Have A Question? Text A Librarian
Oregon State University and Yale both encourage a convenient, tech-savvy and library-friendly method for students to ask librarians reference questions: The text message.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:
Students text a question to an advertised number during library hours, and an alert appears on the computer screen of any librarian who is signed into the library's instant-messaging service. The librarian uses the computer to send a text message back to the student's cellphone.
Librarians at Oregon State were surprised by the depth of questions they received.
Margaret Mellinger, an assistant professor and engineering librarian at Oregon State, said the library staff expected that students would ask only questions with quick, simple answers. But they were wrong; one of the very first questions was: "What is the function of interneurons?"
A librarian from Yale told the Chronicle that the service is "not very popular." No word on whether or not texts are vetted based on spelling, grammar and readability.
The Creepiest Children's Books Ever (PICTURES)
Cooking with Pooh.
Heh.
I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much
Heh. But why is "My Two Uncles" in here?
The Long Journey of Mr. Poop.
Mr. Poop wears a beret. So Mr. Poop is French?
Cooking with Pooh.
That reminds me of the time that I came running down the stairs shouting that my brother had thrown Pooh out the window, only to find my mother with a quite horrified look on her face.
Binge Britain 1904: The rogues' gallery that shows war on booze is nothing new
Angry, bewildered and shame-faced these Edwardian drunks stare into the lens of the police camera.
They were 'habitual drunkards' whose offences included being caught while in charge of a horse, carriage and even a steam engine.
Issued a century ago, the drunks were given the equivalent of modern-day Asbos in that they were banned from being served in pubs because of their past behaviour.
Other offences included riding a horse whilst under the influence or drink-driving a steam engine.
Each drunkard’s entry includes photographs (front and profile views), their name, alias, residence, employment, physical description, distinguishing marks, nature of conviction and the sentence received.
The detailed description also lists distinguishing marks such as tattoos and scars, and their professions, including prostitutes, ‘bedstead polishers’, ‘hawkers’, and even ‘grease merchants’.
The collection only exists today because the brewery kept hold of them and the Black List has now been published online for the first time by ancestry.co.uk.
Information was compiled by the Watch Committee of the City of Birmingham, which was set up by the police to enforce the Licensing Act of 1902.
The act was passed in an attempt to deal with public drunks, giving police the power to apprehend those found drunk in any public place and unable to take care of themselves.
eta: "bedstead polisher" almost sounds obscene, but it's just what it says.
That's Monsieur Poop to you, buddy!
I think my boss is losing her mind. What is pretty scary is that work nemesis just came to me to tell me that she thinks my boss (who she is really good friends with) is losing her mind. I was non-committal, because work nemesis is totally the type of person who would tell by boss that I think she is losing her mind. I think the problem is that she is really, justifiably angry about a lot of things here and people not taking her seriously as a director of a program, but she gets to this place where everything (me forgetting to do things, IT not solving her problems, etc) gets her really upset and thinking that those things are also about disrespect. And then she ends up sounding a little crazy. She is getting really mixed messages though-- as though the big muckity muck dean is telling her to go ahead and do things, and then the under-deans are being all obstructive, so she has a point. Aargh
Tommy, we do this! [link]
Oregon State University and Yale both encourage a convenient, tech-savvy and library-friendly method for students to ask librarians reference questions: The text message.
Nobody's asked about interneurons yet, but we get 3-4 questions a week. (We get LOTS MORE via IM; texting is new this semester.)
Hockey? Seriously? (A cute pic of a baby hockey fan.)
I would say a good 50% of our IM questions are not from our students and of those, 90% are looking for legal advice or for us to send them a copy of something that we can't (or won't). Many of the student questions boil down to the same thing.
I sort of despise the IM service.
Gronk.
Safe travels, msbelle.
Cutiehed Matilda and kitty.
Abby's spring break doesn't start until Friday, but we're looking forward to it. In-laws are coming in two-and-a-half weeks which means I need to get off my ass and finish the last bits of unpacking. Why is it that the last half-dozen or so boxes are always the ones you dread the most?
