Talking in the Library

Sometimes our books are the history

Yesterday, I taught a class for students who need to find articles about American Indians published between 1800-1925. Cool fact, we actually have, on the shelf on Hale's 4th floor, bound issues of magazines published during those dates. Naturally, I grabbed a copy because who wouldn't want to see a magazine that old? I pulled the 1864 volume of the Atlantic Monthly. 

Heading downstairs to meet the class, I flipped the book open and saw this label:

While I don't think we've had this particular volume on our shelves since 1864, I can tell you that it was probably the 5574th volume in our collection. And it was shelved in Alcove 1, Case 2 of the library--but which library?

According to our history of K-State Libraries, here are potential homes for this book when this label was affixed.

Anderson Hall (housed the library 1879-1894):

(Please note the books piled under the Librarian's desk. I kind of feel ok about my office, now.)

Or perhaps, Fairchild Hall (housed the library 1894-1927):

Or Historical Farrell Library (1927-1997, now part of Hale Library):

 

While the ongoing influx of new books eventually made it impractical to number each books and identify its permanent alcove/bookcase home (we have to shift them around all of the time to make room) you can still go into the stacks and see evidence that we used to number all of our shelves:

and here:

History geek? Why, yes, I am!

What's the theme?

Another week and another Twitter theme. Did you figure out last week’s theme? Here are some reminder tweets:

• Serve, set, attack! If you're a bit rusty on volleyball fundamentals, here's a book that might help: http://owl.li/7jqfj 
• In honor of our Cross Country team, a book on the science (and occasional mysticism) of the runner http://ow.ly/i/kiNv
• We can all be K-State athletes with the right photo cutout. http://owl.li/749Em

 If you guessed sports, you are correct. Here’s a hint of this week’s theme. 

What's the theme?

People always ask me what librarians do. If you're a librarian like me, you spend most of the day wowing folks with your awesome mind and clever words.  But that's not all we do. We're also good at organizing stuff and helping people find  it. Or we find stuff and then organize it.  It's a vicious librarian circle and we're not ashamed to admit it.

One way for us to be awesomely organized and to cleverly help you find things is by having a theme we talk about each week. I bet our loyal followers figured that out a long time ago. Can you guess what our theme was this week? Here is some of what we said:

• Scholars with awesome accents talk open access & why one of them is like a Babylonian who <3s his clay tablet. http://owl.li/73YBX
• Free your data! A cute short video in honor of #oaweek http://owl.li/73ZuG
• Why #KState undergraduates should care about open access & the academic publishing process. http://owl.li/73YUa

Did you guess? I'll reveal the answer for you next week. The video below is a clue to our theme next week.

Whatever could it be?

Blogging the LOC: An Introduction

The start of the semester always brings at least a couple people to the Library Help Desk expressing frustration with the way our books are organized. Why isn’t all the fiction together? Why couldn’t you just put History in the “H” section? What happened to the number system I used in high school and at the public library?

This year, I’d like to explain it to you. I’ll probably get my official librarian card revoked for revealing these arcane secrets, but I think it’s worth the risk.

K-State Libraries, along with most other academic libraries, uses the Library of Congress classification system. It’s a method of grouping resources by topic, just like the Dewey Decimal numbers you’ve probably used before. It’s useful, but highly quirky. It’s a product of a particular time (the early 1900s) and a particular collection of books (those in the Library of Congress), but it’s also the best way most academic libraries have for organizing the vast numbers of resources they contain.

The Library of Congress.  Image retrieved from Print and Photograph Online Catalog.

The system consists of twenty-one basic classes, each with an associated letter of the alphabet. Five letters were left out: I, O, W, X, Y. I’m going to make a librarianly guess that I and O were too easily confused with 1 and 0. W, X and Y were likely left out for normal end-of-the-alphabet discriminatory practices (or maybe to leave room for eventual additions). 

Each of the classes can have multiple subclasses, designated by more letters. Then there are numbers and more letters and more numbers, maybe with some punctuation sprinkled in. We’re not going to delve that deep, though, so no worries. We’ll start next week with “A” and see where it takes us. It will be super geeky, and therefore completely awesome. You can follow the posts by checking back here, watching our Twitter feed, or subscribing to the full or “LOC” category RSS feeds for Talking in the Library.

When your "Shhh" just isn't loud enough

During my perusal of a library supplies catalog, I made the delightful discovery of megaphones! Not-so-secretly, it's what every librarian wants.

How Google works

The folks at PPC Blog have made this explanatory graphic to unveil the mystery:

Infographic by PPC Blog

And there goes my bet that it was magic.

May flowers

Back in April, I posted photos from my family's burn. I swore that in May there would be green grass and flowers where there was only blackened pasture.

Here's what those smokey hillls look like now:

If you want your own photos of wildflowers,the Konza Prairie is a great place to hike and snap photos. In fact, you can even sign up for a two mile Wildflower Walk on Sunday, June 6th.

My new favorite flower is the musk thistle--I learned it's name from the ever-so-handy Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses website. The book is handier, but I forgot my copy at home.

April fires bring May flowers

Ah, April in Kansas: blue skies, budding trees, tulips, and a strangely persistent campfire smell that makes you wonder why you weren't invited for s'mores. If you're new to Kansas, the burning smell during April is usually from farmers, the folks at the Konza Prairie, or Ft. Riley burning pasture or prairie. The formal term is "prescribed burn," you might also hear someone call it a "range burn" or "controlled burn." Me, I just say, "Hey, my family burned this weekend."

(image credit: No title, by mistersmed)

The links above are great explanations of why we burn, and how to prepare for a burn, so I'll let you read those for a better understanding. As someone who is not an expert, but who has helped burn, here's what I know about burning:

• Wow, it's pretty.
• Wow, that fire is hot, hot, hot. This year, at the end of our burn, my nose and cheeks were red, but not from sunburn. Even standing 20 feet away from the fire, I came out a little broiled.
• Smoke is horrible. Do everything you can to stand upwind of the smoke (except stand in the fire-- that's a bad idea.) If you aren't fancy enough for masks (and we aren't), handkerchiefs will become your best friends. Put one in each pocket.
• That burning photo up there isn't mine. I was too busy spraying the fire with water (controlling it) or setting the fire to snap any flaming photos.
• Driving a tractor can be fun, but an ATV is better.
• The smoking things in the photos below (which I did take) are probably cow patties. I now understand their use as fuel by pioneers.

This is what the land looks like immediately after burning:

and

and

If I remember, I'll post photos in a couple of weeks of the new, green grass and early summer flowers.

It's time to plant your beets...

...and not just according to Dwight Schrute, beet expert that he is. My unimpeachable source is K-State's Research and Extension's March 2010 publication, Kansas Garden Guide.

If the daffodils, budding trees, and warm sun is making you itch to dig in the soil (it's only dirt if it's under your fingernails) this guide is for you. When you've finished, let me know and you can come take care of my garden. I'm still struggling with this compost thing and my tomatoes didn't turn out so well last year.

Image source: beet it http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/ / CC BY 2.0

Thundercats, Ho!

James Lipton, most famous for discussing the oeuvres of various celebrities on Bravo's "Inside the Actor's Studio," apparently spent some time composing theme music for one of the greatest cartoon/half-hour-toy-commercials of my youth.  Really.

Unlike other recent disasters in feature film nostalgia, Thundercats has not yet been adapted for the big screen.  But the rumor is that it's in the works for 2012.  Perhaps this is the catalyst for Earth's destruction supposedly foretold by the Mesoamerican Long Count.  Then again, there is a precedent for award winning films about alien cat people.