Since we are dealing with library procedures and flowcharting them this week, my topic, in a roundabout way, deals with improving the flow of how long a printed book takes to get on a shelf once it has entered our physical location. Sara Laughlin, new interim director of the Monroe County Public Library and adjunct faculty member at the SLIS program here at IUPUI, conducted several many months’ long “Continuous Improvement” training sessions for my library. One of the processes able to be dissected (the terminology was: charter given) by a group of diverse employees was “How long it takes to process a book before it is available to patrons”.
The idea was to eliminate unnecessary or duplicate efforts to narrow the wait time. I had no idea all the different steps involved except for the part where a book sits on a cart in the Reference Area Workroom for anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks prior to being sent to Lending Services. Lending then “receives” the books and they are shelved or placed in holding or whatever happens to them. I never really understood what the books were doing just sitting on a cart in Reference until I witnessed librarians perusing them when they had the time.
My initial thoughts regarding this sitting of materials were: “Eureka! We can just cut this part out.” Well, that did not turn out to be a viable option. Here’s why… The reference librarians act in a Reader’s Advisory position for patrons. They felt strongly that they needed to view all the books entering the collection so they would have a better understanding of available resources, appropriate subject headings and not potentially ordering duplicate books. The ordering duties are split among more than one librarian so they are all legitimate reasons for continuing the practice. Ultimately, the amount of time the books sit in Reference has been drastically cut but it still does happen.
This brings me to my topic of my blog. One of the books sitting on a cart recently was “No One Cares What You Had for Lunch – 100 Ideas for Your Blog” by Maggie Mason. According to the review distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc., it is “a unique idea-book for bloggers seeking fun, creative inspiration. Margaret gives writers the prompts they need to describe, imagine, investigate and generate clever posts.”
Since I do not want to write unfunny, uncreative, uninspired posts, I thought “Eureka! I’m gonna check this book out immediately.” That did not happen because I personally thought many of the ideas were not exactly what I would consider inspired: Gripe, Tell us what you have done, and other briefly described writing prompts
I did go to Margaret Mason’s blog: MightyGirl.com (it is famous among dozens!) to check out what she was blogging about. I thoroughly enjoyed the post from September 3:
http://mightygirl.com/2007/09/03/duh/
The idea was to eliminate unnecessary or duplicate efforts to narrow the wait time. I had no idea all the different steps involved except for the part where a book sits on a cart in the Reference Area Workroom for anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks prior to being sent to Lending Services. Lending then “receives” the books and they are shelved or placed in holding or whatever happens to them. I never really understood what the books were doing just sitting on a cart in Reference until I witnessed librarians perusing them when they had the time.
My initial thoughts regarding this sitting of materials were: “Eureka! We can just cut this part out.” Well, that did not turn out to be a viable option. Here’s why… The reference librarians act in a Reader’s Advisory position for patrons. They felt strongly that they needed to view all the books entering the collection so they would have a better understanding of available resources, appropriate subject headings and not potentially ordering duplicate books. The ordering duties are split among more than one librarian so they are all legitimate reasons for continuing the practice. Ultimately, the amount of time the books sit in Reference has been drastically cut but it still does happen.
This brings me to my topic of my blog. One of the books sitting on a cart recently was “No One Cares What You Had for Lunch – 100 Ideas for Your Blog” by Maggie Mason. According to the review distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc., it is “a unique idea-book for bloggers seeking fun, creative inspiration. Margaret gives writers the prompts they need to describe, imagine, investigate and generate clever posts.”
Since I do not want to write unfunny, uncreative, uninspired posts, I thought “Eureka! I’m gonna check this book out immediately.” That did not happen because I personally thought many of the ideas were not exactly what I would consider inspired: Gripe, Tell us what you have done, and other briefly described writing prompts
I did go to Margaret Mason’s blog: MightyGirl.com (it is famous among dozens!) to check out what she was blogging about. I thoroughly enjoyed the post from September 3:
http://mightygirl.com/2007/09/03/duh/
"This week I’m posting from ideas in my book, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. I’m doing this because I spent far too long wondering what to write about this morning before it occurred to me that I had written a book on the subject. Can you feel the force of my intellect from where you are? The way it’s blowing your face back slightly? I thought so. "
She seems like the type of person I would like to be friends with or have as a coworker: one who can laugh at themselves.
So, I see nothing wrong with writing a blog entry about a book which deals with helping you come up with material for writing a blog entry.
1 comment:
Or a comment to a blog entry about making a comment to a blog entry about making a comment. It seems to me that this was a lesson I learned years ago from an older brother trying to torment me and then passed on to a younger brother who was a handy victim. I know that you know that I know that you know. I should talk to this Mason woman and see if I can't make my fortune in publishing.
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