Move-in Day at Depaul
Judging by all the paper signs stuck to lamp-posts asking cars to park for only 20 minutes -- plus the traffic heading into the dorms, today must be 'move-in' day at DePaul. Fall Quarter begins on Tuesday.
Depaul
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Sat, 09/04/2010 - 3:34pm.
Beware of What You Ask
A student came by as I was closing up wanting to know if we kept records of people's searches. His hard drive had crashed and all the work he had done the day before, researching for a paper, was now lost.
I explained that the only way to do this is by creating an account on the individual databases (where possible) and then saving the search results to that. Beyond that, there's little record of what people do. And that's a good thing.
(And as consolation, I did mention that it would probably be easier to do the search one more time now that he was familiar with the database and search terms.)
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Tue, 05/18/2010 - 9:15am.
Avalanche of abandoned flash drives turn up at Reference
Hot News from Reference: an avalanche of flash drives left abandoned in lab computers by forgetful students have been turning up at the Reference Desk. Will there be no end to this deluge? Our only hope: microchips implanted in all of us coming with at least 16 gb of disk space.
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Sat, 05/08/2010 - 11:11am.
Live-Blogging the Empty Library
10:30am: What do you do as a reference librarian when you're the only one who showed up for work (hello Circulation)?
11:00am: The person supposed to be at Circulation just called saying he was stuck at the Airport in Minneapolis.
11:26am: Problem: A student came by wanting to charge out a book. I explained we didn't have anyone with access to the system. He said he'd come back later in the day.
11:35am: A female student wants to make some copies. Problem is, the copy room is normally opened by whoever opens up at Circ -- and as the world now knows, that person is trapped at the Airport in Minneapolis.
11:42am: The security guy came over to open the copy room. He says he's going to Minneapolis next week. Is there a pattern emerging here?
11:46am: Yea, hallelujah! Jim the Circ. person just came in. He's the back-up guy at Circulation. We have lift-off.
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Sat, 03/27/2010 - 10:38am.
Leo Klein Caught Trashing E-Books in the DePaul Student Newspaper
So I'm famous, I guess. I made it into the student newspaper, the DePaulia, on the subject of e-books:
"I've got a great book collection, and there are great atlases and things like that. [T]here's a great book we have here, The Burnham Plan of Chicago, it's wonderfully illustrated from 100 years ago. [W]ould an electronic version replace that?" said Leo Klein, part time librarian at the DePaul Library.
Of course, not every book fits into this category. In fact, the majority don't, which is why I'm perfectly happy to access them online. It's just the distribution methods, some quite restrictive and proprietary, that give me indigestion.
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 9:28am.
Wireless Now a Standard Library Feature in People's Minds
Just got an interesting question over the phone today. A woman called the reference desk wanting to know if we were open to the public. She said she wasn't a student from DePaul.
"Yes," I replied, explaining that she had access to the books and print journals.
"Do we have access to the wireless as well?"
I had to explain that, like most schools, you need a student ID and password to access the wireless here. I was impressed though by her assumption that wireless was now part of what it means for a library to be "open".
"It's only available for students here," I continued, "but just across the street is the public library and you can use it there no problem."
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Sat, 02/27/2010 - 11:45am.
Bereavement Notice: Harvey the Reference Plant RIP
It is with great sadness that we have learned of the sudden death of Harvey the Reference Plant on February 13th, age 2 weeks. In Harvey's brief association with us, he brightened up the Reference Desk in ways that more puny (and apparently cheaper) plants just couldn't match. We send our condolences to the entire plant world and have reconciled ourselves to the fact that a replacement, in the form of a new bouquet, is on its way.
UPDATE: Stop the presses -- apparently Harvey is not dead! He's a 'bulb' plant and all we have to do is wrap him up and wait till he blooms again. It's a miracle.
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Thu, 02/18/2010 - 8:52am.
It's Official: Plant's Name is Harvey
The People have spoken and 'Harvey' has edged out 'Irene' by 4 tics to 3.
So ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, members of the press, horticulturalists and bibliographers the world over, I give you,
Harvey the Reference Plant
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Thu, 02/11/2010 - 8:17pm.
Plants Are People Too
So we got this enormous plant for the reference desk which looks like it came from the "Little Shop of Horror". It's looking at me all the time and I know it's probably eaten a student or two when my back was turned. So naturally I'm taking a poll among my colleagues to see what we should call it: "Harvey or Irene?"
At this point it's a tie.
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Sat, 02/06/2010 - 4:23pm.
Old Colleague, New Colleague
An old colleague from NYU, Jen Schwartz, just started at DePaul. It's a small world.
