Pirates in the Library

Librarian Life Rules Human Library Little Free Library p 4 p 8 p 10 CTION ASDALVolume 37 | Number 1 | Fall 2017 Association A of Seventh-Day Adventist Librarians Pirates in the Library p 12 ASDAL ACTION | FALL 2016 1 ASDAL Action Volume 37, No. 1 | Fall 2017 ISSN 1523-8997 Editor Jessica Spears contents About ASDAL ASDAL is an organization for individuals interested in Seventh-day Adventist 34 librarianship. The Association was formed to enhance communication between Seventh- day Adventist librarians, and to promote librarianship and library services to Seventh- day Adventist institutions. The association holds an Annual Conference, publishes ASDAL Action, awards the D. Glenn Hilts Scholarship, and is a sponsor of the Seventh-day Adventist Periodical Index. The Adventist Library Information Cooperative (ALICE), is a service provided by the Association to provide Member Libraries with enhanced database access opportunities at reduced costs through collective efforts and resource sharing within FEATURES the Cooperative. Librarain Life Rules Little Free Library Letters to the Editor 4 10 We welcome your comments and questions. by Bruce McClay by Deyse Bravo-Rivera Please submit letters to the editor to [email protected]. Human Library Pirates in the ASDAL Membership 8 12 Library Membership is open to those who support the by Michelle Down goals of the Association. Members receive a by Melissa Hortemiller one year subscription to ASDAL Action and discounted conference registration. Get Involved with ASDAL All members are invited to get involved in ASDAL. On the ASDAL website, select "Get Involved" on the quick links. COLUMNS 16 2018 Conference 20 Book Notes ASDAL Executive Committee President: Per Lisle 20 Conference Minutes 22 Bytes & Bits President-elect: Kieren Bailey Past President: Terry Robertson Secretary: Heather Rodriguez-James Treasurer: Xiaoming Xu ASDAL Action Editor: Jessica Spears 2 ASDAL ACTION | FALL 2017 From the President When people I meet work out that I am a librarian, At this point Snyder gets controversial and says: "So they often volunteer get screens out of your room and surround yourself interesting information. with books." In my room there are both screens and The classic is of course books. And it is possible to build mental armory from "I love books, I always well edited and well produced eBooks. wanted to become a librarian." Or, "I’ve done I tend to sign off from library instruction sessions or some research. In the US one-to-one interaction with students by saying "and there is a university that now you have to read the stuff." But there is resistance does not have a library." to reading. A much more popular approach is to do Or, "Haven’t you heard of Google Books?" Or, "I get a Google style keyword search in Academic Search all my books digitally (and I never pay for them – I Premier, an eBooks library or at best in a specific don’t believe in intellectual property …)." eBook. My suspicion is that this yields information, but it ignores context and does not build a mental A piece of writing with this introduction can go in a armory within a useful intellectual framework. variety of directions, several of them predictable and well worn. An example close to home is the Ellen G. White writings. I am yet to be persuaded that access to the I am with Yale historian Timothy Snyder when he says various digital versions has done much for reflective "Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. reading of the material, but it has made it very easy to Read books." find a passage or two that support a particular point of view. I live my life online as much as anybody else these days, although you will not find me in the typical social Separate yourself from the internet. Read books. In media spaces. There are approaches to the digital print if you can. And when you read an eBook, read – world that suit the older male better. But I was at the don’t search. forefront of technology once. As a graduate student at University of London in the early 1990s, I remember It was good to see many of you at ASDAL 2017 a lecturer saying "an English computer scientist has in June and I am looking forward to next year’s come up with something exciting. It’s called the World conference at Burman University. Wide Web. I think it might catch on." Per Lisle Book Notes Snyder continues: "Staring at screens is perhaps ASDAL President unavoidable, but the two-dimensional world makes Bytes & Bits little sense unless we can draw upon a mental armory we have developed somewhere else. ... To have such a framework requires reading." ASDAL ACTION | FALL 2017 3 feature LIBRARIAN LIFE RULES Condition & survival rules in seven words or less by Bruce McClay Librarian Life Rules: Spying a Nursing Library – in a corner has deep financial pockets. On the book that attempted to condense of the nursing building, with other hand, there are many hands life, love, friendship, family, work, one librarian and eight part-time reaching into those pockets. We and more down to a series of student assistants serving the enjoyed a wealth of resources in six-word advice statements set me needs of 90-140 students and 16 both people and materials, but do to wondering if my profession, faculty and staff. I figured that you think we got everything we the library profession, could be any rule that would fit these two wanted? Nope. Did we struggle condensed to a few succinct libraries would most likely fit any with which journals to keep and sayings or rules. I started jotting library anywhere. which to discard, which databases down ideas enlisting briefly the to keep and which to discard? aid of two other librarians. Each As I jotted down ideas, they You betcha! rule had to fit two criteria: began to flow naturally into two categories: Condition Rules and Once we had an open position. 1. Seven Words of Less. Simple, Survival Rules. So here they are: We interviewed, selected our condensed, succinct was the rule Librarian Life Rules in Seven number 1 candidate, and then for each rule. Words or Less – some with an university administration explanation or story and some decided to sit on the position 2. Multi-Library Fit. The test simply stated. for six months. Our choice for this was “Does the rule fit went elsewhere. Sound familiar? with the two libraries I have CONDITION RULES Government money or church worked in?” The first was the 1. You will never have money – you will never have library at the University of Texas enough money. In his ASDAL enough. Pan American (UTPA) - a four- presentation at Newbold, Merlin story library with 18 professional Burt referred to government 2. You will never have enough librarians and 50 support staff money and church money. I have time. serving the needs of 14,000 experienced both. Texas is the students and about 1,000 faculty second or third wealthiest state 3. You will never have enough and staff. The second was the (depending on how you count), energy. Walla Walla University Portland and the university library system 4 ASDAL ACTION | FALL 2017 4. The work day never is as when we compared them, it was supportive environment? planned: I was chatting via email at times difficulty to believe that What in your library or university with Per Lisle about my idea for we described the same hour. Even mutes your desire to create a a presentation. He was smack our views of what was helpful casual, personal, supportive in the midst of putting together varied. My elegant interpretations? environment? the program for the ASDAL She never even heard them! conference, answering questions Instead she remembered and 6. The unimportant is often about the conference, and trying treasured, casual, personal, most important. Scientists and to keep his library running supportive comments I had librarians have much in common: smoothly at the same time. Per made.” I taught on the academy We love to count things. Scientists shot me this rule for his day. and junior academy level for 25 in my part of the world count the Might fit with yours too. years. I occasionally see students number of salmon swimming up from the past. Not once has the Columbia River, the number 5. Perception is more one said, “I remember how you of wolves in Washington, the important than reality: Or to taught me the causes of the Civil grizzles in Glacier National Park. say it another way: How they War” or “I really learned how to feel is more important than what diagram a complex sentence – We count the number of people they get. Irvin D. Yalom, M.D., thanks.” No. They always recount in the library, the reference Stanford Professor of Psychiatry, some casual, personal, supportive questions answered, the databases in his book Love’s Executioner (p. moments. This leads to two vital accessed. William Bruce Cameron, 185) says, “Years ago I conducted questions: a social scientist, said, “Not an experiment in which a patient everything that can be counted and I each wrote our own view of What do you do in your library counts, and not everything each of our therapy hours. Later to create a casual, personal, that counts can be counted.” ASDAL ACTION | FALL 2017 5 (note: this saying has often been Sits 63’ Ahead.” At Walla Walla 5. If you don’t ask, you’ll attributed incorrectly to Einstein). University, human resources never get. The University account for 66% of the gross of Texas – Pan Am added a 7.

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