Food for Fido

Last week was our first ever Food for Fido drive. In exchange for pet food, we waived patron overdue fines. We've done this before with food for the food bank, but this was our first ever pet food drive. We got a lot of food to donate:


All the food will be given to Animeals, a great organization that provides food to animals in shelters and helps to find homes for animals in need. They do a great job, and we were happy to be able to help out.

**EDIT** I've been told that we have actually done a food for fines with pet food before. Just not since I've worked here.

Bike Walk Bus Week @ MPL!

28 Missoula Public Library employees biked, walked and bused to work in honor of the 2008 Bike Walk Bus Week. As Missoula County employees, we participated in the Missoula County versus City of Missoula Employee Commuter Challenge. GO COUNTY!

We also held a drawing for a fantastic messenger bag donated by Missoula in Motion for patrons who biked, walked and bused to the library all week.

Congratulations to Peter Rapp, our lucky winner!! Peter walked to the library during Bike Walk Bus Week, although his favorite alternate mode of transportation is biking.

Thank you for biking, walking and busing!

Word Woman

Welcome to another mind-bending episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your brain in shape for the long run of life by expanding your vocabulary. Now, let's warm up those mental muscles with the Word of the Week:

Haywire: Messed-up, crazy; from the cow-country practice of twisting up loose wire before throwing it on the ground. A haywire outfit is a poorly run ranch or a logging outfit with poor equipment, which must by implication be kept together with haywire. -- "Dictionary of the American West", Winifred Blevins, Facts On File, Inc., 1993.

Example: After the kitchen sink backed up, the basement flooded and the sprinkler system failed, it didn't take a genius to see that something had gone haywire with the plumbing.

Tiny Tales Presents... The JillBillies!

On Tuesday, Tiny Tales (our storytime for 0-3 year olds) hosted the bluegrass/folk group whimsically known as The JillBillies. The kids loved them!
We're hoping to add more music to our Tiny Tales programs. Please call the Children's Desk at 721-BOOK to find out specific dates.

Checking in with Paula: Administrative Assistant's Day

It's been a while since we've checked in with our Administrative Assistant Paula, and as many of you know, yesterday was Administrative Assistant's day. We got some breakfast and other goodies for Paula, and even let her wear a crown since she was "queen for a day." Although if you ask her, she's queen here at the library EVERY day.

Thanks for all the work you do here at the library Paula!

200 Posts!

This marks the 200th blog post here at the Missoula Public Library!

Stay tuned for the next 200...

The Monolith

When you come into the library, you'll now notice what reminds me of either a white version of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, or more accurately a single piece of Stonehenge. But actually, it is the future entryway for "Entertainment Central," the place where all of our CDs, DVDs, Book CDs, etc. will be stored in the future. Shelving is arriving as we speak, so expect to see even more changes in the next few days as Entertainment Central begins to take form.

Word Woman

Welcome to another wild and wonderful installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your brain in shape for the long haul with life-long learning. Now let's get that gray matter warmed up with the Word of the Week:

Slacktivism: (noun) [slacker + activism] activism which requires little effort. -- "Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang", Grant Barrett, Ed., Oxford University Press, 2004.

Example: John tried to schmooze Tina with his environmental slacktivism, but she wasn't buying it.

Out at the Library is IN the Library!

Molly and Karl were hard at work last night around closing time getting the Out at the Library exhibit set up in preparation of today's kickoff. They unpacked boxes and locked all the pieces into place, making sure everything was just right. Karl looks pleased with the results.


There are still a few last minute details for tonight's opening reception left to figure out, but so far everything is looking great! Be sure to let us know what you think about the exhibit by leaving a comment here.


The reception will begin at 7:00 pm in the Large Meeting Room, so be sure to come down!

MLA Wrap Up

I swear I didn't forget about you all, but coming back to work after almost a whole week off at the conference left a lot of catching up to do. There were so many great exhibits and presentations this year, but I'll spare you all the details. For me the highlights were spending my birthday at the local Great Falls institution: the Sip 'n' Dip with fellow librarians (wait, since we were in a bar, does that make us hipster librarians?):



and my fellow geek here at MPL, Jim's presentation on physics and scaring young kids.



You'll notice I did not include playing at the dinner with the band, because that was a tad bit awkward since I'm used to playing original music that I've practiced, not improv covers of songs I've never heard of. But I think it still turned out ok. Kudos to the Montana Library Association and the city of Great Falls for a more than decent conference.

Montana Library Association

IMHO it was a great time in Great Falls. There were lots of good workshops, and yes, I can attest to Ben being there. Speaking of Ben being in attendance it was his birthday while we were there so... Friday night during the membership dinner there was a rock band playing as the "entertainment" so I (being the shy retiring librarian that I am) went up to the band to ask them if they knew Happy Birthday. I gave them a little background on Ben so they would understand that he was a fellow musician and the next thing I knew thay had invited him up to play a song with them. It took a few minute to line up their play lists to a matching song but we were treated to a great song with bass solos by our Ben. What fun we had and there are pictures to prove it.












On the serious side I really learned alot from my workshops and meetings and am looking forward to toning up, or would it be tuning up my services at the reference desk.

MLA 2008 Official Day 1

Today was the "official" first day of MLA, so things finally got going in earnest. And yes, I did hit up the Casino last night, but didn't win any money. Too bad.

Our very own Honore Bray got things started by introducing the two "John Does" who were issued a National Security Letter from the NSA and subsequently placed under a gag order. The whole story was disturbing from a civil liberties standpoint. Not that I was a big Patriot Act believer before, this re-enforced the contempt I have for people who take away civil liberties under the guise of "safety."



After lunch, myself along with Branch librarian Fern Kauffman and Reference librarian Marje Doyle attended an update on the e-content downloadable service that Montana libraries are hoping to adopt. Both vendors we are considering were there, and the workshop quickly turned into both speakers giving their sales pitch for the group. It made up my mind on one of the providers, but I won't say who...



Then I gave my talk with Matt about Open Source software. It went really well, the room wasn't packed by any means, but we had lots of questions and a good discussion where we talked about file type standardization, creative commons, a little consumer rights, DRM, and more. You can get a good idea of what we talked about here. Feel free to add to this wiki if you are an open source devotee, The password to edit is "torvalds" Unfortunately none of my compatriots attended, and I felt it might be a little vain to make an attendee snap a picture, so you'll have to take my word that I really did it.

More tomorrow. Now I'm off to Chili's so I can get back to the hotel in time to watch the office.

Live From MLA 2008

I've arrived in Great Falls for the 2008 Montana Library Association conference. We checked in, grabbed a (I'd like to say quick but it took almost an hour and a half) bite to eat and got down to business. I met up with my co-presenter for tomorrow Matt Beckstrom from the Lewis and Clark Library to discuss our game plan. We're presenting tomorrow afternoon on Open Source software and the benefits it can bring to libraries. I think we've sorted it out and now we're both updating slides and figuring out exactly what we're going to talk about. Things will go fine though, we both know our stuff.

The only downside is the spotty wireless here at the hotel. Both Matt and I have had problems keeping a steady connection. Next time, I won't forget to bring an ethernet cable. What was I thinking relying on hotel wireless?!?!

Hopefully, I'll be able to finish up my work in time to hit the casino/sports bar for a drink before I hit the hay. I bet I'll be able to make it. Until then, this is my view for the evening.

Word Woman

Welcome to another weird and wonderful installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your mind running like a finely-tuned machine with life-long learning. Now let's grease the wheels with the Word of the Week:

Monition [mo-NI-shun] (noun) : a warning; a caution -- "The New York Times Everyday Reader's Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words", Laurence Urdang, Ed., The New York Times Book Company, 1972.

Example: The private who ignored the captain's monition about the munition dump of his own volition soon experienced an alteration in constitution.

Out at the Library

Out at the Library kicks off on April 17^th. Help us make it a success! Join us for six weeks of author readings, workshops, book discussions, forums, theater, poetry, and films.

So what do you think about this unique historical exhibit? Are you excited about a queer lit fest featuring Montana authors? Would you like to see more events like this in the future? Share your opinion here.

The Great Walls of YA

The steel framing has been replaced by walls in the YA area! Finally we get to see a little visible progress. While a lot of prep work had to go into getting the walls ready to go up, there's nothing like seeing the future entrance to the Young Adult area look close to what it will look like when it's all finished.



And the Rest of the walls look pretty classy as well!



Of course the construction workers made a big mess while putting up all the drywall, but that's to be expected. They still have a long way to go, and an even bigger mess to make before all's said and done. I'm sure they'll clean up after themselves in the end.

Word Woman

Welcome to another mind-bending episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your brain in tip-top shape by expanding your vocabulary. Now let's get those brain cells warmed up with the Word of the Week:

Bowdlerize: Thomas Bowdler was an Edinburgh doctor of medicine who turned to publishing and produced heavily expurgated editions of Shakespeare and other authors. In his Family Shakespeare, published in 1818, he altered or cut out passages which could not, in his opinion,'with propriety be read aloud in a family.' Dr. Bowdler, then, could be said to be the spiritual forebear of today's would-be censors of books, plays and films whose judgements are biased by their own ideas of what is moral and what is not. To use the word which is derived from Bowdler's name, such people such people would undoubtedly be in favor of Bowdlerizing. -- "A Dictionary of Eponyms", Third Edition, Cyril Leslie Beeching, Library Association Publishing Ltd., London, 1989.


Example: Jimmy was unimpressed with parents' attempts at bowdlerizing his blog.

What the Health Fair?

We hosted a city wide health fair today in our Large Meeting Room. Over 20 organizations came to offer services ranging from bone density screenings to nutrition information. The fair was the cap to our week of health related programming aimed specifically at baby boomers. If you missed any of the programs or the health fair, be sure to click here for a sort of "electronic health fair" representing most (if not all) of the topics discussed at our programs and fair, along with some things that weren't touched on.



My favorite part was the snacks. I don't think of myself as a particularly healthy eater, but my afternoon snack often consists of either string cheese or pretzels so I must be doing something right.

Hooray for PLA!

I spent last week in the fair midwestern metropolis of Minneapolis at the Public Library Association (PLA for short) Convention. Now, having made my home in that fine city for some years in the past, I fully expected that the weather would be disagreeable, as winter has a tendency to linger on in Minnesota until oh... say, mid-May or so. Therefore, I was amazed to find that it was temperate and spring-like in Minneapolis while Missoula was cold and getting several inches of snow. But that delightful surprise was nothing to the wonders in store for me as a first-time library convention attendee. In recognition of that extraordinary experience, I offer the following for your edification:

THE PROS AND CONS OF GOING TO A LIBRARY CONVENTION

Con: No sleep. Ever.

Pro: Awesome coffee shops to get you through it.

Con: Inevitably, at some point, you will get completely lost.

Pro: Neat signage to help you find your way.

Con: Two sessions you want to go to both scheduled at the same time. Decisions, decisions...

Pro: Local culture and cuisine aplenty.

Con: No time to read.

Pro: Free books!!!

Con: Paying $2.50 for a Snickers bar out of a vending machine between sessions ($$$!).

Pro: Great authors luncheons with writers you've always wanted to meet like Louise Erdrich.

Con: Sales tax (yet another reason to live in MT).

Pro: Free books! Did I say that already? How about free audiobooks?

Con: There's never enough time to see and do everything you want to see and do.

Pro: Being the nerdliest employee @ your library -- bummer.
Discovering that you're not the nerdliest attendee @ the Con -- priceless.

Con: Trying to learn the public transit system in a new city.

Pro: Librarians really are nicest, friendliest people you'll ever go to a convention with!

Con: There's no getting around it - at some point, you will be unavoidably late for your session.

Pro: It's ok -- it happens to everyone.

Con: What do you mean it's all over and it's time to go home?

Pro: Did I mention free books? How about free DVDs?

The Progress Just Keeps Coming

We just keep on keeping on here at the library. Things are constantly moving and changing, as reflected by our new banner.



We are truly a work in progress. But if we take a second to peek behind the plastic we can see that lots of stuff is going on back there. This is the scene our YA librarians are greeted with each morning when they pull books from the construction zone to bring downstairs or to the hold shelf.



The Gnome Archway has kept getting more and more decorated. Some new trolls or gnomes or sprites are now welcoming kids into the children's department, while tree branches have been popping up all over.



We're still a ways from being done, but progress is progress and we'll just keep on keeping on until we get things settled into the new normal of the library.