something new my library is undertaking is a townwide history project . our goal is to create a master index of all of the historical records in town so well know where different types of information is stored. phase 2 will be preservation and digitization of as much of this as possible. good idea yes. lot of work more than we realize. we expect this process to take years so ......
[Show More]

on wednesdays i work the late shift at the library . when i came in at 1pm this past wednesday my coworker who covers the desk in the morning had a good story for me an elderly woman walked up to the desk and asked do you have sarah palins street address keep in mind that this was wed. nov. 5th 2008 the day after she and john mccain lost the 2008 presidential election. my ......
[Show More]

eine nette idee der kolleginnen der chelmsford library wenn eine seite dort nicht gefunden wird wird das im bibliotheksstil visualisiert 404 page book shelf auf flickr fotosharing brian herzog schreibt zu dieser idee this is the 404 error page for my librarys website. we had something else but this one is more interesting. and far better than the standard ......
[Show More]

for the third year in a row my library is conducting a one book program. the way we choose the book is to have a committee narrow down all suggestions to three finalists and then let townspeople vote today election day to decide the winner. the voting is done by visiting the schools and passing out ballots and also by setting up tables at some of the actual polling places around......
[Show More]

in nh we get an extra long campaign season so much that im a bit worried about the news vacuum that well have on wednesday but it also creates an interesting sense of ownership and gravity in the state. there have been some awesome posts from libraries about the election and the election process november time to vote from the dover pl dont forget to v......
[Show More]

last month my library added to our collection a nice new game table. it was donated in memory of a longtime patron who enjoyed board games. its a very nice table all wood pub height and the different game boards are selfcontained in the table top. the included games are chess che ckers scra bble backg ammon mono poly we set it up in the teen area and are circul......
[Show More]

from left brian herzog paige eaton davis elizabeth thomsen program description flickr isnt just a bird del.icio.us isnt just your nela luncheon and wordpress isnt a new kitchen gadget. find out what these things are and how these popular web 2.0 applications and more are being used in realworld libraries. l24u offers a panel of three experienced massachusetts l......
[Show More]

before i get into this weeks reference question i want to point out that this is my 100th reference question of the week thats almost two years of weekly reference questions. my my doesnt the time just fly when you are giving patrons directions to the bathrooms in honor of such a momentous event i thought id share one of the reference questions i just dread.......
[Show More]

librarians are always on duty. every once in awhile ill get recognized when im out around town as the guy from the library. but since i see so many patrons at the library i hardly ever recognize their faces when im out in the real world. usually people just say hi or thank me for whatever i helped them with but this time i was asked a real library ques......
[Show More]

comme vous avez pu vous en rendre compte je ne suis pas tras doua pour le webdesign mais je me soigne. jessaie dapprendre petit a petit. il y a quelques jours je suis tomba sur cette anorme collection de pages 404 toutes plus belles les unes que les autres. on ne le dira jamais assez une bonne communication est un gage de comprahension. pour ne pas perdre vos lecteurs a l......
[Show More]

sometimes an innocent reference question has the potential to turn into a multimillion dollar industry. late one evening a man in his earlyforties came up to the desk patron im looking for someone to drive my kids. me um where to patron my kids get home from school about 3 oclock but wife and i dont get home from work until about 6 oclock......
[Show More]

most of the talk about alas new website redesign has died down but i noticed something this week i want to comment on. on the whole i think the new site is a vast improvement over the old one. and with any new site i understand theyre still shaking out the bugs and dealing with lots of dead links. but for my previous post i wanted to find information from the ala abo......
[Show More]

this post ended up being much longer than i expected so i added subheads in bold. i ask librarians to read and comment on the first part and the rest of the post is background information. when does a library become biased last week on my librarys blog i posted information about the three questions on massachuse tts statewide ballot in november. one of them question 1......
[Show More]

i really dont like stereotyping patrons or thinking that patrons who look a certain way will use only a certain type of information and stay away from others. but in this case a patron breaking out of a stereotype made his reference question even funnier. a guy in his late forties walked up to the desk. he was scruffy wearing a flannel shirt and jeans with paint and putty smears and......
[Show More]

i was sitting at my desk back in the reference office when a coworker came in and said she needed help with a reference question me sure whats the question coworker well a student is researching how the industrial revolution was influenced by archaeology. me okay so lets try wait archaeology this might be the most bizarre combination of research topics......
[Show More]

sering dong ya ketika menulusuri website kita menemukan kalimat 404 error pages . bikin sebal juga karena sudah semangat pengen ketemu dengan artikel yang dicari eh malah akhirnya mata kita disuguhi pemandangan kalimat tak sedap 404 error pages. tapi kadang ada juga kalimatkalimat atau gambar yang luculucu di balik 404 error pages tersebut. di bawah adalah halamanhalaman yang ......
[Show More]

it seems like i learn of a new web tool or website feature every day. a patron had missed seeing hellboy ii in theaters and asked to be placed on hold for on the dvd. since its not out yet or even close to being out yet i told him i couldnt place a hold in our catalog. the next obvious question is when is the dvd coming out. usually i use the dvd details se......
[Show More]

the library in my hometown has a blog which i read because its well done and because its a way for me to stay connected with where my family lives. i particularly enjoyed one recent post . someone found a photo in the librarys historical archive that had been later doctored for use in a promotional book. check the original post for bigger photos . it is interes......
[Show More]

my library subscribes to a lot of periodicals but the one i always make a point of checking out each month is cq researcher . for professional reasons i know i should keep an eye on current topics in as many of our periodicals and resources as possible but cq researcher is usually interesting beyond professional reasons. i like the format too the entire slim issue is devoted to a sin......
[Show More]

i have been busy wrapping up my course work for slis 761 at the university of south carolina.aand though it may seem i havent been writing any blog posts of late i have had to write 5 for this course and post them on blackboard.a a couple of them might be interesting to others outside of my course so i will also post them here. one of the blogs i subscribe to is ilibrarian writt......
[Show More]

in the course of working on a project to promote my library i have been looking for quotes about libraries. i guess i took for granted that itd be easy to find really positive quotes about why libraries are important how people benefit from using their library etc. and it was but what surprised me were a few notsopositive library quotes. the first resources i checked were ou......
[Show More]

a project weve been kicking around at my library for a long time is creating some kind of townwide centralized volunteer listing. the library is a natural place for such a resource but its a big project. to fill this need we just launched chelmsford volunteers .org . the end product was not really the goal we set out with and i dont think its the last version ......
[Show More]

i know im a couple months late to the party but this past weekend i upgraded this blog to wordpress 2.5.1 i upgraded the librarys blog too but more on that in a minute. upgrading swissarmyl ibrarian.n et the upgrade went fairly smoothly and i think this website is operating normally. if you seen anything different or wrong please let me know in the comments. ......
[Show More]

what do you do with your weekends i talk about library 2.0 with other librarians. fun yes in the course of discussion this weekend i found myself focusing on one of my favorite elements shared content. there is much more to library 2.0 and web 2.0 than this but its a big part of it. by shared content i mean being able to display on one website conten......
[Show More]

the phone rings and a male patron asks patron hello do you i have you got um wifey at the library me ah im sorry could you repeat that please patron is wifey at the library me well i dont know but if you describe her i can walk around and look for her. patron what me we dont have a paging system so ill have to walk around to ......
[Show More]