Holy cow it’s FRIDAY, and this week has been equal parts absolutely awesome and absolutely insane. The Fall semester is in full swing, and sometimes I find it hard to think of my top 5 really great things of any given week, but I’m going to do my best. I know I haven’t posted a […]
Tag: Academic Library
From the Desk: Handout for Academic Departments
Wow, it’s Wednesday already and students are unloading their trucks and moving in as I write this. As you can imagine, we are very busy getting everything together for those students, but on this edition of From the Desk, I want to share a handout I made for writing instructors on what the library can do […]
Social Networking and the Academic Library
I read an interesting article for my Reference class this past week: Quality Through Improved Service: The Implementation of Social Networking Tools in an Academic Library by Cecilia Penzhorn. I found it extremely useful for use in the Academic setting, so I thought I would comment and share: Open access is becoming more and more […]
Koha ILS: Right for your Library?
When choosing an ILS for your library, it is important to consider many factors including size, funding, and compatibility with other consortia. In order to get an overall feel for a system, one must test that system and do extensive research before choosing the best ILS for a particular library. It is for this reason; […]
Student-Worker to Professional Librarian: Overcoming the Transition
Today marks the end of my first week as an Adjunct Reference and Instruction Librarian at HACC (Harrisburg Area Community College) York Campus. While I am very excited to start working on my instruction presentations and help students at the reference desk, I have found myself dealing with a tough transition from student-worker to professional […]
Business Reference: How to sort through it
For my Business Reference class, we recently had a question-set assignment where our goal was to find the most up-to-date information and provide the “correct” answer with APA-citation. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. I discovered many problems with the assignment to the point I was second guessing myself over and over. This could be attributed […]
Library Management Job Advertisement Analysis
I recently had an assignment to look over several different job advertisements to consider what employers are really looking for when it comes to management positions in libraries: Here’s what I’ve discovered which could be helpful to all those unemployed librarians out there 🙂 Purpose Analyzing job advertisements in library management helps one build understanding […]
Multilingual Collections a must in American Libraries
(2007). Guidelines for the Development and Promotion Of Multilingual Collections and Services. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 47(2), 198-200. Retrieved from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database. It seems it would be natural that American libraries would provide multilingual collections policies for libraries, however there seems to be a lack of awareness of what […]
Death of a Listserv
The use of instant messenger (IM) with regard to reference capabilities is becoming more common among academic and research libraries. Naturally, more people are talking about the benefits and also the negative aspects of utilizing this service within their own library through listservs. In my exploration through the DIGLIB mailing list, I discovered a thread […]
[De]construction of the Reference Desk
I have often wondered where the reference librarian was when I needed them. Haven’t you? It seems whenever you need help, it’s after hours, or the librarian is in a meeting (shock!). But, recently, I came across an article that functions as a model for any library that may be thinking of getting rid of […]