Banned Books Week is Coming up!

Not being in a public library right now is sad for me, because it means no banned book week displays or programs. I'm trying to think of some way to incorporate it into my current job, but pretty much drawing a blank. Any ideas?

In preparation for the week, here's a link to an author's response to her book's being banned.

Better than coffee (almost)

I like to get in to work a little early. I'm supposed to be here at 8:30, but I prefer to beat the rest of the staff, so that I can distribute newspapers and send out any library updates first thing. This morning, however, I was not the first one in. This was not a surprise, as I was out late (by Western Mass standards, which means not really late at all) and had a little trouble getting going.

Anyway, one of the researchers beat me this morning, and I came in to work to find a note taped to my office door. It ws a reference question.

So I quickly did my early morning work, and then headed off to her office to find out what she needed. It turned out that she was looking for a government publication. She couldn't remember the name of it, or how often it was published (at least she had a pretty good idea about which agency published it), and she thought we had subscribed to it in the past, but wasn't sure how long ago. So I got to spend my first twenty minutes or so of work this morning hunting it down.

I did find it, not only our most recent print version (which was almost ten years old), but alsoPDF versions for her to download, and I ordered the newest edition. I was very impressed with myself, considering I was going on about five hours of sleep and hadn't yet caffinated myself.

The thing is, I love starting my day off with reference work. Since that's by far my favorite aspect ofthe job, and one that I don't get to do as much as I'd like, it's always exciting when a good question comes along. This one caused me to search in the catalog, online, through the government printing office bookstore, and in our documents room. I found multiple ways to get the information to my patron, and in the end, I felt more awake than I would have if I had started the day with coffee and cataloging.

I'm still really tired though, and looking forward to the weekend!

I have an intern now...sort of.

There's a new intern at the institute. He's here to learn about economics, and help with research projects. He's also, apparently, at my disposal.

This is kind of cool, because I can have him do things, like re-shelve books that have been piling up, or do shelf checks. All the little things that, while I don't mind doing them, tend to fall through the cracks when I'm enmeshed in a big project, as I am right now.

But at the same time, he's an economics major in college, and probably not likely to get his MLIS any time soon, so I feel bad giving him a bunch of boring tasks that have nothing to do with what he wants to be when he grows up.

On the other hand, maybe he'll get so excited about he library that he'll decide his greatest dream is to be a librarian!

He also looks and talks like Michael Cera, which makes me so happy. I love Michael Cera.

I seem to have stirred up trouble

I was just trying to help, I swear.

Twice a week we have these meetings that are meant to help the research staff communicate their ideas for new web posts and articles. Unfortunately, they tend to get a little out of control, and very often people come up with ideas or have discussions that are great at the time, but nothing ever comes to fruition, I think in part because people leave and go work on their own stuff, and forget what was discussed. So I thought it would be helpful if I took notes and distributed them to everyone. That way we would all have a reference to what was discussed at the previous meeting and good ideas would be remembered.

But now the people that run the meetings have gotten mad at me for questioning the way they do things (I didn't realize that was what I was doing!), and half the staff wants to completely re-vamp the way the meetings are run, and the other half is pissed that they're now being told what to do, and I'm in the middle of it all.

I seriously thought this would be a simple matter of taking notes. It was supposed to be a quick reference tool, so that we could all be on the same page when we meet. And now I have to order all these books about how to run meetings, and the whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

What am supposed to do now?

I'm in love with Hoover's!

I've been working on a reference question for several days now. I know that makes me sound like some kind of slacker who can't answer a simple question, but the question is complicated.

Basically, I'm helping the marketing department put together lists of contacts to talk to about a new publication the company has put out (you may have seen the article in USAToday, how cool is that!). This means, in a sense, creating a database for the marketing director to use. So I've been digging up all the contact info--a generally long and tedious proccess, that often puts my searching skills to the test!

Can I just say how much Hoover's has saved me on this. They have about 1/3 of everything I need. It's all right there, and easy to look up, and neatly presented. I can narrow business by location, and I've memorized all my industry SIC codes. They even have the names of most of the people I want to contact directly, which is incredibly helpful.

Now if only they had a similar service for high school guidance offices by state. Then I could do the remaining 2/3 of this project just as easily!

In completely unrelated news, I'm going to look at apartments after work today. After living in campus housing for the past two months, I want my own place again so badly!

Crash...and Burn

I had my first instructional session this morning.

Last week, after some very odd finagling with vendor reps and different executive staff members here, I bought my first database. For a really great deal, I got a Premium subscription to Hoover's Online, which I'm really excited about. I spent most of the day yesterday working on a reference project for the marketing director, and would have been lost without Hoover's, so I think it will be a really good resource.

This morning, I was supposed to teach the research staff how to use it. And I forgot my username. I was sitting at the computer, and the webpage was loading ridiculously slowly to begin with, and I tried to log in...and it didn't work.

I tried at least five different combinations of usernames and passwords, but nothing worked. Finally, face burning, I apologized and said I needed to run to my office to look it up.

By the time I got back to the meeting room, everyone had left.

I have to say, I'm really glad it's a three day weekend, because I need a break so badly.

List-servs

Today I got an email through my government documents librarian list-serv from one of my old professors. It's been over a year since I've seen him, and then there he was, telling everyone that the Depository Library Council is working with the GPO to fix the problems with PURL (did anyone else undestand that, because I know I didn't!)

I emailed him back (privately, not so the whole list could read!) and told him about my job and what I was doing here, and we've been having an e-mail chat about government docs and reference services for researchers, and all the crazy things I'm doing.

It's kind of cool. I've been feeling awfully lonely and isolated, being the only librarian here. It's been a hard leap from working in two public libraries, where I'm surrounded by library advocates, and interested patrons, not to mention from being a student at Dominican, where I lived and breathed library advocacy (and occasssionally LISSA bar nights). So it's nice to know that the avenues I'm taking to stay connected with the library world aren't peopled with strangers.

Of course, I've got this blog, and other people's blogs, and Facebook, etc., to keep me connected, but the list-servs are so immediate, and so directly related to helping me do my job. On my old list-servs, which were all related to children's and young adult library services, there was a feeling of community to the list members. There's not so much of that with the uber-professional lists, like Gov Docs. Of course, there also arent's 50-email-long arguments about whether John Green's latest book is good, or if Accelerated Reader programs help or hinder. So I guess things even out.

This post has been all over the place. I have a cold, and I think it's making my head fuzzy.