Ask a Librarian: Call for Questions

Okay, folks. I've run through some of the basic questions I had brainstormed previous to starting this series of entries, and I wanted to take a break to see if there are any questions out there that any of you would like answered. So here's your big chance. Any takers?

Ask a Librarian: What Does an Interlibrary Loan Librarian Do?

This one is perhaps a bit easier to answer than the last few, because the job is so specialized and specific. An interlibrary loan librarian . . . gets stuff for you through interlibrary loan. But it's more complicated than that, too. I'll break it down. You go to your library, and you want a book or article that the library doesn't have in its collections. You request it via ILL, and that request goes to the interlibrary loan librarian. He or she process the requests the library makes from other libraries, finding where it's available, contacting that library to arrange for it to be sent to your library, etc. Ideally, you never really see the ILL librarian to thank her. Of course, you might request something that your library actually does have in its collections, in which case you get an email alerting you that your request has been canceled and showing you where you can get the item you requested.

In addition to these duties, an ILL librarian manages the requests from other libraries for materials that library has in its collections. It's a two way street, after all. You can't ask other libraries to send you materials if you turn around and refuse them when they ask you. Then again, in a smaller library like Mantor, the number of requests we send out is far greater than the number we get back, just because our collections are so much smaller than, say, a major research university's.

In any case, that about sums up the duties of an ILL librarian. Any questions? Did I miss anything? Having never been worked in interlibrary loan, there's a good chance of that. Feel free to correct me in the comments!

Ask a Librarian: What does a Serials Librarian Do?

Serials. Not to be confused with cereals. (Although it does bring up an excellent point: do cereal companies have serials librarians?) Serials is the library term for magazines. Journals. Periodicals. (How many different words do we need to describe the same things?) A serials librarian is thus the person in charge of keeping track of all things serial in the library. (NOTE: yes, I'm simplifying things here a bit, as serials are actually more complex than I'm describing, but I'm trying to keep things more basic.)

So, what does that mean?

Well, it means that they keep watch over all the subscriptions the library has to journals and newspapers. When a journal of newspaper arrives, they process it (stamp it, add a strip so that it'll beep when someone tries to take it out of the library, add a reinforced binding if necessary, and shelve it). They also add it to the catalog holdings. They keep track of what journals are late and what ones never got sent. They throw out old journals if the library only keeps the most recent years. They manage microfilm and microfiche. They might send some unbound periodicals off to get bound, in which case they inspect the bound journals when they return to make sure everything was done right (none are in upside down, none were cut off so you can't read them, etc.).

In addition to this, they get the pleasure of dealing with online journals and databases, managing subscriptions and holdings. If the library has access to a journal online, that has to appear somewhere in the catalog, and it has to be easy to find and understand if a patron comes in to search for it. There are programs and companies that manage this sort of information (Serials Solutions is the one we use), but it still takes work on the library's end to make sure everything's functioning properly.

Serials librarians also keep track of usage statistics. How often are journals are getting used? What's the cost per use of each journal? Should we keep it? Ditch it? These are all areas the serials librarian is expected to at least offer input on, if not make the final decision.

All of these things must be done if the serials collection of a library is going to be easy to use. More complicated than it seems at first, right?

Ask a Librarian: What does a Cataloger Do?

So you want to know what a cataloger does, huh? And I'm assuming you don't want some snarky answer like, "catalogs stuff." Okay. Then I'll give you the long answer. The trick is, the long answer starts with the snarky answer, because catalogers really do just catalog stuff. But the trick is what does it mean to catalog stuff.

Essentially, cataloging is the way librarians make materials accessible to you, the patrons. The cataloger sits down with a book and identifies all relevant information about it: author, title, publication date, publication place, edition, ISBN number, illustrations, subject, size--you name it. And then the cataloger puts that information into a MAchine Readable Cataloging format (MARC format) that lets the library catalog find the book you're looking for when you perform a search.

That's just silly, you say. We live in the time of Google and Amazon. Can't the catalog just import that kind of stuff from someplace else? Well, in a word: no. For one thing, even among libraries, some librarians do a (gasp!) bad job of cataloging something. (Yes, there are resources where catalogers pool their knowledge and efforts, making it (theoretically) easier to catalog the same materials. (It's referred to as copy cataloging.)) For general sites like Amazon or Google, it's often a sort of wild west frontier, with who knows how many duplicates in existence, all with minor differences in the record but no real difference in the book. (If you want to see this principle in action, try doing a search on Amazon for an older book. You'll often get a slew of results, with no really easy way to determine which is the one you're looking for.)

The whole point of a catalog is to make things easy for you to find. To make things standardized. To eliminate duplicates. To assign subject headings. All of these rest on the abilities of the cataloger. Thus, a good, careful cataloger is essential to a healthy catalog, which in turn is essential to a healthy library. If the catalog gets messy, it can be a lot of hard work to whip it back into shape. Catalogers need to have an good eye for detail and be able to do similar jobs over and over. (Just ask our cataloger what she thinks about DVDs. Go ahead. Ask her.)

An even more difficult task: they need to be able to look at an item and decide what it's "about." Try summing up a novel in a sentence. Then try summing it up in two concepts. Ideally, each entry in a catalog doesn't have a slew of subjects--just three or four main ones, tops. What do you do if it's really complex, with shades of meaning and themes? Tough luck: you still have to reduce it down to its basic essence. Maybe easy with nonfiction, but it gets much more difficult with film or fiction.

Again, in a small library, this duty may be done by a librarian covering several tasks. In a large one, whole departments handle the task.

So there you have it: catalogers. Did I miss anything? Any questions? Ask away.

Ask a Librarian: What Does an Acquisitions Librarian Do?

I'm planning on doing an overview of the various types of librarians we have at our library for the next few Ask a Librarian columns. Why would I do this? Because I think it's interesting to see the variety of positions even a small academic library has available. Of course, I'm a librarian, so admittedly my interests might be skewed . . . :-)

So. Acquisitions librarian. The main responsibility of this position is to acquire new materials for the library. Seems straightforward, right? I mean, all you need to do is have someone know who to buy what from to make sure that everything's bought from the best source, that accounts are paid in full, that materials we receive are in good condition and that budgets balance. Oh yeah--and someone has to act as the shepherd for the purchases, ensuring faculty input has been received and considered, other librarians stay on budget, standing orders (orders for materials that stay the same year after year) stay on track and gift accounts are properly used. Plus quite a few other things I'm probably forgetting.

That means that a good acquisitions librarian will be very organized, able to keep track of a stack of separate orders that's measured in feet, not inches. Even at a small library, we'll have orders out at the same time to everyone from Amazon to Baker & Taylor to small independent publishing houses. Professors or students will request books and films no one's ever heard of, sometimes with very little information to go on. When orders don't go right, guess who has to fix them? Have you ever tried ordering something online, only to have to change the order, or return it, or exchange it, or . . . you get the picture. The acquisitions librarian has to deal with this all the time.

And once the materials arrive, they need to be properly cataloged. The actual cataloging isn't the responsibility of the acquisitions librarian, but making sure the items are ordered and in the library system in the first place is. That way, when the cataloger comes to a new book or DVD, the record's there waiting for her or him.

So there you have it: the basics of an acquisitions librarian. In a larger library, there will be an entire department devoted to this. In a smaller library, these duties will be assumed by another librarian. More than you thought it would be? I'd love to hear your comments.

Ask a Librarian: Federated Searching

Now there's a phrase you probably have never heard before. Any guesses what it means? No worries--I'm about to tell you. Federated searching is when you use a search tool to search multiple databases at once. Say, searching Academic Search Premier and ERIC at the same time. On the surface, this is nothing but good news. I mean, you can do one search and get all your results at the same time, instead of having to run two searches. If you were planning on searching three or four databases, it just gets better, right?

Right?

Wrong.

Or at least, wrong some of the time. In an ideal world--one with lots of butterflies, unicorns and Puff the Magic Dragon--you could search all databases at once and find all the information you're looking for. But we don't live in that world (sorry, unicorn-lovers out there). We live in a world where databases have different capabilities and options.

To explain this, allow me to turn to math for a moment. Remember that thing called the "lowest common denominator"? It's the least common multiple shared between a number of fractions. When adding or subtracting fractions, you get everything into the essential same format, then run the process. That's what happens with federated searching. All those bells and whistles and tips and tricks that individual databases have are steamrolled out in the rush to make them all work together. Does the database have a cool thesaurus that suggests alternate search terms? Gone. Can it separate out peer reviewed journals? See ya. Narrow by subject? Buh-bye.

Please note that this sometimes isn't the case. If all databases being searched all share the same features, then nothing need be lost in the transition. And thankfully, database providers (and federated search providers) are working on this problem. I haven't checked recently, but I imagine it's much less of an issue today than when I was researching it in depth a few years ago, and I expect it will continue to improve as the years go by.

But now you know what's at stake when you're using a federated search, so please: search responsibly. :-)

Ask a Librarian: Why do/don't you have _________ database?

Databases. Those windows into the world of academia, where you can go to search through countless articles on countless topics. Those great repositories of knowledge, which are often turned to by students frantic to GET THAT ARTICLE NOW. We've come a long way since the days when you had to patiently wait to interlibrary loan every article you needed, or even when you had to go through CD after CD in search of that citation. No, these days, you can search through hundreds or thousands of journals at the same time, just as easily as searching Google (more or less). (Note: I did want to point out that when you search Google, you don't search databases. Google doesn't index them, because they cost money, and Google doesn't. Make sense?)

But where do databases come from? Why does a university have access to some but not access to others? And why in the world does Mantor now have a database devoted to hobbies like Disney memorabilia and knitting? Isn't that a waste of funds?

Well, dear reader, allow me to explain. First of all, databases cost money. Lots of money. Thousands, tens of thousands--even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the database and the size of the institution that wants to use it. (Larger institution = more expensive, since they have more people using the database). Because they cost so much money, libraries have to be selective about where they get their databases, and which ones they subscribe to. We at Mantor have three main sources:

1. The State of Maine--This is the source for many of our database subscriptions. Essentially, your tax dollars pay the bill that allows anyone in the state to have access to information. Why is that important? Because schools use it, public libraries use it, universities use it, private individuals use it. Information is power, and you want an informed populace. Trust me. Because the state has the entire state in mind (not just universities), they get a wider variety of databases. That's where things like the hobby database come from.
2. The University System--For databases that all seven campuses want, we can band together and negotiate a lower price with the database provider. There's strength in numbers. Pool resources, and we end up with more than we could have otherwise.
3. The University--For databases that no one else wants to team up to get, we get on our lonesome. In our case, JSTOR is an example of this. It's too expensive for some campuses to want, but our faculty and students really like it, so we pony up the money.

To further complicate things, database providers keep raising the price for the databases, so we're in a perpetual loop of deciding what to keep, what to add, and what to cut. It's all about usage and getting the most bang for the buck. Any questions?

Ask a Librarian: What's the First Week of Classes Like?

A lot of people ask me if my schedule and routine changes much during the summer compared with the fall. The answer for me is yes, but not for the reasons they assume. They seem to think the summer is this relaxing time, where I have the chance to recharge and approach the school year fresh. In actuality, the summer is usually my busiest time--mainly because I'm scrambling around trying to update and upgrade all the technology before classes start. For me, it's a relief when fall comes, because that means that I'm done with the upgrading, for better or worse.

Of course, if you asked my coworkers down in Access Services (where books get checked out) which is busier, I think you'd get a much different answer, as they scramble around trying to give out new bar codes and teach students how to use the library correctly. And in reference, things really kick up around the middle and end of each semester, as research papers come due. In acquisitions, April and May go crazy, as everyone tries to order books at once, before budgets disappear.

So the answer would be, "It depends." Many people just don't realize how many different things go on in a library, and how workload varies widely, depending on the task at hand. Even in a small academic library such as Mantor, we all have to specialize to make sure things run smoothly.

Ask a Librarian: What's Collection Development?

Collection development. What is it, and why do we do it? Libraries have lots of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. We've got books, DVDs, CDs, journals, newspapers, online journals and more. I suppose it would be easy to assume the way we get more stuff is we go out and buy as much as we can of everything that's out there. Even assuming we had the money to buy everything, however, we still wouldn't. Why? It's all about collection development.

A library has to decide how best to serve the needs of its users. For example, if we went out and bought every graphic novel in print, we'd have a killer graphic novel collection as far as completeness goes. But what if our students really only need to have every *excellent* graphic novel that's been printed? What if they're more interested in quality, not quantity? And let's face it: we're under a tight budget. There are many resources in demand, and we have to weigh what to buy carefully. So collection development is the systematic expansion of the material a library owns.

Allow me to give an example.

When I first came to Mantor, they had decided to start collecting more films. To find out which films to purchase, librarians had contacted the film department, who had all sorts of good suggestions for films that fit their teaching and research interests. The result was a collection that was sort of all over the place. We had some good foreign films, puddles of good art films, but no real breadth. One of the first things I did was to look at the collection as a whole and decide it would be good to expand it. Thus, I added American classics, then world classics. I've branched out into Anime, documentaries, animation, horror, comedy--trying to get some strong titles in everything. As I continue to grow the collection, I'll start turning back to faculty for input. Now that we have the basics, we can expand the collection in areas most pertinent to our campus. For example, we have a class on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so we've added a fair bit of vampire films. We have another one coming up on films of the Coen Brothers, so those are getting added, as well.

So collection development isn't just about going out and buying stuff. It's about going out and buying the right stuff.

Ask a Librarian: How Do You Weed?

First off, I suppose it's likely that many of you don't even know the term "weed" in the context of a library. I mean, it's not like we have a whole lot of vegetables over here, regardless of how awesome it would be if we did. But as my wife can attest to, weeding and I don't get along. And yet I do it professionally.

The answer, of course, is that it's library-speak for removing materials from a collection, and this is something that can be very upsetting for some people. But it's very necessary for a collection to thrive.

Look at it like this. When you weed a garden, you're killing some plants so that other plants can grow. If you have some tomato plants that are wilting and dying, you sometimes have to yank them out to make room so other plants can succeed. (Okay--I'm going to end the gardening analogy now. I'm out of my league when it comes to the proper care of plant things.)

In a healthy library, books will come and go. Ideally, all our books would be loved, cherished, read and used. But that's not the way it plays out. Some books get scribbled in (not by you, surely!). Some books get taken to the bathtub for some light reading before taking a quick dip. Some books get gnawed on by beagles. In these cases, these books will typically just get replaced, after we charge whoever allowed such atrocities to happen.

But what happens when a book just sits there, year after year, unchecked out? What do you do with those books? Sometimes, you hang on to them. Just because people aren't with it enough to realize a classic should be read and checked out doesn't mean you throw that classic out. On the other end of the spectrum are books that clearly have outlived their usefulness. Books like Do It Yourself Coffins for Pets and People and Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy: A Child’s Book about Satanic Ritual Abuse. (These books, by the way, come to my attention from the often funny Awful Library Books blog, a blog I recommend.)

The trick is that some people view all books as inherently worthwhile. To make matters more difficult, they tend to believe books are like fine wines--they increase in value as they age. So while one person will look at an 1830s map book and see value, another will see it's molding, wormy, water damaged, brittle, and it hasn't checked out since 1831. Do you keep it, or weed it?

What a library needs to do is identify its purpose and then stick to it. Shelf space is limited, after all. If the library is focused on collecting complete map collections, maybe that book can be saved. If it's trying to give the public access to relevant timely information, it's probably time for that book to go. We librarians have to make these decisions all the time. Some decisions are hard, some are easy, but each one has the potential to turn into a public relations firestorm for the library. However, if we don't do it, the collection becomes difficult to use, irrelevant and eventually dies.

Just like a garden.

Or so I've been told. :-)

Ask a Librarian: How to Get the Most Out of Your Library--Interlibrary Loan and Requests

Interlibrary loan is a wonderful service that not enough people use. One of the keys to successful library use is to give yourself plenty of time. So often, we have people come in looking for an immediate information need, or they want to read a certain book RIGHT NOW. In a larger library, those sort of needs can often be met (assuming you're not trying to waltz in and get the latest best seller the day it came out--there's gonna be a line for that one.) However in a smaller library, your approach needs to be different. Chances are, your library participates in interlibrary loan, and that is the road to every book you could imagine.

Think of your library as a single point on a huge global network. Most of the books of all of the libraries who participate in this network are available to the other libraries who participate. You go to your library, request the book, they find the book in the network, ask the library that owns the book to send it to your library, which then lends it to you. In some libraries, you pay the postage. In some, you don't. (You might be hit with some hefty fines if you return the book late--be careful of that! It all depends on the lending library's policies.) The only downside to this process is that it can take some time for it to happen. You can't walk out with your book the same day.

(On a side note, wouldn't it be great if you could? With ebooks, you really ought to be able to sit at home, go to your library's online site, request a book, be connected with a partnered library, download that book from their library, and be off and reading--without ever leaving your home. The technology is there--but the infrastructure to support this isn't. Publishers treat and sell ebooks very differently than they treat paper copies, and they're not above charging libraries more for ebooks than they charge your everyday person. This is (in my opinion) ridiculous. Libraries have been supporting books and reading for years. They've been lending books out for centuries. Why is it that a sudden change in format makes that model no longer sustainable? But I digress . . .)

So if you hear about a good book, but your library doesn't have it, you can have your hands on it in a week or so, through interlibrary loan. Nice, huh? And as many people take advantage of this service as you would think. (Here at Mantor, we have access to the whole UMaine system library holdings, meaning many books we can have in a couple of days. Nice!)

On the other hand, you can also explore an even less used alternative: suggest that your library purchase that book. We librarians actually want to help you get the information you need. If there's a book out there that you think your library should own, ask them to buy it. So many of the books we do buy end up not getting checked out--we're not buying them to hold the shelves down, people. We're buying them so people will use them. When we get requests from actual users--basically guarantees that a real person is interested in a certain book--we take those requests very seriously. Of course, sometimes students ask us to purchase their textbooks for them. We don't do that--textbooks get out of date too quickly, and people seem to have a tendency of walking off with them when we do order them. I wonder why . . . ) Mantor gets a handful of requests a year. It would be great if this changed.

In any case--Interlibrary Loan and Requests for Purchase. Two library services you should be aware of, and should take advantage of.

Ask a Librarian: What is Information Literacy

One of the current buzz terms in library land is "information literacy." Librarians throw this phrase around whenever possible, usually when someone is asking them to justify their positions and the benefits they give to society or a school or business or whatever. But what in the world does it mean? (Here's a case where I'm asking you readers a question--if you're not in the library field, have you ever heard this phrase before? If so, what does it mean to you? (Or, what did it mean to you before you read my blog post and became enlightened?)) To librarians, the meaning is fairly straightforward.

Most people know what it means to be literate. There's the basic definition (being able to read) and the more nuanced one (being versed in literature). Most people get the whole "able to read" thing down in grade school, but the "versed in literature" part can take a lifetime to learn. A truly literate person is able to use words any way they wish. They can interpret levels of meaning, express themselves well in person and on paper, etc. For information literacy, take this same concept and apply it to information. (I know--you didn't see that one coming, did you?)

Many people feel like they can find information online. But are they at the "versed in information" level? (I've used the term "information fluency" from time to time, and I think that gives a better description of what librarians are trying to get at.) Ideally, some who is at this level is able to find the information they need whenever they need it. They recognize that sometimes a quick dip into Wikipedia will suffice, and at other times, several books and journal articles will be necessary to fill their needs. They can express what they learn accurately and responsibly, giving readers and listeners the cues they need to be able to find that information themselves. They know that some information is accurate, and some is garbage--and they can tell the difference. They can do all this quickly and easily, without the need to stop and ask for directions every step of the way.

Do you see the difference there? It's just like with language. There's one level of literacy (able to read Green Eggs and Ham) and a much higher one (able to interpret the many facets of meaning in Hamlet). Even at the higher level, some people will be able to see the meanings right off, and some will have to struggle for days to figure them out.

The goal of the modern librarian isn't just to check books out to the masses. It's to teach the masses to be information literate. As the volume information increases so rapidly these days, this is going to only become more and more vital.

It's a life skill, people.

Now, if only we librarians were better and getting the masses to understand this. :-)

Ask a Librarian: Why Boolean?

If you've used a library catalog or database, you've most likely been exposed to Boolean operators, even if you've never heard of them before in your life. What's a Boolean operator? Words like AND, OR or NOT that you put between search terms to broaden or narrow your search. But if you're a non-librarian, you've probably wondered why in the world libraries insist on using this seemingly archaic way to search things.

Wonder no more.

Remember last week, when I talked about how searches need to be exhaustive and exclusive? (Meaning they need to return all the results you want and only the results you want.) In order to create a search like this, you need more advanced tools than your typical search engine can give you. When you type something into Google, the search engine does a full-text search through all of its indexed pages for the phrase you typed. By default, Google uses AND to connect the words you're searching for.

Library catalogs and databases, on the other hand, are different machines. They're designed to allow the user to create very precise searches. It's possible to use Boolean logic with Google, if you go to their advanced search page, but Google doesn't really do as well with Boolean--it's not designed to, just as databases don't do as well with phrase searching--they're not built to handle it. (This makes sense--Google searches a wide variety of material, most of it not created specifically for Google, so it has to be as inclusive and forgiving as possible. Databases, on the other hand, search very specific records, each of them created just for that database, so the search device is designed to be more "high performance," if you will.)

So what do the different operators do?

AND--Searches for every record that has both terms in the record. In the diagram above, that would mean it returns everything where A and B intersect. Useful for narrowing your search--making it more focused. You don't just want things about cats or things about dogs--you want things that talk about cats and dogs at the same time.

OR--Searches for every record that has either of the terms in it, meaning it would return everything in the diagram above. This is a great way to broaden your search. You want things about cats or dogs--it doesn't matter which. Typically, you'd put OR between synonyms (searching for fat OR obese OR overweight OR chunky OR chubby OR . . . you get the picture).

NOT--Searches for every record that doesn't contain the search term. In the diagram above, searching for A NOT B would return everything shaded pink. This is useful when you're trying to eliminate something that typically shows up in a search for another term. So if you're looking for information on the Nile delta, you might throw in a "NOT airplane" to try and get rid of results that have to do with the airline company.

XOR--Ah, the famous XOR. It's not used much, but it searches for records that have one term or the other, but not both. In the diagram, this would be everything that's pink or blue, but not purple (the middle section). Think of it as the Boolean equivalent of either/or. I'll be honest with you--I've never used this in a search. Does that mean I fail as a librarian? Shh . . . don't tell anyone!

How do you string Boolean terms together?

You do it by using the wonders of the parentheses. Brush off your old algebra memories and get busy. (A OR B) and C would return everything that has A and C in it, and everything with B and C. A OR (B and C) would return everything that has A and everything that has either B or C. Clear as mud? Try this one:

(A OR B) AND ((C OR D) NOT E)), or, written with actual search terms, (cats OR felines) AND ((cartoon OR animated) NOT Garfield)

Yes, it's possible to quickly get lost with this sort of approach, and yes, databases are working on becoming more user friendly. Ideally, a search tool would be as forgiving as Google but as precise as a database--and I see databases heading that direction. Give them a few more years. In the meantime, know your Boolean operators, and don't be afraid to use them.

Ask a Librarian: Will There be Librarians in the Future?

In the last few years, there have been no shortage of opinions given on the future of librarians (or lack thereof). Many people seem to believe that with the advent of the internet and the rise of Google, the world's need for librarians is going to dwindle away until, one day, librarians will be looked upon as a quaint profession that outgrew its usefulness, like the milkman, or the ice truck. After all, if all you need to do to find information is go online, type a bit, click a bit more and then soak in the knowledge, what's the use of a library? Especially when its only other use (to give you books) has been replaced by e-readers.

I think the biggest part of this opinion is based on two misguided assumptions: that the internet makes information finding easier, and that librarians are all about books. Let me go through those assumptions one at a time.

First, I admit I'm a tad confused as to why people assume the internet makes their information-finding needs disappear. Well, that's not entirely true--I understand why they think that, but I know why they're wrong, too. When you have a question these days, it's very easy to Google your way to an acceptable answer. Of course, this depends on what your definition of "acceptable" is. If your question was something basic--the birthplace of Bach (Eisenach, Germany), or the state flower of Nevada (sagebrush), then it's a piece of cake. But what if your question is more advanced? How about "what's the most fuel efficient car on the market today?" or even worse, "What car should I buy?" What I'm getting at, is as long as you're dealing with facts, Google is (more or less) on even ground. Once you get into opinions or evaluations of facts, then you're in deep waters, my friend. (For one thing, you've turned your information finding needs over to a company that makes their money off of ads, and who ranks results using a method others try to hack so that their web pages come back higher in your results list--but that's all a topic for another day.) Google can find you plenty of pages about fuel efficient cars, but it can't filter out the reliable from the unreliable.

Get even more difficult: an ideal search for information (like "How did American culture lead to the rise of al-Qaeda?") should return information that is both exclusive (only has results that have to do with your subject) and exhaustive (has all the results that have to do with your subject). Google does an awful job with this. You do a search, and you get back a big ol' pile o' results. Sifting through those results is cumbersome and bewildering. People usually end up giving up and settling for an article or two that they find that are more or less what they were looking for.

Enter librarians.

Did you know we actually took classes on how to best find information online? Some of us did, at least. And we specialize in finding information. Not just any information, either--reliable information. We can look at something, evaluate it, and decide if it's worthwhile or not. We deal in information. Why should the rise of so much more information online mean that the profession that specializes in searching and using that information will disappear? As cars get more complex, do mechanics find themselves unemployed? As more laws get written, do lawyers go out of business?

This ties into the second assumption: that librarians are all about books. As a librarian who does most of his work on the computer and with computers, I obviously have a bone to pick here, but I realize that it's a long-lived stereotype, and that nothing I say here is going to diminish it. The problem is that people who think this clearly haven't been using modern libraries lately. We have ebooks, audiobooks, digital libraries, blogs(!), online catalogs, databases--you name it. Libraries actually do their best to stay ahead of the technology curve and embrace the changes as they come. (Or at least, libraries that want to stay relevant do this.) So the future of libraries and librarians is not as closely tied to the future of the book as some people seem to think.

Bottom line: I think libraries will change, yes. And who knows how those changes will play out--but one thing I feel safe in saying: Librarians aren't going anywhere.

What do you think? (Bonus points if you can name the movie that picture is from, and double bonus points if you can make the connection of what that movie has to do with this post.)

Ask a Librarian: Dewey or LC?

Ah, the wonders of classification systems. For the uninitiated, these can seem like fairly random ways of organizing information. QL 599.82? 551.447 M83? Whatever happened to alphabetical by title? Or by author's last name? The problem comes from having too many things to organize. Take your MP3 player. If all you have on it is a single CD, or a few CDs by various artists, alphabetical organization is enough. But if you have days worth of music, sticking to an alphabetical approach can get old, fast. You probably start separating things by genre, or artist, or composer, or whatever. And then within artist, you separate some more--by album--and then break that down alphabetically. This works great for an MP3 player, where you can actually write out each of the categories, but what if you're working with actual physical CDs, and you want to find things fast. What if--what's worse--people often borrow your CDs, and you have to remember each time where that CD is supposed to go?

This is where classification systems come in. They're (supposedly) exhaustive, and they're short enough to allow for things to be printed on book spines, thereby allowing them to be found (and shelved) more easily. There are a number of different styles out there, but the two most common are the Dewey Decimal System and the Library of Congress Classification System. What's the difference? You can follow the links to find out the nitty gritty, but the basic answer is that Dewey works better for smaller collections. Dewey divides information into 10 main categories, with each category getting a hundreds-level number (100, 200, 300, etc). Each of those categories are divided into 10 sections, with each assigned a tens-level number (10, 20, 30, etc.). And each of those is divided into 10 sections, with each assigned a 1 level (1, 2, 3, etc). So 915 has the 900 level (history), the 10 level within that (geography) and the 5 level within that (Asia). It's simple and straightforward, but what happens when you have a bunch of Asian geography books? You start having a slew of decimals. Finding 915.123142142134 can be a bit of a pain, yes?

LC, on the other hand, has 21 classes at the top level (instead of just 10). Not only that, but it's more recent, so the subjects make a bit more sense. (Dewey was started in the 19th century, before a whole lot of knowledge was uncovered. It didn't anticipate things like computers, for example.) LC is broken down into subjects, with each main subject assigned a letter of the alphabet. Within those subjects, it's divided further by letters, so you can have PZ be different from PR and PS. After that, numbers kick in to divide it further, and decimals can be added (of course) to flesh things out. It's overkill for small collections, but it works pretty well for large collections like academic libraries.

Thus, generally speaking, you have Dewey for public libraries and LC for academic. There's more intricacies to it than that, but just how specific did you want me to get? :-)

Ask a Librarian: Who or What is a Librarian?

One of the most basic questions people might not know the answer to (even if they think they do) is "Who or what is a librarian?" I think the common perception would be, "Someone who works in a library." Patrons (what we librarians call you regular people who use our libraries) see someone in a library shelving books, or checking books out, or sitting behind a reference desk, and they naturally assume that person is a librarian. In reality, the answer to this question is much more complex.

For example, the traditional answer these days is to say that a librarian is someone who works at a library AND has an advanced degree in library science. This degree is normally called a Masters of Library Science (MLS), but these days other names have been assigned to it, as well: MLIS (Masters of Library and Information Studies), Master of Librarianship, etc. The exact name varies based on the university that grants the degree, but the principle remains the same. According to this definition, someone who simply works in a library isn't a librarian. He or she has to have an advanced degree to "earn" the title.

Naturally, this results in no little amount of debate and discussion in the world of librarians. For example, here in Maine there are many people who are even directors of local public libraries who aren't "librarians," since they lack the degree. However, they've worked in libraries, doing all aspects of library related duties, for thirty plus years. So why are they referred to as "paraprofessionals" when a girl in her twenties fresh out of grad school and in her first position is automatically granted the title? When you take into account the fact that full fledged "librarians" typically get paid more money, this can be a particularly touchy subject. (And indeed, in just the past month, there's been a big debate about this topic on MELIBS, the Maine Library List Serve.)

In the end, many outsiders would probably shrug their shoulders and dismiss the debate, going back to their "If they work in a library, they're a librarian" definition. But even then, there are many degrees of librarians. There are catalogers, serials librarians, acquisition librarians, library pages, administrative assistants, directors, reference librarians, subject specialists, book repair specialists, media librarians, information technology librarians, interlibrary loan librarians, and more--and that's just in an academic library. There are different types of libraries, as well: academic, high school, elementary, hospital, business, law, public, etc. And there are different types of each of those libraries, too. A small academic library will be very different than a large academic library. An all-volunteer public library that serves a single town will be totally different than the New York Public Library, with all its branches.

What is Mantor Library? We're a small academic library, part of a larger University of Maine library system that encompasses multiple campuses and public libraries. We have four full fledged "librarians" on staff, nine other full or part-time employees, and thirty or forty student workers. The nice thing is that by and large, librarians don't really care what you call us. We're just happy to have you come in and use what we have to offer. You don't have to worry about offending us here at Mantor. Ask anyone who works here your question--they should refer you to the person or people here who know the answer.

And that's your answer for today. Got a library-related question? Drop me an email, and I'll do my best to answer it in an upcoming post!