Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with librarians

Because the Librarian Action Figure is overdone

midatlanticwanderer — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:44:03 -0800

Librarians: what do you want for gifts this holiday season? (Not at your libraries, but you personally). I have several librarians or librarians-to-be in my life. Including a law-librarian-to-be. Any ideas on genius gifts for Christmas? I've looked here and here, but neither seem to fit the bill. First of all, the law-librarian-to-be is male. Second, he has a healthy sense of sarcasm/overall sense of humor. So, I need something either practical or amusing, but not something too cutesy, if that's a word. As evidence of his overall devotion/nerd-dom, I must say that he has impressive recall of small details of the Library of Congress K classmark for law [PDF].

Your ideas and witty library gift ideas (hopefully moderately priced) are much appreciated!

DIY archivist!

liketitanic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:45:45 -0800

How can I develop a plan to help a small community organization organize its archival materials (something like a self-accessioning plan, I guess)? What should I read? Who should I talk to? I'm not an archivist and have no information science training. There, I said it. But I have a pretty great opportunity to help a small community org self-accession and organize some records that could prove quite valuable to researchers. I don't yet know how big the collection is, nor whether they want physical or digital storage.

How do I go about learning what I might need to know to do this? Or how do I self-educate in archives work? Book recommendations? OpenCourseware recommendations? Software I should learn? Any suggestions?

Give me an AskMe career shakedown!

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:49:18 -0800

CareerFilter! Help me to "diagnose" why I'm so tired of my career and which directions will lead to more satisfaction in future! Patient history, current symptoms and potential therapies under the fold (neatly organised but very long!!!). The how and the why:
====================

After a very confusing life I have finally reached a point where I feel quite secure and can see myself moving steadily along through life, work, and relationships.

However, right at this point I've realised that I'm very dissatisfied with what I actually acheived (apart from the basic stability and predictability).

I previously asked about this here:

http://ask.metafilter.com/130330/How-to-prioritise-many-urgent-important-issues

...but I felt wanted some more specific feedback and so if I give some more specific outline one or two posters might be able to diagnose my situation more clearly than I can and suggest constructive approaches! Hence:

The (shorter!) lifestory:
=========================

1.

My family moved around a lot when I was young - we lived in 3 different (non-English-speaking) countries before I started primary school (that's elementary for US people!). I think this made me feel pretty much an outsider; my folks raised me to be very academic and bookish and this helped contribute to my different-ness through adolescence. I've always had very few friends. Even so I did extremely well in secondary (high) school and had heaps of interests (music, literature, computers). I think I lacked confidence (maybe because my dad pushed me a lot to pass exams, his sole definition of success!) to actually do anything methodically for myself so none of them lead to concrete results that are with me today :(

2.

At my top-league university I still did very well academically, but became increasingly "worn out" and a bit depressed / low self-esteeming until by the end of it I was pretty much burnt out (at 22!).

3.

After graduating I went through the motions of trying to get a job but I'd only had very basic retail experience in my summers, and basically bailed out even of the interviews I did get. Classic depressed self-sabotaging.

So unable to stay in the big city any longer I returned to my folks' place in their Medium Town. I no longer fit into (to cut a complex, painful story short!) had no career plan, and became steadily more depressed. I moved out into awful shared housing, did grindingly menial work, lost it, moved to my parents again, and got more basic office admin work (repeat cycle a few times!).

4.

Finally a friend helped me get a basic job in a school in the Big City, depression faded with my folks' faces. I had a few girlfriends who helped me get more confidence and crucial presentation skills. After, say, the 3rd painful breakup, I got an lirbary job (fast-paced Pharmaceutical info centre), did OK, so committed to that 100% - I did another year as a "graduate trainee" in a (more relxed) Department, then took a Masters in library/info management (US: MLIS).

5.

Sadly I chose to do the Masters back in Medium Town at my folks' to save money (I could have got another job and done it part time, but... confidence!). Another year of depression, and counselling this time. So I passed the Masters of course, worked in unqualified roles at the uni library and eventually moved out.

Point 6. is basically now, as in my earlier post. I have a "senior assistant" level job , basically entry-level qualified academic librarian. I earn slightly more than £20k pa, which in UK terms is somewhat below average, and just enough to live on in Big City, but not luxury. I rent a tiny room on the and have to take long train rides to see my friends.

The education:
==============

As I said I got top marks in everything academic. 9 A grades at GCSE and 4 A's at A-Level (that's the final high school exams). I specialised in Maths, Physics and German, plus 1/2 Further Maths because I tried (and failed) to get into Oxford to do Physics with Philosophy.

My real love at school was languages. My big regret has been not to just study German and French then modern languages at uni, because it would have been pure pleasure and I would have aced it!

Instead, trusting my dad's vague ideas of untold millions as a nuclear scientist I took 4-years of undergrad Physics (with a side of German as a concession) including a year in Germany doing Masters level research. I emphasise that this "vague idea" was the closest I every was to any plan! Due to being very capable but barely enthusiastic I got 2:2 (just under the 2:1 cut off that UK employers use to skim off the top grads).

I thought about being a teacher (I still enjoy teaching per se) and got accepted on a good course to teach Physics but lost my nerve at the last second. Hence the brief work at a school to prepare.

While between library jobs did the ECDL which shows I'm competent in MS Office, Internet & file management.

The library Masters thesis was actually enjoyable (I liked being a humanities researcher with great(er) techie understanding) but the actual library content was mostly a grind. I got an award for top thesis of the year (it was on the cross-over of Web 2 and library instruction!).

The current crisis!
===================

While studying for my Masters last year I sent out CVs for some obvious Physics-grad jobs (IT mainly) and was terrified to get immediate interview offers. The whole assessment centre thing, and getting back to programming after 5 years of basic admin and library stuff scared me and I put them off then turned them down.

My current job wasn't too hard to get and I have put 100% into it, but it's not an inspiring environment, has become boring v. quickly (it's cataloguing!) and I don't see any great promotion prospects soon.

Now I'm back on my own 2 feet, I keep meeting people who are say, 25 and ready to buy a house and I realise I could have just got some sort of financial job out of uni and been in that position by now. Makes me want to weep. I would love nothing more than to settle down in my own place, start a family...

Possible options?
============

1. Just continue with the library thing, get another professional qualification (CILIP for UK lib types) and take it easy - after all I just recovered from all that emotional pain.

2. Go for the IT / graduate training route - it'll pay more immediately, be challenging and build my confidence.

3. Go into accountancy / finance (as a careers advisor recently reccomended) - I'll have to start low again but eventual earnings will be big and it's transferable.

4. Can anyone suggest any ways to go from here? This is my main question! To me all the options look pretty sub-optimal and difficult but am I missing something? Are there any good directions I can go even though I've based my career more or less around survival???

Is it too late to go into a more lucrative career? What are the cost/benefits in terms of money?

Has anyone out there had a similar experience (I find it a bit doubtful) and could they share it?

Recommended library computer skillz?

wowbobwow — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:13:26 -0800

Seeking recommendations on what software/programs I should learn to be the wiz-kiddiest library science student ever. About to start an MLIS program this Fall. Have the opportunity to take some free or nearly free technology courses through my job. What programs are commonly used by librarians for database work or general cataloging and archiving work? I love databases but am only really familiar with FileMaker Pro and Excel. Please help me get a leg up in this area! Many thanks.

(n.b.: this would be excluding the basic MS Office and text editing programs. Think more along the lines of Oracle or library-specific cataloging/circulation programs like Millennium.)

How'd they get the goods?

punkbitch — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:21:49 -0800

Librarians! (I know you're out there). While reading this Washpost article, I came across the following quote: "The FBI documents based on surveillance of Ivins said he visited a public library in Frederick that evening, where he searched a Web site dedicated to the anthrax investigation and checked various e-mail accounts." How do they know that? I remember that at one point, the Patriot Act would've had us give up info on patrons (while forbidding us from revealing that we had been contacted by the feds). I mean, in the library I worked at for 9 years our computers cleaned themselves out pretty well after each use.

So, anybody got the inside track on the Frederick, Maryland?
Is it just that the FBI is so unbelievably tech-savvy... ?
I'm being naive aren't I. I'm wasting my potential to ask a question this whole week on this...

Just curious.

Which path to a career in libraries: diploma or master's degree?

Rora — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:25:29 -0800

Which path to a career in libraries: diploma or master's degree? I'm contemplating pursuing a library career and weighing my options. On one hand I could do my master's in Library Sciences. But, to put it bluntly, I'm scared of higher education. I came out of my undergrad feeling unmotivated, insecure, and with a middling GPA. Because of my average grades, I'd have to go back to school to raise my GPA to acceptable admission levels, lengthening the amount of total schooling to at least three years. I have no guarantee that I'd be successful in university the second time around, which puts doubts into my ability to get accepted and then succeed at a master's. Boo hoo.

The second option is a library technician diploma at a college. I have more confidence (rightly or wrongly) in my ability to succeed here. I don't think I'd have any problems getting accepted and because of my bachelor's I can take an accelerated course which would only take one year vs. two.

So what are jobs like for library technicians? Is the work interesting, is the pay decent, am I going to be stuck working at the beck and call of a real librarian? Should I suck it up and go for the master's? Advise me, librarians of Metafilter!

Excuse me, ladies, how long is your kissing window?

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:57:21 -0800

So there's this beautiful woman that I'm finding myself overwhelmingly attracted to. We have a great time, seem to have some chemistry, some central common interests. There's been a couple of moments when I thought that she wanted me to kiss her. But they don't last long. Oh yeah, she's a biter. So there's this woman that I know. I like her a lot. A lot a lot. I think I might like her a lot a lot a lot a lot.

I know her from a class. She was (I think) dating someone from the class. I believe she is not dating him any longer. He seemed sort of lame. But it made me very sad, as I was trying to take things pretty slow with her.

Recently she came over my house for dinner. To talk about a mutual interest/hobby/passion we have. It was pretty awesome.

So here's the meat of the question. I was really unsure of where I stood at the time, because of the other dude. Not sure if this was a date or what. I think it was not a date. I believe we've yet to have been on a real date. So I was showing her something on my computer, and she was sitting in my chair and I reached across her to grab the mouse, and she leans over and bites me. On my arm. Really, really hard. I thought it was going to be black and blue, but was dissapointed when it wasn't.

It took me a second to figure out what just happened, and then, not so smoothly, I was like "why did you bite me?" and she said "I couldn't resist".

And she looked at me for like a millisecond, and I was thinking, ok, I kiss her now? And then, just as quickly, she turned her head and said she had to go...put on her coat and said goodnite, gave me a hug and left.

Saw her again this weekend, spent a couple of hours with her. Had an equally nice time. Lots of joking. That could be flirting? It was flirtateous. But I believe she's the type of person who is generally charming and flirtateous and maybe really hard to read. So when I was leaving, I looked at her and she was looking at me, and there was this second where I thought I could kiss her and then just as fast as the last time, she turns her head and gives me a big hug, and then I leave.

Ok so I'm confused. Am I expected to jump in, real quick, when I have the chance? I'm used to kissing where there is a sort of long look. I'm generally more comfortable with women letting me know they want to be kissed, where it's pretty clear what's going on. But after both these occassions, I felt like kissing might have been appropriate...maybe even wanted by the other side. And if she'd kept my gaze like 2 more beats, I would have gone for it.

I'm wondering if I'm a) being a panzy for not going in quickly when the moment presents itself or b) being smart and taking some time and sucking up the way this makes me totally bonkers and how I just want to kiss her the whole time I'm around her. Additionally there's c) wondering if she's wanting me to make a move and may get bored if I don't and d) wondering if she wants this all to take a really long time and I need to plan on being cool and waiting till it really feels comfortable. Oh yeah and there's e) that in the end she's just going to want to be friends and I'm going to have wasted all this high end worrying for nothing. I've had E happen a few times and it's my backup anxiety.

So, ladies of Askmefi, if you are letting a guy know that you want to be kissed, how long do you let him know for, and how fast do you turn away?

If it matters, she's an early 30s, super hot geeky type, a touch of sexy librarian, with an excellent sense of humor.

Name an important recent book on academic librarianship

mrmojoflying — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:09:29 -0800

What recent book(s) must my wife read to become better versed in the issues facing academic libraries and librarians today? She is meeting with M.S.L.S. program coordinators at the end of this month, and while she is confident in her own personal reasons and rationale for applying to librarianship graduate programs, she would feel more confident if she was a little bit better informed about the "bigger picture."

LibraryFilter

bad grammar — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:00:34 -0800

Is it usual for school librarians and teachers to have disagreements and conflicts over "appropriate" content and media in school libraries? E.g., the situation in which a younger librarian would like to bring in new media and books targeted to current teen concerns and points of view, whereas older teachers want to concentrate on the edifying "classics," the conflict being particularly bitter when the library and school do not have much money to spend. Overtly political disagreements as well (the librarian is more liberal than the teachers).

Freeware for Alarming Librarians

exceptinsects — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:53:20 -0800

Help my librarians remember to rove! I need a specific sort of break timer and I can't seem to find one anywhere. We are trying to implement the practice of "roving" at my library; that is, when it isn't busy at the reference desk the librarians should go walk around and be available if people have questions out in the stacks.
The problem is that it's hard to get in the habit of doing this, so I thought a little reminder message would help. I want it to just give you a little nudge when things aren't busy, but not to be annoying when you're trying to help someone.

What I want it to do:
--Pop up a message of my choosing at intervals of my choosing. (e.g. "Rove?" every 10 minutes regardless of what else is going on on the computer)
--It should require the person to click the window to close it, but should close without any further waiting.

It must:
--be free
--be web-based (Firefox or IE) or able to be installed on Windows without the intervention of the IT people. (Similar to Firefox).
--be unobtrusive when it isn't alerting you
--not be linked with Outlook since it doesn't work with the profile we use at the desk

I tried Workrave, but I couldn't get it to work like I wanted--it seems like it doesn't pop up consistently--maybe it doesn't count the time when you're not actually typing? Plus, you can't edit the text.

Other previously recommended options mostly seemed to cost money or not do what I wanted--a lot of them seem to want you to take a break for a certain amount of time, but I just want the message and that's it.

Reference question

ryanshepard — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:13:38 -0800

librarianshipfilter: Essential professional reading for a reference librarian looking to hone his chops? I recently finished Thomas Mann's great Oxford Guide to Library Research and am interested in any recommendations the librarians among us have on insightful, iconoclastic, or otherwise essential professional reading. What books have helped make you a better librarian?

Interesting academic/professional conference session formats?

zepheria — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:21:38 -0800

Planning a professional conference for 300 or so instruction librarians and looking for innovative session formats or other structured interactions to engage participants. Have you run across any unusual and effective conference session formats or activities? There will be traditional hour-long presentation/discussion sessions, but we're interested in exploring other ways of harnessing the creative energy of this dynamic, passionate group. We've heard stories of "hackerfests" where groups convene to solve programming problems and are thinking along those lines, except without the coding.

For example, we might consider a "teaching technique slam" open mic session during a cocktail hour, or develop some kind of alternate-reality gaming inspired puzzle to solve collaboratively.

What do you experienced conference attendees recommend? Thanks!

What's so bad about being a librarian?

Rock Steady — Mon, 07 May 2007 09:06:09 -0800

Librarians -- rain on my parade! What didn't they tell you in school? What are the worst parts of your job? What do you regret about your schooling/early career? So I have decided to go back to school to get an MLIS degree (at Simmons), and while I am completely excited about it and I am committed to going, I suspect that the large group of librarians here on AskMe can open my eyes to some of the pitfalls of the profession, with an eye towards avoiding them, if possible. I have seen the obvious questions here about careers in Library Science, but if you know of any that elude the site's search function, I'd be happy for pointers to them.

Measurement-foo and shelf-fill rate help?

robocop is bleeding — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:03:17 -0800

See a librarian’s brain asplode*! So my library is moving back into our building next summer. We have some 8,400 linear feet of bound serials* being moved into 15,500 linear feet of compact shelving*. We need to tell the mover what we want our fill rate* to be. Sounds easy, right? However, there are complications, horrible complications. Lingo:

Asplode – explode painfully
Serials – mainly journals that have been collected and bound together into volumes
Compact shelving – moveable shelving that slides to open or close aisles as needed
Fill rate – the percentage of the shelf that is filled by books. Ideally, you don’t want to go over 80% because it makes shelving new items difficult.

Other factors:

Each serial shelf unit is five shelves in height. Each shelf has 11.5 inches between it and the one above it.

Each shelf is roughly three feet wide.

The complications:

Some volumes are either too tall or too deep for the shelf. Tall items require that a shelf be pulled from the shelf unit to increase the 11.5 inch clearance. This will decrease the number of shelves in the shelf unit. Some items are too long to fit on the shelf, so when the compact shelving is closed, they would jam against the opposite shelf. To make space, a shelf must be pulled from the shelf unit behind the one with the long item in order to keep the spines flush. Some volumes are both too long and too tall for the standard shelf unit.

For the sake of this puzzle, let’s assume that we can not create a separate section for serials who are too large for the shelf. While my library does have a Folio section that would likely take all the items that are both too tall and too long, it is in the best interests of accessibility to keep all the serials together. Besides, these volumes are collections of bound issues of a journal title and must be kept together. However, one thing journal publishers love to do almost as much as change their journal’s titles is change the size of their journals. So a serial title could have 20 volumes, of which only 1 is oversized. We can’t pull that lone volume out, and we can’t pull out the entire title.

There are 405 linear feet of oversized items in the collection. 23 feet of them are too long, 290 feet worth are too tall, and 92 feet are both too long and too tall. They are not necessarily all next to each other, although some are. Each single oversized item can cost anywhere from 3 to 9 extra feet worth of shelf space as shelves above, behind, or above and behind it are removed. I have an inventory of all the oversized items.

This collection grows roughly 400-450 feet per year. The oversized elements of this collection grow only 14 feet per year. We are hoping for 10 years minimum worth of growth space with an ideal of 15-20.

If we give a fill rate that is too low, causing there to be books left but no shelf space, days are lost as we shift and the entire move schedule is out of whack. If we give a fill rate that is too high, we cost ourselves growth space that has to be justified to the school. Either way, it’s a “Very Bad Thing.”

I figure I need to produce a pretty detailed shelf map of what the stacks should look like once the movers finish. However, outside of trial and error, I have no idea how to produce this map.

The Questions (finally!):

Does a computer program exist that can perform this mapping for me? If not, how hard would it be to code said program?

If computers can not help us, what other method would you recommend for producing this sort of map/plan?

Am I doomed and should I start eating bugs now?

Best online libraries with articles on weblogs? Free is better

sailoreagle — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 08:51:31 -0800

Anybody know of any good online libraries? I'm especially interested in libraries containing articles on weblogs, as that's the theme of my dissertation and that's what this research is for. If you can point me directly at good interesting articles on weblogs, that would be great too. :) (Yes, I'm aware I may be asking too much, but I figure there's no harm in asking.)
Bonus points if they're free resources, but I'm not opposed to paying a small sum to get articles if I have to.