The search has begun

The holiday was a blur and now I have approximately one million projects to finish by Dec. 15--then comes break sweet break.

I've started my job search and let me say it's overwhelming. I've been del.icio.us(ing) various librarian positions that I think/hope I'm qualfied for. I've been warned this will be a 6 month process and I'm getting myself geared up. Winter break is going to 100% dedicated to getting job applications out there. I fear that with 3 courses, a practicum, and my internship , I'll have trouble sending out resumes as often as (in a perfect world) I'd like.

So we shall see where this journey will take me, I'm trying to leave room for every option--no barriers.
Here I go...

My Trading Card

Originally uploaded by Nahnsee.

Yes, we librarians are so hip we even have our own trading card series.

Where does the library fit?

Upon reading U.S. college drop-out rate sparks concern: Educators turn attention to getting students all the way to graduation, I thought to myself; "Where does the library fit?" Academic libraries are often that one place on campus in which every student is somewhat familiar. The library is often open when other buildings are closed. The library is full of individuals (librarians) acting as mentors to the student population everyday (or should be). I deeply believe that this is the library's role. We need to open our doors and proclaim we are here to help you--no catch, come in, ask questions, find answers, gain access, and become an integral and valued piece of our community.

Among Beauty

Dominican
Originally uploaded by Nahnsee.

This is Dominican University where I'm currently enrolled in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Google Base & Small Libraries

It has been reported today that Google has officially joined Web 2.0 with the launch of Google Base (still in beta phase). Google Base has been billed as free online, searchable database.

Here's what Google Base says about itself:

Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we'll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.

Could this be good for libraries? Could a library's presence by furthered by using Google Base as a supplemental database? Could small libraries (with little or no budget) use Google Base in order to track their collection?

I suppose we'll see...

Are Academic Libraries Doing Enough?

I'd say no! Two days ago a friend of mine asked me about what I do as a librarian. I told him I was a reference librarian and he looked at me blankly (this is someone, mind you, who went to a major university in Illinois and earned a degree) I then proceeded to give him my job description in the form of example research questions I've assisted patrons on. In the end my friend said, "I had no idea that I could just go up to a librarian and ask them for help on a research question." Can you believe this? I can! It's sad, but we librarians aren't doing enough to make ourselves visible and necessary on college campuses. Today, The Kept-Up Academic Librarian relayed the article Libraries lure students with lattes, which discusses some attempts academic libraries have made to expose and integrate themselves more fully into campus life. There was one passage I found of particular interest concerning a survey that was taken at the University of Minnesota...

Most students surveyed even said they should be required--yes, forced--to learn how to use the library.

I agree fully, as an undergraduate student I too was overwhelmed with the massive library at my university. It wasn't until my senior year (I know...too late!) that a professor of mine took our class on a library tour. If not for that class, I may not be where I'm at today (library school). Rather, I may be more like my friend--in the dark about libraries and librarianship.

Web 2.0, etc

I discovered through the Library Stuff blog an interesting site called the PubSub Community List, which rates blogs. Looks pretty good and is thus far split into: The P.R. List, The Law List, The Library List, and The Fashion List. Steven explains it best here.

Also, this weekend was spent discussing Web 2.0 and all of the sharing it encompasses.I've come to believe that Web 2.0 really puts it all out there-the information just keeps on exploding and it seems to me that in a certain way Web 2.0 is attempting to classify it from within itself. By this I mean that the web is now being classified and "tagged" by its users. What does this mean to libraries and librarians (especially those within the cataloging field)? I believe there's a lot to be learned by such classification and tagging-what is "our" public saying about how they want to find things. What classification measures are they using and are they working?

Questions to be pondered...

How to get it out there?

I was recently talking with some non-library friends about new library services such as blogs, instant messaging, podcasts, etc. One of my friends aptly said, "I had no idea libraries were doing all of this." This, I feel, is an all to common reaction to library services. My friend went on to say..."how are libraries getting this information out to people." At that I stammered a bit and basicly said that I really don't feel like they're doing much. This was a sad conversation and one that I think needs to be more directly addressed by libraries. There are library marketing resources, but I'm unsure how often they are truly being implemented.
We need to work on capturing the attention of non-library users.