I had what I would call my first successful session with a patron at answerland.org. I'm still having major connectivity issues with the hosting site but I actually helped someone tonight. And I didn't know the answer either. Thank goodness for Google's ability to do site searches. I figured out where the patron could login and what his default password was -- all for a library I've never been to! :-)
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This is the book I'm reading for LIS 510 / Information Behavior (University of Washington)
"About the Book: Looking for Information presents examples of information seeking and reviews studies of the information-seeking behavior of both general and specific social and occupational groups: scientists, engineers, social scientists, humanists, policy experts, the aged, the poor, and "the public" in general. It also discusses general research on information seeking, including basic research on human communication behavior as found in the literature of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines."
So I've survived my brief residency for LIS 510 (most students were there for two or three classes) fairly intact :-) I find the format of the class pretty interesting -- it's almost self-perpetuating in that the students (in nine groups of 4) will be providing 1-hour online presentations over the course of five weeks to be veiwed by all of the other students each week. This way, the professor doesn't have to come up with any ;-) We're also doing the typical grad student thing and gathering data (through face to face surveys and interviews) for the professor's research :-)
Actually, the professor's enthusiasm is quite contagious and since I'm fairly interested in how people search out and use information, I expect I will enjoy the class overall and I'm looking forward to having new team mates to work with online. Our group is going to focus on the information behavior of students ages 17-22 that have a computer with an Internet connection. Should be interesting to say the least!
There is, of course, tons of reading -- I'm just barely through the first five chapters of "Looking for Information" and now have to get through about two per week on top of all the project work.
Oh, and before I forget, the professor mentioned the ISIC conference -- now that'd be a fun one to go to! She also mentioned that she has additional graduate work available for a lot of the research and presenting she's doing. I'm actually going to keep that in mind for the first of the year!
"PORTLAND, OR – According to a recent report issued by the Public Library Association, Multnomah County Library ranks No. 1 in annual circulation of books among all public libraries serving populations of 500,000 to 1 million. In 2002, residents checked out 16.1 million items—or over 24 books for every man, woman and child in Multnomah County, an outstanding indicator that our library system is one of the nation's busiest."
Haggling over the newly-appointed Multnomah's library director's salary continues.
The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a $120,000 salary for the incoming library director, $18,000 less than the salary originally offered by county Chairwoman Diane Linn.
After the vote, Linn said she plans to stick with her $138,000 "promise" to Washington, D.C., library director Molly Raphael, making up the difference through private donations. "A few generous individuals" have stepped up to help make the salary whole, she said.
So, if you're any kind of regular visitor (I think I have a few ;-) you'll see that once again I've change the theme. Days like today I wish I were a PaintShop Pro guru-kinda-gal but I'm not. So I have to make do with what's out there and it seems that the themes for Userland (as opposed to Manila) are a little on the scarce side. I seriously contemplated getting a Manila site at weblog.com but $10/month just to have a theme that I would most likely get tired of in three or four months? And my long term plan is to move off of Userland hosting anyhow so if I go the Manila route, I'd be committed to that for the long term.
Anyhow, I've been wanting to add, well, what I would call "cutsie" stuff to this blog so today I took a stab at it. I've been envious of those blogs that have iTune and other such plug-ins that basically say what you've been listening to lately. I did track down BlogAmp (for WinAmp 2.x) which is fairly cool (though it doesn't handle streaming mp3 very well) and was recently pointed to this Windows Media Player macro that will grab the data from WMP and post it along with your Radio Userland entry (ala LiveJournal). It even might be pretty straight forward to do the same thing with WinAmp (I'm guessing a hack to the WMP macro combined with the DoSomething plug-in for WinAmp would do the trick).
I also hear that TrackBack is now available for Radio Userland and while it showed up briefly on before I changed themes, it's gone now... probably needs to have the macro added back in a template somewhere. And even more recently, Comment Notification was added.
In other blogging related news that's not related Radio Userland, it would seem that Google (who bought Blogger several months ago) now how's a "BlogThis!" tool -- similar to Radio's posting from the its news aggregator. If there's one for Movable Type out there somewhere, that will just about remove the last remaining reason for why I switched from MT to Radio ;-)
Oh, and unless you're really behind the times, you know all about the Monthly Archive macro, right!?
Yes, I'm sure those of you who've been in the Oregon library community longer than me have known about this particular resource for a long time but I'm still the new kid on the block, okay? :-)
"Libraries are going into different kinds of programming, and they are becoming more community oriented," Corkett said.
She headed the Tualatin Public Library for three years before she was selected in June to replace Pam Williams, who retired from the West Linn job.
Corkett sees libraries as the place people learn to use new technology that opens up more information. Libraries also are sites for classes and cultural programs that enrich community life, she said.
To assure adequate funding for programs, Corkett plans to form a library foundation over the next few years to give supporters a specific place to send their money.
Well, other than ongoing connectivity problems I have with the virtual reference hosting folks, it didn't go too badly at answerland.org. I had two clients: the first wanted to know how to view the available movies and CD's that the library had and the second wanted to what the status code of "problem shelf" meant. I didn't know the answer to the second and it took me far too long to answer the first (but I think I finally did if s/he managed to see the last URL I sent across the wires). Either way, they both left their email addresses for follow-up.
No, it was much more challenging to stay connected by re-logging in every 3-7 minutes. :P
Yesterday, the library director and I spent a fast moving hour with a reporter from the Oregonian. Luckily, I had done enough research about the early history of the library and Stephanie provided some additional personal histories from the reference section that the article should come out half-way decently. I can't hardly wait to read the article -- it's due out on Thursday!
"The scholarship is intended to encourage students who have an interest in international library work and enable them to participate in IFLA early in their careers. The 2004 IFLA annual meeting takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in August."
As of today (9/7) I have completed two key parts of being a new grad student: I completed the residency (8/12 - 8/16) and this past Sunday I submitted my (short) final essay for LIS 500 (The Information Lifecycle). So I thought this would be a good time to blog about some of the highlights so far.
The Residency
Five days spent at the beautiful UW campus. Lots of information crammed into a short period of time, not the least of which was the brief 90 minutes of instruction from the Head Librarian at the Suzallo Library (which is a beatiful building). Not enough time to bond with other members of my cohort (I'm slow to make new friends as it is). And yet, you leave with an excellent sense of what the program is about: it's heavy on the theory yet manages to come back around well thought-out practical applications.
"Washington state book lovers are among some of the most active participants in www.bookcrossing.com It's been called a literary Web version of a message in a bottle.
"More than 3,000 people from Anacortes to Yelm are now surreptitiously dropping off books covered with sticky notes announcing "I'M FREE!" and bookplates listing the volume's ID number for tracking online. Worldwide, the Bookcrossing site now boasts more than a half-million books and 150,000 users. " [read more @ The Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
"The only library in Wheeler County may have to close down after city budget cuts wiped out the entire $9,916 operating fund. "'If (the) library closes permanently, Wheeler County will be the only county in the state of Oregon that doesn’t have a public library,' Oregon State Librarian Jim Scheppke told residents recently. 'You don’t want to be known for that.' "At 300 square feet, the Fossil Public Library is the smallest library in Oregon."
Slightly old but still in time to post this tidbit about the library where I volunteer:
"Cornelius Public Library was recently named September's "Library of the Month" by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"Mary Williams, a public access computer trainer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the Library of the Month selection is based on a library's efforts to provide public outreach services and computer access to its patrons and the community.
"'Cornelius was chosen because Stephanie [Lind, the director] and her staff are doing a bang-up job in their outreach to the Latino community. They are doing creative things with their partnerships. I was so impressed because she's got it going on.'" [Read more @ Hillsboro Argus]
I help to organize and host the open house event last fall shortly after the systems were installed -- they're constantly in use! Pretty nifty!
Historical society reopens "A lot of pent-up research can get under way again when the Oregon Historical Society's research library reopens Sept. 20. The doors to the library and exhibits will open after being closed for a year while a new entrance building was constructed, filling what had been a plaza on the northwest side of the property." [Portland Tribune]
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