It's Alive!

The Libraries have moved the home page to the new WSU template. Click on the image below to visit the home page and check it out!

Dear Santa

I have been a very good girl, and my colleagues in the libraries have been very good as well. We've all been so good, in fact, that I thought I'd send a rather substantial list this year.

We would like,

• More opportunities to teach information literacy
• More requests for books from students and faculty
• Even more new computers
• Even more encounters with the exceptionally bright and friendly WSU students and faculty
• A stronger connection to the community of Pullman and of Washington State
• Some time to read some of the fabulous books and journals we order
• A coffee shop in the library buildings
• No more journal cancellations, ever
• Free printing for all WSU students
• The uncanny ability to design usable, easily navigable web pages
• An X-server for our metasearch engine
• 28 hour days
• Health and happiness for 2008
• and a pony

Thanks very much. Enjoy the milk and cookies.

Almost like Christmas

Yesterday, a mystery package showed up at my doorstep - the best kind of mystery package, since it had a book inside. After wondering briefly who would have sent me such a nice advanced readers' copy of There's No Place Like Here, by Cecilia Ahern, I realized that I have managed to snag on of LibraryThing's early reviewers books. Huzzah! I get to review fiction! I'll post the review here as soon as I've finished it for LibraryThing. Incidentally, Ahern has a degree in journalism, so this is very nearly work-related.

New look for the Libraries' home page

It's taken us a while to get there, but WSU Libraries are moving our home page into WSU's new web template. The new look will go live in early January, and will look pretty much like this:


As you can see, the move to the new template pretty much mimics what's on our current home page. The Libraries' Web Working Group is also currently working on an in-depth redesign of the web site that will involve more content and organizational changes. We want to make sure to get that redesign right, so we're taking it slow, but there should be more positive changes in our web site's future.

I hope you like the new look. We think it's a big improvement.

Cat in the morning, a new role model

Hopefully, you've already seen this. If not, here is a really charming illustration of how cat owners all over the world wake up in the morning. And many thanks to Karen Swanson for sharing this with me!

I know - cute, but what has it got to do with libraries, right? Well, librarians, and perhaps especially academic ones, are not unlike a cat in the morning. We want things. We want to integrate library instruction into our university's curricula so that our graduating students really are information literate, we want to expand our services, get funding for new programs and databases, collaborate with our colleagues in other departments, or we just want to remind the communities we serve that we exist, that we can help, that we are valuable.

But with one thing and another, it can be all too easy to stop meowing sometimes. And while I'd never openly advocate for the baseball bat approach (every analogy breaks down at some point), I'd like to think that I could learn from my own cat's approach to mornings, and become a bit more persistent and persuasive. Harriet always gets her breakfast, after all.

History of LOLCats

The fact that there are some library uses for LOLCats is my excuse for posting this here. Enjoy!

Have you read a banned book today?

In addition to Read What You Want Week, I am also celebrating Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week runs from September 29 to October 6, and is near and dear to the heart of many a librarian. I should at this point speak eloquently and passionately to the importance of intellectual freedom, but others have covered this topic better than I can. Instead, I present to you the lighter side of book banning, brought to you from The Onion:

Nation's Teens Disappointed by Banned Books

If you want a more serious take on book banning, I recommend the following
ALA Banned Books Week - a feast of banned books information and ideas.
The Forbidden Library - a long list of banned and challenged books.
And Tango Makes Three - This was the most challenged book of 2006.

Read What You Want Week

I am making up "Read What You Want Week" to help keep myself sane and happy. With work, and the reading that I do for work, I sometimes feel guilty about 'frivolous' reading (defined loosely as anything with a plot not involving librarians) . So I'm reading what I want this week - YA and children's literature, fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, non-work-related blogs - the Pullman libraries and the web are my oysters. Though since I'm reading what I want, perhaps I'll say that the libraries are my dark chocolate truffles, instead.

While working with classes or with students at the reference desk, I find myself talking quite a lot about finding quality information and taking time to evaluate what's good and worthwhile and what isn't. So this essay serves as a refreshing reminder to me that another duty of someone who loves books is to encourage people to read anything they want.

So, I present to you Peter Dickinson's In Defense of Rubbish.

Ahoy, avast, and shiver me timbers

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you, like me, wish there were more appropriate times to say things like "Arrrr!" and "Avast, me hearties," now is your chance to release your inner pirate.

If you would like some help talking like a pirate, you can try this handy guide from Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket on YouTube. There's also a longer video tutorial, How to Talk Like a Pirate, by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders.

What does a librarian pirate sound like? In my case, it sounds something like this:

• "Ahoy! I see ye be lookin' downcast searchin' for articles. Have ye tried ProQuest?"
• "Avast, me hearties! This be how ye find databases t'use for yer research."
• "Ye be looking fer microfilm? Arrrr! It be in that direction."

Now, if ye be lookin' for some pirate literature, here be some books ye can read online that won't cost ye a single piece of eight, thanks t' Project Gutenberg.

• Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates; fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish main
• The Pirates of Malabar, and an Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago
• The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers
• Captain Scraggs: or, The Green-Pea Pirates
  

What if your library looked like this?

This is the winning design for the soon-to-be built National Library in Prague. According to this Building Design article, the building is to be a symbol of democracy in the Czech Republic, and also to serve as a sign that modern architecture is happening in Eastern Europe, too. I find it oddly adorable, in a polka-dotted slug type of way, but if I lived in Prague, which is architecturally rich and bears the impressive nickname, "Golden City of Spires," I might be worried.

More images can be found here.

Check out a laptop!

Working at the Holland & Terrell Library is great, but right now I'm extremely jealous of the Owen Science Library because they've started something fabulous. Have you ever been in a library and wished that you had a laptop to work on? Wouldn't it be great if a laptop was something you could check out? Well, now you can. The Owen Science Library has six laptops available to check out for in-building use.

The laptops come stacked with all kinds of goodies. Here is a list of what's on the laptops (from the laptop FAQ page): Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Reader, RealPlayer, selected IM packages, SciFinderScholar, and Pharos (to enable printing at the Owen Library’s public printers).

They've done a great job putting together useful information about the pilot project (including maps of wireless access points in the building), which you can find here: http://wiki.wsu.edu/wsuwiki/Owen_laptop_pilot

Not really about the library

Heineken's latest commercial, the one with the robotic women with beer kegs coming out of their torsos, has little to do with libraries, but it nicely combines interests in Advertising and in Women's Studies. I'm not posting a video of the commercial here because in all honesty it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I don't really want to give it any more play than it has already, but some of the discussion going on about it is very interesting stuff:

Bob Garfield, of Advertising Age, has this to say.

And you can find Women are Good for Providing Men with Beer over at Agency Spy

Library Update

For those of you who haven't heard yet, the WSU Libraries are embarking on some substantial journal cuts and cancellations. Your librarians are already hard at work looking at use statistics, re-evaluating the cost and importance of preserving and archiving information, discussing whether or not we can cancel a "big ticket" database or two to make the journal cuts less severe, and doing our darnedest to make the best decisions possible.

Making smart cancellation decisions is important, but getting rid of parts of this collection (a collection we've all worked hard to build in support of WSU's research and education missions) runs counter to librarian values and instincts - most of us got into this profession because we want to increase access to and use of good information. Cutting off access to information is, in times like these, necessary, but highly painful.

However, one very heartening thing that I can do here is to highlight some other access options. Here are two very good ones for journal articles:

• ILLiad, our interlibrary loan service, allows you to request articles and papers that aren't available in the WSU collections. You can use ILLiad either by using the Illiad web page or through the "Find it@WSU" button that you see next to the articles listed in most of our library databases.
• Also, this year we are piloting a new service called ArticleReach that will allow you to get articles for no fee if they are available from one of our ArticleReach partners. More information about this is available here.

Beautiful new computers!

I told you they were beautiful! Al Cornish has also posted Before and After pictures on his blog, Library Technology Issues.

O frabjous day!

What could make a librarian wax Carroll-ian? Well, in my case it doesn't always take much as I find many practical applications for a good Jabberwocky quote. However, this week I really do have amazingly happy news.

Because of a good deal of hard work and good decision-making on the part of many of my library colleagues, we have new computers available for public use in the libraries. They arrived last week, and I nearly did a dance of joy when I saw the flat panel monitors. I promise to post a picture tomorrow, though I'm kicking myself that I didn't do before and after photos.

Callooh! Callay!

Second Life possibility

I think that the idea of Second Lifers talking using their own voices is pretty darned cool, especially when you think of the possibilities for distance education and outreach.

Congratulations to David Demers!

David Demers, of WSU's own Edward R. Murrow School of Communication, has authored a fantastic reference book, the Dictionary of Mass Communication & Media Research, which has been getting all kinds of positive reviews and press. This is an excellent book for anyone working with media research - I include librarians in this group, for example, as well as Communication faculty and scholars. If you're on the Pullman campus of WSU and would like to see the book for yourself, you'll find it in our reference section.

One thing I did today...

Librarianship is sometimes looked at as a sedentary profession. Picture a librarian in your head for a moment. Is s/he sitting at a computer, or calmly walking to a shelf to pull a book? Perhaps when you think of a librarian you picture someone who is standing by a patron's computer, offering help with a question.

If you were me, today, you'd be thinking of a librarian who is sweaty and bedraggled (but triumphant), the sort of person who'd just finished hauling donated books (seriously cool donated books, by the way) down four flights of stairs in small but heavy installments, because the building where the books were previously housed has an out-of-order elevator. After 22 times (yes, I counted) running up and down those stairs, I can feel my muscles growing as I type.

"News" and news

I''ve been in several conversations this year about the state of the news media in the US. Do we really have news now, or has our idea of the news evolved so much that what we really have is just another arm of the entertainment industry? What does news mean to you, and where do you find it?

Here's an especially cynical, but amusing look at the news (which I blatantly lifted from CommTopics, a blog by Ken Liss.

What We Call the News | Funny Animations at JibJab

In contrast, this week WSU & the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication honored Frontline & its producer David Fanning with Distinguished Achievement Awards, during the Edward R. Murrow Symposium. While I'm not sure that Murrow would approve of the current state of "the news," I think he'd be pleased to see Frontline rewarded for outstanding investigative work.

Library Celebration - come, and we'll give you cake!

The WSU Libraries’ are celebrating their 100th Depository Anniversary Celebration, marking the 100th year that we have been a Federal Depository Library. If you're wondering why being a depository library is such a big deal, or if you'd like to know more about what government documents can do for you, please join the party this Wednesday and Friday, and learn what all of the buzz is about.

April 11, 2007
Celebration of WSU Libraries 100th Depository Anniversary
10:30am Terrell Library Atrium

• Welcome and Introductions - Marilyn Von Seggern, Government Information Librarian
  


• “100 Years of Depository Service” - Cindy Kaag, Interim Director of Libraries
  Remarks from Senator Patty Murray - Judy Olson


• Anniversary Cake and Viewing of the 100th Depository Anniversary Exhibit—-documents from 1907 and the past 100 years

April 13, 2007
Joint Anniversary Celebration, University of Idaho Library and Washington State University Libraries

• 10:00 – 11:00 Government Documents Department Open House and Tours (Rm. 104 – All rooms located at UI Library)


• 11:15 – 12:15 “Crown Jewel or Freebies? 100 Years of Federal Government Information Resources at the UI Library” - Lily Wai, Professor Emeritus, Former Head, UI Government Documents Dept. (Rm. 212A)


• 2:00 – 2:15 Welcome by Lynn Baird, UI Library Dean (Rm. 212A


• 2:15 – 2:30 Announcement of Poster Contest Winner and Introduction of Special Guests - Maria A. Jankowska, Head UI Government Documents Dept.


• 2:30 – 3:15 “Connecting People with Government Information for 100 Years: Looking Back, Looking Forward” - Barbie Selby, Regional Depository Librarian, University of Virginia


• 3:15 Refreshments and Conversation

Podcasts in the libraries

Some of the WSU Librarians are beginning to play with podcasts as a way to connect with our community and work with some different approaches to library instruction. I just returned from a short learning break, courtesy of Betty Galbraith and Mark O'English, where they set a few of us up and had us recording test podcasts with ease. Hopefully, now that more of us library folks have our feet wet, we'll be doing more with podcasting, but till then, there are already a few available Podcasts from the WSU Libraries

My Librarian Avatar

Most days I feel like this -


But there are days when I feel like this -

I'm just a Buffy wannabe, really.

Avatar courtesy of Meez.com

How much do you love your reference desk

Here's a nice post by Steven Bell and Sarah Watstein about their debate over the future of the reference desk. I'm pro reference desk, myself, but I feel I should own up to my decided traditionalist tendencies so that it's clear where I'm coming from on this. I am rather stuck on the idea of a place where you can reliably find help if you need it, that keeps regular hours and is staffed by helpful and (usually) friendly people. I wouldn't say that the traditional reference desk isn't problematic - I sit on one side and my patron on the other, a physical embodiment and emphasis of the librarian ("expert") - patron ("non-expert") relationship that I'm not entirely comfortable with. I worry that some of our more imposing desks may project an "I know what I'm talking about and you don't" aura that could scare people off.

Still, one of the things that IMing is teaching me is that very few of my days follow any standard schedule, and that if people want to find me at work, the reference desk, where I work regularly from 11-1:00 on Tuesdays and 5-8 on Thursdays, is usually their best bet unless they call ahead.

One of the blogs I read most often in my attempts to keep up with useful tech in libraries is The Shifted Librarian, written by Jenny Levine. Thanks to her, and to the articles by Stephen Abram she links to in 23 Library 2.0 Things in 15 Minutes a Day I've been happily playing with 43 Things, a social networking site for keeping track of goals. I have 23 things so far, and am a bit worried that more of them have to do with work than anything else. Perhaps goal 24 should be about balance.

Conservapedia.

In response to perceived liberal bias in Wikipedia, Andrew Schlafly started Conservapedia. The New York Times article, Conservapedia: The Word Says It All, has more information on this "answer" to Wikipedia.

Conservapedia has a long list of Examples of Bias in Wikipedia, and the list has started me thinking. What is considered "liberal bias," really? And what do we do when the term is thrown as an accusation at people and places (like librarians and libraries) that try hard to remain neutral, especially in terms of what information we make available to the public? I'm doubtful that the average library would be considered less biased, according to Schlafly, than Wikipedia, and think it will be a sad day when we have liberal and conservative libraries (one for Al Franken and one for Ann Coulter?) rather than places where opposing viewpoints can be found side by side.

I spend considerable effort identifying my own biases so that they don't affect my collections or patron interactions, and I try very hard not to privilege one point of view over another in my work. I know this doesn't make me conservative. I worry that, in a world where anything that isn't conservative is liberal, my attempts at objectivity make me and the library where I work liberal by default. And libraries can't be liberal (or conservative) by default or we all lose out.

International Women's Day activities at the Library

Gabriella Reznowski, our fabulous new librarian, has been working with the International Students Center on some celebrations of International Women's Day. Here's the schedule:

March 8th – Reception at the Holland and Terrell Libraries 11am-1:00 pm
All are welcome to drop by to make a card for a woman who has made a difference in your life, or leave a message of appreciation on the International Women’s Day message board. Refreshments will also be provided.

March 5th through 12th – There will be an International Women’s Day Display in the Holland and Terrell Libraries display case. The Display was created by members of the International Students Center.

Anthology of Palestinian Folk Tales Pulled from School Libraries

In Palestine, the Education Ministry has ordered that a book of Palestinian folk tales be pulled from school libraries, and many Palestinians are unhappy with the book ban.

According to the Associated Press Release, "A senior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters, said 1,500 copies of the book had been pulled from school libraries and destroyed."

The book, Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales, is a collection of tales from 17 Palestinian tellers, mostly women, that have been carefully transcribed, and not only the tales but the introduction are well worth reading. It's available in the WSU Libraries if you're interested and in the area, or you can go to the entry at WorldCat, and check for copies in your area libraries by typing your zip code in the "Enter Location Information" field.

From the Media Awareness Network

Can you tell it's Women's History Month yet? As the librarian liaison for both Communication and Women's Studies at WSU, I was happy to find that the Media Awareness Network (MNet) has a very nice section on Media Portrayals of Girls and Women.

I have a soft spot for MNet, and hopefully this quote from their site will tell you why:

The idea behind our work
MNet’s work is based on the belief that to be functionally literate in the world today – to be able to "read" the messages that inform, entertain and sell to us daily – young people need critical thinking skills.

In addition to addressing topics like Beauty and Body Image in the Media, Media Coverage of Women and Women's Issues, Media and Girls, and The Economics of Gender Stereotyping, the site offers links to "Related MNet Resources" and to "Recommended reading, viewing, surfing" on the left-hand menu. A very librarian-like thing to do, and perhaps another reason I like MNet.

Want more on women and media? I'll post soon on resources in the WSU Libraries, but for now, there's a good selection of resources on the Women & Media subject guide at the EBSS Library Resources for Communication Studies site.

Women's History Month Databases

Alexander Street Press, who make some of the prettiest online resources around, provide free access to some fantastic Women's Studies databases during March. WSU will have access to the following until March 31st of 2007:

• British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
  
• North American Women's Letters and Diaries
  
• Women and Social Movements

Questions? Contact Erica.

Thanks, Alexander Street Press!

Jane Austen Wins

Something I should've mentioned this morning. Today is World Book Day, a most enlightened holiday observed in the UK and Ireland. A survey taken by readers revealed the following Top Ten list of books for the UK and Ireland:

1) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 20%
2) Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkein 17%
3) Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 14%
4) Harry Potter books – J K Rowling 12%
5) To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee 9.5%
6) The Bible 9%
7) Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8.5%
8) 1984 – George Orwell 6%
9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 6%
10) Great Expectations – Charles Dickens .55%

Go, Jane! (Though I prefer Persuasion)

Fair Use

Today I attended a Basic Copyright Law training session given by Marc Lindsey, WSU's copyright expert and author of Copyright Law on Campus. It was a good refresher on the basics, and upon further exploration, I found WSU's very own University Publishing Copyright site, which has some useful information about higher education and copyright law. The session also reminded me of Rachel Bridgewater's "Not a Series of Tubes" presentation, for which I promised to post a link: link

I encourage you to check out the presentation slides and then support Rick Boucher's FAIR USE ACT OF 2007 (Press Release) by contacting your legislators. Want to know how to contact your legislators? Try here for the House and here for the Senate.

Daylight Saving Time is coming faster than usual

I much prefer falling back to springing forward when it comes to Daylight Saving Time. Having said that, I'm all for taking advantage of what daylight we have, even though moving into Daylight Saving Time (DST) is going to be more complicated in 2007 than it's been for a while. This year, instead of starting in the first week of April, DST begins on March 11.

WSU Information Technology Services has posted a nice set of guidelines for helping us get through the changes in DST this year. They've cleverly named their DST page Y2K Lite. I highly recommend looking at what they have to say, especially if you're as dependent on your calendaring software as I am on Outlook.

If you're interested in some of the history of Daylight Saving Time, you might want to check out Daylight Saving Time, which provides a nice history of DST, including legislative changes, correct spelling, and a great Incidents and Anecdotes page that helps put our current Y2K Lite into perspective.

And if you want to know what time it really is, try The Official US Time for a nice, clickable time zone map.

Web Working Group Retreat

Many more people use the WSU Libraries' web site on a daily basis than use any of our physical sites. This is why I didn't mind spending an entire day (well 9:30 am- 3:30 pm, but you get the idea) working with fellow library employees to improve our web presence.

The Web Working Group, of which I am a member, met today to plot and plan ways to make our web site easier to use. The WWG is one of the busiest and most energetic groups in the Libraries (probably in all of WSU, if that's not too immodest) and we get a lot done in terms of maintenance and upgrades to things like our online catalog and our article search tool. But today we talked about the big picture our our web, and are hoping to make some very large improvements in terms of how easy it is to use. I can't go into much detail yet, but we are planning to

• Make our public pages patron-focused
  
• Evaluate what pages/features on our website people find most useful and make getting to those pages easier
  
• Work with the new WSU web page templates to make our front page cleaner, with fewer links
  
• Work towards migrating to a Content Management System so that pages are maintained consistently

Awfully ambitious of us, and how we make all of this happen will depend a lot on the information we gather in the next few weeks, but it's highly satisfying to be part of such a positive plan for the future. And my colleagues on theWWG deserve a lot of praise for their dedication and determination.

All comments and input about ways to improve our web pages are welcome - just send them to Erica Carlson Nicol

Online Northwest Conference, Done

Online Northwest 2007 is over, and I'm going to get some impressions down here before my brain cells carry out their threat to stop working for the day.

The conference started off with a keynote address from Stephen Abram, one of the rock stars of the library world, and for good reason. He's reliably visionary and provocative. Here are some highlights from the keynote:

Google is generally better than we are for "who, what, where" questions, but we are much better at "why" questions, and need to start publicizing that fact.

Everything is social, and just seems to be getting more so. Libraries need to integrate themselves into our communities, and we should use social networking software to do this - we need to offer RSS feeds (though we don't need to call them RSS feeds), and presence in sites like MySpace and Facebook are necessary if we're going to be relevant to our users.

"If you don't use IM, you are basically immorally serving your users," not just because it's another viable way to connect, but because the cell phone will be the dominant personal tech device in the very near future and we need to be ready for that.

Being cute isn't getting us [libraries] anywhere. We have to start demanding money.

So, invigorating.

And kind of a hard act to follow, but I was pleased that Alex and I managed to hold the attention of our audience when we presented on WSU's federated searching tool. We ended up with a lot of good questions, and I'll post the link to our PowerPoint slides soon.

The last session of the day that I attended was "Not a Series of Tubes," By Rachel Bridgewater of WSU Vancouver. This was possibly the clearest delineation of internet copyright and technology policy that I've ever heard, with very good descriptions about how issues like net neutrality affect not just libraries but everyday people who use the web. I'm hoping to link to her presentation materials as soon as they're up, too.

It's been a long day, but my mind is buzzing with new ideas that I get to bring back to work with me, and I'm tickled about this - clearly the sign of a good conference.

Online Northwest

I'll be heading out to Online Northwest in Corvallis, OR tomorrow. I enjoyed attending last year, but this year I'm really looking forward to it, partly because I now know that there's a really amazing Thai restaurant in Corvallis, and partly because this year I'm presenting with a WSU collegue. Our presentation title is "Integrating Metasearch into Your Library: Social, Technical, and Practical Obstacles," which, translated, means that Alex Merrill and I will be discussing the process of launching a metasearch tool here at WSU, including lots of information about what went wrong and why, and how we learned from that and managed a successful launch. Should be hair-raising. Er, fun, I mean.

New Books in Anthropology at WSU Libraries

All books on this list are in the Holland and Terrell Libraries' collection. If you are curious about a title, please click on it to see further details and information on availability.

Aguilar, Mario I. Rethinking age in Africa: colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary interpretations of cultural representations.
GN645 .R48 2007

Barker, Graeme. The agricultural revolution in prehistory: why did foragers become farmers?
GN799.A4 B38 2006

Breglia, Lisa. Monumental ambivalence: the politics of heritage.
F1435.3.E72 B74 2006

Conway, Susan. The Shan: culture, arts and crafts.
DS530.8.S45 C66 2006

DeBernardi, Jean Elizabeth. The way that lives in the heart: Chinese popular religion and spirit mediums in Penang, Malaysia.
BL2080 .D43 2006

Doyel, David E. & Dean, Jeffrey S., eds. Environmental change and human adaptation in the ancient American Southwest.
E78.S7 E68 2006

Dunand, Françoise. Mummies and death in Egypt.
DT62.M7 D8513 2006

Early, John D. The Maya and Catholicism: an encounter of worldviews.
F1435.3.R3 E37 2006

Foley, Robert. Unknown boundaries: exploring human evolutionary studies.
GN281 .F67 2006

Galush, William John. For more than bread: community and identity in American Polonia, 1880-1940.
E184.P7 G35 2006

Ganz, Nicholas. Graffiti women: street art from five continents.
ND2590 .G348 2006

Karpf, Anne. The human voice: how this extraordinary instrument reveals essential clues about who we are.
PN4162 .K285 2006

Lavender, Catherine Jane. Scientists and storytellers: feminist anthropologists and the construction of the American Southwest.
GN560.U6 L38 2006

Macdonald, Charles J-H. Uncultural behavior: an anthropological investigation of suicide in the southern Philippines.
DS666.P34 M23 2007

Matson, R. G. & Kohler, Timothy A. Tracking ancient footsteps: William D. Lipe's contributions to southwestern prehistory and public archaeology.
E76.45.L57 T73 2006

Nelson, Sarah Milledge. Handbook of gender in archaeology.
CC72.4 .H36 2006

Neale, Jenny. No friend like a sister: exploring the relationship between sisters.
BF723.S43 N43 2004

Notar, Beth E. Displacing desire: travel and popular culture in China.
DS797.86.D37 N67 2006

Odland, J. Claire. Fashioning tradition: Maya huipiles in the Field Museum Collections.
GN2 .F4 n.s. no.38

Peace, Sheila M. Environment and identity in later life.
BF724.85.H65 P43 2006

Peck, E. J. (Edmund James). Apostle to the Inuit: the journals and ethnographic notes of Edmund James Peck, the Baffin years, 1894-1905.
BV2813. P42 A3 2006

Powell-Martí, Valli S. & Gilman, Patricia A. Mimbres society.
E99.M76 M55 2006

Quilter, Jeffrey & Miller, Mary Ellen. A pre-Columbian world.
E55.5 .P73 2006

Regis, Helen A. Caribbean and Southern: transnational perspectives on the U.S. South.
GN2 .S9243 no.38

Reyes, Angela. Language, identity, and stereotype among Southeast Asian American youth: the other Asian.
E184.S695 R49 2007

Ring, Laura A. Zenana: everyday peace in a Karachi apartment building.
HN690.5.K33 R56 2006

Robertson, Elizabeth C. Space and spatial analysis in archaeology.
CC72.4 .U55 2002

Robson, Eleanor; Treadwell, Luke & Gosden, Chris. Who owns objects?: the ethics and politics of collecting cultural artefacts: proceedings of the first St. Cross-All Souls Seminar Series and Workshop, Oxford, October-December 2004.
CC135 .S7 2004

Talalay, Lauren E. In the field: the archaeological expeditions of the Kelsey Museum.
CC101.M268 T35 2006

Tokeley, Jonathan. Rescuing the past: the cultural heritage crusade.
CC135 .T645 2006

Walter, Chip. Thumbs, toes, and tears: and other traits that make us human.
GN281 .W35 2006

Wells, Jonathan C. K.; Strickland, S. S. & Laland, Kevin N. Social information transmission and human biology.
BF444 .S62 2006

Yengoyan, Aram A. Modes of comparison: theory & practice.
D16.8 .M697 2006

New Books in Women's Studies at WSU Libraries

All books on this list are in the Holland and Terrell Libraries' collection. If you are curious about a title, please click on it to see further details and information on availability.

Ali, Kecia. Sexual ethics and Islam: feminist reflections on Qur'an, hadith, and jurisprudence.
HQ32 .A45 2006

Brown, Mary. Boom: marketing to the ultimate power consumer--the baby boomer woman.
HC79.C6 B76 2006

Carpenter, R. Charli. Innocent women and children: gender, norms and the protection of civilians.
KZ6515 .C37 2006

Derrida, Jacques. Geneses, genealogies, genres, and genius: the secrets of the archive.
PQ2663.I9 Z62713 2006

Eaton, Gale. Well-dressed role models: the portrayal of women in biographies for children.
CT21 .E2155 2006

Ferrell, Robyn. Copula: sexual technologies, reproductive powers.
HQ1075 .F474 2006

Fonda, Jane. Jane Fonda's words of politics and passion.
PN2287.F56 A3 2006

Franklin, Diana Britt. The good-bye door: the incredible true story of America's first female serial killer to die in the chair.
HV6534.C5 F73 2006

Grown, Caren; Braunstein, Elissa & Malhotra, Anju. Trading women's health and rights?: trade liberalization and reproductive health in developing economies.
HF2580.9 .T735 2006

Harrison, Charles. Painting the difference: sex and spectator in modern art.
ND1460.S44 H37 2005

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy. The cult of thinness.
BF697.5.B63 H47 2007

Hunt, Krista & Rygiel, Kim. (En)gendering the war on terror: war stories and camouflaged politics.
HV6432 .E64 2006

Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Color of violence: the Incite! Anthology.
HV6250.4.W65 C627 2006

Jeffrey, Leslie Ann. Sex workers in the Maritimes talk back.
HQ149.M4 J44 2006

Korn, Fadumo. Geboren im groben Regen or, Born in the big rains: a memoir of Somalia and survival.
GN484 .K6613 2006

Nolin, Catherine. Transnational ruptures: gender and forced migration.
HV640 .N65 2006

Ribane, Nakedi. Beauty: a black perspective.
GT497.S6 R53 2006

Riverbend. Baghdad burning II: more girl blog from Iraq.
DS79.76 R587 2006

Simons, Margaret A. The philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: critical essays.
B2430.B344 P45 2006

Simonsen, Jane E. Making home work: domesticity and Native American assimilation.
NX180.S6 S572 2006

Skalli, Loubna H. Through a local prism: gender, globalization, and identity in Moroccan women's magazines.
HN782.Z9 M34 2006

Skidmore, Colleen Marie. This wild spirit: women in the Rocky Mountains of Canada.
F1090 .T47 2006

Speed, Shannon, et al. Dissident women: gender and cultural politics in Chiapas.
F1435.3.W55 D57 2006

Staples, David E. No place like home: organizing home-based labor in the era of structural adjustment.
HD2333 .S82 2006

Stearns, Peter N. Gender in world history. 2nd ed.
HQ1075 .S73 2006

Stiehm, Judith. Champions for peace: women winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
JZ5540 .S74 2006

Wadud, Amina. Inside the gender Jihad : women's reform in Islam.
BL458 .W33 2006

New Books in Communication at WSU Libraries

All books on this list are in the Holland and Terrell Libraries' collection. If you are curious about a title, please click on it to see further details and information on availability.

Agbese, Aje-Ori. The role of the press and communication technology in democratization.
PN5499.N5 A53 2006

Applegate, Edd & Johnsen, Art. Cases in advertising and marketing management: real situations for tomorrow's managers.
HF5823 .A7935 2007

Barrett, Mary & Davidson, Marilyn. Gender and communication at work.
HD30.3 .G455 2006

Beder, Sharon. Free market missionaries: the corporate manipulation of community values.
HD59 .B375 2006

Beeler, Stan & Dickson, Lisa. Reading Stargate SG-1.
PN1992.77.S738 R43 2006

Berenger, Ralph D. Cybermedia go to war: role of converging media during and after the 2003 Iraq war.
P96.I73 C93 2006

Cashmore, Ernest. Celebrity/culture.
P94.6 .C376 2006

Castells, Manuel. Mobile communication and society: a global perspective: a project of the Annenberg Research Network on international communication.
HM1206 .M62 2007

Crow, David. L →R: left to right; the cultural shift from word to pictures.
P93.5 .C75 2006

DiFonzo, Nicholas. Rumor psychology: social and organizational approaches.
HM1241 .D54 2007

Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research. Arab media in the information age.
P92.A65 A73 2006

Finnegan, Lisa. No questions asked : news coverage since 9/11.
PN4738 .F56 2007

Hachten, William A. The world news prism: global information in a satellite age.
PN4784.F6 H3 2007

Hallock, Steven M. Editorial and opinion: the dwindling marketplace of ideas in today's news.
PN4888.E28 H35 2007

Heffernan, James A. W. Cultivating picturacy: visual art and verbal interventions.
P93.5 .H44 2006

Holden, Todd Joseph Miles & Scrase, Timothy J. Medi@sia: global media/tion in and out of context.
P94.65.A78 M43 2006

Ickes, L. R. Public broadcasting in America.
HE8689.7.P82 P833 2006

Klein, Allison. What would Murphy Brown do?: how the women of prime time changed our lives.
PN1992.8.W65 K54 2006

Lavery, David. Reading Deadwood : a western to swear by.
PN1992.77.D39 R43 2006

Lenard, Thomas M. & May, Randolph J. Net neutrality or net neutering: should broadband internet services be regulated.
HE7781 .N46 2006

Mathews, Mary Beth Swetnam. Rethinking Zion: how the print media placed fundamentalism in the South.
PN4888.F86 M38 2006

Mbaine, Adolf. Media in situations of conflict: roles, challenges, and responsibility.
P96.W35 M43 2006

Moeran, Brian. Ethnography at work.
HF6182.J3 M636 2006

Moore, Linda K. Emergency communications.
TK6570.P8 M66 2007

Moran, Albert. Understanding the global TV format.
HE8700.4 .M597 2006

Napoli, Philip M. Media diversity and localism: meaning and metrics.
P96.E25 M39 2007

Partington, Alan. The linguistics of laughter: a corpus-assisted study of laughter-talk.
P95.45 .P37 2006

Relke, Diana M. A. Drones, clones, and alpha babes: retrofitting Star Trek's humanism, post-9/11.
PN1992 .8 S74 R47 2006

Rich, John. Warm up the snake: a Hollywood memoir.
PN1992.4.R52 A3 2006

Schaefer, Todd M. & Birkland, Thomas A. Encyclopedia of media and politics.
Reference P95.82.U6 E47 2007

Sheffield, Tricia. The religious dimensions of advertising.
HF5821 .S49 2006

Sherr, Lynn. Outside the box: a memoir.
PN4874.S472 A3 2006

Thussu, Daya Kishan. International communication: continuity and change.
P96.I5 T48 2006

Toth, Elizabeth L. The future of excellence in public relations and communication management: challenges for the next generation.
HD59 .F827 2007

Watson, James & Hill, Anne. Dictionary of media and communication studies.
P87.5 .W38 2006

Weisman, Alan. Lone star: the extraordinary life and times of Dan Rather.
PN4874.R28 W45 2006

Zelezny, John D. Cases in communications law: liberties, restraints, and the modern media.
KF2750.A7 Z44 2007

Want to buy a cupcake? Want me to wash your car?

I'm thinking of the possibilities of library bake sales and car washes, a post-Midwinter state brought on by seeing all of these cool databases that I want. I've met one librarian in my lifetime who was satisfied with her collections budget. I find that I'm intensely jealous of her all the time.

After the Midwinter Conference, we get to look at some fabulous databases on a trial basis, and some of them would be very good for the teaching and research faculty we support. It's like window shopping for academic librarians, and it's fun.

It's also bittersweet, because with the exception of that nameless librarian who exists far, far away, very few librarians are satisfied with their collections budget. We want to give you more. More full text, more years of coverage, more images, audio files, and more coverage for more subjects. When your life's work is helping people access information, it seems as though you can never do enough to increase that access. And, very often, Libraries are not funded as they should be, and the people who work in them (and the faculty they support) are faced with decisions like these:

Database X is great and has lots of full-text coverage in this area where we do a lot of research, but to afford it, we'd need to give up database Y, which covers different publications and is highly useful for another area of research. Do we get X and let go of Y, or hang on to Y and hope that someday we can afford to get X.

So, perhaps double-chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate icing? I thought so.

Goodbye, Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins, fantastic political columnist known for her contributions to public interest journalism, passed away Wednesday. The world will miss her wit and her unabashed liberal perspective. One of the things I'll miss most about her is her respect for her readers. Here's a video snippet as an example:



If you're interested in Molly Ivins's books, here's a list of those at the WSU Libraries:

• Bushwhacked: life in George W. Bush's America
  
• Nothin' but good times ahead
  
• Shrub: the short but happy political life of George W. Bush
  
• Who let the dogs in?: incredible political animals I have known

Because I've been watching too much TV

My favorite TV show currently playing is Grey's Anatomy, which combines good writing, smart women characters, and some delicious soap-opera-y moments. However, I keep seeing the interns and doctors in the hospital library, pouring through books, and I keep wondering, where's the medical librarian? Surely a teaching hospital is a great place to find a McSmarty, search-savvy, helpful, and time-saving medical librarian character. Give him/her whatever personality quirks you like. I'd even settle for a guest appearance by Ms. Dewey.

Quiet Night

It's relatively slow and quiet tonight, but with interspersed interesting questions. I get a good adrenaline buzz from a busy reference shift, but it's nice to look out at available computers, to feel comfortable spending extra time with patrons who welcome extra help, and to try to reflect on some of what's fresh in my mind from this past weekend's conference - approachability, patron-librarian collaboration, not pushing the instruction while working reference but sneaking it into the conversation in small bytes.

Also nice to think of going home to a dinner cooked by a much appreciated significant other and an episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Contemporary Technologies: A Proposal

Upon revisiting my conference notes, and wanting to keep conversations going about technology in libraries while not wanting my profession to seem slow, or any more un-cool than necessary, I have a proposal. It will need some fleshing out, and some more thought behind it, but what if we call blogs, Wikies, IM, and Chat "Contemporary Technologies" rather than "new" or "emerging" ones? This acknowledges their currency while also acknowleging that the world moves really fast and that these things aren't really new any more.

Here's my starter list of contemporary technologies.
Blogs
Wikis
IM
Chat reference
Classroom software such as Blackboard and WebCT
MP3 players and files

How to supplement your music section

Win a giant basket of music books from Perseus! Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Johnny Dorsey & Ray Charles are coming home to the Holland and Terrell Libraries. Thanks, Perseus!

More Midwinter

Here's my brief report from yesterday afternoon and today (so far).

AquaBrowser is very fun to look at, and I've been comparing it (wistfully, I'm afraid) to WSU Libraries' OPAC, which is, don't get me wrong, still better than our old one.

Today was going to be my busiest day, but I was too worn out to do all that I'd planned. I think that this happens to lots of people at large gatherings like these. Even comfortable shoes don't keep feet from getting sore after running from hotel to hotel all day.

I'm starting to think that all discussions about Web 2.0, new technology, and new media are essentially the same. I still appreciate hearing the different viewpoints, and getting feedback from people experimenting with new (and not so new) tech, but I'm looking forward to the day where we have more measurable results and are no longer thinking of social software as "new," but as another avenue for reaching patrons and making them comfortable in their information searches. This morning I attended the LIRT discussion on Instruction and Millennials. I've posted on Millennials before, and still find the ways that different generations are so predictably different to be fascinating, and still worry about whether or not terms like "Millennials" cloak fear and resentment and lead to more generalization than is good for us, but this was a good discussion, with people from public and academic libraries, from systems, and with varying interests and skill levels when it comes to the "new tech" we associate with Generation M.

This afternoon I took minutes for the first time at an ALA committee meeting, and it was a great learning experience. If you are new and want to make yourself learn names fast, I'd recommend taking minutes. Just make sure, if you do it on a laptop, that you can also type fast. Ten minutes into the meeting, I found myself overcome with a wave of gratitude for my high school typing teacher.

I'm glad to be a librarian, to get to work with people who are in it for more than money (luckily for us, 'cause generally the money's not especially big). I'm glad to have cool colleagues in the WSU Libraries, and to have chances to hang out with them away from our regular library setting.

But I still wish I could sleep in!

From Seattle

This is my first full day of ALA Midwinter, and so far it is off to a good start. I had an interesting and (hopefully) productive discussion this morning about the particular challenges of providing instruction at the reference desk, and am enjoying my first meeting as a committee member. My only wistful comment so far is that I wish some of the sections would provide a bit more in the way of new member orientations than "here's how you sign up for committees." I realize it's Midwinter, not Annual, and that there may be fewer new members about, and that we're supposed to be outgoing and curious and just talk to committees anyway, but a little more hand-holding would be appreciated (and might help bulk up some section memberships).

Last night I attended the exhibit opening and realized that there is something irresistable about free advance reader copies. I worked at a bookstore for several years and never felt so inclined to pick up galleys as I did last night. The rush to get the "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?" tote bags, the registration for free stuff, the food that more savvy colleagues ate while I ran around like a madwoman collecting swag - all very dizzying and exhausting. I followed the opening with some good Thai food (thanks, Thai Ginger) and an early bedtime, a good idea considering what's on for today and tomorrow.

Moving house

or, rather, URLs. On the off-chance that getting out into the wider world of blogging might result in more readers, or at least more passing glances from google-ers, I've moved my blog over to Blogger. For anyone who hasn't read me before, this is my professional blog, the one linked to my work in libraries. This year, in the spirit of January resolutions, I'll be putting out a new bi-weekly feature called "In Reference," which will highlight some of the works in the reference section of my library.