Library Buzz

Not that I was doing this intentionally, but the federal fiscal year is winding down and folks are scrambling to spend monies and get things accomplished before the close of the year. Part of that includes the performance evaluation cycle.

To that end, I’ll be in Lexis/Nexis training all day next Tuesday. It is part of the Lexis/Nexis Certificate of Mastery Program. I look at is continuing education for Librarians.

If you don’t use those Lexis search skills every day - you can get rusty. Plus there will be databases and resources that I don’t always think about.

Maybe I’ll see some of you there.

No Responses »

Greetings all.

Every few days I check the queue of comments that have been made about any of my postings. This Blog is set up such that I have to review and approve the comments before they get posted.

Pretty much all the comments seem to be the same comments from different “users”, but their posts contain sometimes hundreds of links to commercial (and many sexual) websites.

So - just to warn would-be bloggers out there - the bots will find you and try to get you to advertise for them. Just say no!!

peace!

No Responses »

The other day I got some disturbing news from a colleague at another federal agency Library. It seems that Agency A has agreed to provide some services for Agency B. (The two are less than a block away from each other.) Those services are Cafeteria access, shuttle services and Library services. I’m guessing that this seemed like a logical trifecta to the suits that worked out the deal – no Library staff was involved.

Now here’s the kicker – Agency A will bill Agency B quarterly based on the number of staff served, at a rate of $2.15 per transaction. Eat at the cafeteria? - $2.15. Ride the shuttle? - $2.15. Ask for research on recent trends in the automotive industry? - $2.15

It seems as though the suits at Agency A really value their Library staff.

I mentioned all this to another colleague who mentioned seeing something on a Federal Librarians Discussion Group where Librarian Gloria Miller estimated that depending upon the Library staff (Federal vs. Contractor) the cost to perform a search can range from $15.00 to $100.00.

Boy is Agency B getting a deal!

No Responses »

The other day while riding the Metro in DC I noticed an ad for Govmine. I remembered to check it out.

It seems to be a pretty good search engine by Convera. They have several corporate and government clients worldwide using their products Excalibur and RetrievalWare. Govmine seems to be their free search service.

The nice thing about the results is that they’ve got categories of results Web Search, News, Blogs, Images, and .gov They show related topics and recent searches. They have a really good Advanced Search tool and they have Search Tips & Tools. And there are ads but not too many. They do have cached pages in case some of the sites have changed.

The biggest down side that I can see at the moment is that the results are in no particular order within each category. There’s also no way to sort most recent.

Still Govmine is worth adding to your search repertoire. It’s may prove to be a gold mine of information!

No Responses »

Can you tell me if I’m seeing double here??

Pete Doherty

Daniel Radcliffe

I know I’ll get all sorts of Harry Potter fans bugging me - but I’ve done double-takes on these guys for several months!

No Responses »

Greetings all,

About three months ago my dad died. I learned so much from him over the years and continue to do so now. At some point Dad started reading the works of Joseph Campbell who wrote and lectured on the need for myths.

Dad gave me one of Joseph Campbell’s books and I started to read it, but I didn’t get it. That happens - sometimes we’re not ready to read something. Dad left a note about what he wanted us to do about his funeral arrangements. In the note he again encouraged my siblings and me to read the works of Joseph Campbell. Well, I started again and this time I got past the introduction.

One of the comments that struck me is that most of us are so busy that we forget to take the time to just be. This is similar to an earlier post that I quoted the Holy Father who said that we need to take vacations and relax and commune. His point is that we should meditate and pray. To some extent that seems to be the same point that Joseph Campbell is making.

This reminded me of an occasional remark that my dad would make, - Did you ever just sit back and marvel?

No Responses »

Back in June I attended a day-long Franklin-Covey training. It was very interesting - I mentioned it in an earlier posting on my blog.

Part of the exercise was to come up with a personal mission statement. The Franklin-Covey Website has a method for doing this - it asks several questions and then spits out a list of ideals that one can use as a basis for creating a mission statement. Here’s my list.

I will be honest with others in my dealings
I will always be there for him
I will be a good brother.
I will love without holding back.
I will encourage others
I will respect others
I will seek freedom for myself and others
I will cherish romance
I will help others by showing good humor
I will be a good friend to others
I will find joy wherever it is.
I will help others
I will celebrate in others’ victories
I will be faithful to my employers, co-workers, friends and family.

Interesting - I wonder if it would be any different - just two months later.

No Responses »