Had a "Field Day"

There’s a little play on words there! Last Friday “we – 4 staff ladies” (S, J, A, and L) took a Field Trip and visited other libraries in our area. We had a “field day” – a good time. This year we visited Art related libraries: Kansas City Art Institute, Jannes Library; Nelson-Atkins Museum, Spencer Library and the Hallmark Creative Library. This is always a good way to broaden your horizons on similar workplaces to your own and to expose yourself to the library world in general. We always pick up ideas that we could use or adapt.

We started at KCAI where MJ first gave us background information about the Library building. It was originally a private home. KCAI was able to acquire it, did major renovation to it and moved in, in 2002. Their collection is less than half of ours and their acquisitions budget about the same as ours. – That tells you how expensive art books are! They moved from a crowded basement with less than a desirable environment, to a beautiful home which fits their needs much better. Patrons wondered where they got all the extra books that filled up the new location. They just didn’t realize they had been there all along – just were squeezed in, to maximum capacity.

They have had visitors tell of living there and of attending parties there, and more. They did well to maintain the flavor of the home and still adapt it to their needs. Pocket doors and working fire places are still in place.

MJ talked about evaluating their rare books for insurance places. (Bling! – We need to finish evaluating our rare books, to not only make them available but for insurance purposes. – Hadn’t thought of that!) She showed us their computer lab on 3rd floor and where they all sign in to use the lab. (Bling! Now there’s another idea to consider. How much staffing would that take?) Second floor held stacks in the addition to the building and offices in the original part of the building. Because staff needs access to the offices, MJ showed us how they are able to close off the stacks to allow for office access when the library is closed.

Next we went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. If you have never visited the NAM, you should. Next time you’re in KC, at least drive by! They have extremely oversized shuttle-cocks (i.e. badminton birdies) in the front lawn. I don’t know what all the controversy was for when these got put in. I think they are very amusing and intriguing. ‘Whodathunk’ they would make such fascinating sculptures! Oh, yes, KCAI has a statue of Thomas Hart Benton in the front yard. It looks like he’s walking up the lawn to the library.

The director of the museum, JH, gave us a good overview of the Spencer Library. They, too, have a smaller collection than ours. The reading room is graced by portraits of both Mr. and of Mrs. Spencer. It is also adorned with vases and dishes owned by the Spencers. You won’t have any trouble dusting these objects d’art. They are glued to the shelves! We also humorously mused if the Spencers’ ashes were sealed in the urns that were on display. The room houses new books, as well as reference material, ready reference and a table of publications that contain writings of NAM staff. There was one young man there doing some research, who graciously put up with our distracting conversation.

We all learned something here, including yours truly, the Librarian. The NAM library does not catalog the items for the Museum. The Register does that. We were disappointed that we would not get to see what some of those records would look like. But we did get to see the closed stacks. They have compact shelving there. The handles on each end are so easy to turn. It is amazing to see so much weight moved so easily.

The Archives room, is really a fenced in, locked area – in the closed stacks room. Not every one would be able to work in that kind of environment. But I think I could easily become so engrossed in my work that I wouldn’t even think of the surroundings! The archivist explained to us how size is determined by (cubic) feet instead of by volume. This is a different concept than what my ladies are used to. The NAM cataloger showed our cataloger, that even tho’ she was using RLIN instead of OCLC, she still used the universal MARC record format. As you may know, RLIN and OCLC are soon to merge, btw.

Since books in this library are to help those who work at that Museum, or others from the ‘museum-world’ these books are for in house use only. None are checked out and taken home. They can be, however, taken to their offices. They aren’t limited to 3 weeks, either but can have a book for months at a time. If I remember right they use the LC system for classification.

After a delicious lunch in the Museum’s Rozelle Court Restaurant, we headed for the Hallmark Corporation location. We were instructed to come in the corporate entrance and check in with the front desk. Our escort, IH, was paged and our temporary sticky name tags were printed.

IH took us to the Creative Library. They use the Dewey classification system here. Again their library was no bigger than ours. Their books were obviously heavy in items that would help inspire and create. They included books on religion, even bibles, books on architecture, gardening, etc. Anything that would be about a topic that could give insight and inspiration would be included. They were heavy in the 6, 7, and 800 sections of Dewey. I doubt there were any “how-to” books there.

They also have a large serial collection, popular magazines as well as trade magazines. Anything that could give you an idea where the culture is today and insight into life or anything that had to do with people relationships. After all, “when you care enough…” you want to be able to send the best. This is where they get those perfect thoughts and ideas that end up separating you from your money but hits the spot for your situation.

On one side of the room where little “inspiration cubicles” –at least that’s what I call them. They would be on various themes from time to time. Some of the four were “connectivity,” and “creativity.” The librarian there was telling about a committee that had been at the library earlier. They come to the library for the meetings so that they can surround themselves with where the inspiration starts. This is the genesis-room (if you will), for what the company is all about. (Bling! Maybe we ought to have one of the monthly faculty meetings in the library, sometime.)

Next, IH took us to the Research Library. Here T. told us about how she catalogs documents, surveys, data, and more. She does not use the typical cataloging system. Instead she uses Word to write up information about an item. Then she sets it up for metadata searching. This creates a wonderful in-house database for researchers. They can do this from their desk, or can come to the library and look at the item, holding it in hand. T and IH even took us to a conference room to show us via the Intranet how employees can research these databases from their offices.

This library has a very large collection, percentage wise, of journals and periodicals. We learned that those “annoying” survey takers in the mall really are helpful. These are some of the ways that Hallmark gathers information for where the culture is today and what the current needs and habits are of customers. (Maybe next time, I’ll actually talk to one of those survey takers.)

All of these special libraries were interesting to us. We were impressed with how, in each case, the staff was, without exception, aware of the purpose of their library and how they fit into their institution. It was not forced comments as though they were trained to be sure and convey that thought. It was part of their thinking process and awareness of the importance and place of the library in that organization. (Bling! Do we really see and understand the importance our library plays in our institution?)

It was delightful to get acquainted with others in our profession. We even discovered that two of the folk we met were believers and listen to KLJC, our “flagship” radio station here at Calvary. Did you know you can listen to it online, even though you don’t live in Kansas City?

Cost Free Vacation, almost

I am back at work today after being on vacation all last week; at least as far as work is concerned it was a vacation. I went to Arkansas to sort through 30 years of slide pictures my parents had taken while with Mid-America Mission and Woodland Acres Bible Camp. I looked at and organized about 1500. About half of those have been marked for scanning. Probably about 100 were actually scanned. I have about another 1000 still to go through. (Not to mention that I think there is more in another big box.)

What has this got to do with a cost free vacation? It was a trip down memory lane going back to the mid 50's when I was a 'mere child,' including one summer in Canada. That cost me nothing. It certainly did a good job of blowing the dust and cobwebs out of my memory. Some was successful, some were not! This trip mainly cost me gas, and a donation to the camp for housing me for the week. It was a very interesting trip bringing back a variety of people, places and things we did:
• like 4 blow outs in Ohio one year when driving back to MO from NY,
• like a visit from our grandparents when we lived in western Kansas,
• like the first time I wore a formal (piano recital),
• like visiting Hannibal, MO (boyhood home of Mark Twain), on our return trip home from NY state.
• like the Christmas program when I was one of the sandmen, (I still have the costume),
• like getting the chicken pox when we (my parents and I) were at a camp for the summer,
• like visiting the Niagra Falls on the Canadian side, -& taking a picture of yours truely, holding her skirt up at the sides so you could tell it was a full circle skirt!,
• like going to Wooley Creek for sunday school (yup, that really was the name of it)...


I also got to see a high school friend, DC. We went out to eat and tried catching up on news. Our High School class will celebrate our 40th year anniversary next year. Hopefully we will be able to get together and do something. It would be nice since we have only had two other reunions: 20th and 25th! We have already lost over 13% of our class-almost all of them tragic deaths: accidents or suicides. We have had one die of cancer.

My daughter who is mentally handicap went with me to Arkansas. This past week was Junior High week which fits in perfectly for her social level, even though she will be 30 later this week. I didn't see her much except at meals, so I knew she was having a good time. On our way home she was getting settled down to sleep while I drove. She raised her head up and said "I had fun" and put her head back down again!!! I could tell she did - she was exhausted! Sunday afternoon she slept about 5 hours and still went to bed at her usual time. They also had crafts that she could do. She was thrilled with her creations!

Now maybe this week I'll have some library news to report. We-4 (library staff) are taking a field trip Friday to visit other libraries in the area. That is always enlightening and educational to see how other libraries do things. It gives you good ideas.

Reliable Communication part two

The IT dept and the Library made plans this spring to move the computer lab from a room on the west side of the library. We want to put it on the east side of the partition that is between the west room and the remainder of the library. Before we can do this we need two outlets added. We ‘enlisted’ the help of a staff member who has done electrical wiring. This was around the end of May/first of June.

A couple of weeks ago I talked to the maintenance department head (CA) about what was happening about this, as nothing had yet been done in the library with the two outlets. He told me that he had not received any info or a PO from our “electrician” (GW). Tuesday of this week I talked to GW. He said he had told CA what was needed. But he also told me that it would cost $600 to put these two outlets in. So the business office had decided back in the beginning of the summer to have him do other smaller projects on campus.

Why would it cost $600 for two outlets? Because the breaker box is already full and GW can not put any more wiring in, for two outlets. They would have to be “conduited” (new word for the day) to a new breaker box in the back room as there is plenty of room in it for new wiring. So that would cost a lot of money.

What I don’t understand is: we are already using these 16 computers and 2 printers on our current breaker box. Why can’t we take out two current outlets and wire in the two needed outlets? Well, you can’t do it that way if you want to do it right.

When was this decision communicated to the Library? Tuesday, 6 weeks after the fact. The “disease” of non-communication continues to abound! Bummer.

BACK ROOM PROGRESS
Remember our back room “disaster”? That was about the time we launched this blog. We (the campus) are having a Workday all over campus every Tuesday. So this past Tuesday a couple of us worked in our back room. 40% of the original area is our new storage room. We are actually making progress in getting the room set up the way we want it. Boxes have been heaved and ho-ed, tables have been turned over onto their legs and arranged in the room the way we want and most of the boxes now placed on the tables in sorted groups. (There’s a few more boxes that need to be moved.) It has been a lot of sweat, aches and pains but we are getting there. It seems to be taking for ever, but we are finally beginning to see “final” plans taking shape. It may not sound like any big deal, but it is exciting to us. If I can ever figure out how to upload pictures to this blog, someday you just might see some before and after shots.

INFORMATION LITERACY
I have been concerned for some time now about the lack of teaching our students how to use the library to its fullest advantage. Today I met with MP, the head of our Non-Traditional Studies department. He wants to put together a 6 weeks course (20 hours) for the NTS students on how to write better papers, improve grammar, use the library and more. This is going to be a little bit of challenge – or maybe work – as I have not done this before, but see the need. So now we (royal we) will need to start researching and pulling info together on how it’s done in other places and what we need to talk about, regarding our own library etc. etc. I’m glad to begin to see some movement in this direction. I have also been in conversation with the seminary dean about doing the same thing there. So we’ll see what happens and where this will take us. “Stay tuned.”

MYSPACE
MySpace is in the news, if you haven’t heard. It is the number one draw to a website, out pacing Yahoo and other similar sites. Genealogy used to be the number (legal) use of the internet. (You can probably guess what is THE number one use, but we’ll not state it here.) It will be interesting to see, as this generation comes of age, if that will change. Here is more information, showing graphs, etc. If you have not heard of MySpace.com or Facebook.com and you are working with high school and college students today either in academic/educational settings or in the public library, you might take a look at what is big with our millennials.

SEMINARY "LIBRARY"
Today ADJ and I went over to the Seminary and worked some more on the books that are over there. We photocopied the title pages and versos of 21 books, keeping them in order of how they were copied. They will be cataloged, labeled, "licked, stamped, and sealed" (no, I'm just kidding). Hopefully they will stay on the shelf in the order we photocopied them so when we return after ADJ has them cataloged them, we can quickly add the labels. The remainder still to do have been sorted and grouped somewhat by how they will be on the shelf after they are cataloged, i.e. all the individual commentaries on books of the bible have been put in canonical order. Books on Greek, Hebrew, New Testament, and Old Testament have been put together by topic, etc. So when we work on the next batch and take back their labels, they will already be somewhat in the order they will need to be when in call number order.

Next we will have to begin to educate the Seminary faculty and the students the new procedures that will need to happen, which they are not used to doing. This will be a self service library. The books are for "in-house use only" so the students will need to track their usage and be sure they put the books back in the correct order. No problem for a grad student, right??? We'll see. But something will be better then nothing, which is what we've had before.


NEXT WEEK
...I will be "on vacation." At least, I won't be in the office. I am going to Arkansas to sort through hundreds (or more) of pictures my mother took for over 30 years while associated with Mid-America Mission, (home of Woodland Acres Bible Camp). Their fiftieth anniversary is coming up this fall, so I am going to take these pictures down to them and go through the pictures. It will be a trip alright - a trip down memory lane. This will probably be a cheaper trip then a lot of vacations!! Hopefully I'll get to see some friends, too as this is where I grew up and graduated from High School. (Next year will be our HS class's 40 year anniversary. But I doubt we will do anything. Nothing's been done since our 25th. We're quite a lazy bunch!) So it may be a couple of weeks or so before I'm back. I can tell you right now it will take me probably the first whole week I'm back just to catch up for the week I'll be gone.

Undo the "delete"

Have you ever reversed a decision of a predecessor? Or withdrawn a book only to add it again? Today ADJ and I spent 2 hours in the seminary "lab." We have started cataloging the books that are there, adding them to our collection but indicating by location where they are. Some of the books that are there belong to the library and were "checked out" to the Seminary. These had to be "checked in" and then back out again every summer. We were able to get a location added to our software that says "seminary". This is a big help. Now we no longer have to check them out and in from the seminary. Most of the books that are there are donations. Some from a former president, some from a current professor, the rest from a variety of other sources. A few of these books are books that had been withdrawn from the library's collection and given to the seminary. Well, today we brought these four books back to the library. We are going to re-catalog them, then take them back to the seminary, noting in the record that location. Wonder what my predecessor will do to all my "hard" work!!!

FREE EBOOKS
Got this website from a friend, by email. This gives you free access till August 4th to ebooks listed on this site: a Book Fair digital style!

Fourth of July weekend

Create your own fireworks celebration. I found this through a friend's blog site. Have Fun!

Last Saturday (July 1, 2006) was our older son’s 29th birthday. So “we-4” (b’day boy/son, daughter, father and mother) met our other son and daughter-in-law at a LongHorn Steakhouse to celebrate his birthday. JG works at a LongHorn restaurant but had never eaten there as a customer. Most of us had a steak. They were all delicious. MSG, our daughter had her favorite supper: cheeseburger! (All that delicious steak, and she picks a hamburger!!) Oh Well, she was happy. And we all enjoyed a good meal.

Afterwards, MRG (husband) and I went to the city to see Riverdance!! WooHoo! I had heard they were “in town.” I had asked my husband if he would like to go see them. He said no unless “he was tricked into it”! :-) So, I asked him to take me for our 35th anniversary which is 8 days later. So we did! I had an absolutely wonderful time. He really enjoyed himself too. He did say he liked the first half better than the second. And I liked some parts better then others, and “Trading Taps” the best. But it was all very good. The lead dancers that we saw were Mr. Liam Ayres, and Miss Siobhan Manson .

From their website is this bit of information: "Riverdance has been seen live by over 18 million people in over 250 venues worldwide, throughout 30 countries across 4 continents."

Sunday was the first day that our interim pastor officially started. Afterwards we had a church picnic at a member’s home/yard. That was a nice touch for it also being the Fourth of July weekend.

Since both MRG and JG had to work on the fourth we didn’t have a family celebration this year. Instead I pretty much spent the day working my polymer clay magic making beads and jewelry. But that evening I did watch the Capitol Fourth celebration and Boston Pops' celebration on TV. I especially like to watch the Boston Pops on the 4th. But this year I tho’t that the Capitol Fourth celebration was the better of the two. I am not a rock and roll fan, so having Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith fame on the show actually ruined it for me. Stringy, greasy hair, leather and chain attire and screaming at the top of your voice isn’t my kind of patriotic celebrating, honoring God and Country. So this year before the Boston Pop's program was even over, I heard fireworks outside. So I grabbed my camera and walked our little community taking pictures of local fireworks. Time will tell if they even turn out. But that was truely an american celebration - having the freedom and safety to walk about town, after dark, carrying an expensive camera taking pictures of strangers' celebrations!

What has all of this got to do with libraries? Well, even library staff folks get some time off and this is what I did over the last 5 days – a nice long weekend. Today I am back at work solving patrons’ problems over losing their library card, (and still wanting to check out books), deciding what duplicate books to keep and what to return, working on a specialized cutter table for our library, reviewing the amount of requested books by professors compared to the classes they teach and see where there is imbalance, catching up on email that has accumulated over the last 5 days, juggling out a new courier service along with the two we already have (and no, we really don’t have that much business. You’ll have to see my comments earlier about the courier service situation and what I think of it.) And, of course, having lunch with my co-workers, catching up on their exploits over the weekend, too.

Guess I better get back to checking the books that have been cataloged, work on that cutter table, and see, if there’s any time left, about getting reports written up from the conference I went to last month.

PS - are you interested in blogging, too? Here's an article and handy tips on how to have a good blogging site.