Disqus - Latest Comments for eclecticlibrarian

Re: Pug Art: Go snag it!

Anna Creech — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 15:33:42 -0000

I wish you had used something like "patronus" rather than "spirit animal" here. See also: https://hereiomania.wordpre...

Re: Librarians criticize Greta Van Susteren after 'vanity projects' comments

Anna Creech — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:07:46 -0000

Often times the library is one of the oldest buildings on campus. As anyone who has headed a renovation project can tell you, this may mean a very expensive renovation with limited outcomes. Sometimes a new building is necessary to have the infrastructure of a modern library, with accessible and plentiful power outlets, and walls that do not block wifi signals.

While many books are now in electronic format, numerous studies have shown that students (and faculty) still prefer print books for long-form scholarly reading. Journal articles, on the other hand, can't get digitized fast enough. Today's higher ed library is straddling both worlds, and needs to have the space to do that.

Re: Car crashes into Westhampton Lake on snow day

Anna Creech — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 21:32:51 -0000

That was not a blizzard. It was a snowstorm, yes, but a gentle one without the high winds that differentiate a snowstorm from a blizzard.

Re: 01/22/2015

Anna Creech — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:10:20 -0000

I take a few vitamin/mineral supplements per my doctor's recommendations, but multivitamins are pretty much useless, and they make me nauseous, too (not just because they're old).

Re: Open Thread Wednesday: What Software Do You Refuse to Update?

Anna Creech — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 09:12:51 -0000

iTunes on my Windows machine. I made the mistake of updating the one on my Mac, and while I've adjusted there, I didn't want the same hassle in Windows.

IrfanView is my favorite light image viewer/editor. I had to find an older version (4.28) to get it to function the way I expect after making the mistake of installing the newest one.

Re: That’s the spirit: A guide to sustainable liquor

Anna Creech — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:07:17 -0000

I wish your "guide" included lists of sustainably sourced booze by type, rather than just a sermon about how everyone should research every drop that passes their lips if they really care about sustainability.

Re: Movin' House!

Anna Creech — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:56:04 -0000

Hey, um, so... the RSS feed for Drive is full of Sheldon. Also, the image for the RSS feed for Drive on the Drive website is just an image and doesn't appear to link to the feed.

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

Anna Creech — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:04:20 -0000

Yes, but it fits the trends I'm seeing in both vendor/publisher business models and legal decisions surrounding intellectual property.

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

Anna Creech — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:04:52 -0000

I think it's mostly Silo with some Phantom.

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

Anna Creech — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:01:50 -0000

Twilight had enough promotion during the talk. I didn't want to add to it. ;)

Re: ER&L 2013: Overcoming Librarian Resistance to Adopting Discovery Tools — A Focus on Information Literacy Opportunities

Anna Creech — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:52:08 -0000

Well, we're in the process of implementing Summon now, so I guess I'm more enthusiastic about them than I was then. I don't think it's going to be the ultimate solution, but I do think it's a huge improvement over searching a single interdisciplinary database or relying on federated search tools. We do have more buy-in from the instruction librarians than we did at first, so I'm more hopeful that this won't be a waste of time and money.

Re: Five Ways to Use Flickr to Make Better Slides

Anna Creech — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:54:21 -0000

I like using Compfight to search for Creative Commons photos on Flickr. It's fast, and generally limits results to the more popular images. This is useful for weeding out lower quality images.

Re: Parsec Nomination Promo Request

Anna Creech — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:17:21 -0000

Dave, I just sent you an email. Let me know if you didn't get it.

Re: Lessons learned from wrestling with a MOOC

Anna Creech — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:18:42 -0000

I was taking the same course, but I had to withdraw before I got to week 2's work, since that week was already almost over and I'd barely completed week 1. What I learned from it is that with a full-time job and a robust non-work life, I don't have time to teach myself in addition to watching the lectures, so if the content isn't covered there, I'm going to be sunk. There may be value to being thrown into the deep end of the pool, but only if one is able to (or willing to) invest the additional time not calculated by the instructor or the course designer.

I still want to learn some basics about R, so I've been going through the lessons for Code School's "Try R" (http://tryr.codeschool.com/), and I find the hands-on approach to be much more instructive. I'm doing what I'm being taught soon after I'm told why I need to know it (I'm not going to retain information very well unless I know it's important), and at the end of every section, I'm given a task that requires synthesizing what I've just learned. This has been a much better learning environment for me than hours of lectures followed by assignments and quizzes that require even more hours of self-teaching to complete.

Re: Missy Higgins dates a koala in "Hello Hello" video: watch it here -- EXCLUSIVE

Anna Creech — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 08:08:24 -0000

Particularly since Missy has been hitting the airwaves in the US for more than 4 years, and Gotye is just the latest flash in the pan.

Re: NASIG 2012: Managing E-Publishing — Perfect Harmony for Serialists

Anna Creech — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:17:26 -0000

I remember her saying something about it, but I didn't capture that part of the talk. Just went back and looked at the slides, and it seems they can provide stats for the journal creators but not the subscribers.

Re: resolutions and all that

Anna Creech — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:36:08 -0000

I've been listening to a lot of audio in the car lately (as noted in my post, four of the books I read last year were audio), as I drive around town. My commute is all of 10 min, and for a long time I thought I didn't have need for an audiobook. Nonfiction seems to work best for being able to stop and start with my short drives here and there.

Re: TERMS #5: Annual Review

Anna Creech — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:32:44 -0000

"Reporting on return on investment of archive packages and other
one off purchases can also be built into the annual review. Although
these resources may have been the result of a one off purchase, they
still need to be reviewed annually to check the return on investment in
order to see how long it takes for the archive to match the subscription
cost per download."How do you calculate this? Is the cost of the archive spread out over each subsequent year, which is then used to determine the cost/use for each year? Do the ERMS that exist have the capability to report archive cost/use in this manner, or is it done manually?

Re: Portland State University Workflow for Activation

Anna Creech — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:39:33 -0000

Thanks!

Re: Portland State University Workflow for Activation

Anna Creech — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:55:03 -0000

From about half-way down on that document, there are quite a few acronyms I can't translate. Could you flesh out this workflow for folks outside of PSU? I'm particularly interested in the automation and communication tools that are referenced.

Re: http://blog.untappd.com/post/10844733770

Anna Creech — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:30:55 -0000

Thank you!

Re: reason #237 why JSTOR rocks

Anna Creech — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:52:04 -0000

You make some good points. I don't expect a refund, as what we paid went towards the initial costs of digitizing the content. I tried to make that point above, that it isn't free to create what JSTOR has created. Going forward, I do not expect to or plan to change how I negotiate costs with JSTOR. As far as I'm concerned, this is a public good, and as such, has been partially funded by the public (and private) institutions that use the JSTOR service. We're not buying anything but access.

Re: http://ahartman.tumblr.com/post/8514230451

Anna Creech — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:32:17 -0000

aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh http://theoatmeal.com/comic...

Re: Why We Need Free Public Libraries More Than Ever - Keith Michael Fiels - National - The Atlantic

Anna Creech — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:53:04 -0000

Wow! That sounds awful! Please don't assume this is standard practice for all libraries. The ones I've worked at have had much more reasonable policies. The main thing is that we're sharing the collection, and fines/fees are just there to remind users to be considerate of others. Replacement costs can be high if a book is out of print, but to not accept a found book seems unreasonable.

Re: Parsec Awards Ceremony Details

Anna Creech — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:32:14 -0000

There were a lot of really good nominations this year. And by a lot, I mean more than what we can get through quickly. We hoped to have the finalists posted early last week, if that's any indication. Soon. I promise!