BiblioTech Web

At Butler University, we’re changing how we present Reference Services. For the last couple of years, we’ve had a “Reference Team” and shared responsibilities for the department and services. Professional librarians have staffed the desk from 10am to 10pm. As of this fall, we’ll be staffing the desk with a part-time librarian and a few student employees for the daytime hours, but keeping the librarians on during the evening hours. There will be an “on call” schedule where librarians make themselves available during their time, so if there is a question that the person staffing the desk cannot answer, they have a resource to check with.

This is probably not the final stage, but an experimentation in the works. I’ll try to write more about it as we implement this style of Reference Services, to discuss what’s working or not working.

The growth of the internet has really increased the popularity and effectiveness of April Fool’s Day. Now ALL KINDS of pranks can be played online in the guise of “new technologies” or “new services.” Even reputable media companies like CNN or the BBC are getting in on the act.

A big concern for librarians and academics early on was that the internet was going to lead to a loss of credibility. With the possibility of anyone posting anything online and making it sound authoritative, people were afraid that America (and the world) would continue “dumbing down.” Instead, librarians and teachers have stepped up and begun teaching Information Literacy and the need for evaluating information sources.

And creative individuals and companies have become better equipped to play April Fool’s Day jokes on the less-than-critically thinking public. Here are some links to sites that have “celebrated” April Fool’s Day this year. Most of these are pretty clever and funny.

• http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/new_wakeup.html
• http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/14FE-april-fool-google-facebook_1.html
• http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/14FE-april-fool-google-us-gov_1.html
• http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/personalsoundtrack.html?cpg=70H
• http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/superpiipii.html?cpg=70H
• http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/spazztroids.html?cpg=70H
• http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/titaniumlabyrinth.html?cpg=70H
• http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article983556.ece
• http://youtube.com/watch?v=YU_18r_WtkA (from the BBC)
• http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/5556
• http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0331biz-buzz0401.html
• http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/fearmongers_warmongers

(Okay, that last one was from The Onion, so it’s bound to be funny, even if it’s not April Fool’s Day.)

Feel free to share these with your friends. And even to disguise them like this: Google to Acquire U.S. Government

ReminderFeed is a free online program that you can use to send yourself reminders that will show up in your RSS aggregator. It can be a one-time thing or repeated every day until the deadline you specify.

Pretty handy for those of us who use RSS feeds very much. Give it a try. It’s FREE!!

I don’t know how this slipped by me unnoticed for so long, but I just yesterday read Chad Boeninger’s post on Library Voice about the Meebo plugin for Pidgin (used to be GAIM). It’s the answer to our Reference Desk dilemma! Let me explain.

Last fall we implemented Meebo in a test mode as it were, to get the functionality of widgets on our web pages. One of the strengths of Meebo is their MeeboMe widget, which puts an IM window right on your web page, interfacing with the instant messenger at your own computer (in this case, at our Reference Desk). The drawback of Meebo is that it’s web based (a good thing), requiring you to always have a browser window open and dedicated to Meebo (a bad thing). If you’re on another tab in your browser, the only notification was the other tab’s favicon blinking, which is small and easy to miss.

Enter Pidgin. It’s a new and slightly improved version of GAIM, which is what we used at the Reference Desk before Meebo because it allowed us to connect with multiple IM accounts from one interface. And it’s open source.

With this Meebo plugin for Pidgin, you can just use Pidgin the way you normally would (complete with background running when minimized and popups when new messages come in) and still connect with your MeeboMe widgets. It’s the best of both worlds! I’ve tried it at our Reference Desk and on my personal computers and it works great!

As Chad put it, MeeboMe and Pidgin is like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups — two great tastes that taste great together!

Thanks, Chad!

Today I read an interesting post on the ACRLog about people’s attitudes toward privacy in this Web 2.0 world. It’s definitely worth a read. You can access it here: Some Thoughts on Privacy 2.0.

There are some insightful references to the latest OCLC report and some related blogs.

Today I did a presentation at the ILF Annual Conference. It was about using Excel to track Reference statistics (and getting rid of the traditional clipboard). Attendees asked for the code to be made available online so they could copy and paste it rather than retyping all of it and risking mistyping one symbol and having it not work.

So here is the code. Right off my handouts. I welcome any questions you may have.

Reference Macro
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Worksheets("Transactions").Activate
ActiveSheet.Range("a1").End(xlDown).Offset(1, 0).Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = Date
ActiveCell.Offset(rowoffset:=0, columnoffset:=1).Activate
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = Time
ActiveCell.Value = ActiveCell.Value - Int(ActiveCell.Value)
ActiveCell.Offset(rowoffset:=0, columnoffset:=1).Activate
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "1"
Application.CutCopyMode = False
ActiveSheet.Range("a1").Select
Worksheets("Main").Activate
response = MsgBox("Reference Transaction Logged", 64, "Thank you")
ActiveWorkbook.Save
Application.ScreenUpdating = True

General Macro
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Worksheets("Transactions").Activate
ActiveSheet.Range("a1").End(xlDown).Offset(1, 0).Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = Date
ActiveCell.Offset(rowOffset:=0, columnOffset:=1).Activate
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = Time
ActiveCell.Value = ActiveCell.Value - Int(ActiveCell.Value)
ActiveCell.Offset(rowOffset:=0, columnOffset:=1).Activate
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "1"
Application.CutCopyMode = False
ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Select
Worksheets("General").Activate
ActiveSheet.Range("a1").End(xlDown).Offset(1, 0).Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = Date
ActiveCell.Offset(rowOffset:=0, columnOffset:=1).Activate
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "1"
Application.CutCopyMode = False
ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Select
Worksheets("MAIN").Activate
Response = MsgBox("Email Reference Transaction Logged", 64, "Thank you")
ActiveWorkbook.Save
Application.ScreenUpdating = True

Data Collection Code for 8:00 hour, first column
=SUM(IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))>=0.333, IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))<0.375, IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!C$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!C$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))=1,1,0))))

Data Collection Code for 9:00 hour, first column
=SUM(IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))>=0.375, IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))<0.416, IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!C$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!C$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))=1,1,0))))

Data Collection Code for 8:00 hour, second column
=SUM(IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))>=0.333, IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$B$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))<0.375, IF(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!D$3"):INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!D$"&COUNTA(INDIRECT("'"&$H$1&"'!$A:$A")))=1,1,0))))

Averages Code for 8:00 hour, first column
=Totals!B3/IF(OR(LEFT($H$1,2)="01",LEFT($H$1,2)="03",LEFT($H$1,2)="05",LEFT($H$1,2)="07",LEFT($H$1,2)="08",LEFT($H$1,2)="10",LEFT($H$1,2)="12"),31,IF(LEFT($H$1,2)="02",28,30))

Averages Code for 9:00 hour, first column
=Totals!B4/IF(OR(LEFT($H$1,2)="01",LEFT($H$1,2)="03",LEFT($H$1,2)="05",LEFT($H$1,2)="07",LEFT($H$1,2)="08",LEFT($H$1,2)="10",LEFT($H$1,2)="12"),31,IF(LEFT($H$1,2)="02",28,30))

Averages Code for 8:00 hour, second column
=Totals!C3/IF(OR(LEFT($H$1,2)="01",LEFT($H$1,2)="03",LEFT($H$1,2)="05",LEFT($H$1,2)="07",LEFT($H$1,2)="08",LEFT($H$1,2)="10",LEFT($H$1,2)="12"),31,IF(LEFT($H$1,2)="02",28,30))

Formula for Title of Totals Page (cell A1)
="TOTAL REFERENCE TRANSACTIONS for "&TEXT(H1,"mmm yyyy")