Cathy the Librarian

This is what I get.
I try and post a nice long message after four months and my computer has a brain fart and deletes the message. Typical.

Okay this dates me… or not. I’ve been feeling melancholy lately. The melancholy like this: sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. Not this: the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression. I’ve been thinking about all the shows I watched and toys I played with as a kid, although mostly the shows. Growing up in the 80’s and in the city (southwedge) of Rochester as I did, you didn’t go outside to play too much, especially when both of your parents had full-time jobs. Instead, you stayed inside and

1. beat your sisters (I have two younger Jen and Sam) up
2. played imaginary games having to do with your imaginary things
   1. boyfriend
   2. apartment
   3. job
3. make weird food substances that you wouldn’t eat in a million years if an adult prepared them, but when you prepared them, it was okay
4. create “houses” out of sheets, pillows from the couch and chairs
5. beat your sisters up some more
6. dance like ballerinas (there were three girls, no boys) to classical music on WXXI
7. Listen to the funky record collection your dad has, but only when he’s around because
   1. he’d kill you
   2. you don’t know how to work the record player anyway
8. watch Nickelodeon and PBS

I will only speak about 8 tonight. The 80’s had some really funky stuff out there. And I think they may be even funkier in my eyes because I was six in 1985, so some of the shows are sort of vague memories at that.

Some of these shows include:

1. Today’s Special
2. Pinwheel
3. Dangermouse
4. You Can’t Do That On Television
5. She-Ra, Princess of Power and He Man
6. Fraggle Rock
7. Sesame Street
8. RANGER BOB! (on WUHF, before it became Fox 31) There’s even an honest to goodness fan website dedicated to Ranger Bob!

Just thinking about them, I long for the days when I was young and free. All this thinking has gotten me tired, and I didn’t even get to talk about any of the shows. Ah well. BTW, if you look on youtube, you can find snippets of most of the shows. Because I know you want to. LOL! Double BTW. I’m glad that people are trying to improve the Southwedge, because its a really great area. And that’s not just because I grew up there, although it helps!

Jeff just purchased http://cathythelibrarian.com/ for me. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. I would like to try and keep my “blog blog” separate from my “professional blog” with my resume on it, although I try not to put anything too damaging here… well except for the poetry. Still it might be nice to have everything together… although I guess everything is together here. ARRGH. The Internet is a time consuming place.

I just found out that I was mentioned at one of the director’s meetings… due to my incessant fiddling with the Internet. The directors were talking about taking the virtual reference desk down, and some people were saying that they still use it… anyway, somehow my name was mentioned because I use del.icio.us for the library.

It sounds like the reference desk is doomed, so I’m going to try and get as much of the stuff onto a del.icio.us account as I can… although upon looking at some of the stuff, I don’t think I’ll even bother. Some of the sites are people’s personal musings. I took Digital Libraries at Buffalo. We created a site for teachers. Many of the sites on the virtual reference desk would not make it. You don’t want to send people to sites of questionable origin. Granted you may not have created it or anything, but just as we (as librarians) try to buy the best quality books that we can, we should also hold the same standards for our websites.

1. Don’t link to websites that haven’t been updated in forever.
2. Don’t link to websites that are more ads than content.
3. Don’t link to websites that don’t leave an “about this site” section. You want to know if you can trust the information.
4. Look carefully at the url. While not always the case, there are some webhosting sites that you KNOW aren’t going to be used by professionals.
5. Look at the url again. Make sure that you link to the main page of the site and not a section of the url that’s five or six layers in. If upon looking at the homepage, its something completely different, you should think twice about adding it. Its also wise to do this in case there may be… objectionable material on the rest of the site.
6. DO remember to post somewhere that you cannot be held accountable for the information on the sites you are linking to. You’ll notice most schools, government websites do this to save their skins.
7. Do check up ocassionally to make sure that the links are still live. This can be mind numbing, but its important maintenance, just like cleaning your fish tank.

I really like using del.icio.us. They let you download buttons so that as you are surfing the web, if you find something you like, you can just click a button, add some tags and voila! You have added a new link! Plus you can see other people who have linked to the same sites you have and steal their links.

So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I’m trying to go through the links as fast as I can before they take it down, so that I can add them to my del.icio.us account… although there is a site that archives websites, so you can check things out even if the site is gone. What is it?… Ah yes, the Internet Archive. And they have archived the library website! Yippee! Oh dear. I’m a nerd… good night!

I am ashamed of myself. I complained about reading the articles for the Technology Institute, and then felt awful when Patty read it (especially since she’s on the committee) . I love technology, in fact I saturate myself in it. I just feel that library 2.0 could be summed up in a couple of sentences:

1. Go where your patrons are (the internet)
2. find ways to make it more useful for them
3. find ways to make it more interactive
4. find ways to make it more efficient

This all sounds very nice, however by making our patrons self-sufficient, we are putting ourselves out of jobs

1. using podcasting to do story times on the internet
2. making search engines more intuitive and more accessible
3. digitizing lots of our books
4. becoming like netflix and sending books to the patrons

By removing ourselves further and further from our patrons, we are giving them the impression that we aren’t necessary anymore. Sure we may still be doing lots of behind the scenes things, but who’ll know that besides us? Also what happens to all those without computers; senior citizens, lower income people…

Do we tell them to use our computers to find the information that they are looking for, rather than letting them know that we are here for them and that we are listening to their concerns. I graduated from library school in 2002. During the time I was there they changed the school to the school of “Informatics”. Most of the classes had to do with technology or the Internet. Not that I disagree with this, however very few classes seemed to deal with the people side of our jobs. We do serve people, you know. Not computers. I got into this field, not only because I love books, but mostly because I love people. I love working with people and finding ways to help them to the best of my ability.

Anywho. I apologize to Patty for complaining. It was very bad of me. Shame shame shame.