Awful Library Books - In Praise of Weeding

There are times when a book has got to go. When it needs to be pulled from the shelf and placed on the 25 cent table of re-circulation or disapear.

Awful Library Books is a blog devoted to those titles that have seen better days.


There are many reasons to weed collections but this is a very visual and humorous guide that really helps to make clear that some books really are past there time.

For example:

• Jobs in Office and Business
  
• Mystery Date
• Milady's For Men Only - Styling and Techniques (Mullet Alert!)
  
• Knitting Now
  

Holly and Mary are actual librarians working at a public library. There is also a Why We Weed Page where folks can share their reasons for weeding a collection.

Social Networking - Twibes

It's been over a month since I first tried to join Twibes. Joining Twibes itself didn't seem all that difficult. But joining an individual twibe, I have to say it wasn't as easy to do as adding people to my Twitter account for technical reasons it appears. Every time I'd go to my page, I'd see I still wasn't in the Librarians Twibe that I tried joining multiple times. I have to say I was getting mighty frustrated. Here I was trying to venture out and be more bold in joining online groups and not getting very far in doing so.

Today I decided to check my page once again and expected not to see myself a part of the Librarians Twibe. Much to my surprise and delight, I finally succeeded! One of the reasons I like this twibe is its members come from different areas of librarianship. So come and check out this group and see what they are sharing.

Search Engine Tips - InTitle Search Video

I am finding that what I thought I would be doing with my library skills and what has come to pass are way different. I thought by this time I would be doing this in a library situation. I am reminded that the library has expanded a thousand fold.

I am certainly applying reference and ready reference skills in my writing. I have been working on a few new projects. One of those projects is to learn how to better present information using video.



This is a short videos showing how to use the InTitle search operator to find websites that have a specific word in the title.

Audio Transcript

Are you searching for a web page that has a specific title?
Save yourself some grief, here's how.

Click in the Search box and type intitle:(don't use the spacebar)and now type the search term, in this case libguides.

As you can see, there is a list of other suggested searches that may or may not have anything to do with what you are looking for; if these are bothersome you can turn them off.

When you are ready, click the Search button or hit the Enter key on your keyboard.

Ask.com will show you a list of all of the web pages that use the term "libguides" in the title. This is a pretty effective way of targeting those websites that specifically talk about, in this case library guides.

You can perform the same operator search in Bing, for example
intitle:libguides

This is the listings of websites that have "libguides" in the title.

And yes, you can use the intitle: search on Google as well.

The Journey So Far

This is both exciting and terrifying to start down a blind alley. One of the things I am constantly telling people is the need for flexibility and the ability to scope out new opportunities.

I've seen a lot of bad tutorials. I also see a need for tutorials in areas that are not being serviced. As the world moves from a paper based communication system to an electronic one there still needs to be sources of credible information. Those of us at the nexus point have to be involved in this process.

Anyway, there will be a few more videos and my continuing resolve to find a captioning program that works and doesn't make me feel stupid in the process. If you have time I would love feedback or topic suggestions.