I have always been a fan of the idea of creating a mediated search engine – one in which the results have been reviewed in order to ensure a lean, relevant results list.

The reality of the idea is, shall we say, a different matter.  The process is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and usually falls short in the relevance category.

Springo may be the reality that falls closer to the ideal.  Focusing on topic-based searches, they provide results that reflect sites that people most use when they are seeking solutions to more generalized questions, such as e-mail software, movie reviews, or open source software.

The results aren’t perfect, but they do appear relevant.  Most of what I notice are the sites I would expect to be top-tier, but aren’t.  It is a great resource, especially for those who might otherwise find it challenging to wade through several dozen results to find what they need.

My other observation is that I almost immediately began to use the URL to form my search strings, rather than use the provided interface.  It just seems faster and easier to do so.  Plus, it would be nice to be able to right-click (Windows-centric) in order to open results in a new tab.  Minor quibbles, though, for an effective tool that has been a long time coming.

found via Library Journal (print edition, 1 November 2009)

Publishers Weekly is reporting that not only are they up for sale by their publisher, Reed Business Information, but that Library Journal and School Library Journal are available as well.

Without knowing the cost/profit information for each of these, I do wonder how  they are affected by the various pressures in the publishing world as well as the shifting of library information to the web (including social media such as blogging and Twitter).

found via LISNews

It is nearly time for Marshall Breeding’s annual Automation Systems Marketplace report, published in the April 1st edition of Library Journal.  This is as comprehensive and informative a report on the software we use to organize and present our collections as exists, and it portrays trends within the library community.

Paired with his announcement, however, was a request for library staff to review their listing on lib-web-cats, an online database of libraries, their basic directory information, and the software packages they use.  Find your library, review the information, and add / update / remove any information needed to make your listing current.

encountered on GuidePosts

Library Journal has announced the winners of the 2009 Movers & Shakers awards, and as usual, the recipients are fantastic and enthusiastic innovators who look for new ways for libraries to be better:

• The Alphabetical List (follow the links for profiles of the 2009 recipients).
• Movers on the Map (scroll down for a state-by-state listing).

I hope each of them has read What We Need, and that this year marks a reversal of the trend of institutional discouragement that has plagued recipients in the past.  If you have a Mover & Shaker in your organization, celebrate the award; if you have people who are potential movers and shakers (and I am not limiting this to the award), be sure to find ways to encourage them.

seen first on Stephen’s Lighthouse

Added 16 March 2009:  LISNews posted a link to a Photo Gallery page on Library Journal… lots of smiling professionals!

A few links of note:

• Library Journal has an overview of the panel session – OCLC Defends Records Policy, Faces Questions, Suggestions, and Criticisms.
• Karen Calhoun, Vice President OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services, has posted the slides from her presentation.
• The Disruptive Technology Library Jester blog has a couple of posts well worth reading – Consideration of OCLC Record Use Policy and Further Consideration of OCLC Record Use Policy.

I sincerely hope that Karen Calhoun and OCLC are taking into consideration that a licensing structure similar to Creative Commons (to name one that many people have become familiar with) can be a win-win situation, allowing for quality control and prevent reselling of records, while still allowing for sharing and creative use of the data within the records.

The cover story for the October issue of Library Journal is titled What We Need.  It centers on the results of a survey of Movers & Shakers, the annual group of people recognized by Library Journal for innovation and leadership.  It contains a lot of great information, and even a few surprises.

Most of all, if you are in a job situation where people are not encouraged or rewarded for innovation, don’t feel that you are isolated and alone.  Many of those surveyed come from similar circumstances.  What emerges from this article is not so much the people who excel because of a supporting environment and management, but in spite of it.  Most received more support and encouragement from their peers at work than from their supervisors.

What surprised me so much that I had to put down the article and simply let it sink in was the following passage:

Nearly half of all respondents (48.6%) stated that their organization did not celebrate their being named as an LJ Mover. Many of the total respondents commented that internal recognition was limited to a librarywide email from the director or a brief comment at a staff meeting.

Think about that.  Library Journal picks about 50 people each year to recognize their enthusiasm and contributions to libraries.  Nearly half of their workplaces didn’t think this recognition important enough to celebrate.  My first thought was about the unhealthy workplaces; however, that large of a number signifies to me a sickness in the profession.  Consider the following:

Some respondents noted that the recognition from outside of the library actually hurt their work life. When asked if and how their being named a Mover was celebrated, one respondent answered “not at all, created a lot of problems.” Another noted “friends and colleagues celebrated; administration ignored the award.”

These are the cream of the crop!  How many potential Movers & Shakers (and I am not limiting this to those officially recognized as such) have been demoralized over the years by this environment?  More importantly:  what can we do about this?

Simply put:  celebrate innovation, wherever it may come from.  Support your coworkers, whatever their “level” or title, when they succeed at something new.  Support them even more when they fail… the attempt is of the utmost importance.

I feel strongly for these people when I hear these stories, because I have experienced those environments.  I know people who are still existing in situations that rob most people of their enthusiasm for libraries. I can tell stories, but often do not because of the pain and frustration the memories invoke.  Not only careers but lives can and do get ruined.

What you can do is this:  Take heart, and keep on striving to do everything you can to learn, and apply what you learn.  Try… Fail… Try again.  Support each other, because sometimes all you have is each other.

Just keep at it.

Marshall Breeding provides his annual overview of the shifts and trends in the world of the Integrated Library System (ILS) in the current issue of Library Journal.

Of interest is the definite movement of the open source systems, Koha and Evergreen, into the mix.  I’m surprised that they haven’t made this much impact in the past year or two, but I suspect that contracts and switching effort has made the library world very hesitant to try out new technologies at the level of the ILS and OPAC until they sense that others are using them effectively.

We could stand more experimenting, even on the sandbox level… who knows how much better we could be with a bit of time and effort?

This post by The Limnal Librarian is, simply put, a must for everyone to read and understand (even if you don’t agree).

I worked in a pharmacy as a technician for 8 years. There were great, and not so great, times to be had, and I learned a lot (especially about working with and for people). One of those lessons was that the person walking up to the counter didn’t know that I wasn’t a pharmacist and didn’t care that I wasn’t a pharmacist; they wanted their question answered rightly or their medication filled properly.

Libraries are the same. We are all librarians. Any other unifying name or term to define those of us who work there is an attempt at futility: people see us all as librarians. This is not to take anything away from the MLS degree; I have seen the power that a good library program gives to a person inclined to help others find and use information… nothing can replace that (only reduce it). There is a very good reason why the MLS should be required for library administrators, and that it should be a generous part of any well-sized library’s staffing.

We all, however, represent the same entity to the patron. Nobody, in any position, should hesitate to say “let me get someone who can help you with that particular question”. That someone might be the high school page who you know to be a fan of graphic novels; or the support staff who knits as a hobby, or the director who’s husband has the same medical condition (though the patron never need know if the director doesn’t want them to).

The linked essay should be read, understood, printed out, posted, and perhaps even left on the desks of those needing the reminder most.

Tapping into your staff’s knowledge doesn’t diminish anyone’s position; only ignoring it does.

found via LISNews

(added later) — it may be that part of the original post that this post was a response to (I don’t know, it was deleted) involved Dean Giustini being upset that Tim Spaulding of LibraryThing won a Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers award this year.  If so, there is an added reason to strongly respond:  we are a profession that is seeking it’s purpose in an era in which much of our traditional purpose may be shifting to the internet (i.e. instant reference and access to information resources).  Anyone who can help to merge the two and provide a combined path forward is worthy of recognition; they needn’t be part of the traditional library family to do so.

It seems that Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers nomination process has hit a severe bump: every nomination that was submitted through their online form prior to November 5th has been lost.

If you nominated someone, well… you need to nominate them again.  The nomination deadline has been extended to November 28th.

An additional note (from experience): without knowing what happened with LJ’s process, I will stress that with online forms redundancy is the best policy. It is well and good to drop form information into a database, but send it to an e-mail account as well (or even two different accounts). It can be time-consuming to re-create the information, but certainly it is less of a hassle than having that information completely disappear.

previously here

discovered via Catalogablog

Nope, the list hasn’t been announced yet.  In fact, Library Journal is asking for nominations:

The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. Our seventh annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers & Shakers 2008 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead.

I have been impressed with the Movers & Shakers lists over the past few years, and look forward to that supplement (which will arrive with the March 15, 2008 issue).  The people profiled are all putting themselves forward in the library world in interesting ways that benefit us all. 

The deadline has been extended to November 15th, so if you know of anyone deserving, be sure to fill out the online nomination form by then!

found on Catalogablog

Introducing the Michaels is a column by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens in the current issue of Library Journal. Read it. Print it out. Leave copies in your break area for co-workers to read.

Michael and Michael’s “tenets of the transparent library” are are golden nuggets of wisdom, and their application can greatly improve library environments throughout the world. Most of all, their application within the workplace can transform the internal environment of our own libraries.

Don’t think that this is a top-down project, however. Recognize that the best way to change your environment is to change what you are doing, and encourage the same changes for those around you. Network. Discuss. Share what you do, so that others better understand not only your role in the greater organization, but their own as well.

To those who think in terms of “knowledge is power” and respond by portioning out information in a controlled manner, these tenets are revolutionary (and perhaps even subordinate) ideas. Recognize that greater openness is the stronger weapon, and that the most effective way to wield it is to apply it in your own work.

The opportunity is here for libraries to become the standard-bearers of the information age, or the greatest irony.

Library Journal came out with their Movers & Shakers supplement last week, and I got a chance to browse through it.  I was surprised to discover that I have not only met one, but two of the people on their list.  Note that I say “met”… I don’t “know” either of them, but have had opportunities to meet them.

Linda Slusar from College of DuPage (IL) is an incredible influence in the world of library support staff.  She is directly, and indirectly, responsible for many, many staff obtaining their LTA certification, as well as co-founding and producing Soaring to Excellence (highly recommended).  I first met her at the LTA graduation ceremony of a co-worker, several years ago.

“Gene Ambaum” is a pseudonym for an anonymous teen librarian from the Pacific Northwest who is one-half of the infamous Unshelved team.  Unlike with Linda, I remembered to get proof of not only meeting “Gene”, but his co-creater Bill Barnes as well:

… for library school students, that is.

If their form is to be believed, they are asking you to send in your student ID as part of the process.  Not sure if they really mean a photocopy or what, but I did send an e-mail asking how quickly they would return one’s ID…

Humor aside, this is a neat offer for those who are in library school.

from Catalogablog

In the 15 July 2006 issue of Library Journal, Jeffrey Beall writes a passioned defense of metadata against the forces of keyword searching. Much of what he says is valid, and I agree that metadata is necessary for effective storage and retrieval in the electronic age.

However, near the end of his essay he states:

There is also the problem of synonymy. For example, if a searcher needs information about plant science, but the best resources call it botany, then the searcher will likely be unsuccessful in his search. Our language is rich, and we often use many precise terms to represent a single concept. Full-text searching, however, is inherently imprecise in its execution.

This, to me, actually strikes me as one of the greatest challenges with the use of metadata: the need to know a controlled vocabulary. The average library user doesn’t necessarily know that botany, or cookery, or numismatics are the proper terms for subject searches, as opposed to more commonplace words.

Modern OPACs have plenty of “see” and “see also” examples, but this is only truly useful if the effort has been made to make the connections as complete as possible. I tend to use subjects only through the links available through results… results that I usually have reached by a keyword search. I like to tell patrons that, once you find a good result, track the subject headings to find other items, then check the shelves in each of the call number areas in which you found results.

The essay is well worth reading; we have a tendancy to forget the power of a controlled vocabulary and metadata, and it would be a shame to toss them aside in favor of the broad stroke of the keyword.

article discovered through Catalogablog