Jennifer John, Librarian

I have been thinking about Jennifer John today. I spoke of her in a previous entry.

So I went to whitepages.com and typed in her father's name. Three entries came up. The first one looked like a possibility even though the address was not that of the family's previous home. Within minutes, I was reconnecting with Mr. John!

It took a few more days for Jennifer and me to connect by phone. That wonderful business that did research for people also shifted to providing an organizing and cataloging service of a business' documents. The main clients were oil and gas and engineering firms. When the recession hit, then the business slowed. Jennifer has done a variety of things since then including working in the Austin Public Library. She presently does training of library personnel through Central Texas Library Systems. Jennifer is now Jennifer Patterson. She also participates in their blog.

About Social Networking

My first adventures in social networking were with Flickr. When I joined Flickr in August 2004, they had a chat room feature, Flickr Live. It was really wonderful and I met many people there. Flickr was still small then. Sometime later, someone broke into the code of the chat room and it was immediately taken down and never seen since. Note: As you can see from my links, I also save photos at Smug Mug, where generally I put whole sets of photos rather than better photos as is my present goal on Flickr.

In those early Flickr days, I looked at the photos of all the Flickr staff. So I noticed immediately when Esther Dyson joined Flickr and became one of her contacts. I have always watched Esther because her father is also a physicist. She sort of out did me though - with her stories of thinking Einstein was Santa Claus. My dad talked about Einstein, but I have no reason to believe he ever met Einstein. My dad was educated at Rice Institute (today, Rice University). He drove us through the campus every Sunday after church to show us all the buildings, especially the one where they split atoms.

I joined MySpace a couple of years ago because I discovered I could keep up with my nieces and nephews there (2 nephews are in Iraq with a second cousin leaving for Iraq soon). Almost all of my young relatives post photos which I download and share with my Mom. Sometimes I post their photos on Flickr so more of the family can see them. The photos are restricted to my family.

In July, I started Graduate School in Library and Information Science at Queens College (the campus is seen in the photo to the right with Manhattan in the background taken on a rainy day). In one of my classes we were urged to network. This led to my eventual joining of Facebook. I also joined several listservs.

Google mail is perfect for listservs. I can set a filter to have all the email from each listserv go into its own folder that I can then check when I have time. The emails do not get mixed up with my regular mail. I have learned through the years of trying lists using both individual emails and digest versions that there are advantages and disadvantages to each form. Individual emails are easier to reply to. Digests don't flood your email or get mixed up in the listing with your other email. Digests are also VERY long and it is hard to find something you read later. But with Google mail, I do not get the individual emails in with my regular email, so I no longer have to use a digest version. I can also mark the individual emails that I want to refer back to using Google's yellow star.

As for Facebook, I joined it one day and then ran off to other things. It sat there for a while until someone I knew from Flickr asked for me to make him a friend. I then looked for library groups and groups for other subjects I am interested in. Facebook saves users time by listing related groups on every group page.

I used their feature for importing my gmail addresses. A number of my friends were already on Facebook. So slowly, my set of Facebook friends has grown. David Pogue is even my friend. At the time he made me his friend, I was his 11th friend. I think he may have just joined Facebook on that Sunday right after I imported my gmail address book the day before. I may have been responsible for his joining.

However, it turns out that there is more librarian and student librarian action on MySpace. I added Queens College to my list of schools on MySpace. I joined MySpace's QC LISSA group (Queens College Library and Information Science Student Association) and asked the QC LISSA members to be my friends. QC LISSA has forty-some-odd members on MySpace and only about 10 on Facebook. I think I prefer the communication formats on Facebook, though.

An October 25th New York Times article says that Facebook claims 50 million active members with 200,000 new ones added each day. The article continues to say that MySpace has more than twice as many members but is growing more slowly. Facebook's growth spurt started in May when it invited developers to create tools for the site and to share in its revenues. I found the following quotation in the article especially interesting (although note that MySpace is not mentioned).

“Once a social operating system takes over a country, it’s like it becomes the native language of that country,” said Lee Lorenzen, a venture capitalist who has invested in companies making Facebook applications. Mr. Lorenzen noted that Google’s Orkut dominates Brazil, Friendster dominates the Philippines and Facebook is becoming the dominant forum in the United States, Canada and Western Europe.

Now that I have gotten into some of this librarian networking, I do remember that the librarian at the middle school where I spent 11 years working was always getting emails from other librarians. I helped her set up a free email account so she could subscribe to the various lists.

Daniel Rubey, Ph.D., MLS - Hofstra University

Dr. Daniel Rubey is the Dean of Library and Information Services at Hofstra University with his office in the Axinn Library [Note: Dr. Rubey played an important role in the redesigning and renovations of the Axinn Library.] He spoke to Carol Simon's class at Queens College on July 9, 2007 on the topic, Some questions currently facing academic libraries and librarians.

He grouped the questions according to the departments in the library. As he was speaking to future librarians, he told us about the personnel in each department. Acquisitions and Collection Development has one librarian plus some staff in technical services. Technical Services, including cataloging and serials, has three librarians plus 7 or 8 staff. Reference Services includes thirteen librarians, who are subject specialists with a second MA in the subject. They do collection development, teach, and talk to people in the related departments. Systems is headed by a Dean with two assistants. Preservation is headed by an Assistant Dean with two curators and two other staff.

Acquisitions and Collections
This department has the most grants. They also deal with copyright and e-reserve issues. Hofstra uses a methodology software for student remote access to e-reserves. A major question that is facing this area is books vs. e-books. Hofstra circulates 60,000 books a year. What about textbooks (the library makes available expensive texts for in library usage and are considering a rental program)? The e-library has multiple users, but people can access only ten pages at a time. Other questions follow similarly as journals vs. e-journals. Hofstra has 250 print titles. We have 7,000 journals online (fully 1,500,000 when the law school journals are included). Do we own or access materials? How does the answer to such questions affect our budget? What about scholarly communications? What does the world of open access offer to libraries and how much do we partake? In science and business collections, do we need to increase grey literature (not published, but referred to and difficult to locate)? What about joining a consortium for collection development and buying? Consortiums bring up issues of autonomy and limiting Hofstra's choices to reach group consensus with area libraries. (An example of an electronic buying consortium is WALDO; Connect NY is a consortium for inter-library loans.) How do we use faculty liaison groups in resolving the answers to these questions?

Technical Services: Cataloging and Serials
Do we use original cataloging or do we copy cataloging? Should we outsource the cataloging? What is the purpose of the OPAC? What do we catalog? Do we include electronic sources or list them separately? Contained within this question is the issue of who can use electronic sources: only students and faculty or can others also access these for a fee? What sort of access should be provided beyond the catalog? What cataloging standards do we need to include: AACR2, Dublin Core (hypertext markup language and additional audio and video data), and/or other metadata? Do we need to catalog the departmental libraries? What about grey literature? What about Google? Do we participate in Google's digitization project? While it can make some money for the university, there are other issues that need to be resolved.

Reference Services
Do we need a reference desk or virtual reference desks? What instruction and teaching should we be responsible for? Do we need to provide a basic level of information literacy for our students and community? How has Google and Google Scholar changed reference work? Should we define levels of instruction such as basic, upper-level, and graduate? Should we be delivering distance learning? What outcomes do we want to foster and how do we assess our achievement? What faculty liaison activities should we support and encourage? What is our role in faculty research? Should we provide tutorials, guides and FAQs?

Systems
What computer architecture is best for our library? ILS systems? web pages? portals? Internet? Internet2?

What technology platform and components do we need? What computer equipment do we need? Do we provide electronic classrooms? What about sharing information? Should we have wireless access? What educational technology and/or software should we be providing? What is the best architecture for learning?

Preservation
Are we looking to preserve or replace paper? What role can JSTOR play in preservation of leading journals? Do we need compact shelving for housing paper? Hofstra has 35,000 books in off-site storage. We have 850,000 titles on microfiche. Should we turn to commercial off-site storage? Do we preserve film or turn to DVDs? Do we know (with confidence) the life expectancy (archival period) of a DVD? What are the processes and forms we should use in preserving digital information? What about faculty products that may need preservation? Other categories of content that we may need to preserve include institutional information, individual institutional repositories, shared institutional depositories, and special collections. Who are we preserving these for?

Deidre Heiz, School Media Librarian

Deidre Heiz is in her ninth year as a school media librarian at the Meadowbrook School in the East Meadow Union Free School District and was the guest speaker in Carol Simon's class on July 30, 2007. East Meadow Union Free School District is the largest school district in Nassau County with 8,000 students served by 5 elementary schools, 2 middle schools and 2 high schools.

Meadowbrook Elementary School, serving grades K-5, is their smallest elementary school. In grades K, 1, and 2, special education classes are combined with the regular education classes. Special educations classes run 12 to 15 students while the regular education classes are 25 students. The teachers play to the strengths of the special education students. They also emphasize character education and the New York State Standards.

The Meadowbrook School Library has an OPAC online. In addition, their web site features 8 othere tabs (links).

• Storyline Online, with online streaming video content featuring Screen Actors Guild members reading children's stories.
• Kids' Search, a Ramapo Catskill Internet Guide (Ramapo Catskill Library System), which is also included on the Reference page.
  
• CyberHunts, a link which takes you to Scholastic Instructor, a magazine with lots of ideas for teachers.
• World of Reading (Ann Arbor District Library) is a site featuring book reviews written by and for kids from around the world.
• KidsReads is a place on the Internet for kids to find information about their favorite books. It features book reviews, author profiles and interviews, trivia games word scrambles and contests. KidsRead is a part of The Book Report Network.
• Book Awards is a web site of the Meadowbrook Schoool listing ALSC web pages for Caldecott, Newberry, and Dr. Seuss, awards with New York State's Children Choice Awards called 3 Apples book awards.
• The reference center includes Info Please, Kids Search, Factmonster (from Information Please), Library (back to the main library page), and two Extra tabs (these appear to be placeholders for future tabs).
• The Authors link does not appear to be working.

On the Meadowbrook School web site, there is a separate tab for Search Engines. Deidre spoke of the importance of teaching the children to question the accuracy of the information on the Internet. She has found tat the children in the 4th and 5th grades do not have as much time to read as the younger children.

In terms of expanding the collection of books, Deidre stressed that one must talk to the children to find out what they read. A librarian absolutely needs this information to know what to buy for the library. One must tailor the books to the school needs. Do the children need bilingual books? What subjects are being taught in the classroom that need to also be supported in the library? The library must supplement what the classroom teachers are teaching. One must constantly read and get student requests. For example, the students love the Junie B. Jones books about a fictional character. It is a very challenging job! It is important for a school to create a Collection Development Policy.

Deidre spoke of teaching the children the 5-finger test for selecting a book to read. She also spoke of using a yellow light. There is a May 2007 issue of the Reading Teacher, which describes a technique of using a yellow light to identify components of reading or the during reading components, in the process of teaching students to monitor their understanding while they read. The article (search on "Traffic light") is available through The Wilson Web's Education full text datbase to students at Queens College.

She spoke of running a book challenge given by the principal of the school. She also has a Mystery Question during National Library Week or other literary weeks. She uses the Big Six Skills for Research. She said that video streaming was tried in the school, but they had to stop it because it slowed down the computers.

Deidre continually stressed the need to take time - to find time - to communicate with students and teachers!

Alice Hudson and Map Librarianship

Alice Hudson is the Chief Librarian at the newly renovated Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division of the New York Public Library.

More to come . . .

The Desk Set and Agnes Law

William Marchant, who wrote the 1955 play Desk Set, began by observing Agnes Law at CBS much in the way that Spencer Tracy was watching Katherine Hepburn. It is not so easy to find information on Agnes Law. She was brought to my attention when I listened to the commentary on the film that accompanies the DVD for the movie, Desk Set.

More to come . . .

Gina Martorella, Federal Depository Librarian

Gina Martorella started as a news librarian. She worked on Newsday's "Long Island: Our Story" project as an intern, which is reported in News Library News Online, Vol. 20, No.3/Spring 1998, excerpted here:

Georgina Martorella, who has an MBA and an MLS, is the editorial researcher on the project. Gina came to Newsday's Editorial Library as an intern several years ago, and has worked on special assignments ever since. Her first task was to organize a system for the vast paper files and over 600 books that would eventually accumulate. Gina worked one-on-one with reporters and editors to assemble a first rate collection of sources. Using ACCESS and MSWord software, she developed systems to keep track of contact names, books owned and borrowed, local experts, and profiles of area historic collections. Gina often had to trek to obscure local collections to pore over dusty and fragile documents. Her most valuable assets in this undertaking have been the connections she has made with over 250 history experts, librarians and teachers. Gina's experience with the project has been rewarding. She enjoyed, working closely with writers, becoming deeply involved with and gaining an understanding of the challenging process of writing.

Today she is an energetic government documents librarian at the Federal Depository library at Hofstra University. There are 1,250 to 1,300 depository libraries, one for every congressional district. To participate in a democracy, the people must be knowledgeable so that they can hold the government accountable for their actions. The main users of a depository library are the free press and scholars.

The 50 regional libraries of the Federal Depository Library Program get everything that the federal government publishes so every state has every document published. There is a Federal Depository Library Manual that discusses all the topics of federal depository librarianship (library programs services, collection development, maps, electronic publications, bibliographic control, maintenance, depository promotion, inspections, suggested core collection, maps available for selection, minimum standards, index). Gina usually selects 50% of the available information for her library. Title 44 of the US code, policies and procedures, says that we must adhere to the SuDoc system of classification.

Since the eGovernment Act of 2002 (Library of Congress Thomas entry), about 90% of government publications are distributed via the Internet.

Gina introduced us to PURLs or Permanent (Persistent) URLs, which were invented to solve the problem of web sites migrating to another location. By registering a PURL, then later if you move the site, people can still find it using the PURL because the PURL does not change. When the location of the site the PURL points to changes, then the PURL resolver, a server similar to a name domain server, looks up the current URL that is associated with the persistent one. The PURL is listed in the source code of a web page. PURL is a project of OCLC. [Note: The Library of Congress has a web site for Teaching with Primary Sources that uses PURLs.]

Gina also introduced us to regulations.gov, which I personally never heard of before and I think it is fantastic! It should be taught in every high school!! Americans can comment on policy in progress!

Regulations.gov allows the public to communicate with a broad spectrum of government agencies whose regulations touch countless aspects of their daily lives. More than 35 partner Departments and Agencies participate in the eRulemaking Initiative, one of the most far-reaching Federal E-Government programs.

It is worth repeating some text from the Introduction of the help pages:

Regulations.gov is the U.S. Government website that makes it easier for you to participate in Federal rulemaking - an essential part of the American democratic process.

On this site, you can find, review, and submit comments on Federal documents that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register. You may also search for and view all regulations from all Federal Agencies. As a member of the public, you can submit comments on these regulations and have the Government take your views into account.

Regulations.gov is a major component of the eRulemaking Initiative. The eRulemaking Initiative is one of 25 e-Government initiatives associated with the President’s Management Agenda. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the managing partner for this initiative.

Gina spoke of the searchable database of all organizations that receive government money that is to become available on January 1, 2008 pursuant to P.L. 109-282, Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. The following is quoted from page 3:

(1) WEBSITE.—Not later than January 1, 2008, the Office of Management and Budget shall, in accordance with this section, section 204 of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107–347; 44 U.S.C. 3501 note), and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act (41 U.S.C. 403 et seq.), ensure the existence and operation of a single searchable website, accessible by the public at no cost to access, that includes for each Federal award . . .

Gina next spoke of the Toxic Release Inventory where you put in a zip code to get data for your area. The New York State data for 2005 is reported. For the 2006 data, the web site has TRI-ME desktop version software available for download. The software appears to be for companies reporting data. New York is not listed as one of the states that participates. There is a Scorecard review of the TRI.

Federal Deposit Libraries prepare a Monthly Catalog of print publications and have been doing this since 1895. The print version of the Monthly Catalog was discontinued with the December 2004 editon when the online Catalog of US Government Publications (CGP) replaced it (the CGP was started in January 1994). When you use the CGP, you will see the PURL addresses for publications and the SuDoc numbers. If a government publication is not available online, then there is a link to the Federal Depository Librarys that would have the document. The purpose of the Monthly Catalog was to help users find documents near them. Hofstra Library began as a Federal Depository Library in 1964, so Hofstra is listed in the print version of the Monthly Catalog for the years 1964 through 2004.

Some additional information that Gina gave:

• Today, some government documents are "born" as digital documents having never been put on paper.
• An archive in Texas, called CyberCemetary (North Texas State University), lists documents of agencies that no longer exist.
  
• Integrated Library System (ILS) - see the chart of various ILS over time that have merged; ILSR (R for Record) is a publication about ILS; interesting article on dismantling ILS; Koha, open source ILS from New Zealand.
• Listserv for Federal Documents Librarians is called GOVDOC-L.
• Useful web sites for a documents librarian.
  
• Presidential Records Act of 1978 (Library of Congress Thomas entry) had its genesis in Watergate. Presidential papers, speeches, records, and emails are to be released 12 years after the Presidency ended. Reagan has had 68,000 pages released with 74 pages on the subject of Iran Contra not released. Executive Order (EO# 13233 of November 2001) claims executive privilege so the records have not been released. A representative of a former President can withhold the records. Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 (Library of Congress Thomas entry) is an effort to overturn EO# 13233. The bill passed the House. According to LOC Thomas, the bill has not passed the Senate.
• Gina also spoke of Tom Blanton, National Security Archive, University of Georgetown, Washington, DC., who gave testimony at a hearing on the Presidential Records Act. Blanton has asked for papers from George H. W. Bush's Library on the December 1989 Summit Meeting at Malta. Those records are being reviewed in accordance with EO# 13233 and have not been released. The video of the hearing is available (panel I is the first third with the rest being panel II, when Tom Blanton is one of the speakers).
  
• The Patriot Act, section 215 is also cause for concern, especially for libraries. The FBI can order records without showing "probable cause" and those served with a Section 215 order cannot tell anyone. The Bridgeport library case was published in the New York Times on August 26, 2005. Judge Hall in Bridgeport, CT issued her opinion in ACLU v. Gonzales October 4, 2005, holding that the gag order associated with the National Security Letter received by an anonymous ALA member violated the First Amendment. The government has until September 20th to appeal. You can view the decision (PDF).
  
• There is also concern that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (see the Electronic Frontier Foundation - EFF's FAQ on FISA by their senior counsel) might issue orders similar to the National Security Letter to confiscate records.
  
• Greta Marlatt's role as an expert in defense department information was also mentioned. It was pointed out that in addition to public, university, and federal depository libraries, agencies also have libraries.

Gina certainly dispels all thoughts of a quiet librarian shushing patrons. Gina is energetic, bright, and deeply concerned about our American way of life. She values the Federal Depository Libraries as part of that American way of life. Our responsibility is to be informed and to participate in our government.

[This entry is based on notes taken when Gina was a guest speaker in Carol Simon's class in the summer of 2007 at Queens College's Graduate School of Library and Information Science.]

Deborah Falik, Independent Information Professional

On July 25, 2007, I met Deborah Falik, an independent information professional. She has most recently been working as a contractor with Ellis Island, National Parks, to archive materials in its collection. [The web page on National Parks libraries does not list the Ellis Island research library.] She was a speaker in Carol Simon's class.

Deborah was a brand new graduate with her MLS from Queens College in the early seventy's. There were no library jobs then. So she became a claims representative at Social Security for 15 years. She learned medical terminology and all about disability claims.

Then she worked for a director of an advertising agency as a solo librarian locating art work. This experience exposed her to a lot of things that people do in libraries.

Deborah spoke of the Information Sourcerer. This was a project of the National Medical Library during the 1990s. It was a part of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) project. "There are four UMLS Knowledge Sources: the Metathesaurus®:, the SPECIALIST^tm Lexicon, a Semantic Network and an Information Sources Map" (Introduction, ¶3). The Information Sourcerer was the query interface for the Information Sources Map (ISM).

The U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Sourcerer project is developing software which accepts a user query, automatically identifies appropriate information resources, and facilitates connection to those sources for information retrieval. The current Sourcerer prototype utilizes the multimedia/multiplatform/multiprotocol network-based hypertext system known as World Wide Web. It also relies upon the knowledge sources of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). The UMLS is the result of a long-term project of NLM. It comprises a large Metathesaurus of biomedical concepts (coupled with a semantic network and syntactical/lexical software tools) and the information Sources Map (ISM), a database of records describing specific biomedical information resources. (Rogers, 1995 in UMLS, Access to Multiple Knowledge-based Information Sources, 1986-1996, ¶12).

Deborah then talked about the American Association of Information Professionals and the Special Libraries Association. An extensive list of Competencies for Information Professionals has been developed (in pdf format, 17 pages).

Mary Ellen Bates (photo) (her blog) created the profession of Independent Information Professionals. She is a pro in online searching. Deborah also spoke of Tom Rink as a solo librarian with the police department.

Deborah explained that doing archiving requires common sense, asking questions, being able to organize, and being prepared for the unexpected. Archiving has its share of drudge work as well as making judgments.

I asked Deborah if she had ever heard of Jennifer John who had been the only research librarian at the Houston Public Library. Jennifer's twin brothers (Peter and John) were the age of one of my younger brothers, so I had known of her through my school years in Houston. I saw her parents regularly when I was sailing at the Houston Yacht Club. They told me she had just started a business as a research librarian. It sounded so interesting that I paid Jennifer a visit.

She had a staff of about 12 or 15 young people all wearing the black T-shirt of her new private reference service. She had trained them in the use of the computer and searching databases. She had a wonderful brochure and information about her business, which I probably still have filed away in some very old papers. She said she got lots of referrals from the Houston Public Library since they had not replaced her and there was no one else to do reference work.

It was the Summer of 1981, when I left Houston to live in New York City. I have lost touch with Jennifer since, but I will always remember her concept of the business. I remember thinking that I wish I had access to all those databases she taught her people to use. I now realize that Jennifer was also a Independent Information Professional.

James Olney, Assistant Director of a suburban library

On July 23, 2007, James Olney, assistant director of the Northport-East Northport Public Library was the guest speaker in Carol Simon's class. James has a background in economics and business. He recommends taking an internship-trainee position in the library you want to work in. Select people with the same ideals that you have yourself. He has two Masters degrees: Library and Business.

The library is in the town of Huntington with 36,000 residents who use the library heavily. It is composed of two buildings in a supportive community. A building project is a great opportunity. Northport was to have a new addition built for expansion. East-Northport was a whole new construction project. There was a mile and a half between the two buildings. There is an $8.7 million budget.

James has been working at this library for 22 years with experience in every department. He is now in the computer services department. They run their own fiber lines to connect the two buildings. They employ six full-time programmers. They maintain the menuing systems, control the computers and desktop publishers. They publish posters. The library has its own Wi-Fi service. They use no Internet filters, though they can provide filters for children of parents who request it.

There is a cafe in the library that stocks food, ice cream, coffee, latte. When you run the cafe yourself, then you get the profit. The library is open 12 hours from nine to nine. At first they contracted the food service. After three contractors, they decided to run it themselves.

There is an active teen program with outreach through MySpace with great photos and with 169 friends. The library also uses Upcoming to announce musical events.

The library also has its own security service. Previously the security was also contracted out. They are not uniformed, but they have tags. All staff wears employee badges. The purpose of the security is to maintain order, assist in the closing, and escort staff to their parking spots.

The train station is next to one of the library buildings, with a park and playground nearby, which brings up other issues. The town park closes at dusk. There have been incidents with illegal drugs. They had to have the pay phone set to only allow outgoing calls. A police squad car is stationed at the library lot all night. There is also a police officer on a bicycle in the park. There are security cameras in all public areas.

Having the train station so close to the library led to the Read-Ride-Return program.

There are 175 employees at the library. Salaries and benefits make up almost 70% of the library budget. There is always a fund raising component at libraries. One project was a courtyard. It was necessary to reach out to have the community reinvest $150,000 in itself. The community is more than willing to help because the librarians are so committed to the community. The completed courtyard was dedicated last fall (2006). The courtyard has a covered area, so it is used even in the rain. There are tables in the courtyard. In the courtyard, there is also a statue of the Little Prince ($20,000) to honor Northport as the birthplace of the Little Prince (photo of statue).

In planning for things such as the courtyard and the cafe, the library used surveys and focus groups. The cafe's having a fireplace was one item that came out of the focus groups. There was also discussion of a statue of a bear, called the library bear (picture in link).

A report was commissioned to place an economic value on the Northport - East Northport Library found it to be an excellent value in the community returning $3.30 for each $1 of taxes invested. In addition, the study determined that the library brought business into the area. The report reads, "Long Island earnings increased by almost $3.7 million and approximately 91 support jobs were created throughout the Long Island economy." It also reads, "The library has become an access point for state-of-the-art technology and a magnet for community gatherings and activities." The Northport - East Northport Public Library mission statement is also available.

Hildy Dworkin, Solo Librarian

On July 16, 2007, Carol Simon brought in Hildy Dworkin to speak with the class about solo librarianship. Hildy works as the Library Director at the NYC Human Resources Administration's McMillan Library, which is a government library. I was particularly interested in Hildy's saying that being a librarian was her second career after ten years as a second and third grade teacher. She graduated from Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 2000. She revealed that completing her Masters Degree was a five-year work. Her thesis subject was Public welfare. Her Bachelor's Degree was in Early Childhood/Elementary Education. Originally she was involved in music performance.

After 30 years of operation, the McMillan Library had been closed in 1995. Hildy's first task was to reopen the library with more than 20,000 holdings in August of 1999. There are 16,000 employees in New York City government and only one librarian. As a solo librarian, Hildy has a staff of 1 intern. She joined the Special Libraries association (SLC) and their Solo Division to seek out mentors. She currently is the SLA Solo Division Listserv Manager.

Hildy also was a speaker at SLA 2007 for a round table presented by the Government Information Division on the topic Government Librarians Get Savvy, which is reported as follows: Government Info Pro, SLA's Government Information Division, and Libraryola.

In opening a library, you need top approval for everything you do. You cannot use non-public information. You have to get into your publications. You need an Information Management proposal and automation software.

You have to be constantly educating people on what the library has and how it can be of service. Something should be in every newsletter. Offer library research seminars demonstrating important research tools and techniques that will assist staff in their research. Librarians have to market their services and their profession at the same time to increase people's awareness of your services. Hildy told of using the Administration's communication department to create a distinctive library brand, including a logo for the library's website and bookmarks to insert in checked out books. The bookmarks included the librarian's contact information, a brief description of library services, and hours of operations.

Be open to all opportunities. Even requests for help that are outside the immediate focus of the library will provide networking opportunities that will often have big payoffs later. Assisting with fact checking, editing, and offering the use of the library space will serve to increase appreciation for the library and its services. Solo librarians are constantly challenged to demonstrate their worth and value to their organizations. She developed network connections through face-to-face reference interviews with clients, sponsoring training sessions, attending meetings, and accepting new responsibilities that benefit the organization. Always be on the lookout for how to provide the staff with the information they need to do their jobs.

And, yes, Hildy loves her job!

The Nancy Pearl Doll

First of all, Nancy Pearl is a real person. Carol Simon showed us the Nancy Pearl shushing doll in class on July 9, 2007. Nancy Pearl looks much better than the doll! Flickr has a Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure group that has over 100 photos of the doll. Many of the photos are well thought out and clever. I finally found a photo with creative commons license so I can show it here. It also has the advantage of showing the two versions of the doll. It was posted by bibliona. The name of the photo is "Window Shopping?"

Archie McPhee (Wikipedia) sells the blue doll for $8.95. Both action figures are available from Accoutrements, but they only sell in large quantities. Amazon is selling the deluxe version for $11.95, where they also feature other librarian items such as t-shirts, socks and other literary action figures. Kids Surplus is out of stock for the doll, which they were selling for $4.99. SeeFred.com sells the original action figure for $8.35. Reportedly over 2,000 dolls have been sold. There is even a YouTube video called "Godzilla meets Nancy Pearl the Librarian," which is about an overdue book.

There is a 6-minute interview of Nancy Pearl on NPR radio, in which she tells how she happened to become the model for the doll. Seattle Times story "Toymaker finds librarian who's a real doll" tells the same story in print. Seattle's Cable Channel 21 has a regular program, Book Lust, featuring Nancy Pearl. You can watch past episodes on the Internet. Abe Books has an interview with Nancy Pearl about her books, Book Lust and More Book Lust.

Well, to my surprise, Nancy Pearl's books are published by Sasquatch Books! While I do believe I have heard of Sasquatch Books before (in conjunction with a regional book about northern California), Dr. Tom Surprenant's sample library is always Sasquatch Library. So now I make a different connection with Sasquatch.

Thomas Galante, Director, Queens Borough Public Library

On July 23, 2007, Thomas Galante, the Director of the Queens Borough Public Library, presented to my class with Angel Huynh, the Director of Human Resources. His presentation was memorable partly because I knew so little about the work of librarians and partly because of his energetic presentation that also involved multimedia. There is no doubt that Tom enjoys his work and is pleased with the accomplishments at the Queens Borough Public Library.

There are 1800 employees with a budget of $115 to $120 million. The libraries are expanding to 6-day service with 7-day service in 16 libraries. They have a total of 63 libraries. The starting salary is $39,000 where after one year as a senior librarian, one can earn from $42,500 to $43,000. They lose 3 librarians a month out of 400 full-time positions. The also have half-time positions. An assistant manager made from $52,000 to $58,000 while a senior manager makes from the upper $50,000's to $60,000.

He discussed interviewing techniques and showed a short video produced three months earlier for recruiting. Tom, himself, was a student at Queens College only three and a half years ago although his career includes 22 years at the library starting in the finance area. He discussed the need to find people who fit. It is all about serving people. The benefits are good as they are in the NYS employment system so they have health benefits for life. You are vested in the system after 5 years. It is contributory for the first 10 years. You get 2% per year up to 66%. There is no age cut-off.

Language skills are very important. There are 63 libraries with 8 adult learning centers. They deal with people with 100 different languages. The web site is available in six languages. There are 4 research libraries with all the branches. Queens Borough Public Library is one of three library systems in New York City; the other two are Brooklyn Public Library and New York Public Library, which serves the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

The Queens Borough Library system (as a multi-branch system) began in 1896. There was no civil service. It was 80% City funded and 8% to 10% NY State funded. The rest was private funding. $240,000 was given in 1901 by Andrew Carnegie for 8 libraries.

In the marketing department they have 13 people;
for the foundation, they have 8 people;
Cataloging has 15 to 20 people;
Preparation has 3 people (maybe that is 30);
Finance has CPA's;
There are four librarians doing web services;
The IT area has 45 people;
Programs and services has a lot of staff.

With a $5 million Cancer Society Grant, they began health screenings and books were provided for information on health topics.

They are planning to have "Smart shelves," which is an rfid system for checking the order of the books on the shelves. This eliminates bar codes and one person can take a reader and find and correct books out of order. The prices are dropping that make this system very feasible. This part really captured my imagination.

Tom gave each student in the class a CD with the recruiting video in a folder with lots of other information about the Queens Borough Library system. Here is their mission statement.