Sad Stories from the Library

One librarian got to work today and discovered the grocery sack she thought contained her lunch (and dinner) actually contained cleaning products. Apparently, her lunch (and dinner) were still sitting at home on the living room floor. She had to get to a meeting right away and could not go home to retrieve her lunch (and dinner). This librarian did not eat breakfast.


Another librarian got to work today and discovered there were only three hubcaps on her car, whereas when she left her home a few minutes earlier, there were four. She had inadvertently run up against a curb (haven't we all done the same thing?) and apparently left one hubcap at the scene. The hubcaps were brand new.


photo credit: Rhoads, Harry M. (ca. 1910-1930). Baby in bed crying [photograph]. Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library. Retrieved from Library of Congress American Memory, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hawp:@field(NUMBER+@band
(codhawp+00186702))

One More Step Inside the 21st Century

I'm ashamed to admit that it took me this long to venture onto YouTube. But I picked a great video as my reason: The Media Education Foundation's A Fair(y) Use Tale, which explains copyright, public domain, and fair use using clips from a certain famous company's films. For further discussion about copyright and the affect it has on future creativity, check out Barbara Fister's post on the ACRLog.

Library as Place

I had a conversation today with a colleague who is exploring some ideas for a scholarly article on library Web sites. We both agree that one of the purposes of a library's Web site is to connect users to the information they want in as seamless a manner as possible--something library Web sites don't always do very well. My colleague said that though some people don't want to hear it, the [academic] library Web site is more important now than the [academic] library building. I smiled and said, "Well, as important."

A few hours later, I read the Feel-good Librarian's guest post at Tame the Web, in which she relates an experience where a library user got what he needed by coming into the library building and talking to a person. Some may argue that the library user at the Feel-good Librarian's library didn't have a need that could only be met by a library, but it was met nonetheless. There are many reasons why I think the library Web site will never be more important than the library building, and the Feel-good Librarian succinctly identified one of those reasons: "Some days, it's just not about the machine."