Reference desk

For your reading pleasure, and may you also be enlightened by the wisdom shared here: Awful Library Books. Weeding a collection can be a difficult task for a librarian, often misunderstood by the public. The brave librarians behind this blog explain some of the thoughts that go into the decision-making process of how and why an item should be weeded from the library’s collection. Thanks to J. Ridley for passing this link along.

I attended a meeting yesterday of an organization that I joined some months ago, thinking that it would be a good fit for me as a new entrepreneur. The focus of this meeting was the potential dissolution of the organization, with a subsequent reanimation as a strategic initiative under the guidance of another local organization. Both organizations have similar missions, visions, and values, but one has a volunteer staff and no permanent address — the other has paid staff, a building, and is poised to grow. The organizations are close in age, although the all-volunteer group was established about 5 years before the other.

The major differences seemed to be that one group is perceived as a “social work organization” (with all of the implied racism and classism that phrase carries) while the other group is for “established, second tier businesses.”

Gee, that’s odd. I thought the website said that all female entrepreneurs were welcome, even if they were just starting in business. Why yes, I just checked, and it does say that! Apparently they are a teensy bit insincere.

I felt like I hit the glass wall of the Old Girls Network yesterday, when more than one woman stated that she enjoyed the meetings of the organization as it is now because she could be with “her peers.”

They were absolutely right about one thing: these women will never be my peers.

I wrote in my last post that I am now using RapidWeaver to create websites. Another very useful tool is StopWatch, from DesignSoft. StopWatch enables a user to create and use multiple timers (stopwatches) for various employees, job numbers, fee codes, and descriptions — and insert the information into a time sheet which can then be copied into an invoice or other billing document. So even though I may be working on different projects through the course of an average day, I can have several timers open at once, running one, two, or more of them (if I’m multi-tasking!), or clicking each on and off sequentially as I move from project to project, without losing track of time spent on any one item. The program cost less than $60, and for someone like me who typically works a fractured day (some time spent working on this, some time on that…) it is a definite value-added proposition.

Fetch Softworks is the company behind the File Transfer Client software called Fetch that I use to transfer files from my Mac to other computers. A single user license is available for less than $30, and rates vary according to scale and type of organization. I tried other FTP programs (titles escape me at the moment, sorry) and for various reasons, did not like them. Fetch plays nicely with my files and my Mac. I will keep it.

GraphicConverter, from LemkeSoft, is an excellent photo-editor for use with the Mac. I have been using this program for many years, since it was developed in 1992. It really is a phenomenal program, available for $34.95 as a licensed download, $44.95 as a CD-ROM, or as shareware. Yes, I do love iPhoto ‘09 (part of Apple’s iLife suite of programs —free if you buy a new Mac, or $79 if you need to upgrade) and it is greatly improved from its previous incarnation — but if you want a super-duper photo-editor, you might want to consider LightZone, from Lightcrafts. This is digital editing software for professional photographers (meaning that there are more choices and options than you might have thought possible) and the price reflects that status: about $200. Useful? You bet.

I have also come to rely on Art Directors Toolkit, from Code-Line Communications, for its collection of utilities, especially the Web Safe Color Library. I tend to use off-beat colors in the sites I design, and the Toolkit helps me keep consistent from one project to the next. The Scale utility is great for changing the size of image by percentage or fixed number, and in either case, realizing what the effect will be on the number of Pixels Per Inch. This is important if you want to send an image to your local newspaper (while it is still in the business of putting news on paper), as that information may be specified by the tech gurus there.

At any rate, I hope you will find some of these tools useful in your own pursuits, whether for profit or pleasure.

As you have noticed, I’ve been away from blogging, at least here. I have immersed myself in the wonders of RapidWeaver, a web-design program developed by the nice folks at Realmac Software. They also develop other tools and utilities for the Mac environment that may be of use to you. At this point I’ve created two sites (including my own) using RapidWeaver and am hard at work on a third. It is actually quite fun: intellectually challenging, but also stimulating by making me use graphic design and typography skills that I hadn’t called upon in 15 years or so.

I am now a regular volunteer at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, where I work in the Library (of course!), assisting with the cataloging of their books, among other things. At present I am evaluating a number of books that may be duplicates or otherwise extraneous for condition, scarcity, and value, estimating a potential sales price, and writing a summary to justify my conclusions on each volume. Again, this is a very interesting project, and one of the things that has essentially kept me from blogging as much as I’d like.

Meanwhile, I am happy to be back here writing and will do my best to drop in a few words on a more consistent basis. Thanks for reading, and do come back again.

I am slowly morphing from performing research for clients to developing websites for clients. It is interesting, but also frustrating: new vocabulary, new skills, new understanding of The Way Things Work are all required. Patience is essential, especially with myself.

This is but one explanation of why I have not posted lately.  I have also been very busy with Friends Meeting and meeting family obligations; the new cat seems to take an inordinate amount of my time!

You don’t have to be an economic genius to understand that the country is in deep trouble financially, and Michigan, my home state, is in a deep hole. Some of what has happened here is not of our making, and some of it … well, it’s just what happens when you have a one-horse town, and the horse up and moves away. 

Meanwhile, this information came through my email box today, from the Executive Director of the Michigan Library Association. 

• state aid to public libraries has not increased since 1998 
• state aid is currently at 96 cents per capita 
• state aid by statute should be at $1.50 per capita 
• other sources of library funding are being eroded by the state
• library usage is up; libraries are being used by residents to:
  • file for unemployment
  • find foreclosure information
  • conduct job searches
  • other workforce development programs  

I encourage you to read the MLA policy position and contact your legislator if you are a Michigan citizen. Our household is a heavy user of library services, and while we may be in a position to avail ourselves of university or other information resources, many of our friends and neighbors cannot. I believe strongly in the mission of libraries, especially public libraries, as knowledge centers for all people. I realize that the state administrators have to make difficult choices in working with a budget that seems to shrink by the week, but cutting learning opportunities for citizens should not be a possibility. The only way our state and country will get back to the business of business and growth is by having an educated workforce. 

I think we should have more libraries, librarians, and learning resources. Pass over that budget, Governor Granholm, and I’ll go over it with my red pen for you!

Oops, I just noticed that it’s been nearly 2 weeks since I last posted. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. My goal with this blog was to post daily; I’ll try to get back to that Real Soon Now. Meanwhile, things have been happening in the Library World.

Library Journal announced their annual list of Movers and Shakers and I was very happy to see that one of the recognized librarians works at Grand Rapids Public Library, just down the road from me. Congratulations! I remember when I first came out of library school, and how badly I wanted to be a “mover & shaker” — and in my own way, maybe I am. I suppose I could go over to Shovers and Makers and nominate myself to be recognized as a Librarian who Shoves and Makes.

But first, have I told  you about FindLaw and its Small Business Reference Section?  FindLaw is a subscription website / community that offers a limited amount of free information to the public. It could be useful for you. Generally this is the sort of site that law- or legal-librarians use most often.

In case you’re out of reading material and are looking for something particularly techie this week – well, look no farther than O’Reilly Open Books Project. Let me tell you, I’ve been wondering for ages about Portable Network Graphics! And here is my chance to really get to the heart of the subject: by reading a free book about it. Bravo to O’Reilly Publishing for supporting the Open Source Movement, the Internet Archive, and Creative Commons.

I have been learning how to create and install websites recently, using different hosting services. My office is now littered with 3 x 5 cards, each with cryptic notes scribbled in pencil: domain names, DNS server numbers, registration authorization transfers, user names, passwords.

I am maintaining sites at GoDaddy, DreamHost, and WordPress.Com, as well as on a private server. Then there’s this blog and one on LiveJournal, and information about myself and my company that needs to be maintained on LinkedIn. Privacy? Oh my. No. Not much, you?

I am working with iWeb ‘09, HTML, XHTML, and multiple FTP programs for uploading files to servers. So far, so good.

Oh, and at last count, I had something like 12 email addresses. That is really getting to be a bit much, even for me. And I’ve been active on line since 1984. What about you?

Greetings! I have been busy reading, absorbing, linking, learning, meeting and sharing recently and have had no time to write about it. No time today, either, unfortunately. However, I do want to share some wonderful resources.

For entrepreneurs and people in business, prepare to be amazed by the amount of quality information freely available from Alan Weiss, Ph.D., and the Summit Consulting Group. His advice is right on target. This is a site well worth exploring.

My Business Reference class, from the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association, has been very useful. I have learned more in the past three weeks than I did in my full semester course of Reference Materials in library school. Kudos to the instructor, Celia Ross, owner of Stratham Research.

The Library of Congress provides links to many free resources in the Business Reference Service division. Take a look at the Company Rankings list, or at the directory of Internet Resources. It’s impressive.

The librarians at Harvard Business School have created a fantastic research guide that covers the range from Subject to Industry to Country. The global economy may be going downhill fast, but at least we will know where to look to understand the how and why of it! Thanks, HBS!

In other news, I upgraded to iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09 yesterday. Apple, please don’t make me regret this!

The following are a mixed bag: there are resources listed here for entrepreneurs, researchers, academics, and a few for just plain old folks (like you and me). In other words, something for everyone. All of these are listed in my Delicious Bookmarks as well. Enjoy, and do let me know if you find any of these useful.

Venture Capital Database The VCDB is maintained by Matt Winn, and includes: 492 venture firms, 863 locations and 6774 professionals. You may click a column header to sort results or change header criteria. An advanced search (more options) enables a search by Professional/Firm: Bio Keyword; Firm; Name; Title; Blog; or by Location: City; Zip; State; Country. I cannot attest to the completeness of this database, but I will say that it offers a certain amount of usefulness for entrepreneurs.

ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents Service As noted by my friend and colleague Jessamyn West in her blog post titled »a few things I would have emailed you about« ticTOCs provides the latest journal Tables of Contents (TOCs) of 12,318 scholarly journals from 435 publishers. It is possible to link to full-text articles if you have a personal or institutional subscription, and to keep up with these TOCs via your favorite RSS feed reader – and it is all free! Thanks, Jessamyn! This is what I call a new, and useful, resource.

National Marine Sanctuaries Media Library offers video clips and high-resolution images of fish and other sea creatures. There are thirteen National Marine Sanctuaries; most of them located on or near an ocean. For more information, click here on the Ocean Etiquette Links page. Interestingly, one of the National Marine Sanctuaries is located in Michigan – but on Thunder Bay in Lake Huron, and not the (to my mind, better-known and) more familiar Thunder Bay in Lake Superior. This just goes to show that you shouldn’t take anything for granted, even the names of places where you’ve lived most of your life!

National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference is a service provided by the US Department of Agriculture. One of the nice things this database does is help you calculate the number of calories in the muffin you just ate for your mid-morning snack — especially if you use this database in conjunction with a software program like MacGourmet Deluxe. Maybe you won’t have a second serving of that very rich pumpkin-almond-chocolate chip muffin after all…

As always, good luck with these resources, and don’t forget to check with your local library and ask what they can offer you! Librarians love to answer questions like that. Yes, they really do.