Organization Monkey

a gift for you

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

what does one geek get another geek for a holiday gift? a customized opml file.

an opml file is a bunch of rss feeds all crammed into one file. you load an opml file into your blog feedreader and, bam, your reader is populated with a bunch of new things to read.

since i can’t give all of you librarian readers a smooch under the mistletoe i am giving you a gift from afar. using the new ticTOCs service, i’ve put together a file of rss feeds of tables of contents from library periodicals that you can download from here (DIRECTIONS: click on link, save file to your desktop as .opml, import into your feedreader). you will probably want to tweak the list of periodicals that i’ve included in the file, and in that case just head over to the ticTOCs site to pick and choose from the journals listed there and create your own opml file. in the meantime, import this list into your feedreader, pour yourself another cup of eggnog and read what your colleagues are writing about.

these are the periodicals i’ve included in the linked opml file:

Advances in Data Analysis and Classification
Biomedical Digital Libraries
Building Research & Information
Collection Building
Ethics and Information Technology
Health Information and Libraries Journal
Information & Management
Information and Computation
Information and Organization
Information Processing & Management
Information Processing Letters
Information Retrieval
Information Sciences
International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics
International Journal of Information Management
International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management
Journal of Classification
Journal of Documentation
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
Journal of Management Information Systems
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Library & Information Science Research
Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services
Library Hi Tech
Library Hi Tech News
Library Management
Library Review
Online Information Review
Performance Measurement and Metrics
Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems
Scientific and Technical Information Processing
Serials Review
Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community
Social Science Information
The Charleston Advisor
The Electronic Library
The International Information & Library Review
The Journal of Academic Librarianship
The Library Quarterly

Posted in articles i'm reading, organization tips, publishers | 2 Comments

celebrity english

Posted on December 18, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

the grammar doctor has not checked in lately on this blog. to make up for lost time, check out a blog called “celebrity english.” it is a fun site that uses statements made by celebrities during interviews and on their own websites to determine if they are speaking english correctly. the site could be snarky but it isn’t; it’s lighthearted and informative. enjoy!

Posted in the grammar doctor checks in | Comments Off

today is Monkey Day!

Posted on December 14, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

today is the annual celebration of all things simian. why monkey day, you ask? the monkey day website responds, “why not monkey day? besides, monkeys make people smile.” i think you will agree that that point is hard to argue. to celebrate, check out this comic i made.

Posted in monkeys/bananas | 4 Comments

ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents Service

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

i started using ticTOCS this weekend since my library doesn’t subscribe to Current Contents Connect (frowny face). i needed something that would keep me current with what’s being published in my field, something as unobtrusive as possible. i registered at the ticTOCS site and did a subject search for “library.” this retrieved 56 titles. i selected all the titles, exported them as an opml file, imported them into my google reader and started reading. as i find an article i want to read i can click on the link and be connected to the full text if my institution subscribes to the journal. those that aren’t subscribed i can request through interlibrary loan. i figure that i’ll probably delete some of the titles as i find the articles not relevant for my interests but in the meantime i’m reading everything to get a better sense of what’s being published on the whole for my field.

let me know if you want help with any of the technical steps to get this service into your feedreader. it is a goldmine of a way to stay current with the literature in our field in a very quick way. i should note that you don’t have to register to use the service, but you’ll need to if you want to save your customized list of titles.

Posted in articles i'm reading, organization tips | 3 Comments

topic index of the program of the AAA

Posted on December 4, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

a quick look at the american anthropological association’s (aaa) topic index for their latest annual conference presentations has me on the floor laughing. a topic index usually organizes key words in alphabetical order and points the reader to the pages in the text where those key words may be found. the aaa must have asked presenters to provide key words and created the index directly from those words, without looking to see if there were slight variations that could have been combined into one term. they even decided to keep the misspellings! here are a few samples pulled from the index:

activism
activisms

art
artist
arts

conumdrum of interpretation

food, nutrition, health [this was entered as one index term]

politcs

wellbeing
well-being

the point of an index is that it should be helpful. the aaa index of presentations is not helpful, but it sure is funny! i could continue to poke fun at this thing, but really, the aaa should get their act together. they’re a professional organization and should honor the work of their members by making that work findable in their publications.

a quick search on the internet points to many links to instructions on how to create an index. i found a particularly good one by a technical writer at how to create a usable index (http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2006/10/20/how-to-create-a-usable-index-john-mcghie/).

Posted in organization tips, titter, writing | Comments Off

you’ve got your acquisitions on my collection development!

Posted on December 3, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

no, you’ve got your collection development on my acquisitions! (anybody out there remember this old reese’s commercial?)

an acquisitions department is usually clearly defined from a collection development department, meaning those units act independently in a library. loosely described, a collection development librarian will decide what to purchase because he is familiar with what is being published in a particular area, and the acquisitions librarian places the order, pays for it, and waits by the mailbox until it is received.

at my new place of work these departments work a little more closely than i’ve seen before, with some retention decisions being granted to us in acquisitions. i think some of this has to do with a change in an old policy of retaining important subscriptions in redundant formats. now that we’re moving away from preferring microfilm as our standard archival format in favor of full-text electronic archives, acquisitions is playing a more prominent role in providing pricing information, as well as negotiating licenses and discussing usage statistics.

it’s a comfortable marriage of the two departments in this small library, and i imagine i’ll find more blurring of traditional departmental boundaries as i learn more about the library and its traditions.

Posted in library, management | Comments Off