Candy Cane No. 9!

9 Dec

 December 9 – Go, Libraries, Go!

I love a mobile library, a bookmobile, and biblioburros! Several years ago, my neighbor introduced me to the Mobile Library Mystery Series by the Northern Ireland author, Ian Sansom. The Case of the Missing Books got me hooked! I love the Little Free Library movement and book trading posts. I loved James Whitmore’s character in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, as he pushed his book cart down the prison rows, stopping at each cell to ask, “Book?” Yes, I love any and all of the creative ways that libraries and librarians and plenty of plain citizens (or fictional convicts) bring books and literacy to their communities. 

Today’s Candy Cane celebrates the beauty of mobile libraries. Ebook Friendly’s list of the 10 Most Extraordinary Mobile Libraries is a real treat. As the website notes:

From donkey-drawn trolleys to huge ships, you’ll see here outstanding vehicles that are designed to carry the most important cargo in the world – wisdom.

Take a moment out of your busy day to marvel at these and celebrate the wonderful gifts of literacy and books.

More tomorrow …

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Candy Canes 6, 7, and 8!

8 Dec

 December 6 – Share and Share Alike!

One of the best characteristics of our profession is sharing. Librarians share things freely and openly. Unfortunately, I’m as guilty as anyone in too often forgetting this fact. Libraries, library organizations, and the like are GREAT places to find archives of useful materials. One of these is the archives of webinars and resource materials from the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries. You’ll find lots of good things here related to data, the digital environment, emerging trends in research libraries, and more. 

 

 December 7 – “The future of libraries won’t be created by libraries.”

This is the opening line to a column, Let the Future Go, that David Weinberger, codirector of Harvard’s Library Innovation Lab and a senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, wrote last September. I’ve written about Weinberger in past posts and really like the way he pushes us to think about information. It rubs some folks the wrong way (as this column did), but I personally like the challenges he presents. If you’re not afraid to think BIG when it comes to information and the role of libraries and other information services/institutions today, you might enjoy this piece. It will, at the very least, get you thinking.

 

December 8 – Datalibrarians Unite!

Datalibrarians, By Datalibrarians for Datalibrarians is a collaborative blog/website created by Celia Emmelhainz, the social sciences data librarian at Colby College in Maine. It offers up lots and lots of practical posts related to who datalibrarians are, what they do, tools they use, tips and tricks, and more. It’s a terrific resource for those working in and/or interested in this area of librarianship (which might be a bunch of people who follow my blog!). 🙂

 

Tune in tomorrow for more Candy Canes! 

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Candy Cane Countdown: Day 5

5 Dec

 December 5 – If you can’t beat ’em, at least show them how to Google better!

We librarians have our love-hate relationship with Google, for sure, but truth be told, we all know that it actually does provide a valuable service in many situations. No, it’s not the first spot I want to see a medical student, doctoral candidate, clinician or researcher going when they’re searching for the answer to a clinical and/or research question, but I also tell the students in our Clinical Population Health Research degree program (the ones that I work most closely with), that to avoid it altogether is likely to find you missing a pretty valuable piece of information or two. Use it, but use it wisely.

Here’s a really terrific infographic from the website, Visual.ly, called Get More Out of Google (Designer: Bobby Bernethy; Published by Hack College). You can see that it provides a number of tips and tricks for better searching with Google, including a whole bunch of operators that most people either don’t know about and/or don’t use. Like many of the infographics on Visual.ly, it’s professional quality and you can easily share it on all types of sites. I subscribe to their email list and get a daily note containing some of the popular graphics on their site for that day. I’ve found a lot that are useful, including this one about Google. You may, too.

Tomorrow may be Saturday, but there will still be treats! Come back.

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