Are You Experienced?

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Eleventh Stack are celebrating Black History Month by highlighting books, music and movies by African American Artists. We also have a ton of great events and programs for children, teens and adults. You can view all of our Black History Month posts here.

“Crap. My paper is due tomorrow, and I looked all over the web, but I still need two more sources.”

“The arguments in my Facebook feed are breaking my brain. Where can I learn more about this stuff without all the nasty comments?”

“I wonder how many people this issue actually affects. Different websites have different numbers — which one is right?”

If you’ve asked questions like these, you know that the web is a great place to start learning about something, but it’s not perfect. Granted, nothing is truly perfect, but it is possible to get your questions answered quickly and easily. All you need is 5 minutes, your CLP Library card and an internet connection.

Skeptical? I don’t blame you. It almost sounds like an infomercial, doesn’t it? Let’s test it out with the African American Experience, one of the online collections the Carnegie Library offers.

Sources Teachers Love 

Let’s say you’re writing a paper about the Black Arts Movement. You’ve found a lot of great websites, but your teacher says you can only use two: everything else has to come from a book, newspaper, magazine, or other print source. You get wrapped up in other stuff (it happens), and suddenly, boom: the paper’s due tomorrow, and the Library is closed. Now what?

Screenshot, The African American Experience – topics section / Black Arts Movement

Now you grab your library card, log into The African-American Experience, select your topic from the main page (helpfully grouped in chronological order), and use the drop-down menu on the side to explore further resources. The best part? Because the information here originally comes from print books/encyclopedias, you’re getting what you need and still following the rules of the assignment. There’s even a correctly-formatted citation at the bottom of each source, should you need one.

Problem solved. Next!

No Fighting, No Trolls

You know how, when certain topics come up, suddenly everybody’s an expert? Opinions get heated, comments get ugly and everybody walks away feeling bad. Wouldn’t it be great to get some information that covers controversial topics in a neutral, facts-based way, without having to sift through thousands of search engine results?

One question some people argue about is whether to say “Black” or “African American” in conversation. The African American Experience tackles questions like these in its “Perspectives” section, using a neutral tone, and discussing the topic in an even-handed way.

Screenshot from the “Perspectives” section of the African American Experience.

Each perspective begins with the key question on the table, then offers, via the drop-down menu, the main facts you’ll need to know followed by several perspectives that look at different sides of the question. If you’re in a hurry, you can jump to the closing, which summarizes the perspectives. Finally, the “Investigate” option takes you to a list of resources—both web and print-based—you can use to dig deeper.

Now that you’ve got an objective view of the question and the way it’s been answered historically, you can decide for yourself what you think without all the drama. And you might even have a great response to Uncle Know-it-All next time he says something ignorant, which you can deliver calmly and confidently.

The Numbers Game

Statistics are always tricky, because they can always be counted in different ways by folks who have different agendas. Still, at some point, you’ve got to decide whose numbers are trustworthy enough to make up your mind. So why not generate them yourself?

CLIOView, a chart-building tool within the African American Experience, lets you arrange and compare raw state data on a variety of topics, such as:

• Number of voters in a given election
• State population during a given time period
• Population living below the poverty level
• Marriage rates

and a lot more!

After clicking on the CLIOView tab, you’ll select which states you want to compare.

Screenshot of CLIOView tool, from The African American Experience.

Next you’ll choose which data sets you want to work with. You can compare up to three categories in multiple states, so your search can be as simple or as complex as you like.

Screemshot, CLIOView tool, The African American Experience.

Once you’ve got your results, you can print them, organized by state or by category. If you need the data to look a little fancier, you can use the Graph tool to create a more attractive design. And if you’re curious about where the raw data comes from, you can click “Sources” to find out. Now your personal curiosity is satisfied, and you know where to go if you ever need those numbers for a presentation or report.

Obviously, using The African American Experience takes a little more of your time than a web search might. But if you’re at the end of your rope and the internet just isn’t delivering, the Library is here for you. Take The African American Experience for a test drive, or ask a librarian to give you a walk-through.

Where do you turn when the internet drives you bananas? Did you know this tool was part of the Library’s online collections? Anything you share will help us help you better, so give us the dirt on the ways you search!

–Leigh Anne

 

Need An Answer? Ask A Librarian: Part I

Last summer I wrote about my early years working at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and how libraries have changed in the 40 years I have worked here. One of the biggest changes that has occurred is in how we provide information services or reference. Access to technology has played an indelible role in that.

Carnegie Library has emphasized reference and information services from its first days. According to Ralph Munn’s History of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh:

The Reference Department was organized in 1895 by Elisa May Willard…by the end of 1905 it contained 66,000 books and 12,000 pamphlets. It was designed as a depository for U.S. government documents. Significant collections of scientific and technical books and journals were begun in 1898. An early report lists (1) members of clubs, (2) men seeking scientific and technical information, and (3) students, in that order, as the principal groups of users.

In the 1930s two telephone booths were added to the General Reference Department so that librarians could take calls from patrons who had questions at work and from home. In the 1950s, newspapers and journals began to be published in microfilm, eliminating the need to keep brittle newsprint or binding them.

Microfilm: it was — and is – a thing. Reproduction of a photograph from the Pittsburgh Photographic Library (all rights reserved).

Special subject divisions were spun off the General Reference Department on the second floor over the years. The Technology Department moved to new space on the third floor at Main in 1909. In the 1930s, Art, Music, and Pennsylvania became separate divisions with only Music and Art also including circulating books with reference materials. Main remained pretty much in this configuration until the 1980s. Central Lending was renamed Popular Library in the 1970s.

For me, after several years on the Bookmobile and a short stint at the Brookline Branch, I was transferred to Main in 1976 as a Library Assistant. I was assigned to the staff of the “Popular Library” where all of Main’s popular circulating books were housed. But half of my time was scheduled to work with the newly established “Telephone Ready Reference Unit.” Because of budget cuts at that time and the loss of about 1/3 of the librarian positions in all Main departments, the thought was to funnel all telephone calls coming to Main for reference assistance to three Library Assistants at the phone line 412-622-3114. Our work area was about 10 ft. x 10 ft. and adjacent to the complete card catalog in the General Reference Department. If we could not answer a question in 3-5 minutes we were instructed to transfer the call to a professional librarian in the subject departments – General Reference, Science & Technology, Music and Art, Pennsylvania, or to the Popular Library.

Reproduced from the 1977 CLP Annual Report. Vickie and Mary in TRRU.

Our role was to identify books, authors, titles and CLP ownership of them. We’d look up basic facts in a core reference book collection of about 150 titles. They included basic encyclopedias, the World Almanac, dictionaries (we had several foreign language dictionaries at hand), business directories, and telephone books from all of the major cities across the USA. (We used these just to look up addresses. We were only allowed to look up phone numbers on the occasion of a telephone operator’s strike). We answered many questions about grammar and quotations, government offices, personnel and statistics, movie stars and films, people, popular and world cultures and sports. During the day, we had most calls from companies, news reporters, and secretaries and after school and in the evenings it was students with homework needs. Readers of all ages called at all times if they were looking for books they were interested in.

It was fun work and challenging. To be good at this job you really had to have a broad general knowledge and an interest in popular culture and current events. And you had to love to read – read fiction and non-fiction and love to read about books and reviews. If you already knew the answer, you had a head start in using the print tools in looking up the answer to verify a source quickly and efficiently. Mary, Vickie and I, the intrepid first three LAs, fulfilled this job to a T. And for CLP, by relying on TRRU to answer the easy questions, the subject librarians had time to develop new computer skills like searching commercial, fee-based indexes like the New York Times Database, DIALOG, ORBIT and others. They learned the principles of Boolean searching (the use of the and / or statements). The databases required an in-depth reference interview to refine the query, and while expensive to use database searching was often a big time saver.

When Bob Croneberger became Director in 1986, his feeling was that there was so much information being generated in the world, library customers would be best served by subject specialists rather than generalists.  So we restructured Main and divided the Popular Library and General Reference into the Humanities and Social Sciences Departments.  I had been going to Pitt’s Library School at night to get my Master’s Degree so that I could become a librarian.  I did in 1980, and worked for 6 years at Main as the Young Adult Librarian.  Then, I was honored to be selected the first Head of the Social Sciences Department as we transitioned from General Reference.  And part of that job was supervising Ready Reference!   By the mid 1980’s the Library had its first online public access catalog.  Now, not only could we look up a book to tell if CLP owned it, we could tell if it were at Main, at a branch library, and if it might be out circulating.  This was a boon to the customer because if they needed a book quickly, they could call in advance before driving to a location armed with hope alone.

Around this time we introduced CD-ROM databases. In addition to paying to have access remote research databases online, we purchased reference databases that were updated monthly as new CD-ROM was sent. Initially these databases were just indexes to journal articles, but gradually over the next 10 years full text articles were included for each search. Students could now come, spend some minutes entering search terms and get complete article print-outs as a result, instead in spending hours poring over the Readers’ Guide, Essays & General Literature Index, and the Applied Science and Technology index to identify articles that met their research needs, then sending requests for journal titles to the closed stacks or Microfilm, reading the articles and taking notes on 3” X 5” index cards or photocopying articles to read at home. Boom – what had taken 3-4 hours at the library to do, now took one hour or less. The convenience was amazing.

Over the next ten years library resources continued to change.  In 1995, in time for the 100^th anniversary of CLP,  Social Sciences and the Music & Art departments were at long last renovated.  At this time we introduced public access workstations to access the catalog and the internet for the public and the staff.  The life of the reference librarian was transformed overnight. Web based searching was available and individuals, companies, organizations, government, universities and libraries, and publishers of all types began to put free content up on their hastily produced websites.  By 2000, things were changing again.

All rights reserved to Pew Research Center

 

Main Library department’s reference statistics counts peaked at 1,145,567.  More individuals had access to personal computers at work and at home.  During that question bubble we answered many questions that instructed folks on how to find information on the World Wide Web by themselves. Richard and Melissa taught classes on searching the Web.  And soon users were finding their own answers to the easy questions.

That’s a lot to ponder, and there is more to come. In “Ask A Librarian – Part II” I will describe the reference revolution from 2000 to today.

–Sheila

How I Spent the Morning

Every so often it takes something a little out of the ordinary to recharge the Reference skills. I’ve been filling in this week answering the E-mail reference questions for Tom, who’s on vacation.  Here’s a smattering of what I’ve responded to and in some cases, had to dig for over the last two days. By the way, this service is available for all of you; just e-mail us at info@carnegielibrary.org.

“Love your E-books now that we’ve figured out how to get them, how can we do the same for your e-video content?”

So, I needed to re-familiarize myself with the video offerings in E-CLP, make the acquaintance of Overdrive Media Console, and look over the Overdrive video offerings. What my narration is leaving out is that I’m responding to the user with instructions of “go here”, “click this”, “download and install that”, “go back to this page” and another dozen directions and answers in their original question. Hopefully they were able to jump in and successfully connect all the parts.

“I’d like some information on building and financing a home from scratch.” “I need to know how to find a contractor and sub-contractors, an architect, how to get a mortgage for it, and what else I might need to know.”

My initial response was straight out of the classroom; use the catalog. After some keyword searching to find an appropriate title, I latched onto the following subject heading –  House construction — Amateurs’ manuals – to build the user a healthy selection of reading material.  That should at least cover the planning and contractor stages.  Since I don’t know where she wants to build, I referred her to the City’s Bureau of Building Inspection and the city’s General Guide to Permitting for additional information.  I also informed her that if she was building outside the city, that she’d need to contact the municipality where she wants to build.  Finally I referred her to the local banks, and even real estate agents to find out about the financing for owner built construction, assuming the books I’d referred her to earlier wouldn’t address financing in a local fashion.

“Thank you for the confirmation, I am interested in finding out if any newspaper articles or sports magazines have the line score or box scores for the game for possible recreation of that game? In the microfilms of newspapers for that day can you possibly find out the weather report for Aug.5, 1921? Or do you know of a weather report history site?”

This has been one of our favorite questions, covering several iterations over a few weeks. This originated as an inquiry (the user was referred to us by the Baseball Hall of Fame) into whether there was a recording or transcript of the August 5th, 1921 Pirates game against the Phillies (aka the Quakers in the newspaper articles.)  This game was the first baseball game to ever be broadcast over the radio, by Pittsburgh’s KDKA.  After looking through our Reference Services and PA Dept. resources, and inquiries with KDKA and the Heinz History Center the sad conclusion is that none of us had a record of the broadcast.

To answer the followup questions, I fell back on the tools of a scoundrel, and found a reservoir of historic box scores by searching Google.  My search came up with www.baseball-reference.com, and any box score you could possibly imagine.  I then backed it up with making sure one was available in the newspapers if she wanted.  I spent some additional time in Microfilm viewing the August 6th, 1921 Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, one of the predecessor titles to the current PG.  Besides the box score I also looked at the previous day’s weather, but it was pretty sparse. It gave the high for the day, and that it was cloudy (big surprise there).  Could I find a better answer?

Squirreled away in our closed shelving are about 50 very dark and gritty Original Monthly Record of Observations at Pittsburgh, PA of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau.  Each volume corresponds to a given year, running from 1875 through 1927 or so.  Each month has four pages dedicated to it; two daily recordings at 8am and 8pm, a daily log of minimum and maximum temps, precipitation and details about hail, snow, etc.  The fourth page for each month is a calculation of the mean air pressure, temperature, wind, precipitation and … “Miscellaneous Phenomena” which include high winds, solar and lunar halos, fog, haze, and smoke. Having found the 1921 journal I was able to confirm that the day was seasonably warm, mid 60s and clear in the morning, 80s and cloudy that night.  I also informed the user that she could either request photocopies of the newspaper pages through ILL at her library, or directly from us.

Obviously not all the questions have such promise. There are the requisite “Is my card expired?” and declamations of perfidy on the part of our bookdrops.  But I will leave you with one last question that I ended up referring to our colleagues at the Downtown & Business Library.

“I am trying to find out the dividend reinvestment price for XYZ Corp, from 1995 to 1999 the period until they merged with Acme Widgets, and then from there the dividend reinvestment price for XYZ Corp until they split in 2005. The help would be much appreciated.”

This called for self-education: I didn’t feel like I knew enough to know whether I should transfer it or not.  I started in the Morningstar Investment Research Center, one of our business databases.  It gave me an introductory explanation in one of the investor discussion forums.  It turns out that a dividend reinvestment price is a different way to calculate a stock’s price (per share) when dividends are automatically reinvested in the same stock.  After some more investigating I determined that there is no register of DRP the way there is for regular stock prices (along with splits and dividend payout dates) but rather it’s something that the investor needs to calculate on their own (isn’t this why Providence invented Accountants?)  However, to cover my bases I did refer the question to Downtown & Business. Our colleague Scott provided the following response to the inquiry.

Dear Mr. Q. Public:

We can provide you with stock prices for specific dates and dividends paid by XYZ Corp. during the period your question mentions, but the Dividend Reinvestment Price is something you will need to calculate yourself. Check this site for a handy calculator:
http://www.buyupside.com/calculators/dividendreinvestmentdec07.htm

There is also a fee-based service that might be of some help:
http://www.netbasis.com/start-now/

As you know, on 5/1/1999 XYZ Corp. merged into Acme.  Shareholders got 1.085 shares of Acme Class B for each share of XYZ Corp. common stock held.  In terms of stock prices, we can furnish you with year-end prices for XYZ Corp. (trading as Acme Class B) for the years 1998 – 2005:

12/31/2005
Acme sheds XYZ Corp.; shareholders of Acme Cl. B received .5 shares of XYZ Corp. Class B common and .5 shares of Acme Inc. (New) Cl. B common.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance to you.

I couldn’t have said it any better.  This does indicate though, not everything is available on the Internet, and not everyone’s needs are best met using digital means.

– Richard

Curiosity/Satisfaction: Notes From A Reading Life

“‘curiosity killed the cat.’ A very familiar proverb that seems to have been recorded only as far back as the early 1900s. Perhaps it derived somehow from the much older (late 16th century) care killed the cat, but there is no proof of this thus far.” — The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed.

I

I am a mediocre poet who lives in a city of very good poets, some of whom sit next to me at the reference desk on a regular basis.  Despite my inability to craft a suitable sonnet or a voluptuous villanelle, I find myself drawn again and again to the poetry section; if I cannot create this particular brand of magic, I can, at least, drown myself in it, hoping I will gain something from repeated dunks.  Gills, maybe.  A mermaid’s tail.

So, too, I devour David Orr’s Beautiful and Pointless.  It’s a guidebook for the uninitiated, everybody who fears that s/he’s just not cool enough for poetry.  Orr’s essays soothe me, make me snicker; who knew the New York Times‘s poetry critic could be so darned frank and funny?  I want to give this book to everyone who has ever felt they weren’t smart enough to read or write poetry, so we can tear down our misconceptions and misgivings together, start all over again.

“As everyone knows, all the best poets eat at Taco Bell,” Orr assures me. I smile, and believe him.

II

Vampires are sooooo ’97 (by which, of course, I mean 1897).  It is, however, hot, and a little fluffy fiction would not be amiss.   I pick up By Blood We Live and fall into a plush, posh, well-written collection of short stories culled from masters of the horror genre.  Neil Gaiman and Stephen King are here, and rightly so.  There are, however, many new-to-me authors, such as Barbara Roden, Nancy Holder, Carrie Vaughn.  Gleefully I scribble authors and titles into my to-read notebook, marveling at how one good short story anthology can lead to hours of further entertainment and discovery.

III

Because I’m usually reading multiple books at once, serendipitous moments frequently pop up.  I learn, for example, that both Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife and Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City contain tiger symbolism.  One is telegraphed, the other covert; both are delightful surprises.  It is, however, Obreht’s interweave of medicine and magic, nested as it is in a narrative reminiscent of those cunning Russian dolls-within-dolls, that keeps my attention.  As much as I pity Lethem’s tiger, I have far less sympathy for his wealthy, indolent characters, and I cannot wait a few hundred pages for their redemption, no matter how well-written and charming they are.

I parcel out Obreht’s novel slowly, in paragraphs, to make it last longer.  The delicious suspense is killing me, but I do not want this book to end.  I will probably stay up late to finish it the night before it is due, imagining the impatient toe-tapping of everyone else on the waiting list.  “Relax,” I want to tell them.  “It’s worth it.  You’ll love this.”  Like a mother reassuring her children that the long night’s sleep before Santa will, most assuredly, be worth it in the morning.

IV

My best friend and I are getting pedicures; I have never had one, so I’m a little embarrassed about my feet.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that they are the ugliest feet ever seen in North America, so to hide my embarrassment over what I’m convinced will be inevitable ridicule and banishment from the spa, I turn to the table next to me, grab a random book and hide behind it, mortified.

Said book turns out to be I Love Your Style by Amanda Brooks.  It’s a how-to-dress guide for those of us who could use a little help, fashion-wise, and  unlike other books in this oeuvre I’ve furtively glanced at, the author actually appears to be on my side.  Rather than foisting a list of dos and don’ts on the hapless reader, Brooks gently makes suggestions about how you can create your own signature look based on what makes you feel pretty.  My reservations about this whole girlie-girl thing lift somewhat.

As I flip through the pages, I read random tidbits to my more stylish friend, who listens indulgently.  “Look, minimalism is TOO a style,” I crow, pointing to pictures of the black-clad, no-nonsense Sofia Coppola.  An hour later, purple polish drying, I teeter home on flip-flops and verify that I can indeed check this book out of the library.  Haute couture, for the win.

V

Curiosity killed the cat; satisfaction, they say, brought that cat back.  However, I am still sifting through the murky backwaters of the internet–and kicking up heaps of dust in print resources–trying to find a derivation for this phrase that will satisfy the librarian part of my brain.  This chunk of grey matter insists, despite our brave new content-creation world, that there are still certain standards for what is true in any given situation.  A bunch of people on the web saying something is true does not necessarily make it so.

[And yet, I have, as of right now, nothing better to go on, and precious little time to devote to what is currently a matter of interest to me and me alone.  Then again, if somebody should call the reference department tomorrow and want to know “the truth” about the origin of this phrase, I would have a reason to go on.  Hint hint.]

On a grander scale, curiosity is what brings us to the written word, and satisfaction is what brings us back. We read for all sorts of reasons: to lose ourselves, to learn new things, to kill boredom or its variants, which include “time in airports” and “waiting in line at the coffee shop.”  We read to satiate our hunger to know, even if it kills us, the things we do not know.  We come back, again and again, because the only thing knowledge truly kills is ignorance, and the satisfaction we feel–learning the facts, exploring the new subject, discovering the unfamiliar genre–is more than enough to counterbalance any pain that takes place during the process.

What are you curious about today?  What brings you back to the library, again and again?

–Leigh Anne

If Google Vanished

Hypothetical speculation is a fun sport most people like to indulge in from time to time.  Some of us, for example, like to argue about who would win in a fight between a grizzly bear and a wolverine (or, Wolverine, or The Wolverine Brigade).  Others debate the comparative greatness of various sports heroes, dead presidents, or Mexican artists.  The only limits to the game are your creativity and imagination.

Library workers, being a special kind of nerdy, often consider scenarios like this one:

Google buys every major search tool and is then shut down as a monopoly, and in the same week Wikipedia goes bankrupt. Choose three freely available websites as the best starting points for the widest possible range of inquiries.

–Joseph Janes in I’m Sorry, You’re Out

Never ones to resist a challenge,  your crack team of information mavens here at Main Library pondered the question, then came up with the following list of web resources we would use to help answer your questions, in the event of Googlepedia apocalypse.

About.com
Short introductions to every topic under the sun.

Allmusic
An all-purpose music, movies and gaming portal.

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Research Databases
Free to you, because we paid for it!

Delicious
A searchable collection of popular links people like you found useful.

Encyclopedia Britannica
A notable name in encyclopedias opens up its treasury of goodness.

The Internet Movie Database
Titles, actors, roles and more, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Instructables
Visual and verbal guides for doing and making just about anything.

IPL2
The Internet Public Library married The Librarians’ Index to the Internet! This is their baby.

Medline Plus
The National Library of Medicine tackles all your health dilemmas.

The QuestionPoint Ready Reference Wiki
Jam-packed with useful links, assembled by librarians.

Refdesk.com
A useful, diverse, all-purpose search portal.

Reference.com
Dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and a translator. Mighty!

TV Tropes
Specialized wiki for TV themes and concepts.

USA.gov
An excellent starting point for credible info on U.S. Government services.

WorldCat
Find books in libraries all over the world, or close to home.

Most of the sites mentioned here can already be found via the library’s Ready Reference Links Page, so feel free to bookmark it, or save it as a “favorite” in your browser — it contains a number of other neat and useful sources, too, like Weather Underground and GetHuman.

When do Google and Wikipedia work for you?  Where do they fall short?  What are your favorite free web resources?  Nerdy information herders want to know!

–Leigh Anne

Library Reflections

“Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library.  The only entrance requirement is interest.”

—Lady Bird Johnson

With all the attention libraries have received in recent months, I have been thinking back on decades behind the reference desk.  I arrived at a time when paper books were the norm.  Many of the books we used to answer people’s questions didn’t even have indexes, so we perused their contents page by page.  Experienced staff laboriously created and maintained homemade records, clipping, indexing, and filing, while passing on wisdom orally to younger generations. Smaller libraries, with limited collections, had to call even to find out if we had a particular title on the shelf.

The internet, of course, has changed the very nature of the reference process. People are able to do more basic research at home–including students with full-text access to many magazine articles. As in the past, reliability of resources must be considered and librarians are turned to for help in answering more complex problems, or for recommendations.

Today, as more and more experienced librarians retire, we are encouraged that a new generation of energetic, technically-minded and enthusiastic young people are choosing the profession.  One day, in the all-too-near future, I shall walk out the door for the last time to begin the final phase of my life.  When that happens, I shall take with me the memory of many fine co-workers over the decades and an amazement at the human mind’s endless questioning and desire to know.

To quote Samuel Johnson, “Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.”

–Patience

Beautifully Bound: Greetings from the 10th Stack

Waiting for the elevator can be fun if you have a library to explore. For example, last week I was stuck on the 10th stack with a box of DVD cases when I noticed the intricately decorated covers in our Dewey reference collection.

This is why I always look under book jackets.

The 10th stack is closed to the public and all of the books listed below are reference – so you can look at them here in the library, but you can’t take them home with you.

If you’d like to see these books in person, visit the glass display case in the Main library’s second floor hallway this month. And if you’d like to see any other books from our closed stacks (floors not open to the public), just ask and we’ll happily dig them out for you.

These citations are pulled directly from the catalog, with little regard for either APA or MLA guidelines (as many of these books predate those styles). But still, they’re historic. So it’s okay!

Another book of verses for children  edited by E.V. Lucas ; illustrations by F.D. Bedford.

Aztecs of Mexico; origin, rise and fall of the Aztec nation, by George C. Vaillant.

Badminton on the outside, cricket on the inside.

Chess novelties and their latest developments, with comparisons of the progress of chess openings of the past century and the present not dealt with in existings works.  Bird, H. E.

Cricket, by A.G. Steel and the Hon. R.H. Lyttelton, with contributions by A. Lang, W.G. Grace, R.A.H. Mitchell, and F. Gale.

The fifteen decisive battles of the world, from Marathon to Waterloo, by Sir Edward Creasy.

Film daily year book of motion pictures.

Half-lengths, by the Right Hon. George W. E. Russell.

The quaint comedy of love, wooing and mating : songs, lyrics, ballads and verses : an English, Scottish and Irish anthology.  edited by Duncan and August MacDougall.

Film Daily Year Books, 1945 - 1952.

The romance of the Rhine, by Charles Marriott; with sixteen illustrations in colour, by W. H. Y. Titcomb.

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,  rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald with drawings by Edmund J. Sullivan.

Southern India, painted by Lady Lawley, described by F.E. Penny.

A thousand and one gems of poetry. Selected and arranged by Charles Mackay.

That one new sticker does stand out a bit, doesn't it?

And remember – waiting for the elevator doesn’t have to be boring.

– Amy

Who needs a librarian?

A lot of people consider me their personal librarian, the same way many people have accountants, mechanics, and even agents.  “Who needs a librarian?” you might ask me.  “You do,” I must reply. 

 

Friends and family ask me these kinds of questions all the time:

 

“Bonnie, I want to check out books from my library, but I don’t know how to get a library card.”

 

“Bon, my eighth grade social studies class is studying the Eastern Hemisphere and I need to find an age-appropriate fiction book for them.  Do you have any suggestions?”

 

“Bonstance, I need a new book to read–what do I read???”

 

“Bobo, I have to find articles for a paper I’m writing for grad school—how can I find scholarly articles for my research?”

 

“Honey, I owe the library 37 dollars, but want to check out some books—how can I do that?”

 

You see, knowing a librarian is great for a lot of things, I think.  We help you find great books to read, we counsel you in your research, we give you tips on how to best use the internet, as well as guide you to the most user-friendly, most trustworthy books and websites to use for your specific needs. 

 

“But I don’t know any librarians,” you reply tearfully.  “Don’t cry,” I reply.  “Go down to the local library and introduce yourself to a smiley librarian.  Tell them what you need.  They will help you.  Shy?  Call a librarian on the phone.  Really shy?  Send a librarian an email or chat with one online.  We want to help you.  Empowering you is our passion.”

 

And the answer to the last question?  “Return your books and pay your fines, Grandma.”

 

–Bonnie

Just another manic Monday?

The Monday morning blues – hardly anyone’s immune to them, even if you happen to have the best career on the planet.  Weekends can be so much fun, it’s hard to shake off the recreational vibes and get back to business.  Maybe you went bowling this past weekend, or attended a cultural event. Either way, it’s time to get your head back in the game, and you’re just not feeling it. What’s a conscientious, career-minded person to do?

Taking a career quiz could be fun, but possibly risky. Better play it safe and grab a book for later. There is always, of course, coffee, which you can both read about and drink at the library; we’d appreciate it if you’d keep the beverages on the ground floor, but feel free to read anywhere you’d like.

The novel that’s chasing my blues away this rainy Monday morning is A. S. Byatt’s Possession. Some of you may have already seen the film: two scholars discover that the 19th-century poets on whom their work focuses conducted a passionate, clandestine affair; this discovery then leads to scholarly chicanery and deception, among other things. The novel will really sing to folks who enjoy the satire of David Lodge, but for me, the attraction lies in the letters exchanged by the two poets. Brimming with life and vigor, they depict the gradual, tantalizing courtship of two kindred souls, and it’s enchanting to watch their correspondence evolve from decorous niceties to passionate familiarity.

Say, there’s an idea: why not take a break from the hectic corporate pace and investigate the lost art of letter-writing? And do let us know if you’d like some help.

–Leigh Anne

What a difference a day makes…

Every day’s a special day to someone, for some reason. Many authors, including Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, have used the chronological framework of one “normal” day to capture the incandescent moments that make up even the most ordinary of lives. Clarissa throws a party. Leopold goes for a walk. And yet, under the surface of these simple situations, the extraordinary is brewing.

If you’re having a hard time finding anything special about March 18th, keep in mind that any given day is usually somebody’s birthday.  In this particular instance, it’s a cake-and-candlefest for Queen Latifah, John Updike, and Grover Cleveland, to name just a few of the multiple celebrants. Why not bake a cake in somebody’s honor?

March 18th is also Flag Day in Aruba and National Biodiesel Day. On a chilly pre-spring day in Pittsburgh, who wouldn’t want to spend some time daydreaming about Aruba? And since biofuels are a timely topic, why not browse the catalog to learn more?

Twenty-four little hours can mean different things to different people, but regardless of what meaning you attach to it, you cannot help but find something wondrous in your day if you’ll only look. Don’t believe me? Flag down a reference librarian and ask for a peek at Chase’s Calendar of Events, the source of today’s trivia tidbits.  Better yet, keep your eyes open as you walk down the street, and expect a miracle. Who knows what could happen?

–Leigh Anne