Changing face of reference work

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education talks about the changing face of reference work in libraries. The title of the article: Are Reference Desks Dying Out?

An example is made about a student asking about databases (and the answer being given) via instant messaging (IM).

No longer are we able to sit and wait at a desk- we have to be where the users are, and that means IM'ing for reference service. Some institutions are already there, some are very far behind.

Opponents of using IM for reference work say that face to face is very valuable in the question and answer process, and I agree. But there are many students who will never set foot in a physical library, and we'd do well to give them something more than 40 million hits on Google.

Research channel on PureVideo

Check out this research channel on PureVideo- think of it as an education YouTube. The content is great. I just watched original video of US paratroopers jumping out of planes in droves; as someone who has been skydiving I can say that I'm glad the landings are much softer today than they were back then. :-)

del.icio.us

If you have not tried out this site yet, you owe it to yourself to do so.

I am using it for two reasons. First, I am not always at my computer when I want to pull up one of my bookmarked 'favorites' websites. This allows me to have them all in one place, and to provide my own subject tags (think user-created Library of Congress Subject Headings).

Second, I want to see how many other people have certain sites as their favorites, and how they are being tagged.

I have a little 'post to del.icio.us' button on my IE toolbar, so it is very easy to bookmark a site- just takes a mouse click and a few seconds to assign a tag or two per site.

There are more features of del.icio.us that I have not begun using, but will as I get more acquainted with it.

Video history lesson: from linear text to user created content

This might be fun to share with professors:

Another great YouTube video, this one by a cultural anthropologist from Kansas State University: The Machine is Us/ing us

Wikipedia use limited by history department

The history department at Middlebury College is acknowledging the speed and convenience of using sites such as Wikipedia for background information, but are discouraging the use of the site as a primary source.

This move is great- finally some professors saying what we librarians have been saying all along. There is information on the internet and then there is qualitative information on the internet (credible, authoritative, etc). Nice to have some support in our cause.

The over- 50 crowd searching the web...

An age-related search site called cRANKy gives insight into the search terms that the over-50 crowd uses on the internet.

found via LibrarianInBlack

ALA resolution for minimum librarian salary

Check out the ALA's recent resolution on a minimum librarian salary of $40,000. We know we are all worth it, what are we doing to make other people agree?

Search the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has a new search option. It is in the testing (BETA) phase, but seems to work well. My first search was for 'roosevelt yosemite' and the first thing on the results list was the photograph I had in mind, Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir standing on top of Glacier Point in Yosemite in 1906.

They encourage feedback, so if you try out the search feature let them know what you think.