Archive for March, 2010
Library History Buff Website 5 Years Old
March 31st, 2010
It almost escaped me that this month marks the fifth anniversary of "The Library History Buff" website. The "Library History Buff Blog" was created as a companion to the website. The LHB website which I started in March 2005 evolved from a free website offered by my Internet provider which I began in October of 2002. That site was simply called "Librariana". On the homepage of the LHB website I define a "library history buff" as an individual with a passion for library history and its artifacts who might also be described as a "library history nut". Although I am flattered when someone refers to me as a library historian, I am not in the same league with the library history scholars who do such a fantastic job of reliably documenting library history. I previously posted a tribute to those individuals on the LHB Blog. The LHB website like the LHB Blog has as a purpose "Promoting the appreciation, enjoyment, and preservation of library history". The site is divided into three broad categories. The "Library History" category includes pages with information about library history, the "Librariana" category includes pages with information about the collecting of library memorabilia and artifacts, and the "Postal Librariana" category includes pages with information about the collecting of postal artifacts related to libraries. Although its not exactly a high traffic site, if you search Google for "library history" it comes up as the number one site.
Japanese Postcard from St. Louis 1904
March 30th, 2010
I recently purchased a Japanese postcard on eBay that was mailed from St. Louis, MO on October 20, 1904 to a Mrs. Alice Stevens at the Library of Congress. I have an extensive collection of postal items mailed to and from the Library of Congress and this seemed like an interesting addition to the collection. After all, its not every day that you find a Japanese postcard mailed from a location within the United States. The postcard has significance to a library history buff and collector of postal librariana in that it was mailed by a librarian attending the 1904 American Library Association conference in St. Louis. George Eberhart has done an excellent job of recounting the ambience and significance of this conference which took place in conjunction with the St. Louis World's Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition). The conference ran from October 17 to October 22. The personal message on the back of the postcard from someone with the initials S. B. P. reads in part: "If I didn't do the Fair I am sure it will entirely "do" me. But it's fun if one takes it leisurely and the A.L.A. is all right." The postcard came from the Japanese Exhibition at the Fair. The postcard is stamped with one of the stamps which is part of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition postal issue of 1904. It also includes a receivers mark made by the M. & S. Division of the Library of Congress. As Eberhart points out in his article, the American Library Association had a major exhibit at the Fair which was located in the Missouri Building. I have written a previous post about that exhibit. The Library of Congress also had a separate exhibit at the Fair which was located in the U. S. Government Building. That exhibit included a large model of the Library of Congress building of 1897, now known as the Jefferson Building. This was the first direct participation of the Library of Conference in one of the large international expositions.
“@” and the ALA
March 28th, 2010
National Library Week is April April 11-17 and for the 13th straight year the "@" symbol will be a prominent part of the slogan for this annual promotion by the American Library Association (ALA). This year the slogan is "Communities thrive @ your library". In 2001 ALA launched a major multi-year public relations campaign tied to "The Campaign for America's Libraries" using the "@ your library" theme. In 2003 "@ your library" became a registered trademark of ALA with heavily prescribed allowable and un-allowable uses. I'm not terribly enamored of the continued use of the "@" symbol as a public relations device for promoting libraries. I'm more of a "Libraries change lives" kind of guy. I'm not sure if ALA will be allowed to continue to use the "@" symbol in any case. It has just been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. Daniel Soar has written an interesting piece about the "@" symbol in the London Review of Books. For a philatelic tribute to National Library Week along with a list of previous National Library Week slogans click HERE. What's your favorite library slogan?
National Poetry Month @ Gleeson
March 26th, 2010April 1 is almost here… and with it comes the start of National Poetry Month 2010!
Here at Gleeson we are celebrating National Poetry Month by doing a couple things. First we’re putting up a display of cool books written by California and Bay Area poets and books of poems written about California and the Bay Area. Secondly we are hosting a faculty and staff poetry reading to highlight not only the wealth of poetic talent we have here at USF but also the diverse academic backgrounds USF poets come from.
Please mark your calendar and get ready!
Faculty & Staff Poetry Reading
Thursday April 29, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Rare Book Room, Gleeson Library (3rd Floor)
Readers:
Margaret L. Trenary (Economics Program Assistant), Veronica Andrew (Rhetoric and Composition Professor), Diane Roberts (Professor of Accounting), and Andrea Wise (ESL and Diversity Studies Program Assistant).
The poetry display will be in the library foyer for the last two weeks of April so make sure to keep your eyes open for it!
Special thanks to Rob Kroenert for letting us use his awesome photograph of St. Ignatius on our flyer.
How to customize the library catalog with your tags, reviews, and virtual class collections
March 26th, 2010For those who want to be able to make the library catalog work better for themselves, we provide a growing group of tools that allows USF community members to log in and keep track of their own library use. One way you can help all our library users and add value to the catalog is by customizing it with community tags, comments and book reviews. To help people find an item in the catalog, you can tag it with terms that don’t already appear in the catalog record, and add your personal recommendations to books you’ve read or films you’ve watched.
If you use the catalog you may have noticed “Add a Tag” and “Add a Review” buttons when you look up a book or film. You might even have seen some tags and reviews. One group of library users, students in Professor David Silver’s Green Media class, has started tagging books they want to be able to find later, making a virtual collection of library books for their class. Anyone can search the catalog for the tag “green media” and see how it works.
To enter your own tags and reviews, start with a keyword search on the library home page. Click the Search button.
Figure 1 Library home page
The search results will look similar to Figure 2. In the center are the titles owned by the library that match your search. On the left will be facets to narrow your search. On the right will be sources outside of the library, along with a tag cloud that can also narrow your search.
Figure 2 Search results
If you click on one of the titles held by the library, you’ll see a catalog record that looks something like Figure 3. The keywords you searched will be highlighted. Here is a record for a book with the tag .
Figure 3 Community tags: someone has entered the tag “green media”
Here you can enter your own tag or book review as shown in Figure 4. Note that the catalog record may also contain “extras” including links to professional reviews and other information.
Figure 4 Part of a catalog record
When you submit a tag or click , if you are not already logged in you’ll see a screen that asks for your name and USF ID number. The login screen has a link for looking up your USF ID. Once you are logged in you can put in your tags or review.
You can put anything you want in the tags (though we have the ability to remove offensive tags or reviews.) New tags will be searchable within a minute or two using a keyword search. They will also appear and be searchable in the tag cloud. You can log in and add more tags or delete your tags any time.
The reviews may take up to a day to appear in the catalog record. At this time reviews are not searchable, and only one review per login is allowed. If you want to delete your review, please let us know.
If you have any suggestions or questions about use of these features or the catalog, please post them here or ask a librarian.
