Nifty Source

Hi all,

Today I discovered a very interesting source at the Queens library. Their link covers access to informational sources in 11 languages (French is included, German is not; Chinese covers Mainland, Hongkong, and Taiwan). The spectrum covers aspects of all of the social sciences. Please check it out!

Thanks,

Barb M.

NEW YAHOO! MAIL OUT OF BETA

The new version of Yahoo! Mail came out this week. The problems patrons have been having with the beta version should in theory be resolved, but we know things don't always happen that way. One nice feature is that the "print" button is easier to see, so we may have less problems with patrons printing using the browser "print" button and getting text cut off.

If patrons don't like the new version or are having trouble with it, they can go back to the old version by clicking on "switch back" in the upper-left-hand corner. On the upper-right-hand corner, click on the down arrow to the right of the word "options" to get "switch to original Yahoo! email".

--Andrea

History Day 2008

With the majority of schools starting after Labor Day, I thought this would be a good time to check the Minnesota Historical Society site and see if the new "theme" is posted. It is indeed on the site, and is: "Conflict and Compromise in History"

Here is a link to the page: http://www.mnhs.org/school/historyday/program/index.htm

Please take a moment to read the page so you know what History Day is all about. Notice the links at the bottom of the page. If parents or young adults are asking particular questions about the process, or even the difference between primary or secondary resources, guide them to look at the National History Day contest rule book. Of course, questions are always welcome at the MHS too. There is a "contact us" on that same linked page. If you have any questions, I would also be happy to help with answers.

Deb

Global Warming Presentation

Sue Roegge will discuss global warming with highlights from Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth on Sunday, September 16th at 2:00 PM in the 4th floor Meeting Room. Roegge was personally trained by Al Gore.

-Terry

St. Paul and Minneapolis City Directories are indexed in the Ancestry Library database

I just discovered that some St. Paul and Minneapolis City Directories are indexed in the Ancestry Library database. Here is a sample entry:

St. Paul, Minnesota City Directories, 1889-91
Name:Archibald McDonaldLocation 2:rooms 382 N Exchange Business Name:N P R R Occupation:clerk Year:1890, 1891 City:St. Paul State:MN Source Information:Ancestry.com. St. Paul, Minnesota City Directories, 1889-91 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. Original data: St. Paul City Directory, 1889-1890. St. Paul, MN: R. L. Polk and Co., 1890. St. Paul City Directory, 1890-1891. St. Paul, MN: R. L. Polk and Co., 1891. Description:Directory listing for some residents of St. Paul, Minnesota between 1889 and 1891

Pretty slick!

--Barb P. (I don't work at Central anymore but I used to!)

ACCUPLACER INTAKE ASSESSMENTS

Susan was helping a patron and discovered that Saint Paul College now requires a test called Accuplacer for admission. This website has more information and links to practice tests at Collegeboard.com, Testpreview.com, and Math.com, as well as a study guide.

INTERACTIVE RAILWAY MAP

Here is a nifty interactive railway map that lets you search the railway connections from several European countries. You can search several rail companies, for example, the French TGV by clicking on its name. The connections will light up. It's visible and it's fun.


Thank you,
Barbara M.

Central Library Book Club

The Central Library Book Club resumes in September with a new time and place. The first meeting will be Thursday, September 6th, at 10:30 AM in Zelda's. Author Maureen Millea Smith will join the discussion of her award-winning book, When Charlotte Comes Home.



--Barb S.

Yahoo! Mail problems

We have been having a lot of computer shut-downs with patrons using Yahoo! Mail. I found that the patrons are invariably using Yahoo! Mail Beta, a trial for a new format of Yahoo! Mail. If they try it out once, they are automatically logged into it every time. I encourage them to go back to the tried-and-true older version of Yahoo! Mail until the new version is %100 ready. They may have to go into "options" in the upper-right-hand corner.



--Andrea

NARA films on Google Video & in our catalog

Hello!

The National Archives and Records Administration has added a number of their films to the Google Video stash. We have links to 101 of them in our catalog. You can find the entire list by either using the keywords "national records google" (without the quotes) or the govt doc# AE 1.130.

Titles include "Marines Raise Flag over Iwo Jima," "Funeral of President Roosevelt," "U.S. Soldiers Become Citizens at Battlefront," "Alabama Highlands 1937," "The Eagle has Landed" (Apollo 11) and many others.

Very cool, and a great resource for patrons. Check it out!

Melissa.

WORLDCAT'S "CITE THIS ITEM"

We sometimes get requests for bibliographic citation help, so I thought this would be useful:


WorldCat records in the WorldCat, Ebooks and WorldCat Dissertations databases on the OCLC FirstSearch service now include a "Cite this Item" link.

When users select "Cite this item" in the External Resources links within records from these databases, they will see the citation for a selected record in the reference standard for five common styles: APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Turabian. Users may copy and paste the needed format into a bibliography.

This also works in Worldcat.org.

--Andrea

Library Users with Disabilities? What Do I Say? What Do I Do?

I had the privilege to attend this workshop at the PACER Center where we talked with three advocates about PACER, its resources, why it was important to assist customers with disabilities, civil rights issues, etiquette, and the experiences of the three advocates during past and recent library visits. We also toured PACER’s Technology Center.

Founded in 1977, PACER Center was created by parents of children and youth with disabilities to help other parents and families facing similar challenges. Today, PACER Center expands opportunities and enhances the quality of life of children and young adults with disabilities and their families. One of the resources they offer are the PACER puppets. This program brings puppet shows or allows other groups to purchase puppets and scripts to present their own shows on awareness and acceptance of differences and also on awareness and prevention of or reporting of abuse.

We discussed how libraries should learn how serve customers with disabilities, not only because it is the law, but because everyone has the right to be in the library and staff need to feel comfortable helping people with varying needs. One advocate stated that we can all learn from each other and “Universal access helps everyone”. We also talked about how accommodations were not meant to provide “special” treatment, but equal access.

We also discussed the disability civil rights movement. (See the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities for a good history of disability in Western Civilization: Parallels in Time and Parallels in Time II). The advocates discussed etiquette and gave us several useful handouts which I will put in the FYI basket. They are in a green PACER folder. Included in there is information on how to do use the “sighted guide” method which is a way of guiding someone who is blind or visually impaired (this is after asking him/her if he/she wants assistance). An advocate who is deaf discussed that there are three different groups that people with hearing loss generally fall into: Those who are born deaf and usually sign and may lip read, those who became deaf later in life and may or may not sign or lip read, and seniors with varying levels of hearing loss who may never learn to sign and probably don’t lip read. Seniors may not realize they have hearing loss or may not be ready or willing to talk about it.

The advocates were all residents of Minneapolis or its suburbs and had only visited the Minneapolis Libraries. They discussed difficulties in receiving service and accessing parts of the library as well as helpful features and services. I will note these comments on a separate sheet of paper and include them in the green folder.

Lastly we toured the Simon Technology Center . This Center is set up to offer the benefits of assistive technology to adults and youth with disabilities. They have a lending library and people can set up consultations to test different technologies at the Center. One interesting piece of software we saw is called "I Communicator''. This software can translate text into video sign language and speech to text and/or video sign language.

In closing I would like to share a few thoughts that were discussed during the workshop. When you see or suspect someone to have a disability do not assume “inability”. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just ask to see if someone wants assistance before assuming you know what he/she wants. Be sure to treat people as you would want to be treated; everyone is “disabled” by something at some point in his/her life.

--Erin

MELSA Teen Workshop at Rondo

This workshop was officially titled "Everyone Serves Teens: Understanding and De-Mystifying Teen Behavior, Part II." The presenter, Nickyia Cogshell, from the University of MN Extension 4H (not just a rural group anymore) was excellent. Her PowerPoint presentation and handouts are in the FYI basket. The handouts range from the very practical "Procedures to Create a Behavior Management Plan" and "Behavior Management Checklist" to the more philosophical "The Circle of Courage" . This model can be used to identify the source of the behavioral problem and guide rehabilitation or "reclaiming" efforts.

Ms. Cogshell is a youth development specialist and, although these ideas were prepared with afterschool programming in mind, they also apply to the library setting. She stressed the following ideas:

Young people often misbehave when their basic needs are not being met.
Teens need to know they are valued.
Consistency among staff is important.
Behavior consequences should fit individual youth development.
Involving teens in rule-making and library activities is important.
"Cultural competence" is a core value - everyone should feel welcome in the library.

Take a look at the blue folder in the FYI box entitled "Everyone Serves Teens."


-- Barb S.

WHERE IS THE LINE?

Here is an interesting article on legal reference and not giving legal advice:

Where is the Line? Legal Reference Service and the Unauthorized Practice
of Law (UPL)


--Andrea

School for Scanning

The A-Z of Creating Digital Collections

From May 1-3 Greg and I had the privilege of attending the Northeast Document Conservation Center’s School for Scanning in Minneapolis. This training was co-sponsored by the Midwest Art Conservation Center and had participants and presenters from libraries and cultural and corporate institutions throughout the U.S. including the Anchorage Municipal Libraries, Harvard University, the Atomic Testing Museum, U of M, and more. Over the three day period we attended many interesting sessions including The Future of Digitization, Digitizing Text, Digitizing Photos, Planning Digital Projects, Funding Digital Projects, Copyright Issues, and Digital Preservation.

One session Greg and I felt that was especially useful was Outsourcing and Vendor Relations . In this class we learned about the distinct advantages and disadvantages of doing scanning in-house and outsourcing scanning projects. An interesting point was that all scanning projects have in-house components as staff always needs to be part of the process in order to set standards and make decisions. Outsourcing part or even most of a scanning project isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it lets you more effectively manage your time and resources by letting others help. You need to know what you’re getting into before your run out to buy a scanner. We also learned about how to work around the challenges of outsourcing, how to work with vendors, and how to evaluate your scanning project.

Here are some additional interesting and important points from other sessions we attended:

1) Everything starts with the audience, both current and future. Get to know your users. What do they want to see? What do we want users to be able to do with our digital content? How do we accomplish this? What sort of context, interpretation, and services will we provide with this digital content? How will we measure success?

2) The best digitization projects start with the conviction that they will be worthwhile. Know your institutional capabilities. Have a plan for sustaining the project after the grant is completed. Grants don’t sustain projects.

3) Planning is essential. Plan before you budget. Be detailed and clear. Review your plan, you may need to revise. Keep checking it throughout the project.

4) Scanning advice: Do it once, do it right. Scan materials at the highest resolution you can, depending on the items’ priority, funding available, etc. Capture as much metadata (descriptive material) as you can. Save unedited masters in several places and ways. Avoid making decisions based on current technology, think of the future and try to have materials which can be refigured for future/new audiences.

5) Be aware of long term trends affecting the users of archival materials and monitor the health of suppliers. Sometimes we have no control over the technology we use and institutions may have to change for economic, environmental, or financial reasons (the company is not making enough money to sustain the production of film or video tapes, etc.). The conservation community is not large enough to sustain producing certain materials.

6) Selection criteria for materials for digitization: Should materials be digitized (is there sufficient content value and viewer demand, how do they relate to the collection policy and other digital resources), may they be digitized (who owns the legal rights), can they be digitized (is there the necessary infrastructure, what is the physical nature of the materials, is there the technical expertise, do the items have enough organization, description, and arrangement)


--Erin

We Get By With a Little Help from our Friends

How Participation and Contribution from Patrons and Staff Enhances One Public Library’s Website and Builds Community

Presented by Marilyn Turner from the Hennepin Public Library System at the Enhancing Quality Staff Symposium May 2007

I found this to be the most exciting workshop that I attended that day. Hennepin County Public Libraries really focus on providing quality reader’s advisory services. They took this value and added it to their website. First in 2001, the staff began adding the booklists that they create to the website. Currently there are about 100 staff members who create and maintain about 250 booklists as part of their job responsibilities. Also in 2001, kids were able to submit online book reviews from the HCPL website. Online reviews for adult materials began in 2002.

Staff found that the booklists were helpful for themselves and also started creating subject guides with links to the catalog, events, websites, etc. The subject guides allow staff to really focus in one area while allowing other staff members to keep up on the subject easily. A couple of factors that add to the success of the website is that the staff rely on each other for the information and to give feedback, the subject guides and booklists are high priority for the library system, staff have time to work on them, and staff have tools on the intranet for submitting the information.

In 2007 the HCPL embraced Web 2.0 on its website and began allowing comments on any title in the catalog. The public now enriches the site by adding comments and participating in the discussions about items in the catalog. So far there have been over 5700 comments added to the catalog. These go up immediately and are viewed by staff as they come in. An email is sent automatically to a select few who check the content of the review. Users are also able to create their own booklists to share with others. Over 200 costumer booklists have been contributed so far.

The HCPL website also has RSS feeds for upcoming releases by certain authors or for individual searches so that patrons can be notified of new items of interest in the catalog or on the website.

It was really exciting to hear about the website and to see the results. I think that libraries can do so much more in terms of supporting the online expectations of library users and this website is an example of good web 2.0 uses for libraries. It takes commitment from the library as a system, the staff contributors, and public participation. And a lot of trust is required from everyone.


--Katrina

Minnesota Reflections: the Digitization Project of the Minnesota Digital Library

Presented by Keith Ewing from Saint Cloud State University at the Enhancing Quality Staff Symposium May 2007

Minnesota Digital Library Project is a collaboration of the University of Minnesota libraries, Minitex, and the Minnesota Historical Society which brings together historic images from museums, libraries, and historical societies from around the state to create the image database, Minnesota Reflections. Minitex oversees the management of the project, while the U of M provides the scanner and server space. The local organization keeps the image and provides the metadata for indexing. This database of images includes 32 historical societies, 12 academic libraries, 10 special libraries, and 3 public libraries so far. SPPL has just begun collaborating on this project and materials from the St. Paul collection are being considered for the digital collection.


--Katrina

Go Local to Reliable Health Information and Health Services in Minnesota

Presented by Karla Block from the U of M Health Sciences Library at the Enhancing Quality Staff Symposium May 2007

My Health Minnesota – Go Local is a collaborative project of the U of M Health Sciences Library and the National Library of Medicine. The project utilizes the health information in MedlinePlus and links to local health care services. For instance, someone looking for information on Parkinson’s disease on Medline Plus will also see an option to find local services relating to that health issue. Some of the services represented in Go Local include hospitals, clinics, physicians, nursing homes, support groups, health departments, health screening, pharmacies, alternative therapies, and more. It will also link back to Medline Plus for more information. The database will be launched in July 2007.


--Katrina

Best from the Web

Over the last month, the Dupage College has had a webcast available from their website of a webinar that was offered in April. While I was unable to watch the entire webinar - "Best from the Web", one thing struck me that should be passed along to all of our reference staff. The Dupage staff has started a wiki of recommended websites, some of which were new to me, and I hope they will be helpful to others. Please take a look...I promise it will be well worth your time!
The URL is:
http://soaring.pbwiki.com
Happy hunting!
Doris

Customer Service on the Spot: Techniques for Tough Situations

Stevie Ray is a consultant, actor, writer, and more who uses his experiences and study of humor to advise others on how to be more effective communicators. At Tuesday’s session (5/8) he recommended “whole brain” activities as way to keep all areas of one’s mind working, not just those that perform the functions we’re used to performing. This can help people be alert and ready to deal with new and unpredictable situations. We exercised our whole brains by doing a variety of activities including “throwing” words to each other and having the other person respond with the first word they thought of. We practiced trying to explain things to someone who has a different point of reference by pretending that one person was from Colonial times and the other was from modern times and trying to explain what a “car” or “airplane” was for.

Some important and interesting points from the presentation are:

1) Communication is visual as well as verbal. Try to look confident when you speak. Try to believe that you can help so that this belief is reflected in your body language and tone of voice and expressiveness when you talk. Ask someone to watch you when you talk to others and give you feedback on how you look and sound.

2) Trying to keep things light can be helpful. Laughter improves comprehension.

3) People respond to emotion more than facts. Anger comes out of fear and frustration. Sometimes an angry person coming into the library just wants to be heard and agreed with. Recognizing and acknowledging their feelings and telling them, if appropriate, you’re sorry they have to deal with this frustrating situation and you want to help them through it can be a way to defuse their tension.

4) Many times we talk to people and say “Yes..but (or however, etc.)”. This negates anything positive we’ve said or anything they are trying to contribute. People who say “no” to everything are perceived negatively. Mr. Ray suggested saying “Yes, and..(or if, so)” and then explaining the conditions which must exist to make this happen. He also said that saying “We tried that once already and it didn’t work” wasn’t a very helpful thing to say. Mr. Ray suggests saying “We tried this and it didn’t work. Tell us about your idea and we’ll see how it might work”.

5) If people don’t understand, try to explain it another way. Follow the follower-that is find out what the other person wants to know, make sure you’re answering the question. “Not to understand another man’s thinking, doesn’t make him confused.”

6) Try to think metaphorically (blending ideas, building off what someone already knows in order to connect them to the thing you’re trying to explain) not definitively (“yes” vs. “no”). Building off what someone knows helps build understanding and prevents alienating the customer by making him/her feel he/she doesn’t know anything.


Erin