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I've been in situations where half a dozen police show up in 5 minutes for a non-violent trespasser, but don't show up at the same location for two hours after an aggressive patron assaults someone
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Dec 30, 2019 04:10
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Parahexavoctal posted:... no returns? What? Everything must go!!!
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Apr 20, 2020 07:38
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I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about the whole makerspace thing but in general most library workers want people to use the library, I'd go for it so long as you're able to work a little independently. Also remember to check in if there are any specific rules regarding COVID-19 as that has changed operations a lot I'd say the dislike of makerspaces isn't any special prejudice against makerspaces, it's the constant jockeying for funding at the expense of other services, and that's gonna keep happening whether you show up or not
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Aug 20, 2020 23:37
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:I don't have a good answer for what to do. But the morale of my (now former) library system is rock bottom. Multiple rounds of layoffs, with staff getting sent to either different branches (with nothing to actually do at these branches) or getting sent to do coronavirus call center stuff. All programs in the county have to be approved by admin so librarians feel like they don't have any agency. Nobody feels like the upper management cares about anyone's health. When multiple staff members got sick at a branch and the remaining staff closed up because they were concerned, admin called them back and said they had to work the rest of the day. And now the county librarian announced her retirement at the end of September lol. I think she's worked for us less than 2 years. That sucks pal, I'm in a similar situation except still employed (for now) and no one has gotten sick (yet), and people are either super overworked and stressed or have absolutely nothing to do. I'm also just starting my MLIS and feeling like I've made a huge mistake. No idea what else I can do except keep working and doing school and hoping I don't get sick or laid off. Maybe the job market for MLIS will be better in a few years???? lol fat chance EDIT: Post your backup plan ITT
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Aug 22, 2020 01:17
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At all the libraries I've been to they keep the pencils behind the desk, you gotta ask for em
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Jan 31, 2021 01:51
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Yeah the whole donation thing is a scheme to get onto bestseller lists among other things. That could be why they're republishing as well. In any case the works are made-up, I doubt there's anything worth archiving
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Feb 27, 2021 16:54
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How dare the library enforce censorship by discarding iPad for Seniors 2011
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Aug 11, 2021 18:57
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a friendly penguin posted:TBF there were a lot of other things going on that exacerbated the problem but libraries could do to be a little more aware of their image so as to avoid snoops like this causing a stir. Libraries should burn their books on-site in a wood furnace; it'd meet their needs for discretion from the public, plus it'd reduce heating bills for the budget-conscious library
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Aug 12, 2021 15:16
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value-brand cereal posted:Is it a urban legend that there's traces of stds on books? I swear I read an old fearmongering article, but I think it mentioned Twilight. So eye roll, it might be misogyny about Girl Books. [and not, you know, the hosed up domestic abuse parts of that series] There was a study, yeah: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/18/fifty-shades-of-grey-viral-library-herpes It's definitely a sensationalist title, given that they found traces of cocaine and herpes in every one of the books they tested. Surprise, microbes and powdery material get literally everywhere, especially on the most popular books in your library, but as far as books are concerned it's probably not enough to make you sick unless you're licking them. The bedbugs thing has always been a greater source of anxiety for me and a big reason why I now rarely take books from the library home with me. EDIT: I think the big confusion with the weeding thing is that people don't understand anything about collection maintenance. They don't realize that libraries are constantly getting new books and having to continually manage their physical spaces Tippecanoe fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 05:29
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Cloks posted:https://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/20181223/did-the-library-toss-14-million-books I think the collection shrinking by a third is significant, but this person has missed the point by making it into a weeding issue instead of a "we have no budget to buy new titles" issue
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Aug 13, 2021 17:28
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Off-topic, but has anyone worked in Digitization before? We're talking digitizing older collections and putting them on the internet, basic cataloguing, tracking down copyright permissions, etc. Did you enjoy it? Are there a lot of careers in this type of work? I have a job offer for such a position (for something like 8 months). It's tricky as I'm interviewing for a few other Metadata Library Assistant jobs that seem more interesting to me + can be done remotely + might prepare me better for a future cataloguing job. I'd probably confidently turn down this job offer if I thought I had a chance at one of the other jobs, but it's hard to say.
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Sep 18, 2021 03:04
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https://twitter.com/IndieStacks/status/1592487296435384321
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Nov 15, 2022 22:20
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value-brand cereal posted:Question for the lilbrarians. Do you care if people not from your area* register for library cards to use online? I have learned this is a Thing which is very controversial. Not a librarian technically but We do care. It's not something that personally bothers me, but we have contractual agreements with our online database vendors that ask us to restrict users to a certain geographic proximity, and I don't know if we pay any penalties for out-of-jurisdiction use, but they can certainly see what IP addresses our users are coming in from (depending on the database), and they could get mad at us or whatever if they see too many people from outside the area are logging in. We also spend more and more money on online services and it's no longer something that's feasible to charge people who don't live in the area a flat rate to sign up. Again it's not something I strictly care about, and it's super easy to bypass, but I am obligated to give people a Hard Time about it.
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Jan 7, 2023 04:00
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Leperflesh posted:How does this work with VPNs? I could live next door and be using a VPN and appear to be in Norway. If I'm logged in to my work VPN I'll appear to be in Texas (I'm in California). I don't work at these vendors so I have no idea. With the exception of some vendors/countries, they generally don't restrict usage by geography in that way; instead like I brought my Drake says they expect public libraries to restrict access to online services according to the vendor agreements they have. I imagine that vendors collect stats on where users are coming in from and will use that info to jack up prices later (some of the work I do, though not at a public library, is compiling stats for publishers so they know how many people are accessing their materials and from where). As well, a lot of library service vendors are pay-by-use now, so the onus is on the libraries themselves to limit access if they want to conserve their eresources budgets. Basically all library vendors are terrible and will use any tactic to gouge library budgets. Halloween Jack posted:Now that I think of it, I have a proxy set up on my work laptop so that a lot of educational resources (LexisNexis, JSTOR, Kanopy, etc.) automagically know that I have my employer's access privileges. I wonder how that interacts with local and regional library systems, if at all. A lot of library services are redirected through proxy servers so that users can access in-library resources from anywhere. The vendor can see what proxy server you're signing in from, so it might say, "this IP address space belongs to X institution", though they don't get more information than that. Note again that your proxy server might be collecting stats about you and your use, which they might be required to do to meet the vendor agreement. It really depends on how the vendor has set things up.
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Jan 17, 2023 21:39
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They might use the Library of Congress romanization tables. You get weird situations where, because their romanization standards are not necessarily what is common (consider languages like Arabic that don't have standard romanizations), you might have the author's name on the cutter be totally different than the Latin characters on the cover, which frustrates a lot of people.
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Jan 25, 2023 07:37
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Sometimes books will be published under a pseudonym or fictional character name, but that doesn't look to be the case here; as far as I know the correct access point should be Dean, James 1957- (or whoever is listed as the main creator for the particular title). Most likely someone made the decision to label and sort them by title to keep the series together, which seems pretty common for children's collections in public libraries. My cataloguing professor described cataloguing as more of an art than a science, and that seems especially true for these kinds of collections.
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Feb 5, 2023 00:44
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On the other hand I regularly speak to customers who say stuff like "I can't reset my password, it gives me an error message that says don't use lower case characters!" and I ask "did you use lower case characters?" and they proudly reply "yup!"
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Feb 24, 2023 19:56
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DicktheCat posted:Like, what do you do if someone returns a book that's really gross, like their cat peed on it, do you ban them? DicktheCat posted:Do people try to bring animals into the library a lot?
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Jun 23, 2023 02:50
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I'm Canadian, and plus I'm speaking more to our policy, rather than the laws here. I assure you I have no interest in taking down the ADA
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Jun 23, 2023 14:29
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Depending on the delivery model, libraries can be charged per-use for some ebooks, so depending on what you're using it could actually be costing them money; ebooks are getting very expensive for libraries. Also, like the poster above me said, scraping DRM is probably not OK if you need to do everything legally. It'd be better to use ebooks that are free/free of DRM if you have the option.
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Aug 28, 2023 14:59
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After over 10 years in a public library in Canada and getting my MLIS I might have a shot at an academic librarian job. My public library job has good job security and benefits, but it is getting so so stressful commuting and dealing with the public. By contrast the academic library job is a support role, leading a few technicians and working regular office hours in a hybrid environment. However, it's a one-year contract, with no possibility of renewal, and while the chief librarian told me they'll be looking to fill a few permanent positions soon, I'm not sure how seriously to take that. What are people's thoughts who've worked in an academic library before? Would you take it? It seems like I'm a relatively strong candidate, but I'm not thrilled about potentially having to job-hop for a few years if the permanent position never materializes. I'm very nervous about the idea of walking away from job security.
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Oct 12, 2023 03:05
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Welp, accepted my academic job offer and sent in my resignation letter, so I'm turning in my weirdo card. Best of luck, fellow public library weirdos 
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Oct 20, 2023 00:51
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ExecuDork posted:Um... as an academic (non-library), I'm not sure how to understand your assumption that your weirdo card won't still be 1000% valid at your academic job. Thank you! Yes, this is clear to me after working for a month and meeting all my new colleagues; my new Weirdo Card is a different colour, but it is ultimately still a Weirdo Card.
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Dec 13, 2023 01:21
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hydroceramics posted:Congrats! I am the director of a small academic library and the first two library jobs I had were 1 year contracts like this. The second one I was able to turn into something more. The first one I wouldn't have wanted to and was happy to be able to leave easily. Thanks! I've definitely heard some mixed messages; for the institutions in my province, some people seem to get permanent in a year or so, others get shuffled around for years. Overall it's still miles ahead of my old job, so while this contract business does frustrate me (and I am not looking forward to interviewing again) it's not like I'd jump back to the public sector. My supervisor is saying that I might be a good fit for a permanent job that's coming up next year but I'm not sure if that's for serious or if she's just trying to convince me to take on more work. I do fill a bit of a niche by having more technical skills than a lot of the other librarians. We'll see what happens!
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Jan 16, 2024 02:56
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Book donations aggravate me. People just don't understand that we have no interest in taking their trash off their hands. When I used to tell people we wouldn't take their donations for XYZ reason they'd just inevitably dump them in the book drop or leave them in a box somewhere or even hide them on shelves.
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Mar 4, 2024 01:38
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slidebite posted:Question: What about brand new, current books? I was gifted a couple of cook books that just isn't my thing. Is there a chance my local public library potentially be interested in it? Definitely way more likely to be appreciated than most donations. You still might want to check their donations policy or give them a call, just in case. At my current institution we have a total freeze on donations right now just because we have a huge backlog that we don't have the time to deal with.
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Mar 4, 2024 04:17
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