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.