Tag: libraries
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Recent Views
More photography here. And on my Instagram. Pretty cool frost patterns on my car window (I call this one “Frozen Fractals All Around”): A few shots of my building’s backyard in the snow: Scraping off the car one morning, the snow shavings fell in a pattern that encircled the car. They contrasted well with the dark…
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Refer Madness: Always on call
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. You know how doctors are always on call? Someone has a heart attack on an airplane or chokes at a restaurant, and doctors, nurses, or other care providers jump to the rescue, even if they are off the clock. Even medical students count: I…
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Refer Madness: Hate the change, love the library
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A while back, my department’s email received this message: “What happened to the CLASSIC CATALOG? I am old, I hate change, but love my library. Thanks.” I had to laugh. Funny but dead serious, succinct and self-aware, this missive captures a very real conundrum:…
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Go Pack Horse Librarians, Go!
One podcast that survived my recent purge is The Keepers, a series from The Kitchen Sisters and NPR. The series features: “stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians. Keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep. Guardians of history, large and small, protectors of the free flow of information…
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Refer Madness: How to pay your library back
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A regular came to the desk with the George Carlin Commemorative Collection DVD she was returning. “Before I return this,” she said, “I’d like to know how much it was for the library to buy because you bought it based on my request but…
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Refer Madness: The Book Dropper strikes again
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A few months ago, a coworker and I noticed that every Tuesday, two items appear on the library’s book sale shelves that shouldn’t be there. The library has a system for what gets placed in the book sale, so we know which items are…
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Summer assignment: visit your local library
Despite their great intentions, those “required reading” lists of books make me cringe. Required reading usually feels like work, whether they’re from a friend, a professor, or a stranger on the internet. Pleasure reading should be based on freedom and empowerment and whim, not compulsion. Use those lists as a resource, sure, but don’t feel obliged…
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For the records
Dan Cohen ponders why some recent sci-fi films prominently feature libraries, archives, and museums: Ever since Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor extracted the Death Star plans from a digital repository on the planet Scarif in Rogue One, libraries, archives, and museums have played an important role in tentpole science fiction films. From Luke Skywalker’s library of…
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Do librarians read all day? Should we?
Librarians and library staff have been fighting the incorrect stereotype (among many others) that their jobs consist of reading all day long. And while I still have programs to plan, books to weed, research questions to respond to, and other things to worry about, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, we took a little time…
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What’s your favorite library memory?
In honor of National Library Week, I’d like to know your favorite library memories or experiences, distant or recent. And if you don’t have any, why not? See my libraries tag for more goodness.
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Refer Madness: Could be home, doing nothing
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. In my library, one of the information desks sits in a high-traffic area where all the activity from the entrance, auditorium, elevator, and stairs to Youth Services converge. One result of this configuration is that whoever is at the desk (and anyone in the…
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Dictionary on display
This morning I looked at my bookshelves and noticed my three volumes of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. I haven’t cracked them open since I got them from Half Price Books a few months ago. I was so excited to get them so I’d have an accessible and thorough way to tap into the dictionary’s…
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Refer Madness: A String of Beeps
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. I was on the phone with a patron when I heard it: that incessant beep the copier makes when something goes wrong. Once I finished with the patron on the phone, I went over to see what was the matter. This time it was…
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A skeptic’s ‘Glance at the Public Libraries’ of 1928, from H.L. Mencken’s ‘American Mercury’
Watch out, world: we’ve got ourselves a 90-year-old hot take! In the June 1928 issue of The American Mercury, a periodical edited by the famous journalist H.L. Mencken, there’s an article by Fletcher Pratt called “A Glance At The Public Libraries”. I stumbled upon the issue while processing material at the Frances Willard House Museum.…
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Ace Ventura: Reader
“Fiction can be fun, but I find the reference section much more enlightening.” — Ace Ventura: Pet Detective I was into the Ace Ventura movies to an embarrassing degree as a tween. They entered my consciousness and comic sensibility at the perfect time. I quoted them often. There’s even home video of me doing a pretty good…
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Refer Madness: The Worst Thing
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Some days on the desk are rough. Challenging patrons, technical difficulties, a case of the Mondays—whatever the issues are, like sneezes and football sacks they often come in bunches to create a day that’s better forgotten. This was not one of those days. First,…
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Films Galore and other groovy ’70s library brochures
Digging around my library’s local history collection, I found a stack of trifold brochures promoting the services of the old North Suburban Library System (now RAILS) my library is part of. I’m guessing they’re from the 1970s since NSLS started in the late ’60s. Look at all these groovy logos and colors: And then there’s the…
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Refer Madness: A Patron Mount Rushmore
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. [Note: this was originally published at Booklist.] In the office one day, my colleagues got to discussing who our library’s Mount Rushmore of patrons would be. Not necessarily the nicest ones but the ones who have become iconic among staff largely because of the…
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Libraries = Internet IRL but better
American Libraries magazine’s “Ten Reasons Libraries Are Still Better Than the Internet” is some grade-A, top choice librarian bait. Excerpts: Libraries are safer spaces. The internet brings people together, often in enjoyable and productive ways, such as over shared interests (pop culture blogs, fanfic sites) or common challenges (online support groups). But cyberbullying and trolling can leave people reluctant to engage with…