Book of the Week: The Seventh Unicorn By: Kelly Jones

This has been an interesting read. My friend let me borrow this book, she found it at the local used book store, which has since moved out of our neighborhood. (Dang!) At first I wasn't too interested in this book. It sat on my dresser for at least 6 months. It's a love story, and normally I really can't take the cheesy love story lit. I find it boorish. But then, after being so incredibly bored with all the work focused reading I have been doing, this looked pretty darn good. So I picked it up brushed off the dust and tossed it in my bag. I read it during my commute.

And it actually was interesting. Kind of exciting, and then almost too much so. It seems like in parts to be written almost as a soap. You know, jump from one person's story to the next, all sequential of course. So that bothered me a bit, but not as much as I expected. Still it was a nice quick read and the discussions about tapestry art was a nice break.

This book's setting is France. The main characters were college lovers that have reconnected by chance. She is an art curator. He is an art prof that resigned to find himself artistically. He has a fiance that he leaves behind in the States while he spends the summer in Paris. He comes across this old lover and they become involved professionally. It is rather charming to read about those butterfly feelings one gets for another.

I was very drawn to the historical stories and the path of time as the plot was developed. I'm inclined to read another book by this author.

Weirdos at night

I just had a student here telling me about a "deranged looking" person that came to the library over the weekend. The person sat at the computer next to the student and proceeded to look up chemical weapons on the Internet. The person eventually left but freaked out a few students. Granted this is the student's side of the story, and it most likely was a biomed grad student that found its way out of the lab for a moment to pass some time, but I wonder if was just a standard oddball. So far there have been no other complaints reported about strange research projects on the public terminals.

CINAHL Trivia

In the 1940s Ella Crandall, Mildred Gradbois and Mollie Sittner began indexing articles from English language nursing journals on 3x5 cards.

To think that CINAHL began so simply is incredible. After that initial step of indexing their idea grew and the world of nursing changed. Healthcare professionals everywhere use this database and I can see why it became a hit. These innovative librarians saw a patron need and created a way to serve that need. Aren't librarians grand? Now that's why I love this profession. I may not be creating incredible world changing databases, and may never, but if I can serve a patron fulfilling the need then that is success.

Easy, Killer

I was just assisting a graduate student with the crazy multi-step way to access our online journal collection. We seriously need a better way..... Anyhow, he wanted a particular article and was not sure how to determine where or even how to get the article. He presumed that we did not own the journal, it's a medical journal, why would we have it, right?

Oh they can be enlightened.

I began the lesson of how to search. From that point he asked about his options of getting articles from journals we do not have access to quickly. As I began to describe one way, a colleague strolls over to offer her advice about the whole situation. She notices that on my screen I selected a journal that we do in fact have a subscription to and proceeds to tell the young man that he doesn't need to bother about the other library or those other options I mentioned because we can get that article.

Blah, blah blah. Don't waste your time. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Just print it out. Blah, blah, blah. I'm the master of reference.....Don't listen to this other lady.....Blah, blah, blah,blah.

I shut up, turned to my screen like a shamed child, and let her talk to the patron taking over the moment. Because, you know, that will keep me looking less like a jerk when I have to tell him the truth about how to get the goods after she leaves. Oh yeah and the fact that she has not stepped foot in that library, nor does she have any idea about the place, shoulda been a big clue too. You see, I do not believe in correcting (loudly correcting) my colleagues in front of EVERYONE in the lobby. You know, it has something to do with keeping up appearances, keeping the patron's faith in your abilities. I prefer that we should make the patrons feel like they can ask us for help and know we can assist them. By correcting another librarian, in a "I know better" way does not encourage patron trust. Don't get me wrong. We can all learn from each other. It just helps to know the whole situation before jumping to conclusions. And not to be so arrogant.

Okay. Here are my lessons of the day.

When you, the super awesome librarian, roll in the library after a big meeting and begin to Bogart a patron from a (younger) colleague please keep in mind a few things:

1. If you just walked into the middle of a conversation, you will definitely miss the context, don't try the 'save the day' approach, this will only make you appear more like an over-eager ass.

2. Due to #1 you would not understand why I happened to choose said journal.... Because maybe, it's one that I know for a fact that other library gets electronically so that I could demonstrate how he could access it online at the other library because duh, I'm answering the first question he asked, the one you missed since you were not here. (And by not being here you also missed the part about him indicating that his apartment was closer to that library and he wanted to know if going there on a day without his car would be a reasonable option.)

3. When you are trying too hard to come off as the suave know-it-all seasoned reference librarian you end up looking like an ass barging in on a conversation. Don't try to look like a big dope, there are other less embarrassing ways for you to invest your time on.

4. Doing this over and over will only make us younger librarians (or newbies) want to stay clear of you and cause further alienation of the staff. Because we know that to you it's more important to be the know-it-all-colleague rather than the let-me-help-you-learn-colleague.

5. Learn to trust the younger librarians...Sure we're young and not incredibly experienced but we too can help patrons. Really, we don't always need to hold your hand.

I think I feel better now......I need to take a walk.