Curiouser and Curiouser: What caught our eyes online this week

“Curiouser and Curiouser!” cried Alice…
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Welcome to Chasing Reference’s weekly roundup of the curious articles and links that have caught our eye this week!

• The Chronicle of Higher Education introduces its readers to CSI: Rare Book School. Where can we sign up?

• Who will inherit your iTunes library?

• Online book reviews for hire.

• Wise words from Jenica at Attempting Elegance: they’ll never know what we didn’t get done [this summer].

• A fascinating and interactive timeline celebrating the history of Banned Books Week.

“You Must Love to Read!” well, yes, but….

by Carrie Dunham-LaGree

When I meet people and have the traditional, “where do you work?” conversation, my answer of “I’m a librarian” is usually followed with “Oh, you must love to read!” I do happen to love to read (as evidenced by our first Friday What We’re Reading series–we all do!), but my day-to-day job as an academic reference and information literacy librarian has very, very little to do with reading. That small sliver that does–I’m in charge of my library’s browsing fiction section–is something I absolutely adore doing. It’s not written in my job description, but it falls under that favorite catchphrase of job announcements: “other duties as assigned.” Our browsing collection is small. Typically, we display about 100 titles at a time. Because it’s a small part of my job, I can’t fully devote my time to keeping up on new fiction titles. Here’s how I keep up with new fiction and discover the kind of titles our faculty, staff and students are most interested in.

Imagine: extra-creative nonfiction

by Emily Hamstra

John Lehrer’s book Imagine: how creativity works didn’t slowly creep off the bestseller list, it just disappeared. First, Lehrer admitted that he “recycled work” from articles he previously published. Then, he admitted he fabricated the quotes from Bob Dylan included in Imagine. The Christian Science Monitor summarizes some of the false quotes. Imagine has been pulled from bookstore shelves, and it’s vanished from the the bestseller lists it dominated a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, at my library, the hold list on this title has grown. Whether the interest in the book relates to the controversy surrounding the book, or simply the lack of supply in bookstores, I’ll never know.

Curiouser and Curiouser: What caught our eyes online this week

“Curiouser and Curiouser!” cried Alice…
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Welcome to Chasing Reference’s weekly roundup of the curious articles and links that have caught our eye this week!

• The font makes all the difference: Exploring font choice in Children’s Picture Books

• The other kind of cv: controlled vocabularies.

• What do earworms, man caves and copernicium have in common? They are all new words added to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

• Everyone wins: play an addictive game, and help the Dartmouth College archives improve the metadata in their image collections.  (Read more about the project here.)

• For first-year (traditional age) students, no memory of life before blue M&Ms – Beloit College just released its “Mindset List” for the class of 2016.

• An informative infographic explaining the importance of supporting your local library.

 

Keeping the end in mind (also: public libraries and cross-country travel)

by Sarah Elichko

Whether it’s how librarians talk to library students, tired approaches to library activism, or even what is posted on social media sites, attitudes (both negative and positive) have gotten a lot of attention in the library blogosphere lately.

Granted all of the very real challenges facing our profession (and society at large), I think it’s essential to keep the larger point in mind.  We’ll accomplish more if we pause to remind ourselves why we do the work we do, or why we’re trying so hard to obtain a position where we can do said good work.

Sometimes a personal approach to this question is more readily grasped than statistics and other objective measures of impact, so to that end, my post today will focus on the many ways in which public libraries helped me and my friends during a 3-week trip across the US.  (And later I’ll get back to talking about keeping the larger goal in mind.)

Follow us down the rabbit hole!

Do you have a story to share? Chasing Reference loves to venture down into the rabbit hole of librarianship, and we’d love to have you join us! Whether it’s a day-in-the-life exploration, an examination of an interesting service, or a fun and unique look at the world of libraries, we want to hear your story! If you are interested in contributing a post to Chasing Reference, and joining us on our journey, please email us at chasingreference@gmail.com. Follow us down the rabbit hole- things get curiouser and curiouser, indeed!

Curiouser and Curiouser: What caught our eyes online this week

“Curiouser and Curiouser!” cried Alice…
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Welcome to Chasing Reference’s weekly roundup of the curious articles and links that have caught our eye this week!

• The New Republic weighs in on the future of the library.

• Library vending machines and unicycles? These are just a few of the oddities my artist friend finds when she photographs libraries.

• Flavorwire collected a bunch of vintage library posters and gorgeous photos of European libraries.

• “Returning Veterans” as a Library of Congress Subject Heading? Uh-uh, nope. Learn about this decision and more at the LCSH Summary of Decisions page. It’s a website that you never knew you wanted to go to.

Oh, Wonderopolis! (or how I use a site intended for children to make college students better searchers)

by Carrie Dunham-LaGree

I’ve written here about how much search fascinates me and my personal devotion to A Google a Day. As an academic instruction librarian, I’ve had some success incorporating these quizzes into instruction, but often the savvy students stumble upon an online forum with the exact answer without going through the steps. Lately, I’ve turned to Wonderopolis to inspire search topics for instruction sessions. Wonderopolis bills itself as “a place where wonder and learning are nurtured through the power of discovery, creativity and imagination.” The target audience for Wonderopolis isn’t college students, but I’ve had good luck incorporating the site into library instruction session. How?

Teaching Mobile Apps

As is in the case in most libraries, my library offers a wealth of classes focusing on technology to help our patrons. We offer classes on many topics: mouse skills, Microsoft Office, Facebook, Twitter, database resources, and a variety of other topics that our patrons suggest to us. One of the most recent suggestions was for a class about mobile apps- what they are, how to find them, and what apps to start with. Since I have some experience in mobile apps- both in researching and designing them- I was asked to lead the class for the library. I found it to be a fun and informative session, both for my patrons and myself.

Curiouser and Curiouser: What caught our eyes online this week

“Curiouser and Curiouser!” cried Alice…
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Welcome to Chasing Reference’s weekly roundup of the curious articles and links that have caught our eye this week!

• NPR listeners pick the top 100 Young Adult books.
• Theodore Seuss Geisel worked in advertising before he wrote and illustrated children’s books.
• The trials and tribulations of autocorrect.
• Are Friday links not enough for you?  The Kept-Up Academic Librarian regularly posts articles related to higher education.