In Other Words
Speedy Deliveries
By Lauree Padgett
You know that expression, "Everything old is new
again"? When I was a little girl growing up in the
1960s, door-to-door service was the norm. The milkman
came and left bottles. A truck brought the best potato
chips ever, Charles Chips, in a yellow and brown can.
If you ordered something from Montgomery Ward, it would
arrive at your house about 6 weeks later. As I got
older, these kinds of deliveries stopped. You went
to the supermarket for groceries. You didn't wait for
weeks for something that you needed. Instead, you went
to the mall. Now, thanks to the Internet, we're back
to square one. We order food online, and milk, chips,
and everything in between is bagged up and dropped
off at our door. If you want a CD or a video, you don't
hop in the car, you log into your personal Amazon.com
account and, a few days later, it's in your mailbox.
But the biggest mode of delivery is the Internet itself.
This month, articles from Computers in Libraries, CyberSkeptic's
Guide to Internet Research, and Searcher each
describe Web sites that know how to deliver great products
and services.
(Dorm) Room Service
Library personnel at Northern Michigan University
know what it's like to deal with patrons who don't
want to go further than their computer screen to get
information. Krista E. Clumpner, associate professor
and head of technical services and systems at the university,
tells of the library's quest to satisfy those hungering
for desktop satisfaction in "Delivering Access to Library
Materials and Services: Our Recipe for Success" (CIL,
Oct. 2004). Clumpner explains: "Being very service-oriented,
we started a small 'take-out' operation that blossomed
into a full-fledged catering business." Clumpner had
the job of setting up this new service. It had six
main ingredients: a Web-based online catalog, MARC
records with holdings, URLs, a Web-based interlibrary
loan form, online databases, and authentication software.
Getting the authentication software in place is a must
because it will enable your students to access databases
beyond the library building. Assuming your licensing
agreements allow this access, it can still be a bit
tricky to get IDs and passwords set up. (For detailed
tips, read the article!) Once the ingredients are mixed
in, it's just a matter of adding a little spice here
and there to accommodate different tastes. Providing
a variety of electronic resources, such as electronic
journals, adds flavor. Wireless access enables students
to get information no matter where they are on campus,
and a chat reference service lets students and faculty
ask the reference librarians questions without having
to come to or call the library. Course-based instruction
guides available on the Web accent print and online
resources. This has been a win-win situation for students
and library staff. Notes Clumpner: "The more we can
serve people and tell them about our offerings, the
more informed our patrons can be."
See Hunt
OAIster, a project of the University of Michigan
Digital Library Production Service and the topic of
Marylaine Block's Finders Keepers column ("Pearls from
an OAIster," CyberSkeptic's Guide to Internet Research,
Oct. 2004), has created "a collection of freely available,
difficult-to-access, academically created digital resources" with
the goal of making these resources easily searchable
by anyone. Collections that fall under the radar screens
of most standard search engines don't get past OAIster's
software. Thanks to OAIster, audio, video, images,
and Web sites preserved by the Internet Archive are
searchable and come from a wide range of sources, including
national libraries, scientific archives, electronic
dissertation collections, oral history collections,
museum collections, public domain literature collections,
and map collections. Block writes, "OAIster will retrieve
research-worth results across all disciplinary lines." In
the 70 searches she ran on topics in science, architecture/engineering,
music, literature, history, librarianship, medicine,
and social sciences, Block consistently got many more
hits from unexpected sources than she expected. And
when she ran the same searches in Google, Yahoo!, and
MSN, she verified OAIster's claim: It does dig up unique
material, often academic and international, that goes
beyond the reach of these engines. And, as Block concludes, "The
things you didn't expect to find can be more intriguing
than what you were actually looking for."
Strip Tease
Tara Breton makes a bold confession in the October
issue of Searcher: She's a stripper. And her
mother is a hooker! But before you think that these
two need to go on Jerry Springer or get some
counseling from Dr. Phil, relax. We're talking a different
kind of stripping and hooking here. Breton's mom makes
rugs and Tara is a quilteran addicted one ("Quilting:
The Story of an Obsession"). And who better to point
all quilters or quilter wannabes to the best Web sites?
From learning about stripping, piecing, and appliqué to
sewing, there are sites to help. And, of course, you
can shop online for any and all quilting needs. If
there isn't a quilting class near you, buy a video!
When Breton searched on Google for specialty quilting
stores, she got over 285,000 hits. Quilting magazines
also have niche markets. Do you use big blocks or small?
Do you need tips for utilizing scraps? Do you need
to do a quilt quickly? There's a magazine out there
for almost any quilting scenario. Quilting tip sites
also abound. Cottonwood Quilts (http://cottonwoodquilts.com/quilting.htm) has a standard index of terms and each term has its
own link, complete with pictures. According to Breton, "If
you have specific questions, the absolute best resources
are the chat groups and online listservs." And guilds
are a close second. Breton gives Quilt Guilds (http://www.quiltguilds.com) the nod as the best Internet guild directory. And,
if you can't find a local guild, you can always join
Internet ones, which is a good thing for Breton. At
the rate she's going, she may soon lose driving privileges,
having already had her credit cards repossessed by
her husband. (He refuses to be an enabler!) But don't
cry for her. With all the Internet help out there,
it's hard to keep a good stripper down!
Oz Fest
But I can't come down too hard on Breton, knowing
a little something about obsessionand personalized
Amazon.com accountsmyself. I recently ordered
a CD and three videos featuring Hugh Jackman, this
year's Tony Award winner for Best Actor in a Musical.
Let me tell you, this "Boy from Oz" can sing and dance
like you wouldn't believe. I may even have to break
down and buy a DVD player since the 1998 London production
of Oklahoma! (in which his portrayal of cowboy
Curly was much more than OK!), isn't available on VHS.
In the meantime, I'll just keep listening to my Boy
from Oz CD and enjoying my prolonged state of "Hugh-phoria," induced
by seeing Mr. Jackman and company in the show's final
Broadway performance on Sept. 12. It was, in a word, "oz-some."
Lauree Padgett is Information
Today, Inc.'s manager of editorial services. Her e-mail
address is lpadgett@infotoday.com.
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