I fear that if you don’t catalog, you might miss out on some of the great information coursing through Catalogablog. Here are two great posts from Catalogablog, one recent, one not as recent.
“If anyone wishes to contact me by e-mail here are some things to avoid” [a lot of this goes for me too]
A number of wonderful things happening in and around ISBNs lately.
Author: jessamyn
don’t like search enginge, wriite your own…
What’s really involved if you, say, wanted to write your own search engine? [unalog]
The Trouble With Online – is it us?
Roy Tennant’s article for Library Journal about the pitfalls of trying to use an OPAC to find articles online is now itself online. I love it when people tak about disturbing failures of our profession.
We exert much more control over our library catalogs than we do with article indexes, where we are at the mercy of vendors. Since our catalogs are at least partly in our control (automated system vendors largely respond to market demand, and we control how we catalog our items), we need to find ways to enable users to limit searches to full text online. Users rightly expect this ability. Their not being able to do it easily, or at all, is a disturbing failure of our profession.
what can you use a wiki for?
Wikis were one of the more foreign things I discussed at my talk. It’s easy to point to Wikipedia and say “Look, a collaboratively built encyclopedia!” but it’s more difficult to explain how a librarian could use it in their own libraries. Today Teleread has a post about using a wiki for a book discussion group where groups can collectively annotate a book club web site. I think this is what the National Science Digital Library was hoping for with its Annotation and Review Services wiki but it seems to have suffered from neglect. Here’s a neat little wiki about blogs.
how to become the nordstroms of public libraries
I was cleaning off my desktop and came across this little helpful list from an old ALA program How to Become the Nordstrom of Public Libraries [word doc] by Robert Spector. You’ll notice most of these items don’t even cost anything.
1. Provide Your Customer With Choices
2. Create An Inviting Place for Your Customers
3. Hire Nice, Motivated People; (Hire the Smile, Train The Skill)
4. Sell The Relationship: Service Your Customers Through The Products And Services You Sell
5. Empower Employees To Take Ownership
6. Dump The Rules: Tear Down The Barriers To Customer Service
7. Promote Teamwork
8. Commit 100% To Customer Service
2. Create An Inviting Place for Your Customers
3. Hire Nice, Motivated People; (Hire the Smile, Train The Skill)
4. Sell The Relationship: Service Your Customers Through The Products And Services You Sell
5. Empower Employees To Take Ownership
6. Dump The Rules: Tear Down The Barriers To Customer Service
7. Promote Teamwork
8. Commit 100% To Customer Service