Of course, it's mixed news. I've been at the Chelmsford Library in Massachusetts for 15 years, and it's a great place to be. When I became Assistant Director here about four years ago, I pretty much stopped blogging because most of what I did involved confidential staff or patron interactions, or far less interesting (to read about) vendor and contractor interactions. Still busy, just not with funny reference questions.

The new position will be similar to what I've been doing, but for a county system instead of a medium-sized town library. I'm really looking forward to it. The other bonus is that I'll be just a couple hours from my family, instead of eleven hours.

My last day in Chelmsford is October 2nd, and first day in Tuscarawas is November 2nd. In between, I need to pack up, move to Ohio, find a new place to live, etc. Should be fun.

If anyone is interested in working at Chelmsford, the job is posted on the MBLC job board. It really is a great job.

A patron I know asked me to put a book on hold for him. Since I know him, I didn't ask for his library card number - I just figured I'd look him up.

Unfortunately, he has a fairly common name, so there were three patrons by that name in the catalog. I didn't know his street address either, but I do know what his pickup truck looks like - so I thought I'd look up these addresses on Google Maps and see if his pickup was parked at any of them. I suspect this is how all reference librarians think.

I type in the first address and switch over to street view. What do I find? Not only was his pickup parked in the driveway, but he was in the yard cutting the grass - case closed!

Of course, you can see him better when you move around and zoom in on Google Maps, but even from the back I was positive it was him. Ha.

The eggs came from a farm in Western MA, and the chicks will go back there a couple weeks after they hatch. In the meantime, the incubator has been sitting on the Children's Desk - and of course has been very popular with kids (and the local paper).

After they hatch they get moved into a larger cage, and that's when the livestream should get more interesting (watching eggs isn't actually that much fun).

Here's our setup - the incubator is inside the cage, along with water, food, and a heater for after they hatch. Maybe a bit "hands-offy" for my taste, but you know kids, I guess.

Setting up the livestream was surprisingly easy too. First I contacted our webhost to see if they had any issues with this or any suggestions, and they said the best route for them is to use YouTube's livestream feature. That way, we're just embedding a video, and not really bogging down their servers.

I found some instructions for YouTube Stream Now and first verified our YouTube account (which was a click of a button). Next our IT person installed an encoder (he chose Wirecast Play) on the computer we were going to use to host the camera. We decided to dedicate an extra computer to this, so it didn't slow down a staff desk computer.

Next on the YouTube livestream dashboard, we could edit things like the stream title and other basic information. This is also where you get the key for the encoder, and also where you get the embed code (like any other YouTube video).

The one change I made was to make the embed code permanent by including our Channel ID, based on a StackOverflow article:

The embed URL for a channel's live stream is:

https://www.youtube.com/ embed/live_stream?channel=CHANNEL_ID

You can find your CHANNEL_ID at https://www.youtube.com/account_advanced

Our IT person did all the hard work of installing and configuring the encoder, and setting up the computer with the camera, but really, none of this was difficult. Nonetheless, I was still amazed when I embedded the livestream code and it just worked:

Neat. I was also thoroughly entertained coming up with a title for this post that sounded click-baity yet accurate. "Live Nude Chicks" was my second choice.

Brian, can I ask you a question? It's kind of personal.

Whoa-boy, I can only imagine where this is going. But of course I said sure.

Where do you get your hair cut?

Okay, now we're in my wheelhouse: I get asked for fashion and grooming advice all the time!

Anyway, he and I proceeded to have a nice exchange about local barbers and the advantageous way our hair style lends itself easily to do-it-yourselfers. I actually received Wahl clippers a few Christmases ago, and have been cutting my own hair ever since.

The patron was delighted to hear this - he has been too, but felt guilty about it. He was worried he wasn't doing a good enough job, and so had recently gone to a real barber. But he was shocked at how high the price was since the last time he went, and basically, I think, was looking for someone to tell him it was okay to cut his own hair. We also compared notes on clipper comb numbers and which is the best to use (I use #2 on the sides and #1 on the top).

I've been mostly bald since my twenties, and this is the bright side of having the same hair pattern as older guys: they are one more segment of patrons I can relate to through shared personal experience.

And although he complimented me on how nice my hair looked before he left, this interaction did remind me to put "cut hair" on my weekend to-do list.

Especially though when it is totally unnecessary. A recent Lifehacker article entitled "This Secret Trick Will Save You From Getting Lost In Central Park Forever" could have just as easily, and less annoyingly, been titled, "How To Use Central Park Lampposts To Avoid Getting Lost." I still would have clicked and read, and would have felt less dirty about it.

Of course these show up as links all over the internet, but I've also seen a trend on YouTube to name videos with clickbait titles too. One of the channels I used to watch, Wranglestar, has become terrible for this, and I've all but stopped watching him because of it. Recently though, he published a video explaining why he uses clickbait video titles. It was interesting, and the tl;dw version is that he found it to be the only way to make money on YouTube anymore: regular titles don't get clicked, which means videos don't get watched, which means no monetized ad revenues for him.

If it is that effective, maybe libraries ought to pay attention. So, just as a "funny thing to think about but I would never do for real" project, here are a few of our library programs re-titled as clickbait:

• These Are The Five Books Your Child MUST Be Read Before They Eat Their Next Lunch!
• This Secret Group Meets Every Month - What Do They Know That You Don't?!
• If Your Baby Isn't Doing This It May Never Learn To Walk!
• Find Out The Best Foods For Winter!
• Is Your Teen Getting The Training They Need to Succeed? These Kids Are!
• Learn The One Weird Health Trick That Will Save Your Life!
• This One Small Group Decides How Your Tax Dollars Are Spent!
• These People Are Probably Investigating Your Past - Find Out Why!
• Why Is The Library Staff Not Working On This One Day In April?!
• This Woman Says You've Been Gardening WRONG!
• Discover The Secret Meaning Behind This Life-Changing Artwork!
• Who Is This Group Of "Friends" And What Are You Missing By Not Being One Of Them?!

Now those would totally boost our attendance numbers.

During my lunch today, one of my coworkers from the real Reference Desk relayed an interesting interaction she had this morning:

A guy came up and said he was locked out of his car. I asked if he wanted to call AAA or something, but he just asked if we had a wire coat hanger.

I said I thought that didn't work on new cars, but he said he thought he knew a trick and wanted to try it.

So I went into the lunch room and found the one wire hanger we had on the rack*, and I gave it to him. And it must have worked, because I saw him a little later and he just gave me the thumbs-up.

Ha, that made me laugh. I think I'd be a little uncomfortable giving a patron a hanger, but I'm sure I've given out worse. My three favorite things about this are:

1. he thought to ask the library for something (even something unusual)
2. we were able to give it to him (even though it was unusual)
3. and his life was better off for it (or so the thumbs-up seems to imply)

And even better, now this patron has a great "guess what happened to me today at the library!" story to tell people. Nice.

*By the way, she had just dumped everything that was hung on this hanger onto the nearest chair. Me asking her, "why is all this crap on my chair?" is what prompted her telling me this story in the first place.

It looks odd, but she covered popular books with a blank sheet printed with the first line of the book. Partly to gamify the display so people could guess what book it was, but also just as a novel and eye-catching way to get people engaged with books they may not otherwise have picked up.

Also: looking at these photos on flickr, I realized I took them in December of 2015 - oops. Still, it's a cool idea.

This week, a package arrived with this inside:

How awesome is that? I have no idea if American Airlines, or airlines in general, make this a general practice, or if this Flight Attendant just did it because he felt it was the right thing to do. But it is great, and we appreciate it, and I'm sure the patron* does too.

In any case, I sincerely hope American Airlines reimburses their above-and-beyond Flight Attendant for postage. Thank you very much Tom!

*By the way, we looked up who had it checked out and called to let them know their (lost) book was returned, but the phone went right to voicemail. Probably that means they're still on vacation - but now without Rodney Dangerfield to keep them company.

At Wayne County Public Library we have a display by the checkout counter called "What Your Neighbor is Reading." We just place items recently turned in on a cart with a "What Your Neighbor is Reading sign on it that has an image of Wilson (from "Home Improvement") on it. Previously, we used an image of Gladys Kravitz (from "Bewitched"). Our patrons enjoy seeing the pop culture figures and they like the convenience of being able to check books out so close to the register.

How cool is that? Just putting the little local spin on it and identifying them as something their neighbor is interested will definitely draw peoples' attention. Very similar to "Recently Returned" shelves, but more fun.

She also mentioned that they place a colored slip in each of the display books that is removed at checked out, and have a sheet at Circ they use to track stats on displayed items. Another great idea.

I hope you find this as neat as I did and can use it in your library. Thanks, Gigi!

Well, new-new books are easy: when something is recently published, it goes in the new book room, or on the new book shelf, for six months or a year or whatever you're library's practice is. And usually, it also gets marked with some kind of sticker so pages know to shelve it as "New" rather than in the regular collection.

The question has been - at least for me - what is the best way to handle books that are not recently-published, but that are still new to the library (and therefore possibly new to our patrons)?

If I missed ordering something when it first came out, and then a patron donates a copy, should it go into the new book room like a new book (even though it's not "new"), or should it just go right into the regular collection (even though people might miss it there)? I've heard arguments both ways on this, but the Jackson (NH) Public Library has a great (and obvious) solution that just never occurred to me.

They do put these old-but-new-to-the-library books into the new book room - and just mark them "NEW-ish." Brilliant.

This labeling lets people know the books aren't just published, but also allows the people who browse the new book room (rather than search the catalog) to easily find them. And that's the important thing.

This might be commonplace in other libraries too, but like I said, it never occurred to me before. Now I just need to convince the staff at my library to go for it. We'll see.

Way to go, staff at the Jackson Library.