it's all greek to me

Information Service Questions of the Day

Late this afternoon I received a phone call from a lady requesting books in other languages.
I began to explain to her that we have books in other languages in each of our branches (Community Languages collection), and was there a particular language she was interested in? She said that she was after books in Greek, and did we have a printed catalogue?
I had a sudden visual memory surge of timber draws with metal handles filled with hole punched index cards in the library of my childhood, but I moved on.
I asked if she had internet access at home so she could look at our online catalogue, but she did not.
I said that I would be happy to show her our catalogue when next she is in the library. ('I' being the collective Information Services team because I move across branches with no set routine, so I was suggesting that anyone on our team will be happy to show her).
It is then that she said that she would like the books for her elderly husband, and that she would like a printout to show him the titles as he is unable to come in.
I had searched on 'Greek' and collection: Community Languages by this time and found 7 titles.
Our Community Languages collection is sourced from SLQ.
I said that we could certainly print out a list of seven titles. As I mentioned our source, my customer asked if she could have a printout of their titles. I thought that might be a different thing entirely, especially in its entirety.
She wanted printouts to show her husband at home. She was particulary keen to see if the titles were in English as well as Greek because she does not speak Greek. She did not want to have to keep coming back asking if we had this title or that title.
After contacting Heather (assistant cataloguer who liaises with SLQ for commlang supplies) I got back to the customer with the relevant information in front of me. A quick search on SLQ's commlang collection found 1604 titles in modern Greek fiction and nonfiction.
I suggested she come in to the library so information services staff could show her the search, she could select a range and we could print out a list.
Of course not all of those from the search are available, but we can sift through to discover which of these we can request for our customer.
Generally our library service has a changeover of languages six monthly, but SLQ is open to requests as necessary.
Our customer was pleased and said that she would visit on Friday. She asked if I would be there. Unfortunately not, but I advised her who would be available that day and have sent that staff member details of our search today.
A bit of a heads up too, because we do not at the moment have printer access from that information services point. Our hard drive was just returned after a ritual cleansing, and the KM guy just said we would be able to find the printer name and add - unfortunately no.
I'd checked everything else with him when he was there. Spydus access, network access, email access, clone screening. Just not the printer *sigh*

Letting the customer know that we can provide her with access to a list of Greek books for her husband was a good result for her, and for us as enhancing the usage of our community language resources is one of our kpi targets. Needs to rise 15%.
Today I contributed to literacy satisfaction and percentages. Yay.

I recently worked with Heather to source nonfiction books in the Urdu language for a customer recently arrived from Pakistan. Our Customer Services team is working on providing a suite of information for our new members from Somalia.

Hey Dorothy, we are not in Maryborough anymore...


SLQ's LOTE collection languages: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/file/0009/73638/SLQ_-_LOTE_collections_prefix_-_May2008.pdf

* I also had an enquiry from a gentleman about Indigenous resources. I showed him our collection and mentioned similar collections in the other branches. He was very impressed with the range and how it was organised.
This time a nice memory of Kerry, our Indigenous Resources librarian, came to me. She would have been happy that the collection suited the gentleman.
He had a very cute daughter who wanted chapter books and cookery books. I showed her the way and asked what she liked to cook. "Cakes!" We looked through a few and I read out some mouthwatering cake names. She laughed.
Another good day at the office.

be an information services librarian and make a difference

Darwin's advertising: Reference librarian job description, closes 13 September
Actively participate as a team member and provide outstanding customer service.

Effectively manage reference services and ensure a consistent standard of service delivery across Darwin City Council Libraries.

Fraser Coast's advertising: Information services librarian job description, closes 12 September
The position is responsible for the management and coordination of all functions within the Information & Reference Services section of the Regional libraries. The position is responsible for the organisation, direction and promotion of five (5) discrete operational areas: 1. Reference and information research, 2. Local history, Heritage and Genealogy programs, 3. Community and staff education programs, 4. Statistical monitoring, 5. Cataloguing of specific collections

* and if you're a newgrad or student, participate in the LIS education project survey before 14 September.

librarydayinthelife 1

I'm no. 61 on the list of librarians from various countries participating in round 4 of Librarydayinthelife - where a collection of librarians shout out about their day/week in the library.

I'm Alison and I'm an Information Services Librarian at a public library service in north Queensland. I graduated from Charles Sturt University in April '09 and started my professional job search.

I started out as an assistant in a primary school library in central Queensland, created wordbox4writers, while on the Fraser Coast, and am now in my element as ISL in NQ.

If Librarydayinthelife had been on last week I would have written about the mammoth job of weeding stack NF and stack REF. The week ahead promises a lot of information service with our fabulous public. Welcome to a week in the life of a librarian. Check out the wiki for links to other librarians' days and weeks.

twiharder - audience par-tic-i-pation

orppersephone's photo on fanpop
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/edward-cullen/links/8839864

i came to the twilight series later than most after seeing long lists of people reserving each book from the libraries. usually i don't care for popular fiction, but sometimes i make exceptions, and sometimes i'm pleasantly surprised.
i loved the first book, and steph should have stopped just there - leaving readers wanting more, but she had to go on and the fourth had me laughing out loud. most especially when Bella has the baby and names her Renesmee Carlie after both their mothers and fathers - how soap opera is that?
You know the old soap trick where characters name their child after themselves or the grandparents so the audience can keep track of whose kid it is a year later when it's fifteen and creating havoc? like Brooke + Ridge = Bridget.
i'm not even going to get into the whole argument that's raging everywhere about what a waste Bella is as a female character. there have been stronger, that's for sure.

had a classic information service encounter a month ago - a middle-aged lady came in and plonked twilight down saying she wanted to return it and cancel her reservation for the rest because they were atrocious! she started reading parts aloud and expressed distaste at the whole vampire thing. usually when someone does that they expect the person they're talking to to agree with them, but i couldn't of course.
i laughed with her, and said that while i appreciate that they're not to everyone's taste, i enjoyed them. she saw the funny side. i hope i steered her towards books more to her liking.
okay, enough negative vibes.
i read all of them, and loved every part where edward was written in.
team edward declaration.

so i watched twilight on dvd and was disappointed when it finished. not because it was a great film - if i hadn't read the books i'm sure i wouldn't have followed some of the film. so of course when new moon came out i had to see it along with the rest of the female population of townsville/the world, and it is better than twilight.
it was so like going to a Rocky Horror Audience Participation screening! The funniest was at the last when edward says 'marry me bella' and the screen faded because that was THE END of the movie!! and the whole audience said 'ooooh', as in 'no! don't end now!'. classic.

if you liked the twilight series you may also enjoy other vampire fiction, or the more subtle literary age-old storylines suggested like romeo and juliet or any of its derivatives. send a list!
you could start with the smouldering Heathcliffe in Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
edward cullen, you're a champion of readers everywhere. god bless your soul :)

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libraries are about people

With a nod to the Swiss Army Librarian and his reference question of the week, I'll post about mine.
At one of our library branches a woman enquired if I could assist her to find some information from a newspaper about her father. A tragic event had occurred and I had the feeling that having an article to read would provide the lady with some concrete facts and perhaps some closure. The lady knew the town in which the event occurred, so I looked up Newsbank to get an idea of newspaper names (although I know Newsbank only goes back to 1998).
I contacted the newspaper, asking if they kept microform back a few decades (not supposing that they would) and if their paper was of the same name back in the early 80s. So I would know which newspaper to search in. They emailed back quite promptly with the answer that I had already begun a line of enquiry on - the public library.
I called, asking to speak to the information services librarian or interlibrary loans librarian, but the place was too small to have such staff. The staff member who spoke with me though, was quite happy to help. I explained the request, for a newspaper article from a particular time period (a few days date range) with the lady's father's name. The library staffer told me they held bound copies of the newspaper, checked she had that date, found the article, and said she'd send it right away.
I logged the request through our ILL officer, and the article came in the post today. It was a difficult article to read, knowing what it may mean to the lady requesting it. I wouldn't have felt good about just sending it in the post, or leaving at the desk for her to collect. This was definitely a people issue. She wanted to collect it.
That was hard for both of us, I think, but it certainly felt that I had done something meaningful in my working day. Libraries are about people, and that is a timely message for me to take to our working group next week.