On my fridge I have a photocopy of a letter that Sandy Berman sent to the Library of Congress this August suggesting that they establish dildoes as a LCSH. I got many fascinating photocopies along with it for supporting evidence. I enjoy being on Sandy’s mailing list. Today, vickiep from del.ico.us sent me a link to “strap-on sex” as a new Library of Congress subject heading. Hooray! Unfortunately, links that go into the Library of Congress Authorities searches aren’t permanent but I was able to replicate the search and find the listing for dildoes in the weekly list for September 26th. Of interest to me particularly is that the authority record for strap-on sex contains Wikipedia, Google and “LC database” as notes in the 670 field. update: Tim at LibraryThing has a post showing the record.
Author: jessamyn
Revolting Librarians Redux fundraiser ends tomorrow
Thanks to everyone who has played along and bid on the four copies of Revolting Librarians Redux that KR and I have on ebay as a fundraiser for the EFF. The auction closes tomorrow and has already raised $80+ which may be a drop in the bucket but I’ll be happy to send them a nice thank you note from the librarians for all the work they’ve done and continue to do. update: thanks everyone, the books got a bunch of bids and went for $21/each. $84 to the EFF!
in praise of small town libraries
In New England, in Autumn, there is a lot that is beautiful. Here is a neat article about small town libraries in Western MA with an attractive slide show to go along with it. I’ve made a Flickr set of the libraries I’ve been to with one photo per library. They’re not all small town libraries, but they’re good for looking at as well. [thanks rob!]
four concrete ways the OPAC can NOT suck, and you can help
Peter from OhioLINK has a nice post with four different ways you can extend an online catalog to make it less sucky. Read: Schemes to Add Functionality to the Web OPAC. [lib]
ALA finally hiring Usability Officer
You can get 75K plus decent benefits to be a usability officer at ALA. They say “senior” but to the best of my knowledge there aren’t any other usability officers there currently. I’m not sure where officer actually comes from, maybe some ALA-er can explain? In any case, if I were the Usability Officer after I changed the job listings to not spell Website with a capital W, I would ask very specifically what this requirement in the ad means.
The ability to work in a team environment and between two universes of Information Technology and Librarianship is essential in order to maintain an outcome-oriented, global vision.
I’m curious why those are deemed to be two universes instead of, say, two moons orbiting around one big planet of helping people do the things they want to do and go where they want to go. I’m sure Jenny is asking the same questions. I hope they find someone, but I wonder what affect that person will be able to have on the in-process-for-many-years-already website redesign?