detached from the spine is not worth selling. It adds an image to the book sale in my opinion, and not a good one. People say that the musty smell of old books in the basement of the library keeps them away for the three day sale. I don’t think that each book should be a gleaming gem of perfection. I just think there should be some standards. If it is falling apart, recycle it. If it is covered in mold, recycle it. If it has buggers on every page, for the library’s sake recycle it.

I think one of my favorite parts of this book sale is when patrons approach me and ask if I have a list of all of the books, or if I would be nice enough to point them in the direction of the history books that fall between the eras of 1893-1918. We don’t have a list or sections like this at our book sale, which is unfortunate. I have seen book sales however that are arranged much like a book store. With subjects that are listed alphabetically by author. This may take a little time but if you appoint someone to keeping the books organized as you discard them or as patrons donate them then the process will go a lot smoother.

Reference Librarian

As my first post...I was playing around with google and discovered how to make personalized search engines. This one searches a variety of sites that look at .org, .gov, and .edu sites in an attempt to look for reliable sites when doing research. I have not perfected this engine or become an expert at building google search engines but I encourage you to check it out. The director of my library loved the idea of creating a search engine to aid in weeding the collection. I will bring you up to date on that in the future.