Library Buzz

The other day I was sitting in a Thai restaurant eating lunch alone - and three guys sat at the table next to me. They were discussing the launch of a new music site. They kept talking about many things that got me thinking about library websites.

Once we create our sites we let them stay pretty static and every so often we should approach like it is a new thing - a new launch of our website. We can do that even if we don’t have the opportunity to make any huge changes.

The guys talked about making the music site easy to use - a good experience for the visitor - get them interested and giving them a reason to keep coming back. Make purchases easy to transact and make them a part of the site.

They talked about including reviews - I think that is something we can do with our sites - but we should make ourselves the experts making recommendations of websites, papers etc. Isn’t that part of the whole knowledge management thing?

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1. I never planned to be a librarian
2. The librarian in my hometown when I was growing up was Ama Catlett
3. I have never worked in a public library
4. I always have to follow the maps for the Dewey Decimal System
5. My first government job was in a library – opening the mail and routing periodicals
6. I know several trombone players who are also librarians
7. All librarians are odd – myself included
8. I have been a cataloger – but it wasn’t my favorite job
9. I recognize way too many call numbers from the HG schedule
10. I know what a MARC tag 100 means
11. I have lots of fun at library conferences!
12. Librarians are generally capable of making conversation
13. When I started working at library a friend started calling me Marian
14. I learned html coding by using a tutorial for an early coding software called HotDog
15. I like html coding – it is logical
16. Since I work for the government I cannot optimize Library 2.0 applications
17. I think that UCC is the coolest classification system – but I only ever used it in Grad School
18. I prefer reference work because I like helping people – but I’m an introvert
19. Ranganathan rocks!
20. My Harry Potter character is David Beardsley – a librarian for the Ministry of Magic
21. There is no plot for evil librarians to take over the world
22. We would deny it if there were such a plot
23. I am not part of the plot – that doesn’t exist
24. I have made some really good friends through my career as a librarian
25. I’m glad that I fell into being a librarian

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Last week while I was searching for some Library 2.0 resources I came across this social network for 2.0 folks. - Library 2.0.

I just started looking around - we’ll see if it is useful. Occasionally I make use of Facebook, Linked-in and Twitter for work - this could work too.

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At long last I am returning to the blogosphere. Just looking for something to say and I am inspired by this book You Don’t Look Like a Librarian by Ruth Kneale.

I’ll admit I only just learned of it and I have not read it yet. And I don’t want to judge the book by its cover, but I’ll judge it by its title. How does that sound? Keep in mind - there’s a reason for stereotypes - and all one needs to do is visit a library and encounter a middle-aged woman wearing glasses, hair pulled into a bun and wearing sensible shoes and the steretype lives on. I have an outfit that I call my librarian outfit - sweater vest and bow tie - I am middle-aged, wear glasses and I’m bald and sport a goatee.

But then you also need to go to an SLA Conference and see prominent librarians dancing and partying and rocking the Casbah to know that we don’t all fit the stereotypes. We’re also more about the information than we are about shushing patrons.

Which brings me to the passing of a dear friend, Diana Smith who was my former boss. Rather than take up space here - I’ll make use of the Internet and hyper link you to my post on another site - Remembering Diana.

Diana fit the steretype of librarians somewhat - she was single, she was a great bibliophile, and she wore glasses. She was an authority on several topics - English history, tea and she was becoming more of a scholar of Benedictine spirituality. Though raised in Austin, Texas Diana had a proper British liking for gin & tonic and the occasional Guinness — and that was when she was behaving!!

Diana was also an excellent librarian and a well-liked and respected supervisor. She never took herself too seriously and was fair-minded. I wish there were more people like her!

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