Ric's

Someone reminded me today that the convenience of e-mail, message boards, chatrooms, etc. cannot replace the delights associated with letters received via snail mail. When things become unnecessary, they may still retain value, albeit for different reasons. Photography has been invented, but people still paint. Film technology is out now, but stages are still in use. An example I was reminded of just a second ago was camping. Someone just pointed out a brochure touting wi-fi availability at campgrounds. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of campgrounds?

Similarly, some things are possible but should simply not be done. The mass-produced printout in lieu of a hand-written thank-you note I once received from a high school graduate was not a proper substitute, in my opinion, for the personal note requiring a bit of otherwise unnecessary effort in order to provide the necessary value. Self-checkout lanes at supermarkets are another.

I can hear the old canard now. "Change is good! Get used to it!" Change isn't good or bad. Change is just change. That line has proven useful, however, since I was a child and the "now generation" proclaimed the inevitable emergence of a society in which people took better care of themselves and each other, and it was something the elder generation was going to have to get used to. But someone out there wants us to think it's the same thing in this case. It's not, nor is it all that hard to illustrate. Imagine two change scenarios: a world in which everyone, for a change, smiles and greets every passing stranger - now that would be a change. OK, now imagine a world in which everyone took up smoking and went around seeing how many strangers' faces they could blow smoke into. That too would be a change. Which would you prefer? "Either one, because change is good?" That doesn't make sense, does it?

I'm all for change, all right. Positive change. Improvement. Progress. Self-checkout lanes are not positive for anyone but the retailer's bottom line. It doesn't help cashiers. It puts customers to work. A retailer once defended self-checkout lanes by saying that customers would get used to them and like them. Not me. Then they mentioned that "actually" they would end up hiring more cashiers. Now what sense does that make? The machines and the new cashiers they make inevitable (without saying how) will only cost more money (in this cost-cutting age!). Finally, they argued that 67% of their customers were using them. Well, I thought, get rid of the human cashiers and 100% of their customers will use them. But I won't be one of them.

One way to beat the trend is to shop at supermarkets that don't have self-checkout lanes and help keep them in business. At first I thought I would find only a few surviving hangers-on from a bygone era. But then I saw an article in the paper about a "traditional" supermarket opening up in the area, one whose selling points included NOT having self-checkout lanes. (What are we doing? Going backwards? Regressing? Refusing to face inevitable change toward an impersonal, mechanized world of lonely strangers without jobs?) Well, apparently people want it or it wouldn't be a selling point. And Ric's on the corner of Belding Road and Myers Lake in Rockford, Michigan is a NEW option for those who wish to go that route. Old-fashioned or not, I like the experience of being fawned over by a half-dozen friendly employees when I walk in the door. Technologically unnecessary though they may be, I find cashiers valuable not because they are necessary in order for me to pay. (What are people going to do if technology renders all jobs obsolete? It may seem like an exaggeration, but these days one can't be too sure.) If I have to explain to you why I find cashiers valuable, you need read no further. But if you are in sympathy with anything I have said, you might stop in at Ric's some time and take in the experience. I think you'll like it.

For Librarians Only

I'm sure by now you have seen my picture on this blog. (I've also added a few to my flickr site.) Slowly but surely, merely by reading instructions online, I continue to grow into both my profession and the world as it currently is and is becoming. (The implications are a bit disconcerting to someone in mid-life crisis like myself. Forced by circumstances to become hep, mod, groovy, and up-to-date, face-to-face contact is becoming so pre-21st century. Hey, the times they are a-changin', man. Location and proximity don't mean a thing anymore. Customs, cultures, traditions and distinctions of locale are doomed to become mere anthropological curiosities. Humans are no longer evolving in the direction of all that lovey-dovey, 60s-70s, human-rights, United Nations nonsense. We're evolving into machines. Personalism is dead, man! Oh, goody.) Let's just say I stopped by the site of my old library school http://www.si.umich.edu/ and discovered that the curriculum, except for one course, is of a completely different nature than when I was in school a mere twenty years ago. (What will another twenty years bring?) How will we ever keep up?

Fortunately, there is a solution! Library Success: A Best-Practices wiki. http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Need to know the latest in collection development? What librarians need to know about Web 2.0, Library 2.0, all the other 2.0s? The latest in reader's advisory? How to market your library (which is more important than ever in today's economy)? Where to get training? How to train staff? Where to find jobs? What the latest trends are? How to be a 21st century librarian overall? What they're teaching in library schools these days? Look no further. Your one-stop shopping site is here, and boy am I glad I found it! Now we can all stay on top of the trends, no matter how old we are! (Now that, on top of being cool, is encouraging!)

A woman walks into a library...

...and she sees this really cool chart on the history room door. She comes to the desk and asks if she can have a copy of it. You notice that it is stuck on the door pretty good, and that you might not get it off without tearing it. You have no idea where it came from other than the fact that Mike found it somewhere in the building one day and decided it would do more good hanging up where someone could see it than hidden away in the back room. The poster has no statement of responsibility, address, or copyright statement of any sort anywhere. You just say "Nope," Right? Fortunately, this true story ended happily. A little conversation can go a long way in a reference interview. After chatting for a moment or two, she revealed that she only thought it would be nice to have the chart because it provided some good information on a line in her husband's background. I suggested that in that case she might be interested in looking through The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens. R 941.0099 MAM



There were lots of charts in that book that she could copy. It turned out to be exactly the kind of information she was looking for and more.



Every librarian should be familiar with it. It truly is, as its introduction claims, "the most complete record of the kings and queens of Britain ever compiled." Almost a thousand rulers are covered, covering not only England, Scotland and Wales, but also the earlier kingdoms that made up those areas in the early middle ages before they were conquered and consolidated. There are lists of rulers for Northern and Southern Powys in what is now Wales, in addition to Deheubarth, Gwynedd, Seisyllwg, Dyfed and Demetia. England grew out of Mercia, East Angliam, Essex, Kent, Wessex, Kernow (Cornwall), Dumnonia, and other small kingdoms. Scotland came out of Alba, Strathclyde, Caledonia, Fortriu, etc. And prior to the early middle ages the island was part of the Roman Empire for a few hundred years. Prior to that there were two dozen kingdoms on the island. All of the rulers of all of those kingdoms, some historical and some legendary or semi-legendary, are covered in this volume. And all of them are tied together in 57 genealogical charts. But that's not all. The legendary rulers in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (which we also own) are listed here as well, including the line of King Arthur. (Just who was King Arthur, anyway? Check this book for some in-depth speculation.) Also listed are the rulers of France, Brittany, Aquitaine, Anjou, Normandy, Dublin, Denmark, Norway, Hanover, and the High Kings of Ireland, all of whom had connections, genealogical and otherwise, with the British royal family. So dig in. If you ever get a similar question, you will now be aware of the perfect gateway to further information.

Librarians are now officially 'COOL'

Hey, listen up all you happy geeks out there in Libraryland. We are now officially cool. Yep, you read that correctly. According to The Grand Rapids Press, "As technology goes more and more mainstream, and librarians are being relied upon more and more to help navigate the crush of available information, the profession is rising on the cool-ometer."

They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true!

What happened in the year you were born?

A Boy Scout troop was assigned questions on what happened the year they were born, the moon landing, and their family history. Aside from showing them the history room and providing them with genealogical forms and showing them how to access ancestry.com (which is what we subscribed to at the time), I also used the almanacs and the following very interesting resources:

American Facts and Dates - R 973 CAR - a large, chronologically-arranged list of event in American history from 986 to 1992. Includes annual summaries and four separate chronologies for each year for political, cultural, economic and intellectual, and social events.

Chronology of World History - R 902.02 MEL - This one is my favorite. Four large volumes of events listed by date from 3000 BC to the 1990s. Events prior to 1492 are listed according to era, subsequent events by year. Mountains of information like lists of important books, music, and films of each year are included. Addictive!

Chronicle of America - R 973.0202 CHR - A colorful, easy-to-browse summary of headlines from year to year. Entertaining, especially for a younger crowd.

There are, of course, many similar sources, but those always work particularly well, and they did so in this case. The Boy Scouts were thrilled with the easy availability of the information, and it served them well.

A New Purpose

One of the first things my freshman English professor told us was "Write to be read." Well, sure, sometimes writing things intended for no one can be therapeutic, but blogging things intended for no one is just a total waste of time. So I've decided to put this blog to some use. Whenever I get a real interesting reference question that causes me to be creative and use some interesting resources, I will record the process here for my colleagues. It will enable them to be aware of resources they may not have used before. This should be fun and educational for all five or six of us, don't you think? What better way to spend the few free moments we have while on duty than to log in to fadeproofjazz.blogspot.com and explore the fountain of goodies flowing before us? Have a wonderful day, keep your feet on the ground, reach for the stars, and stay tuned!

Why the Name 'Renaissance Man/?

The 'Renaissance Man' of old was an expert in every field. It's been a couple of hundred years since the human brain was large enough to store all of the knowledge necessary to have any real competence in more than one or two fields at most. That's why they invented library science. The closest thing to a renaissance person of today is, of course, a reference librarian. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot get your hands on any old piece of information you want just by googling for it. A disproportionately large percentage of information remains hidden in vaults, databases requiring paid subscriptions, etc. Reference librarians to the rescue. If you need to find it, we can help. We are trained to. We don't know everything, but we can find almost everything the government hasn't classified. Sure, we come closer than most people to knowing everything. We're the best at cocktail parties. Trying to make us feel stupid by engaging us in discussions about economic theory, French cinema, architectural fads, and cutting edge research in mathematics is difficult. Sure, we slip and have to plead ignorance once in awhile, but that's only because we're human. I think $148,000 a year is a fair and adequate compensation for our knowledge and abilities.