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.