It’s been a pretty fun week here, though very wonky. Some of our work can be confusing at times, so I made up a few signs to help my fellow coworkers make sure they’re putting the right books in the right spots. Then it hit me: I need a post about funny signs. Time to scour the interwebs and see who has made sillier signs than mine:
I’d be more terrified if I went in with a dog and got a free kid.
SERIOUSLY.
Sir Mix-a-lot probably gets books here.
Having troubles with your pages?
Or if you try to argue that Sean Connery isn’t the best Bond.
I’m starting to sense a theme here about food and drinks…
Those libraries and their sneaky french fry cameras.
This has got to be my favorite one.
Okay, I get it. These people REALLY don’t like food and drinks in their libraries and near computers.
Aww! Just don’t expect me to give loud patrons mouth-to-mouth.
A clear problem and a clear solution. Perfect.
Libraries don’t play.
…Batman?!?
A little overt, but reasonable.
How many kids are chewing on cords?
And what does the Brash Librarian have to say to all this?
I’m such a rebel. I also brought in an espresso, a bat, a puppy and a screaming child. I also chewed on power cables and put all my food/drinks/pets by the computer station.
Got some exciting news coming up soon! It’s all in the grand reveal…
How about you guys – got any silly/cool/wicked awesome signs you wish to share? Post them to my Facebook page for all to enjoy! Join up, we’re just a few people away from having 100 likes! Be one the Brash kids and like me on Facebook!
Yup, it’s that time of year again! Last week, I hit the Florida Library Association (FLA) conference in Orlando, and yet again had a super-rockin’ good time. If you haven’t been reading my blog for too long, you can read about my first trip to FLA here. It was so nice to see familiar faces from last year – along with meeting some new ones! I stayed with my good friend and Brash Sidekick Katy for the conference – and she brought me baked goods! AHHH! Yummy!
Reunited with my Brash Sidekick, Katy! We look like Terminators. :p
Got my super-sweet badge. That’s right, I work for UF libraries. I DO WHAT I WANT.
Opening day started off really well – one of the first people Katy and I ran into was my Marketing and Storytelling professor, Dr. Koontz! The general assembly starting the conference was quite fun! Scholarships, awards and other fun stuff kicked off the day. After that, it was non-stop fun. Seminars, workshops, roundtable discussions, exhibits, all the goodies!
Dr. K in all her FSU attire. I’m not that big, she’s just that tiny. Check out her totally awesome boots!
Around lunchtime came the FSU student mixer, where I got to make new friends – and even got recognized! We started off the mixer with introducing ourselves – when I introduced myself and where I was from, a girl nearly leapt out of her chair and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! You’re the Brash Librarian!” and explained that we’d had a class together and she’d read my blog. If I wasn’t feeling awesome before, I sure was now. A special shout-out to my new friends Laura, Mary and Tim. Congratulations to Laura on receiving the FLA FSU Scholarship! And thanks to Mary for making my day.
A little hard to see, but I’m that really tall guy in the back. Oh wait, I’m almost the ONLY guy. One of the many perks of library school.
Following the mixer came an awesome tech presentation courtesy of the Orange County Library System (OCLS) based in Orlando. Some of their toys and gadgets were SO cool! Their children’s program has implemented Snap Circuits, a great new toy series that teaches children about electricity and lets them create their own devices. I got a photo or two of their snap kits:
Just snap it together and go! This example is an FM radio.
All the parts and accessories fit into these snazzy cases! I’d feel like Q handling this box. “Now pay attention, 007…”
Throughout the demonstrations, there was a little black box with blue lights making lots of whirring noises. Near the end, they revealed it to be their 3D printer! Using computer programs like Auto CAD, people can design objects and let the printer make the object. Using high heat and plastic polymer on a spool, it goes layer by layer to recreate the programmed item. For the demonstration, they printed a miniature Mayan temple. It took about 45 minutes to print, but it’s quite amazing. Take a look at that detail!
Mini temple, taken in my hand to show scale.
Look at each little step and the door way! Very precise!
Still not impressed? This chain was printed all at once. Yup, every link was printed interlocked at the same time. Simply awesome!
A 3D printer! Yes, that’s an airplane make from K’NEX next to it.
Just when I thought the presentation couldn’t get any better, Laura got up to go volunteer elsewhere without realizing her foot had fallen asleep. While she would describe it as a faceplant, I would call it more of a stumble. Of course, Laura recovered with grace in full lady-like fashion. Great recovery, Laura! If I’d done that, I would have hit the floor and taken a few little old ladies with me. Maybe even spill a coffee.
Later in the day, I hit the exhibition hall and got free goodies. Pins, comics, flash drives, pens, headphones, stickers, bookmarks and more. However, I learned my lesson that I need to go with Katy. She knows how to get ALL the secret stuff. My favorite place was the Ask A Librarian stand, where they had a cardboard superhero display. WIN! My newfound friend and Ask A Librarian buddy Jessica took my photo. How could my super nerdy, comic book-loving self pass this up?
My library needs me. Up, up, and AWAY!
Of course, I had to hit up my peeps over at the FSU library school desk.
Two my professors (Dr. Mon and Dr. Koontz) and Pam “womanning” the FSU booth in the exhibition hall. Who that lurker on the side is, I have no idea.
Later in the evening was the FSU Alum mixer, where I got to say hi to more professors and the Dean of our college; afterwards, I had the pleasure of having dinner with the Dean and a few select people to discuss how the college can better connect to their distance learners such as myself. That’s right, big wigs took the time for an intimate dinner to pick student brains so can help them feel more at home. I feel honored to go to a school that cares about their students that much.
The morning of the second day, I decided to watch the children’s performer showcase. Here, performers put on 5-10 minute demos of their acts to display their talents; library managers can hire them to perform for their summer library programs. Some highlights I took photos of:
A giant picture book that popped up and told different stories on each page! In this photo, Jack and Jill are going up the hill.
A musical duo that sings about space, dirt, animals, whatever your program calls for. Great singing voices!
This guy was my favorite! He did juggling, magic, spinning plates, all kinds of stuff! He was so entertaining, I nearly forgot to grab a photo. (Oh, and he’s got two more plates spinning out of frame. He’s GOOD.)
Mimes, puppeteers, your library can give you nearly anything for your summer programs.
This guy must be awesome at raves.
The day was filled with workshops on social media, marketing, librarianship, technology…There were plenty others, I’m only mentioning the ones I went to. There’s something for everyone!
New friends Blake and Laura set up shop and demonstrated the power and uses of Google Scholar. They were preaching to the choir, but I’ll never turn down a chance to play with an iPad.
And now for a completely unrelated shout-out! Before I left for the convention, my library friend Molly bought me a PEZ candy dispenser. I didn’t understand why until I realized that it was an Obi-wan Kenobi from Star Wars and IT. LOOKS. JUST. LIKE. ME. It’s almost spooky. Molly manages the Cedar Key Public Library, and I know their Friends of the Library (FOL) is putting on a celebration this week called “Our library is a treasure”…if their library is a treasure, then Molly is the crown jewel. A special thanks to Molly for my uncanny doppelganger candy dispenser!
IT’S UNCANNY.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. New logo ideas are coming along with some other good stuff in the pipeline. Stay tuned for next week’s post.
It’s been quite a semester; classes and work have been keeping me busier than a Cancun bartender during Spring Break. I haven’t been able to train for the Superhero Scramble, and I’ve put on a little weight. It’s back to the treadmill. Literally.
Yes, I know I didn’t post last week and you’ve all been flashing your BL signals in the sky, so I’m making this week’s post pretty massive. I had finals, and finals > blog posts. So I’ve been thinking of ways to get more kids into the library program and one of my professors pitched me an idea – perhaps I should just make a post about a class I’ve taken? So this week, I present you…BRASH CLASSES WITH BRASH LIBRARIAN!
This week, I’m going to delve into a class I’m currently wrapping up. Most of you know I’m at FSU for library school, but those of you who didn’t now know. Information Organization (LIS 5703 for those interested in taking it, and sometimes referred to as Dr. Urban’s Wild Ride, but don’t tell him that) is a 3-credit class that deals in how and why information is organized the way it is. To quote the prof’s syllabus, Information Organization (or InfoOrg if you’re one of the cool kids), “establishes the conceptual and theoretical framework for organizing and retrieving information, including the study of systems, their objectives and structures, formats, standards, and vocabularies; and the information object and its relationship to organizing systems and to other information objects”.
“But Justin, how does information organization relate to me and my daily life?”
I’m glad you asked, voice in my head! All the information in your life is organized in some way, shape or form (or so I hope). How about your books or DVD collection? Are they organized alphabetically? If so, are they by author or title? I prefer to keep my movies organized by genre: comedy, action, mystery, horror, martial arts, comic book movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Arnold is the man, he gets his own shelf.
Another topic we touch on greatly during the semester is metadata – but what is metadata? Simply put, it’s the data about data. For example, what are you reading this blog on?
“Oh, I’m reading it on my computer”.
Very descriptive. What kind of device? Tablet? Smartphone? PC? Mac?
“Oh, I’m reading it on my iPad”.
Which generation iPad? Which OS? What browser? As you can see, I could ask questions all day and get more and more data about the original data.
Metadata is data about data, and yes, it may sound very boring at first glance; But when you think about it, everything in the digital world is data and people need ways to find it. A beard hat is not digital, but the Web page on how to make it is. Normally, I would laugh at such things but I’m guilty of owning a beard hat.
I rest my case.
Look how many languages there are, how many different cultures there are. Maybe a language is inflectional and the same word is used for stranger and enemy, just inflected differently. And how do we search the object-oriented pictographs in a Chinese-language database with western terms and concepts?
Data is growing exponentially, and every profession seems to use a different way of encoding metadata. Cultures record it differently, too. How are all these databases going to talk to each other with different metadata coding schemes? As professor and author Michael Buckland so practically and pithily put it, we have evolved a metadata “Tower of Babel”.How do people find things? How do we figure out how to help people find things? Or do we just set up metadata to our tastes and let the users go fish? The lack of interoperability between metadata schemas is starting to really hurt, especially in such areas as inter-disciplinary studies. Still a little lost? Take a look at this fun video about metadata:
You may not care if all you do is hang on Facebook and watch YouTube, but the notion of drowning in data is very apt. If you can’t swim (navigate) in it, you are in effect drowning in it. People in the field of InfoOrg do think about these things. In other words, tagging and metadata keep your searches relevant and keep you from being bombarded with stuff that’s not helpful. Think in terms of looking up Bruce Springsteen lyrics or Da Vinci’s helicopter drawings and not finding anything close. And wouldn’t it be nice to leave out sites on all the cute kitten videos? Yes, there are many adorable cat videos and memes out there, but the internet is for more than that. While I prefer Google over Bing, Bing’s commercial really exemplifies what the information overload can do to us:
I take pride in knowing that, pound for pound, librarians are the most adroit and creative at this endeavour. Not all InfoOrg folks are librarians, but as the boxing crowd has it, we punch above our weight. Ka-POW! InfoOrg is important. Think of some little guy with very odd hair in a wierdly-lit laboratory, planning to rule the (metadata) world. Hey, it could happen.
Another topic we delved into for an assignment involved dealing with descriptors, more commonly used and known as“tags”. Most people I know use tags all the time now. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other sites can tag people, places, events and more. During final exams, I’ve seen many students tagging themselves at campus libraries to study. This kind of tagging has helped make libraries cool again, in my opinion. It’s like the command center during finals – kids preparing themselves, minds armed to the teeth with study guides, notes, and ungodly amounts of coffee.
“Does this help with work and school, Justin?”
Yes it does! In fact, I am applying for a Florida job as the person in charge of Technical Services and social media marketing for a small library system. Though I will not be a cataloger or indexer, and (assuming I get the job) I anticipate that this course actually will be helpful. For one thing, the entire Library 2.0 push to focus more on user-centered change and user participation in the creation of content—and of course community, as in library community, for the unconverted out there—is right up my caring, sharing, Internetfaring alley. Ideally this would mean that libraries made as many things as possible interactive. And the library would smarten up from user-provided search terms, social tags, social media likes, and the like.
I’ll concentrate on public libraries here, which is what I know best. Since they are supported by the very taxpayers who are their patrons, one could argue that this change largely is just a shift in institutional perspective but loooonnng overdue.
I do not anticipate much integration of user tagging into library metadata, although studies have shown that it really complements existing metadata, such as MARC (machine readable catalog) records. The reason is that public libraries all use a vendor-supplied ILS (integrated library system, or catalog for the civilians), which the libraries cannot reprogram; they can only enter, edit or delete data in the ILS. The ILS database may not log user-created tags such as search terms, in which case the library can’t get the data. They simply are not made to incorporate user-generated data; they just ain’t interactive. And in these crunched times, few libraries have the budget or staff to integrate such data.
Most public libraries today do not do original cataloging any more—it’s very expensive—and rely on book companies such as Baker& Taylor to process and catalog the books. B&T provides the MARC records for each item processed, book, movie or whatever, which the library can simply import into its ILS.
Though few seem to have a handle on what 2.0 encompasses, I think I would expect to handle all aspects of library social media, which is very interactive. We need to get younger people using the local library, and the best way for smaller and economically-challenged libraries to do that is through an adroit social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) presence. This course has given me a good understanding of data, metadata and the rising importance of tapping that giant intellectual resource know as library patrons, or at least the ones who are on Facebook.
…Still reading? Good! I was worried I’d scared away people or put them to sleep. For you FSU students out there, I recommend Dr. Richard Urban for this class. He’s more than fair and he’ll push you to do your best. Let me be upfront with those of you who are in the program and haven’t taken it yet…Yes, it’s a core class. Yes, there’s a fair amount of work involved. But I promise you’ll learn a lot about information itself and how it’s organized. I guarantee you’ll never look at your DVD collection the same way.
I’m off to the Florida Library Association (FLA) conference this week, expect photos and more to come as I celebrate my 2nd FLA trip with my Brash Sidekick Katy!
I know, I know…Thursday studying and paper writing got the better of me and I wound up missing Thursdays Library Week posting. Never fear, all we need is a double feature to turn that frown upside down!
Firstly, time to give people what they need. I’ve had many local people ask if there is a Friends of the Library (FOL) book sale coming up. There is, indeed! The Alachua County Spring FOL book sale starts tomorrow (Saturday) the 20th and runs to the 24th of this month. FOL Book House is located downtown at 430 N. Main Street in Gainesville. To save time and trouble, their news release is as follows:
All the profits from this low-overhead volunteer effort will be used for the Alachua County Library District and community literacy projects. More than 500,000 books and other items in more than 50 categories will go on sale starting April 20. Both hardback and paperback books are available, with most priced from 25 cents to $4. The collection includes a vast array of classical and modern fiction, children’s and young adults’ books, textbooks from preschool through graduate school, large-print books, cookbooks, hobby books, audio books, music CD’s, videotapes and DVD’s, manga, comic books, magazines, framed artwork, posters, records, games and puzzles, video games, computer software and more.
ALSO: The Collector’s Corner will be open Saturday through Tuesday. This unique feature of the book sale offers special items including first editions, signed copies and rare books for purchase at fair prices. The Collector’s Corner is located in a separate area at the sale.
This only occurs only twice a year, so get in while the getting is good! Spring hours are:
Saturday, April 20, 9 am to 6 pm
Sunday, April 21, 1 to 6 pm
Monday, April 22, 12 to 7 pm
Tuesday, April 23, 12 to 7 pm – everything in the general collection is half price
Wednesday, April 24, 12 to 6 pm – everything is 10 cents
Again, the Brash Librarian has reached into the UF archives to bring you the silliest and strangest books money can’t buy. Here we go:
Where what’s at?
Well excuse ME, Mr. Stickler.
Thanks bro, I really needed help finding that barcode.
The Redundancy Dept. of Redundancy strikes again.
Okay, this one is actually cool. The spine was ripped and revealed old pages when peeled back. Germans recycled their old/bad pages to make book spines – well done!
Unclassified information? I feel like a secret agent holding this.
Yes, that’s really the book. Don’t believe me? Look at the next one.
Told you so.
SHUT UP BOOK. YOU DON’T KNOW ME
I was really hoping this was about a county full of ninjas.
That’s really something Harvard should be bragging about…
What do you mean, “students”? Did these “students” “collect” these “papers” for a “Mr. Gosset”?
I didn’t know entire books were written on this subject.
I hope you enjoyed laughing as much as I did. This concludes National Library Week, I hope you’ve all had a pleasant time – I know I did. Now if only this semester would end, that would be lovely.
I know, it’s Midnight and I’ve been super tired. Such is the life of a graduating library genius. I’ve been working too hard and living dangerously. Speaking of which, live dangerously with a challenged book!
The American Library Association’s list of challenged books have something for everyone! (I’m personally a fan of Captain Underpants.)
Don’t forget, Thursday (now today) is Bat Day! Thank you for reminding me, Cindy. Be sure to support Bat day with something Bat or Batman-related. I’m totally rocking a Batman shirt to work in the morning. Stay Brash and Batty,
How will you celebrate
National Library Workers Day?
Talk about pay equity (and inequities) by using ideas from The Better Salaries and Pay Equity Toolkit
Submit a Star– Tell everyone what makes a library employee special by submitting your favorite worker’s name and why they are wonderful to the NLWD site.
How will you celebrate? – Look at our celebration ideas page for suggestions from us and other libraries.
And more!
In other news…for those who saw yesterday’s blog post on Easter candy:
It’s that time of the year, and I don’t just mean Easter candy is 70% off. IT’S NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK! To promote the awareness of this week, I will be posting stuff every day this week.
EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
Yup, you’ll hate me by Friday. Don’t worry, I’ll keep them short and sweet. I’ve already helped somebody towards getting their library card! (You’re welcome, Cassi.)
Today, I’m pushing Proquest and all their free stuff this week until the 20th which can be found below!
Complimentary Access* to Popular Research Databases and E-books
CultureGrams™ — Library Journal’s 2012 Best Database for Reports
eLibrary® — The 2011 CODiE Finalist for Best Education Reference Solution
Facebook images to use throughout the year on your library’s page
Want to see the rest of what they have? Click here!
…Still reading? Good! It’s time for the free presents!
See? Isn’t this thing awesome! And it’s free. FREEEEEE.
WTCOX is offering free “I love My Library” microfiber cloths to anyone who wants them – good for cleaning eye glasses, smart phone screens, e-readers, tablets, anything a library user may need! Visit their page here and fill out a few details. No obligations or shady stuff, get yours now!
