Librarian-in-Excellence: July 2005

Dear Diary,

Fri. July 1st
I read "Innovative Redesign & Reorganization of Library Technical Services" book and journal photocopies left by the head of Technical Services: "New Technologies in the Library" and "100 Colleges Sign Up w/ Google to Speed Access to Library Resources" and "XML & MARC" and "Access to E-Resources" and "NISO's Metasearch Initiative.

I did my first (3) reference requests in a Law Library. Yippee!

Tues. July 5th
I met with the Head of Technical Services about Workflow. I did 1 Reference Request. I read the Research Services Dept. Annual Report from my supervisor, Dwight. My Director was kind enough to pay for me to attend the American Association of Law Librarian's Annual (AALL) Conference. I attended my first ever Colloquium. The topic was the 10 Commandments Statues in Courthouses. http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/27/scotus.ten.commandments/

Wed. 7/6/05
I met with the Technical Services department. I proofed the "In progress" Kresge Law Library Website and looked for comparable sites.

Thurs. 7/7/05
I decided to create a MOCK Webpage for Kresge and show Dwight different designs using animation, sample JavaScript codes available on www.DynamicDrive.com. Margaret Porter asked me to speak at an informational session for 7 Summer Students on "Why I became a Librarian and my Spectrum Scholar Experience" scheduled on Aug. 8th. I emailed the Library of Congress regarding a memo from Justice Robert Jackson to his Law Clerk John Costello 7/10/42.

I was amazed when the Dean of the Law School came to my office and addressed me by name and invited me to walk with her to her car. At my last job, it was highly unlikely that the head of the department would take time out of their day to just chat with lower level employees. I really enjoyed walking with Dean O’Hara to her car. Unfortunately, I got locked out of building.

So most important thing I've learned TODAY is the need to keep your keys and/or your ID with you at all times, especially after 5pm when the library doors lock automatically.

Fri. 7/8
I looked into IFLA, LITA and/or ACRL professional memberships. I did a complete (30 pages) list for Bankruptcy courts & Divisions for a patron. I prepared 15 minutes speech for High School students: "Including how my premature nephew inspired an intense need for consumer health information and was thankful for the medical librarians who helped me, and decided that I wanted to do the same for others. I am also incredibly competitive and just simply don't like people knowing more than I do."

I helped a patron locate CIS for 89th Congress and Serial Set and Committee Prints, which were in separate locations. I reviewed Martindale law directory and Digest for Statutes of Limitations and Lawyer Rankings, both print and online.

Mon. 7/11
Looked for duplicates of donated materials to make sure we do not need to keep it, if we already own it...boxes of donated material. I worked on wording for Access Restrictions for the website. I checked for ND Estate Planning Institute and notified patron. I searched for Legislative Histories of 1954 Tax Code and HR 8300.

Tuesday 7/12 - Thursday July 14th
I redesigned the website and submitted several different layouts that Dwight thought were better and replaced ND information on those websites, 10 different selections. Compared icons, legends and formats of similar libraries. Attended presentation of Serial Acquisitions Candidate Began a couple of articles to submit for publication to versed by Aug. 1st deadline. Lunch with Margaret Porter and the former Resident, Jessica.

Fri. 7/15
Re-did in Photoshop U of C webpage and Yale webpage, to see how that format would look with ND's information. Submitted rough draft of "Reflections of a Resident" article for proofreading and made suggested revisions. Began preparing to write scholarly article in the form of an Bibliographies (print & Media)

Monday 7/18 - Thur. 21st
Was at AALL Conference in San Antonio, TX. I networked and learned about www.liblime.com and Koha at Roy Tennant's plenary I session. I subscribed to his listserv WebforLib. I learned about AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and his article "MARC Must Die" Web 2.0 like on www.chicagocrime.org. Web services like SOAP & REST (Simple Object Access Protocol) and (Representational State Transfer) Open Archives and collaborative filtering like on unalog.com or Del.icio.us. Different MODS (Metadata Object Description) and METS (Metadata Encoding Transmission schema) RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) and library blogs http://library.law.wisc.edu/wisblawg/blogslistpublic.htm. I learned about www.Redlightgreen.com especially for their ranking and FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) like WorldCat' Tabs and Table of Contents Redlightgreen.com also does APA Style Manual citations. Metalib is best for metasearching and found duplicates in OVID not known there before. The Plenary II was awesome as well. Jerry Kang of UCLA. spoke on Public Sphere. Other Web Design sites suggested by Susan Boland were:www.ssi.developer.net/main/templates and http://glish.com/css/home.asp www.w3.org/Amaya/ instead of Notepad, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) color pickers http://www.morecrayons.com/ 4,096 colors versus 216 normal amount of graphics if no Photoshop = http://www.gimp.org/ and FTP to move from your computer to server = http://sourceforge.net/project (for Filezilla) or http://www.coreftp.com/ Validate code to make sure Compliant = http://validator.w3.org/ or if CSS used try http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator to see if accessible to be ADA compliant http://www.wave.webaim.org/Link Checkers:http://validator.w3.org/checklink (page by page) or Xenu for entire site http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html but you must download it. http://watson.addy.com/ no more than 20 links, spell checks also) Log Analyzer to track usage "Webalizer."

Fri. 7/22 /05
Submitted "Reflection of a Resident" article for publication in Versed online bulletin of the American Library Association. Dwight is on vacation but told me to continue web designs. I got a brand new color printer in my office. I was given DreamWeaver to help with my designs. Dwight liked some sites and I'll incorporate those into my layouts. I gathered a list of books to begin doing a bibliographic essay.

Mon. 7/25/05
Worked on web designs and bibliographic essay.

Tuesday 7/26/05
Had a meeting over coffee with Laura who is over the Residency Program. We discussed problems with a few high school students. Laura wants me to "PARTICIPATE in meaningful way on Committees." She wants me to add a Webpage about myself she can link to from Diversity Page.

Wednesday 7/27/05
At my Director's request, I prepared a perspective article to submit to Spectrum journal about my experience at the AALL Conference.

Thursday 7/28/05
I completed 3 reference requests for a law faculty member on HR Bill 3144 / S1317 / Congressional Records / and Lexis search on June 13 National Law Review article about "flight attendants & 2nd hand smoke" and finally a request about OAR (oocyte reprogramming).