I’m a little late with this announcement, but check out the Carnival at Tinfoil & Raccoon.

Aaron Schmidt has a funny post about “the way we’ve always done it” over at walking paper.

For some reason I've never thought to keep our stapler out on the Reference Desk for people to use. And I get asked for it probably 7 times per shift. Why has it gone back in the drawer? Most likely because we've always done it that way [thanks michael]. That's really not a very good reason. There are probably 10 other little things that we've “always done” that, if changed, would make our lives, and our patrons' experience better.

See – it’s not all about technology – sometimes it’s as simple as putting a stapler out for people to use instead of hiding it. We’re so used to doing things the way we always done them that we don’t see the obvious.

I have another good example (not as funny – but just as relevant). I have been helping make my staff’s lives easier for the last 2 years by creating databases left & right. A few months ago this all paid off (for me). One of our librarians came to me and asked if maybe there was a better way to track reference questions. Right now they’re using a sheet of paper with a grid on it. When a question is asked a tick mark is made in the right box, then the data is typed into a spreadsheet. They’ve always done it this way, but because I keep making changes and teaching my staff – they have started thinking differently. I’m not for change for change’s sake — I am all about change for improvement’s sake.

So, I’m very happy to read about Aaron’s simple change.

I came into work today to see that my boss had left me a newsletter to read. The newsletter is Law Librarians in the New Millenium and the article is titled: Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain (pages 1 & 7) by Bill Jack.

Jack remembers a time when only librarians knew how to use Westlaw® and were reveared as wizards of searching. Now everything is on the web and researchers don’t need librarians – right? WRONG! He mentioned a case in 2001 at Johns Hopkins University where a woman died during a study because the doctors didn’t consult the medical librarians – they used (be ready – I gasped when I read this) Yahoo, Goto, HotBot, PubMed and the free version of MedLine. Jack points out that they missed an important article that would have warned them of the dangers of the chemicals they were using because they were using the wrong tools – and consulting a medical librarian was all they had to do to avoid this tragedy.

I think all librarians should read this article by Bill Jack – not just law librarians. Why? Because Jack goes on to say:

This complicated world needs people who specialize in researching a particular area, and who spend a lot of time keeping up with improvements in research tools … We have to keep up with a landscape that seems to be changing at an ever-increasing rate.

He goes on to call us to – surprise surprise – work with our vendors (as partners) to create the right tools for this new age.

[update]added link to article about the case in 2001[/update]