three quick things

The busy hasn't got any less busy, and the list of things I want to post about grows ever longer, so - squeezing in a couple of quick snippets:

Thing #1 - Apparently, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library uses - or maybe used - Library of Congress shelfmarks. I've been having a second-hand splurge recently on books for a course on the history of the British Empire, and have ended up with two of their weeded books, both from different sellers. Somehow it seems particularly apt to be studying the rise and fall of the empire from books with that provenance.

Thing #2 - this article on student opinions about libraries and librarians caught my eye today, not least because I spent last week combing through and considering feedback given by last semester's students. When even my colleagues say things like 'you're more than just a librarian' when I do things that are eminently the realm of a librarian, you have to conclude that the image issue our profession has is far from fixed! It seems strange to me that being student-focussed, friendly, welcoming, helpful, and pro-active is somehow seen as something other than 'librarian normal'. It's fantastic to be appreciated, but still. Is that really a noticeable deviation from their experienced norm? Especially when every single person I've ever talked to in the campus library has been both lovely and helpful!

Thing #2.5 - I am working through a faculty member's extended bibliography at the moment, to produce an annotated version for next semester's students (all the better to guide them to resources in both our own collection and those held by external libraries), Chasing down the article references does remind me that, however magnificent it is to have such a wealth of journal materials available electronically, it's still a long way from obvious and simple for students to know how to access them all.

Thing 2.5b - Senate House Library's new Encore search is noticeably impressive and has yet to put a foot wrong for me. (I've been giving it a good work out whilst working on that bibliography)

Thing #3 - I'm off to the British Library's Out of This World : Late at the Library tomorrow night, and really looking forward to it. I've been wanting to get to the exhibition, and this was the perfect opportunity.