Tag: libraries
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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…
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Want to Read (∞): on becoming a good reader
I’ve officially become a Reader. Reading books is built into my life, to the point where if I haven’t read anything for a while (a while being a few days) I feel anxious. It didn’t used to be this way. Regularly reading for fun outside of schoolwork wasn’t a concept I grokked until the end…
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Refer Madness: Making Converts
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. One of the best things about having a digital media lab in my library is introducing eager patrons to what it provides. Since ours opened two years ago, the most popular feature by far is the converting software that transfers analog media to digital,…
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Refer Madness: Word Nerd
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. [Note: This was originally published in Booklist‘s Top Shelf Reference newsletter.] There’s an older woman, a regular at my library, who comes to the desk with many different questions but saves the crossword ones for me. This delights me greatly. I am by no…
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The Bomb Librarian
Lots of great bits in this Atlas Obscura story about the Manhattan Project‘s librarian. J. Robert Oppenheimer selected Charlotte Serber, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, statistician, and freelance journalist to organize and lead the scientific library at Los Alamos not because of her library experience (she had none), but because “he wanted someone who would be willing to…
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Norman Doors & More: Notes on ALA 2017
I went to the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago two weeks ago. Got to meet up with old colleagues, collect some sweet pens, and hear some interesting speakers, including the godfather of Hamilton, Ron Chernow. But most enriching were the sessions I attended. Here are some notes from the ones that enlightened me the most. The…
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Refer Madness: Finding Angels
Almost two years ago I started writing about strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk, in a series I call Refer Madness. My latest one, titled “Finding Angels,” is debuting over at Booklist, as part of the latest issue of “Top Shelf Reference” newsletter. I’ll continue Refer Madness here, but hope…
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La La Librarians
Lots of great anecdotes from the New Yorker story “Scenes from the Oscar Night Implosion“, including this one on the Academy librarians planted in the corner of the press room: In the back corner was my favorite part of the press room: the librarians’ table, where the Academy librarians are on hand to answer questions. Under…
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Fun New Things
Some fun stuff I’ve been enjoying lately: “This Machine Kills Fascists” Pencils From Frog & Toad Press in Rhode Island, which has several other colorfully messaged pencils and other goodies available. Library Extension for Chrome Not sure where I found out about this, but I’ve been digging it thus far not only with my personal…
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The Book Thieves
As I read Anders Rydell’s The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe’s Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance, I kept thinking of Sean Connery’s line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: All this book burning by the Nazis entailed looting a continent’s worth of libraries and archives, specifically to root out so-called…
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Refer Madness: Thanks, Man
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Coming out of a recent concert at the library, an elderly man asked if we had a calendar of events he could take home. I showed him where they were on the shelf, and as I was about to return to the desk, he started talking.…
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A Librarian’s Guide to ‘The Simpsons’
In what’s quickly becoming a regular hobby, I went screengrab-hunting on Frinkiac, this time for anything library- or book-related. The result:
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Refer Madness: Future Scientist?
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A mom was looking for her middle-school daughter’s next book. She said her daughter had loved The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and “all the Holocaust stuff.” But she wanted her to discover some real people as well. My first thought was the young…
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Refer Madness: Playing Favorites
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. Every librarian has favorite patrons. Like parents we aren’t supposed to admit it, but it’s true. My favorites have developed because of how nice they are, for their interesting requests, or for their particular outlook on life. One of my favorites is an older woman, a regular,…