Monthly Archives: March 2010

"85 reasons to be thankful for librarians," and counting

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Reference librarian

I found a fun page I’d like to pass along. It’s a semi-serious list of reasons not only to be thankful for librarians, but to use the library. It also lists reasons to be grateful for all the print materials in the library, as well as the wealth of electronic information it offers. I say semi-serious because of the tongue-in-cheek writing style and because while most of the reasons relate to the real services librarians offer, some don’t. No. 7, for example, is “‘Sexy Librarian’ is still a popular costume at Halloween.” The list appears on a site devoted to college … Continue reading →

How to find titles in an online library catalog

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Some online library catalogs, trying to imitate Google, show only a single search box, which works as a general keyword search. If you want to look up a title, you need to switch to “advanced search,” which is actually less frustrating to use. Google is a search engine, and the online library catalog is a database with multiple indexes. You need a screen that will let you choose which index to search. The better-designed catalogs offer a choice between “title” and “title keyword” search boxes. For “title,” type the beginning of the title, omitting the initial article if any. In … Continue reading →