The Librarian Song

Hire a librarian?

On Tuesday I was visiting the Morton-James Public Library in Nebraska City, NE and noticed this sign (right) in the computer lab. I asked about it and it turns out that they do offer the service of a librarian to "do the work for you" at the rate of $5 per 1/2 hour. They don't get many takers but there have been a few. Mainly they've found that it actually encourages people to learn how to do it for themselves instead of just expecting the staff to do it for them. (They do also offer free one-on-one computer classes.) Shelly from BCR has already left her opinion in flickr, what do you think?

Librarians, Ubuntu and Digg

Typically I would bypass Digg and link you directly to the story but in this situation, Digg is part of the story. Turns out that one library has decided to switch to Linux now that support for Windows98 is gone and had heard about Ubuntu Linux on Digg. What suprises some Digg users is that librarians read digg. Check out both the story (assuming you can get the link to work due to the Digg effect,) but also check out the Digg comments. (On person even linked to Jessamyn's video on YouTube.) Let's all defend ourselves.

Funny, but for the wrong reasons

This comic is funny but only because I know of so few librarians who would actually be bothered by the actions of the non-librarian. Ah, stereotypes.

In-service Day

On Friday I was honored to attend and present at the Lincoln City Library's In-Service day. I haven't had a faster or more fun Arbor Day in my life. I was great to meet so many librarians from my new home town and to see how excited you were about all the new technologies I was presenting. At one point during my Flickr presentation someone asked for more specific examples of how to use Flickr in a library. Well, here's one. Use Flickr to post a slideshow of an event on the library's blog/Web site.

Embed Slideshow

Being introduced

Being introduced
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

I'm now giving my flickr session to Lincoln City librarians.

Here's a great question for your reference staff:

"What does the rest of the library staff know?"

Since arriving at NLC I've been meeting with different department heads, partially to get to know them personally, partially to get to know what they and their department do here, and partially for them to get to know what my skills are. Yesterday, I met with Lisa the head of Reference & ILL. At the end of our conversation she had one more question for me: "What else are you interested in or know a lot about?" At first this was an odd question but she quickly explained. The reference staff here likes to keep track of what other people in the building know in order to help with reference questions. For example, if there's a baseball question it goes to the major ball fan in the building. Should they ever get a Dean Koontz question, or a question about a SF or horror author, they'll probably head my way in the future.

The ultimate point is to know your available resources. (Hey, I think I wrote that back in 2000?) In some cases, your resources may be sitting right next to you or just down the hall.

Vista Librarians

As an experiment I've set up a Ning social netowrk for the impatient librarians who are implementing, or attempting to implement, Windows Vista. Join Vista Librarians today.

March of the Librarians

An altenative view of attending and ALA conference.

Thanks Rosario!