That's my job

Sometimes in the rush of actually doing your job, you don't notice, or have time to savor, the best moments of your job. In my case, the moments that say, "and that's why I became a librarian." I was lucky enough to have two of those moments this week, so I'm taking the time to enjoy them.

On Monday night I talked to an Entrepreneurship class. I was asked to update a case they'd studied this term, and show resources to find information on the industry, where to look for articles, etc. One interesting thing was the different ways that the faculty member (who's in the field) and I talked about what information they would want to find. I used terms as you saw above - about the industry, about companies, about products and markets, etc. Her terminology was more specific - customer segments, industry economics, regulatory issues, etc. (Luckily, we both use the term "competitors!") The variation in the industry that they wanted to explore was "green" - i.e., how to produce the service in an environmentally responsible way (or however you define "green.") One student asked me to do a search on that industry and "green" in one of our subscription databases. Here's my "ah-ha" momement: just as I'm saying that "green" is a broad term, which doesn't have an exact definition, I find that the database has added the subject term "green business." Bless their hearts! You learn something every day in libraryland.

The moment I cherish happened at the reference desk this week. I'd been helping a student find books and book chapters on his topic - first how and what to search, then how to find books in our building. Soon he came back to the desk and said, "I can't find it." (I always try to tell students if they can't find something, to let us know.) I offered to go to the shelves with him, with my usual patter about sometimes the books don't want to be found, etc. We found the book, not quite in the place he'd been looking. He apologized for bothering me, but I said, "no, no, I'm glad to help. And that book looks right on for your topic." I didn't want to embarrass him further, but I wanted to say, "that's what I DO as a librarian. It's my job - every reader, his or her book. And I really do enjoy it!" I didn't say it, but I thought it. And I savor it, because it's my job.

Technology thoughts

I've been working hard preparing for classes, and teaching classes (and working on an article-in-progress), so I haven't been blogging much, or following other blogs. I didn't realize that Free Range Librarian had asked for ideas on netbooks and other technology purchases. What would have been my advice? My Samsung NC10, how I love it! Lightweight, portable, friendly - did I mention that her name is Harriet Jones? (All of our computers and peripherals are named after Doctor Who characters.) But Free Range is waiting for Windows 7, and has her eye on an Acer. I think that was on our short list; we just preferred the Samsung.

I got a great error message from Firefox this week: "Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble" doing what I wanted it to do. I have never seen a Microsoft product indicate that it was embarrassed (although as a friend pointed out to me on Facebook, maybe it wasn't Firefox that was supposed to be embarrassed.) It's still one of my favorite error messages.

The Best Classes

The fall rush is on, and I've been teaching a lot of classes on library stuff - mostly marketing classes, with some finance thrown in. Still to come are advertising/public relations classes and accounting. I've had some great sessions and some not so great, so my thoughts today concern what leads towards the best library instruction classes.

• Faculty buy-in. Generally, most faculty don't schedule a library session for their class unless they believe it's important (not counting the "I'll be out of town, can you talk to my students?" minority.) But there are levels of buy-in, including those who collaborate with the librarian on the assignment, or share a copy of the assignment before the session, or who attend the session and participate in it, or time it so that the students realize its importance.
• Student buy-in (which depends a lot on faculty buy-in.) There's nothing like the faculty stressing the importance of the session to make students pay attention (except maybe "this is due real soon, so I'd better pay attention.") When they're really interested, it generates an energy like nothing else.
• "Ah-ha" moments, for the students, and even for the presenter. It's great when the "I get it" light bulb goes on (for them, and for us.)
• Technology that behaves. This includes hardware that works (machines that aren't in la-la-land, computer mice and monitors that are actually talking to the computers) and a network that's in a good mood.
• Databases and other resources that behave. Two weeks ago I presented at one of our satellite locations: the first database I went to gave us the "we're too busy, try again later" message; the third database had a similar message (and these were database messages, not our network.) It's nice when that DOESN'T happen, when everything behaves as it's supposed to.
• Databases that haven't done anything wacky since last term. I understand vendors changing interfaces; I can handle that, and the students can handle that. What I don't like are vendors asking for mysterious plug-ins that you didn't need last term (never mind the fact that you probably don't have admin rights on the machine you're using, and couldn't download a plug-in anyway.) Nor do I appreciate vendors whose products suddenly have less functionality that they had last term (if I could use this example in the spring, why have you changed your content so that it's not possible to recreate that search?)

Here's hoping that your fall is going well, and that things are behaving themselves.

This 'n That

• Twice recently I've been asked, "so what kind of netbook did you get?" I realized yesterday that I didn't put that info in this blog! So for the record, I have a Samsung NC10. Have I mentioned that I love it?
• I have had a small flood of faculty asking me for presentations this semester. So far my peak time is the week after next, when I have 6 library sessions, 3 finance and 3 marketing. So I won't be very profound in my blog posts for now.
• I have a reference desk shift this weekend, so one thing I could work on if it's slow is collection development. It's not very flashy, or very 2.0, but I enjoy it. At least I do nearly all of my selecting online, and use almost no paper!

Library 2.0 seeds take root

We're seeing a few 2.0 changes around my library these days, which is exciting (when I have time to think about it.) Here are some things that are happening, or going to happen soon:

• We've added a Discover Layer to our public catalog. While it's sometimes confusing to me as a power user, I think it's appealing to the novice. (It's funny that the html title for the initial page is 'Encore,' while the "classic catalog" has the regular catalog's name.)
• We're moving along in implementing Sharepoint as our new intranet/wiki/online bulletin board. We've roughed out a structure, and we're opening it up to staff to use. Our first 'killer app' is a new statistics application, which all staff will use to track patron questions. (It's great to have a web developer on staff!)
• We're looking at sprucing up our subject/resource guides. We've come up with a few short-term facelifts for fall; long-term, we're looking at products like LibGuides and Library a la Carte.

It's been interesting being involved in these developments. Sometimes I have the reaction, "Well, it's about time. I thought we should do something like this years ago!" Sometimes it's gratifying when staff are getting it. Sometimes I have to stop and take a breath, and get used to change. But I guess it keeps me on my toes.

Subject guides, netbooks, and Cary Grant

I'm on a task force at my library looking at various options for subject guides (aka research guides, pathfinders, etc.) I've registered for a free webinar that OCLC is doing next week on Library à la Carte from the University of Oregon. I'm glad we're finally going to do something about our guides. This has been one of my interests for years, and I remember being excited some years ago when I first heard about SpringShare's LibGuides. We've needed products like this for a long time, and it's great that there's now competition (I feel like I've been ahead of the pack in MPOW on this for one so long.)

In netbook news, I watched a movie on my netbook this week. Now this is no big thing for many people, but my personal movie-watching time has been quite limited as a working parent, and my chances to play with my netbook haven't been plentiful either. This week my family wanted to watch "Coraline" on the dvd we'd just bought (they'd seen it a week earlier, at the World Science Fiction Convention, but what the heck?) I'd noticed that "An Affair to Remember" with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr was on Turner Classic Movies, realized that we had dvds of both films, and I said, "We can watch one on the TV and one on the netbook. I don't care which one I get." So I got to sit in the comfy chair and watch my movie, while they watched theirs. Very nice.

My Own Travel 2.0

So next week (I hope), I'm off on vacation. Since spouse works for an airline, we fly "standby." This is not my idea of a good time, but he prefers to take advantage of this perk. I'm crossing my fingers, and toes, and anything else I can cross without being a safety hazard.

But in the spirit of 2.0, I revisited my Travel 2.0 posting. The Travel 2.0 blog reminded me that airlines charge fees for a lot these days, including bags (I don't think we stand-byers have to do that, but this may have changed.) I still haven't decided if I'm taking my new netbook, or we'll be bringing a couple to share for the family (it will depend on how much carry-on weight/bulk I want to deal with), but I probably won't be keeping a travel journal on Mapness. I think it would take away quality time from La Famille. I hope to be on Facebook, though, so I'll still keep a hand in the 2.0 world. So far the ratings on TripAdvisor for our hotel are positive, so once we get there, we should be fine.

I have a new error message to add to my collection. Yesterday I was trying to get into our content management system to update some web pages, and I got this friendly error: "Several Java Virtual Machines running in the same process caused an error." Yeah, well, what does that mean? There's too much going on somewhere, I get that part. Does that mean it's on my computer, at the other end, or somewhere in between? And what should I do about it? What process were they involved in, and is it legal in all 50 states? In the end, the brower crashed, so all the windows I had in that brower disappeared (at least it wasn't ALL of my browser sessions.) Will the new Millennium eventually bring error messages that make sense to non-techs? I'm not holding my breath on that.