I had an anonymous chat with a user over the summer.  S/he was asking about what “fun” magazines we had in the library.  I was quickly scrambling to think about “leisure” magazines that we have (we categorize them only as “general”).  I rattled off Guitar Player, Glamour, Elle, Rolling Stone and then it hit me – what makes these titles fun or even popular?

For the past ten years I’ve been so busy managing access to scholarly journals that I haven’t given our “fun” titles a second glance.  When the person chatting with me asked about what alternative press titles we had I knew I was in trouble.  We have some titles – like Ms. and Viet Tide, but there are many areas, such as GLBT, in which we are greatly lacking.  I also realized that we don’t have an easy way to display our popular titles.

And there it was: a new project!

So, I’m reviewing our “general” titles (many of which are indeed general, but don’t seem either popular or fun) and adding in some core titles in a number of areas.  I’ll also be working on a way to display these titles electronically via our library web site.

If you have suggestions for magazine titles to add (or cancel!), please let me know.

Before you get too excited about how short my work days are this week, you need to know that here at UW-La Crosse, librarians are faculty and on 9-month contracts.  We receive a part-time contract in the summer, which usually gives us just enough time to keep our departments above water.  Today I completed my contract hours, so from here on out, I’m working because 1) I love being a librarian 2) I supervise a department with 2 FTE and 3) I still have a lot of projects that I need to complete before the hurricane that is September hits.

6:00: alarm goes off – slap the snooze button until 6:30.  Wonder why I don’t just change the alarm to 6:30.

6:30: wake up daughter for summer school as she needs to be at the bus stop at 7:15.  Drink several cups of coffee, check online networks, home and work email, and listen to the headlines on CNN.

7:15: say goodbye to daughter, shower, dress, read more of The Given Day, make phone calls to schedule appointments, etc.  I realize that there is a lot of time wasted between now and leaving home, but in truth I am just not a morning person.

9:00: leave home

9:30:  arrive at the office, get some hot tea, check for snail mail, check email.

9:45: I am extremely lucky to have scored a new notebook computer for work and I’m slowly configuring it and moving over files from my old notebook.  I move over some more files and begin to gather data to update our acquisitions formula. This year, I’m trying out a new procedure that will hopefully save time in the future, but at the present time it’s just a painfully slow process.

10:30: All-staff meeting to make decisions on some budget stuff.  A good meeting.  I whittled my inbox down to 1000 messages and thought we had a good discussion about the budget.

12:0o: The meeting is over and my stomach is rumbling loudly.  Sit down briefly and catch up with a colleague.  My phone starts ringing and after talking to my husband, son, and daughter (who has just gotten off the bus) I realize it’s time to head home.

Once home, I still check my email a few times, but most of my day is spend supervising play dates, folding laundry, and making brownies.  And the brownies: the best I’ve ever made.

I had an amazing chat with a library user the other day.  The kind of interaction that ends in the user proclaiming “you rock!” and that makes me happy to be a librarian.  The thanks really goes to Annette Bailey, Godmar Back, and the wonderful tool that is LibX.   Sure it’s a toolbar, but its real value lies in how it grabs metadata from any page displayed in your browser and creates openURLs that a link resolver can, well, resolve.

So yesterday in this chat session, I got a partial citation for an article with the call to action: can you find it?

I looked up the journal title in our a-to-z list, but (no surprises here) we did not have any access. I wanted to be able to send the user an openURL that would resolve to our SFX menu with a link to our document delivery service.  In my pre-LibX days, I would have looked up the title in Ulrichs, found a database that indexed the title, searched in that database for the article, and gotten to the SFX menu from the article. Not an easy process to explain to users!

With LibX, I first copied the citation information into Google. The first result was a link to the published version on Sage (again, no access!). I grabbed the DOI from the link, dragged it to the magic button (Google Scholar search) on LibX, and the resulting Google Scholar link included a link to our openURL resolver.

This story was supposed to have this heart-warming ending:

In the end, I didn’t have to send the user that link to document delivery.  The second link displayed in Google Scholar was a link to a version of the article that the author had self-archived on his faculty web page. I was able to send the user the full text of the article instead of a lengthy link and explanation of how to use document delivery.  I plan to use this example to show faculty why self-archiving is important.

Full disclosure, however, means telling you that upon further investigation, the second link in Google Scholar was not from the author’s university.  Also, the article was not a version of the published article, it was the published article.  Turns out, the article was part of a syllabus and should have been secured behind a firewall of some sort, but was not.   I alerted the instructor to chat with her university librarian post haste.

After more digging, I eventually did find the author had posted a version of his article on his faculty web space, but it took quite a bit of digging.  I look forward to the day when search engines make self-archived material more easily accessible and when every author follows this practice.  Because self-archiving is a win-win all around.  I need to learn more about self-archiving.  I’ll be reading Self-Archiving Journal Articles: A Case Study of Faculty Practice and Missed Opportunity and JISC’s information on Repositories and Self-Archiving.  Ultimately, I’d like to develop procedures for my campus.  Yet another summer project!

I’m not big on public speaking.  Getting up in front of a group of undergraduate students and waxing poetic about the joys of library research and the natural high of constructing the perfect Boolean search is a daunting prospect for me.  In my position as an academic librarian, however, providing these information literacy sessions is a necessary job requirement (with nearly 10,000 students and 11 librarians), but I’ve never felt a connection to the clearly glazed  students who come in for a 50 minute class session “just for a library overview” and are never to be seen again.

Last fall, that all changed for me.  With a colleague out on leave, I covered her embedded librarian duties.  Instead of meeting with a class once, I was given the tremendous opportunity to meet with the class many times (a brief personal introduction, a 50 minute library instruction session, and two research days in a computer lab).  I was also able to send them emails with information about library resources directly timed to be read at their point of need.  I won’t lie, that first semester of being an embedded librarian I was pretty clueless.   I followed my colleague’s game plan and just hoped I didn’t mess it up too badly.  I didn’t really start to feel comfortable until the research days.  I really love research days; class sessions when the students are set free to research their topics and ask questions when they needed help.  This sort of just-in-time research help provided me with the satisfaction of knowing that I had helped students make connections about their research needs and library resources.  In my humble opinion point of need instruction is the ultimate way to show students the value of librarians and library resources.

This semester, I’ve added more research days and asked students to send me their initial bibliographies so I can see both if and how they are using library resources.  I didn’t grade these bibliographies, but I did take advantage of this connection to the students to steer them away from Google (even after library instruction some students stick with Google as the source of all their research), to highlight library resources specific to their topics, and to make recommendations to our collection development librarian on new purchases.

While I can see very concretely that some students have benefitted from this extra attention, I feel like I’m the one coming out ahead.  I haven’t had these in-depth reference interactions with users for a long time at the reference desk (most questions I field at the reference desk revolve around printing).  While being an embedded librarian is time intensive (especially while reviewing 70 bibliographies), I count my experience over the past two semesters as one of the highlights of my professional career.

8:00: in office, tea in hand.  Send out final plea asking for feedback on revised SFX menu display.  I’ve only heard from 4 out of a possible 11 librarians.  Realize that I am perhaps the only person who thinks this is a big deal.  Will update menu at the end of the day.

9:00: Focus on fixing header and footer CSS style issues in LibData header and footer.

11:00 Where did the morning go?  I never realized how much time troubleshooting takes, nor did I realize how much I would learn from figuring things out myself.  The learning is the best part of being a librarian.

11:15: Staff member fills me in on latest publisher saga.  After a snafu with our periodicals vendor, publisher will not be sending us two issues from the fall.  Consider going electronic only, but the e-license will cost $300 more and I am not convinced these titles get enough use.  Also, publisher refuses to work with periodicals vendor for the electronic purchase.  Since all our money is with our periodicals vendor, this little snag could pose real problems.  Make a mental note to follow up on Monday.

12:45: Break for lunch.

1:00: More CSS troubleshooting.  New footer is in place; no more tables!  Just learned new IE CSS hack  – CSS will no longer validate, but perhaps will display properly.   It’s all about choices.

2:00: Call colleague to talk me down from extreme frustration on getting margin thing figured out.  While talking to him, re-fresh my file one more time and voila!  It’s fixed.  Sometimes you just need to talk it out.  And re-fresh.

3:00:  Run over to the Cleary Center to listen to chancellor’s open forum on campus budget woes.  Our library will get possible funding for more hours, but no money for materials such as journals and databases.   Not looking forward to trying to wringing another year out of a budget that hasn’t increased in 10 years.  Wondering if I should share my 2002 paper on how to central many library services in order to save money.  Publishers have been asking me lately why we don’t order more journals consortially.  I have to make more progress in this area this semester.

3:40: Sneak out of forum.  Run to car (again a little too late) and drive home to pick-up daughter for her piano lessons.

4:30: Post blog posts for past few days and check email one last time.  Also, update display for SFX menu.

5:00:  Unplugging for the evening.

Pre-work: Same morning routine as all the other days this week. Twist for this morning: took 2 full cups of coffee before my brain function kicked in.
8:00: Arrive in my office. Computer refuses to let me in to our shared file space because I was forced kicking and screaming to change my campus password yesterday. Reboot computer, wait full 5 minutes for it to reboot, re-set links to mapped drive. Access email folders, send password for journal-which-shall-not -be -named to colleague.

8:30: Catch up on blogs, email, check calendar. No meetings!

9:00: Run down to staff lounge for tea, stop procrastinating working on Course Page for Choosing a Topic. It’s fun learning how to create a new page in LibData and checking out how other libraries approach this on their web sites. Wow! Styles are crazy for my course page. Check to see if other librarians are editing the style sheet; they are not. Will ask e-resources librarian for help later.

10:00: Note that I included my old office hours in my little video showing how to find my office (It’s a little difficult to find, but the view is worth the aggravation). When I go to edit it, discover that I didn’t save all the original files. Re-create parts of the movie and think it is even better than before.  After I’m finished, find all the original files.

11:30: “Mouse” hand is starting to ache. Might be time for a break. Walking over to the mail room.  Stretching.

12:30: Still working on Course page. I think It’s taking shape.

12:45: quick lunch in break room.

1:00: Get news from US News & World Report might be ceasing their print edition. Turns out they are just switching to a monthly edition, but the emails are really flying. I would not be surprised if more of our weekly news titles publish fewer issues.

2:00: Still working on Choosing Topics page. Adding Librarian’s Internet Index. Notice that our description of this resource is still listing the old title, go into LibData and update it. LibData makes it very easy to update database information.

3:20: Leave a little late; run to car to drive to daughter’s school and then take her to her tap class.

4:00-5:00: Enjoying the YMCA’s wireless.  Notice that the styles on many of our web pages are not displaying well in IE. Work until keyboard stops working (no enter key!) and decide that’s enough for the day.

Pre-work: Same routine as Tuesday. Added attraction – tax materials are complete and just need to be dropped off at the accountant’s office.

8:15: arrive at office, slightly frozen; check email, blogs, and calendar. Talk to staff member about my position responsibilities possibly changing slightly. Discover that I’m actually on the reference desk from 9-10:30 instead of 10:30-12.

9:00-10:30: Many computers frozen, printer jams and paper outages. Eureka moment on how to fix our SFX menu so that the relating holdings information displays properly.

10:30: Work with staff member to figure out re-linked component nightmare in Voyager Acquisitions module. Draft email to librarians and staff asking for feedback on proposed SFX menu changes.

11:15: Hear back from Ex Libris about linking problem with Allen Press title. They are deleting the only record that works because the Library of Congress doesn’t list it in the official record. Quickly contact Allen Press. Learn that “problem ISSN” is actually the e-ISSN. Reply back to Ex Libris begging them to re-instate the ISSN so that we can link to this title.

11:30: Grab a chicken parmesan wrap from the library coffee shop and eat at desk while trying to clear out email inbox. Current emails in inbox: 716.

1:00: Wonder where the time has gone. Email inbox: 570. I think it’s taking such a long time because something has to be checked or read before I can safely delete each email.

2:45: Working on creating “chunks” for library instruction sessions. Simple chunks where students can run their own searches. Chucks like finding books, findings news articles, finding research articles, finding AV materials.

3:30: Running out of steam. I’ve decided to do a Course Page on finding topics so the instructor can run with it. Also thinking about asking students to take a tutorial: What is an article database and watch a “movie” on the differences between scholarly journals and popular press materials.

4:15: Another day gone too quickly. I feel like I got a lot accomplished today though.

Ever wonder just what it is that librarians do all day? Are we secretly curled up in a sunny window reading with our cats? Read about the real daily lives of all sorts of librarians at Library Day in the Life. And below, I give you my Tuesday.

Pre-work: 5:30: alarm goes off. Get the coffee started and eat breakfast. Give cat her spoonful of tuna, drop tuna on the floor on way to her bowl. Cat does not seem to mind. Get son up at 6:15; Realize that daughter is still sleeping at 6:45, wake her up. Leave house at 7:30 and drop daughter off at surround care.

8:00: Arrive at office, check email, get tea, check my calendar.

8:15: Update embedded librarian documents on course management system for new CST110 sections.

8:40: Send out Access query for determining how many standing order volumes we added in a given year so Tech Services Librarian can complete ALS statistics. Start work on figuring out query for our current journals, regardless of format.

9:00: Work on revising our library services web page. I am attempting to organize library services into categories. This task seems like it should be much simpler than it is. Sent out a draft page to web team members. Also ask for feedback on the new RSS feed display.

9:30: Answered staff questions about a Sage survey, signed timecards, and talked about how we fill checklists (each time a journal gets canceled, added, ceases, etc. lots of changes occur in the OPAC, link resolver, shelves, etc. We manage the changes through checklists).

10:00: Preparation for 10:30-1 reference shift. Tea re-filled, scone from our library coffee shop purchased and consumed, ran over to mail room, signed another time card.

10:30 – 1:00: Reference Shift – Typical questions for first week of the semester: Where is the restroom, where is the paper cutter, the printer is jammed, where is the computer lab?

1:15: Quick lunch

1:30: Created a database from ILL requests made from July –December 2008 by our Health Professions folks. We want to actively manage these requests so that we can order new subscriptions if need be. Results are not what I expected: 316 unique journal titles requested. Top two journal titles each had a mere 10 requests. We already have subscriptions for both titles, but requests were for outlying issues.

2:30: Was planning on working on instruction material for upcoming CST110 classes, but got an urgent email about a title not linking properly in SFX. I spent 40 minutes troubleshooting the problem, fixing it, and reporting it to Ex Libris.

3:10- running Xenu in background to make sure broken links reported last semester are fixed.

3:10-decided to run Xenu against all inks on library web site. Lots of broken links. Fixed about half of them.

4:00: heading home.

Newspaper publishers are struggling to make a profit as news gets disseminated via the internet, hand-held devices, and television 24/7. Last spring, we were notified that our subscription to Madison’s Capital Times would be refunded, as the newspaper would cease to be printed. In May, we learned that our newspaper delivery guy would be unable to continue delivering our newspapers.  While many newspapers offer mail delivery, what good is Monday’s news on Wednesday? In consultation with our library staff, we decided to drop subscriptions to the following newspapers as we were unable to provide access to them on their publication date:

Chicago Tribune (most recent 4 days available at PressDisplay | 30 day archive at publisher’s web site)
St. Paul Pioneer Press (free content at publisher’s web site)
Star Tribune (most recent 60 days available at PressDisplay)
USA Today (most recent 60 days available at PressDisplay)
Wisconsin State Journal (free content at publisher’s web site)

While the printed newspaper will no longer be available for the above titles, access to the current content of these newspapers will be enhanced through our new license to PressDisplay which provides electronic access to over 700 newspapers from 76 countries in 38 languages in full-color and full-page format. Users can browse articles and other key content, such as pictures, advertisements, and classifieds.

Some newspaper subscriptions were already mail delivery and will continue:

Christian Science Monitor
Coulee News
Green Bay Press Gazette
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Onalaska Community Life
India Abroad
Indian Country Today
Washington Post (PressDisplay)

And three newspapers will continue to be delivered in print on a daily basis:

La Crosse Tribune
New York Times
Wall Street Journal

If I hear a great outcry (I’m hearing a low, steady outcry asking for a subscription to Wisconsin State Journal so stay tuned) we will gladly reconsider these decisions.

I received a question about our access to OVID yesterday via MEEBO when I wasn’t logged in. I can see the question in the chat window, I just can’t respond so that the person asking this excellent question can see my response. So, I’m responding here because it was a really great question:

how do I search the OVID data base directly? I know that we have some journals in that, but it doesn’t show up on the database title list.?

Murphy Library subscribes to 10 journals through OVID. OVID offers thousands of other titles, but UW-La Crosse users have access to just the 10. I never realized that users would think to search OVID rather than OTJR or another of the 10 journals directly. Each of the 10 journals is cataloged in the library catalog and linked within our link resolver (GetTeXt), but I never added a link to the OVID database itself. Until today.

Journals@OVID (OVID)
Journals@Ovid is a single database that contains the Ovid Full Text and graphics of every full text journal offered by Ovid. Use the “External Resolver” link to request articles from journals to which we do not subscribe. Or, limit your search to Your Journals@Ovid, a subset of the full database that contains only Murphy Library’s current OVID subscriptions (American Journal of Occupational Therapy, American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, Journal of Cardiopulmonary Research and Prevention, Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, OTJR, Pediatric Physical Therapy, and Strength and Conditioning Journal).

Enjoy!