President's Musings

A Note from our New President, Stephanie Brasley

Greetings CARL Members,

An unbelievable conference experience in the making in beautiful San Diego

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the CARL 2012 conference planning team – co-chairs Allison Carr and Brena Smith, site coordinator Joseph Aubele and myself – conference attendees are in for an exceptional conference experience (in my humble opinion!). California is experiencing very challenging budgetary and economic trials which has impacted librarians’ abilities to participate in professional development and networking opportunities in-state and out-of-state. CARL, a chapter of ACRL, is committed to bringing quality professional learning experiences year-round via Interest Group activities and the biennial conference. We are committed to hosting a quality conference in our state on par with that of ACRL’s national conference – and all of this at a fraction of the cost!

Here are just a few new conference features planned for attendees:

• Virtual Conference: the abstracts are up now – please take a look on the conference website
• Unconference Lightning Round sessions
• A full complement of registration options (e.g. full conference, 1-day, virtual, pre-conferences) to meet a variety of meeting needs

In addition, we have a stimulating keynote speaker and three innovative invited speakers; an opening conference reception featuring vendors/exhibitors, poster session presentations, delicious food and excellent networking opportunities; outstanding pre-conferences and sessions; and a great closing reception where family and friends can enjoy food and fun in sunny Southern California!

Touching up the “organizational house”

Building upon the important and value-added efforts of the last several CARL presidents (Tracey Mayfield, Amy Wallace and Ned Fielden) to shore up our internal and external organizational infrastructure, a taskforce is looking at CARL’s current structure (e.g. conferences, Interest Groups, Liaisons) to see if it is helping us to accomplish what we want. Look forward to that report towards the end of the year.

Promoting CARL and its membership benefits

Annually, CARL averages 41 new members per year with 350 – 425 members per year. CARL provides many benefits to its members, including professional development workshops and continuing education, opportunities to contribute to the profession (which many need for tenure-review and job advancement), a newsletter, scholarships and awards, ACRL affiliation and more. We want to make sure that academic and school librarians in California are aware of CARL and the return on investment we provide for their membership fees. We are going to survey members and non-members and develop an action plan for growing and sustaining our membership.

Your thoughts?

I would like to hear from you! Please reach out to me with any ideas or thoughts about CARL, about committees you would like to contribute to, or just to say “Hi!”

I hope to connect with you all at the upcoming CARL conference in beautiful San Diego.

Stephanie Sterling Brasley, Los Angeles Southwest College, CARL President

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CARL Business

CARL Membership Report

323 Total Members
21 New Members in January and February

If you would like to make a donation to the Ilene F. Rockman CARL/ACRL Conference Scholarship, you may do so right here. Simply select the amount you would like to donate to the scholarship, and then pay by check or credit card.

If you are no longer receiving CARLALL messages, that is an indication that your CARL membership has lapsed. We send renewal notices, but find that removal from the CARLALL list makes you stand up and pay attention!

Submitted by Kelly Janousek, California State University, Long Beach, CARL Membership Director.

CARL Awards

Congratulations to this year's Ilene F. Rockman CARL/ACRL Scholarship Winners!

We are pleased to announce Julia D. Ree and Christi Weindorf as this year's winners of the Ilene F. Rockman CARL/ACRL Scholarship. The scholarship will subsidize Julia and Christi's attendance at this year's CARL Conference in San Diego. Julia and Christi are to be commended on their commitment to academic librarianship, as demonstrated through their exemplary applications. We wish them a wonderful conference experience at CARL!

Julia D. Ree

Julia is a Library Assistant V at the University of California, Riverside, in the Metadata and Technical Services Department. Her principal duties include Cataloging for the Eaton Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection. She also serves the Collection Development Department as the Subject Specialist for the Eaton Collection. She is a second year Fellow in the IE LEADS Program (an IMLS funded grant) and is in her second year at San Jose State University in the Master’s program for Library and Information Science. She hopes to be finished with the degree by the end of 2013.

Christi Weindorf

Christi is currently attending the San Jose State University MLIS program with plans to graduate in August. She is an archival preservation fellow with the Dance Heritage Coalition where she is creating an inventory for the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. This semester she is an archival intern working with the born-digital materials in the Howard Rheingold Collection at Stanford University Libraries. Previously, she worked as a reference assistant at the Museum of Performance and Design Performing Arts Library and was an instruction and digital learning objects intern at San Jose State University's King Library.

For more information about the Ilene F. Rockman CARL/ACRL Scholarship, please visit the web page.

Submitted by Ilene F. Rockman CARL/ACRL Scholarship Committee Members, 2012

Annie Knight, Chair
Chapman University
aknight@chapman.edu

Christine Park
Touro University — California
christine.park@tu.edu

Adolfo Prieto
California State University, Fullerton
aprieto@fullerton.edu

Daniel Ransom
Holy Names University
ransom@hnu.edu

CARL Conference 2012

April 5-7, 2012 in San Diego, CA

Our diligent proposal readers selected a wonderful array of sessions for the conference! The abstracts for the Preconferences, Listen & Learn (research based), Discussion (practice based), Posters and Lightning Rounds can be found on the website.

Virtual Conference

The virtual conference will include streaming sessions from the live conference, including the keynote speaker, invited paper presentations, and regular sessions.  There will also be several sessions that will only be presented virtually.  Both the live and virtual sessions will be archived.

Hotel Information

The conference rate for rooms at the San Diego Mission Valley Marriott are  $159/night. Your hotel reservation includes free internet in the room and free overnight parking. Make your reservations and check out local attractions right here.

Announcing One-Day Registration!

New at this year’s conference: one-day registration for $150 per day, any day you choose.

On Thursday, for $150, you get:

• 2 great preconferences
• Lunch with the presenters and other attendees
• Opening reception, which includes:
• Vendors
• Lightning Rounds
• Posters Sessions
• Networking with Colleagues

• Dynamic keynote speaker, Jenica Rogers
• Invited paper presentation, Elisabeth Leonard
• CARL Research Awards Luncheon
• A choice of 12 sessions including Listen & Learn, Discussion, and Unconference
• Evening reception and networking

• Invited paper presentation, Char Booth & Brian Matthews
• A choice of 12 sessions including Listen & Learn, Discussion, and Unconference
• Interest Group Luncheon
• Afternoon reception and networking

For questions, please contact Stephanie Brasley, Allison Carr, Brena Smith or Joseph Aubele at: carlconf2012@gmail.com

Interest Group News

SCIL Program Report
SCIL Works 2012 - Back to Basics: The Ubiquitous One Shot

Seventy people attended SCIL Works 2012 Back to Basics: The Ubiquitous One Shot at The Claremont Colleges Honnold Library on February 3rd. Attendees had the chance to reinvigorate their one-shot instruction sessions by learning about best practices and new trends. The conference program included:

• Research & Practice Presentations (Hour-long presentations on effective programs or practices.)
• Rethinking handouts for library instruction sessions: They’re not as bad as you’ve been told! -- John Hickok, Instruction/Outreach Librarian, California State University, Fullerton
• Methods Behind the (One-Shot) Madness: Enhancing Instruction through Portfolios, Mapping, and Rubrics -- Natalie Tagge, Instruction Librarian, Char Booth, Instruction Services Manager & E-Learning Librarian ,and Sean Stone, Science Librarian, The Claremont Colleges
• “But it’s not enough!" Confronting reality and optimizing learning--the 50 minute one shot -- Kristin Wells, Research Librarian for Romance Languages, Latin American Studies & Classics, University of California, Irvine
• Lightning Round Presentations (5-minute poster sessions)
• Strategies for Success: Helping Online Students Discover the Library -- Terri Bogan, Reference & Instruction Librarian, Hope International University
• Memory and Color: Developing Instructions Citations Guide -- Eric P. Garcia, Librarian, California State University, Northridge
• Super Stats!!! -- Michelle Jacobs-Lustig, Librarian for Instructional Design, Outreach and Training, Pepperdine University
• The “What Stuck?” Game -- Joan Kaplowitz, Ph.D., MLIS, University of California, Los Angeles Librarian Emerita
• iPad 2s for everyone! Catching students’ attention in library one-shots -- Ngoc-Yen Tran, Manager, Collection Development, California Lutheran University

Submitted by Talitha Matlin, San Diego Zoo.

CARLDIG-South Program Report
Reference Shopping Spree

Approximately sixty librarians gathered at CSU Channel Islands on Friday, December 2, 2011 to attend the 2011 CARLDIG-South Program, “Reference Shopping Spree.” This well-attended event was hosted jointly by the California Academic Reference Librarians Discussion Interest Group – South (CARLDIG-South), under the leadership of chair Debra Hoffmann (CSU Channel Islands), and the John Spoor Broome Library at CSU Channel Islands. This year’s CARLDIG-South fall program was designed to have an interactive format and to promote a wide level of participation from librarians across the region, who were encouraged to submit a proposal on practical, innovative and just plain cool ideas related to reference work. All submitted proposals underwent a peer-review process, with the final program consisting of ten brief presentations.

The first half of the program began with Jane Magee (CSU Fresno) and Allison Cowgill (CSU Fresno), whose presentation, “Personal Librarians for At-Risk Freshmen at Fresno State,” documented their library’s experience providing students in danger of academic disqualification with customized support through group and individual e-mails, class visits, office appointments, and help at the reference desk. Next, Norma Juarez Durian (UC Riverside) presented “Integrating E-Books into the Reference Collection,” which looked at the pros and cons of online reference collections such as Reference Universe, Credo Reference, NetLibrary, and Gale Virtual Reference Library, as well as ways to make these resources discoverable through cataloging. In her presentation titled “Free as a Bird: Using Pidgin for Virtual Reference,” Jacqui Grallo (CSU Monterey Bay) shared technical aspects and practical considerations associated with setting up and maintaining both instant message (IM) and text reference service using the free Pidgin IM client. In the fourth presentation, “A LibStAR is Born: The Library Student Assistant Research Support Program at Cal Poly,” Donald Page (CSU Pomona), Julie Shen (CSU Pomona), and Christy Stevens (CSU Pomona) discussed a model for incorporating
students in the provision of reference service and looked at issues such as recruitment, training, and assessment. Markel Tumlin (SDSU) and Linda Salem (SDSU) concluded the first half of the program with “Circulating the Print Reference Collection at SDSU,” a presentation highlighting the inspiration, process, assessment, and implications related to circulating high-demand print reference titles.

Jennifer Masunaga (Loyola Marymount University) began the second half of the program with “iRove: Roving Reference with iPads,” in which she discussed the origins, efforts, and some of the technical aspects associated with providing reference services beyond her library’s immediate walls to student groups whose members are not regular library users. In her presentation titled “The Information Commons Community: Building a Staff and Student Worker Training Program in Blackboard,” Shannon Billimore (Loyola Marymount University) described the components of an online training course designed to standardize training among her library’s various working groups, including library staff, student workers, non-reference staff, and outsourced employees. For the eighth presentation, “Enhancing Reference Statistics One Click at a Time: Using LibAnswers to Expand Reference at CSULB,” Leslie Andersen (CSU Long Beach) explained her library’s use of LibAnswers to offer virtual reference services and collect analytical information helpful in assessing the library’s impact on student success. Next, Brett Bodemer (CSU San Luis Obispo) continued with “The LibRAT Program: Students Providing Peer-Reference and GE Instruction Sessions,” in which he presented the philosophical foundations and practical aspects related to hiring, training, and assessing student workers to provide both reference and instructional services. For the final presentation, titled “Replay Your Reply: Screencast on the Fly,” Kenneth Simon (Loyola Marymount University) covered the use of Jing as a tool to enhance the learning process in virtual reference transactions and included tips for creating a good screencast video.

At the conclusion of the presentations, attendees were invited to participate in the “shopping
spree” component of the program by visiting and speaking directly with presenters that piqued their interest. CARLDIG-South would like to express its sincere gratitude to all the presenters for preparing an informative and varied set of topics and also would like to recognize all program attendees and CARLDIG-South members who made the program a success.

For more information on the CARLDIG-South interest group as well as related links to material presented at the fall program, please visit: http://www.carl-acrl.org/ig/carldigs

Submitted by Adolfo Prieto, CSU Fullerton and Janet Pinkley, CSU Channel Islands
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New Coordinator for CARL IT

The CARL Information Technology Interest Group has a new Coordinator — Ian Chan.  Ian currently serves as the Web Development Librarian at California State University San Marcos. His focus is on creating the most intuitive and inviting experience for users of the Library’s web sites. More information on his current projects is available right here.

The CARL Information Technology Interest Group is dedicated to keeping librarians informed about technology events, issues, and trends in ICT technologies. To find out more information about the CARL IT Group, please our web site. 

Submitted by Wei Ma, Former CARL IT South Coordinator, CSU Dominguez Hills

Conferences and Events

SEAL-S Program Announcements

The SEAL-S Spring Adventure will be held on Saturday, April 14th at the Los Angeles County Arboretum.  

During the CARL Conference in San Diego, SEAL-S will host a luncheon as part of the CARL Interest Group Lunch. The luncheon will take place Saturday, April 7th, from 1 to 2:15 PM.

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CARLDIG-S Save the Date!
“Building Bridges: Academic Reference Services in the Community”

On Friday, November 30th, CARLDIG-S and PUENTE Learning Center will co-host a half-day workshop, “Building Bridges: Academic Reference Services in the Community” at PUENTE Learning Center in East Los Angeles. Workshop attendees will hear from different presenters about academic librarians forming partnerships with other higher education institutions, within their own academic community, or with their surrounding community. These partnerships may be designed, for example, to help support  first generation college students, foster an interest in college and research in young people, or provide reference services to low-income and diverse community populations.  A call for presenters will go out later in the summer, so watch your email and listservs. For more information, please contact Adolfo Prieto at 657.278.5238 or aprieto@fullerton.edu. We hope to see you there!

Submitted by Janet Pinkley, CARLDIG-S Chair-Elect, CSU Channel Islands

People News

Awards and Publications

Shahla Bahavar (USC), Najwa Hanel (USC), Karen Howell (USC), and Norah Xiao (USC) had their joint article published in the new monograph International Students and Academic Libraries: Initiatives for Success. Their article is entitled “The University of Southern California’s Campus-wide Strategies to Reach International Students”.

Stephanie Brasley (LA Southwest College) and Catherine Haras’ (CSULA) article “Is Information Literacy a Public Concern? A Practice in Search of a Policy” was recently published in Library Trends as part one of a two volume series on information literacy public policy, edited by John Crawford. The first volume is entitled: "Information Literacy Beyond the Academy, Part 1: Towards Policy Formation" (volume 60, number 2, Fall 2011).

John Hickok, CSU Fullerton, presented at CARL's SCIL conference at Claremont Colleges, February 3, 2012, on the topic of more effectively using handouts in library instruction.  His presentation and handout is posted at the SCIL webpage.

Silke Higgins published an article titled "Cataloging images using CONTENTdm” in the Pacific Northwest Library Association Quarterly (PNLA Quarterly) magazine, volume 76, number 2 (Winter 2012).

The South Korean government recently honored Joy Kim (USC) its National Medal of Merit for her work as curator at USC’s Korean Heritage Library. Kim received the medal during a World Koreans Day ceremony on Oct. 5 inside Seoul’s COEX Conference and Exhibition Center. The event honored Kim and 10 other expatriates who have made outstanding contributions to advancing awareness of the nation’s culture abroad. Kim’s citation for the medal, which prime minister Kim Hwang-sik awarded to her on behalf of South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, read: “Joy Kim has contributed to the advancement of Korean studies in the U.S. through her work as the curator of the USC Korean Heritage Library, which is one of the best in the U.S.”

Michael Oppenheim, Collections and Reference Services Librarian in the Rosenfeld Management Library at UCLA, is co-editor, with former CARL member Eric Forte (currently with OCLC; at UC Santa Barbara, 1999-2007), of The Basic Business Library: Core Resources and Services, 5th Edition, published by ABC-CLIO under the Libraries Unlimited imprint.

Sharon Radcliff and Elise Wong from Saint Mary's College are giving a Listen & Learn presentation at the CARL conference in San Diego next month, called "English Composition Students: How are Sources Used in their Papers?".  This presentation was born by working cooperatively with the English Department. Sharon and Elise will offer the results of their research, and will also discuss how to create a good working faculty relationship.

Hari Rorlich (USC) penned a series of articles on Romanian history and culture that was published in the new monograph World and its People — Greece and the Eastern Balkans.

Golden Gate Beach Wrack, written and illustrated by Diane T. Sands of San Francisco State University, has just been published. This field guide to the plants and animals that wash up on Crissy Field Beach in San Francisco, CA, features full color illustrations that can be seen here and here.

Aline Soules' article, "Where’s the Bio? Databases, Wikipedia, and the Web," was published in New Library World in January, 2012.  It resulted from work completed during her sabbatical in Spring, 2011.  

Tim Strawn, director of information resources and archives at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo's Kennedy Library, has been selected for the 2012 Esther J. Piercy Award by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association. This award recognizes librarians with fewer than ten years of professional experience who have shown outstanding promise for continuing contribution and leadership.

Since joining Cal Poly two years ago, Strawn has guided major collection issues including the adoption of new discovery tools and the acquisition of significant new digital content.

In addition to his role at Kennedy Library, Strawn is a director-at-large for the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services Board of Directors. He is a member of the Inclusive Excellence Council and participates in several library consortia on access issues. He also serves as chair of the search committee for a new editor-in-chief of Library Resources and Technical Services for the American Library Association (ALA).

Strawn will receive the award this June at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA.

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Presentations

Ned Fielden, San Francisco State University, presented a conference  paper titled "A Library Lens on the Seventeenth Century: Religious, Cultural and Intellectual Transitions" at the Religions, Science and Technology in Cultural Contexts conference at the NTNU (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet) in Trondheim, Norway on 1 March.

Places News

Appointments

Stephanie Alexander (USC) has been appointed as a Reference & Instruction Librarian. She received her Master of Science, Information from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2005. She also holds a BA Degree in Mass Communications from the University of California, Berkeley. She joins USC after spending the last six-years working for the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Research and Instruction of the Norlin Library.

Anthony Anderson (USC) is now the Associate Director of Doheny Memorial Library.

Emily Bergman (USC) is now Head, Gerontology Library. She received her MLS from the University of Texas at Austin and has a Bachelor of Arts from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. Emily has extensive experience in library leadership and management, collection development and public services. She has worked in a medical library in Dallas, Texas, the California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, and most recently at Occidental College for thirteen years where she was the Interim College Librarian for two and a half years.

Jean Crampon (USC) has been promoted to the rank of University Librarian.

Ryan Edwards (USC) began working in August 2011 as Integrated Library Systems Librarian, where he has been involved in the planning and operations of a wide variety of ILS-related tasks. Ryan received his Master’s degrees in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University, as well as his Master’s in Information Technology and E-Business from American InterContinental University after earning his B.A. in Political Science from the University of California San Diego From 2007 to 2011, Ryan served as Systems Librarian at California State University Channel Islands, where he managed the John Spoor Broome Library’s Voyager ILS, RFID system, EZProxy authentication and access service, Web server, and DSpace institutional repository system. From 2002 to 2007, Ryan worked at Pepperdine University Libraries, starting as a Reference Assistant, then Reference/Web Services Librarian, and eventually promoted to Systems Librarian.

Karen Howell (USC) is now the Director of the Leavey Library.

Ken Klein (USC) has been promoted to the rank of University Librarian.

Kristen LaBonte joined University of California Santa Barbara as the Life Sciences Librarian in September, 2011.  LaBonte came to the UCSB Library from the Broome Library at California State University, Channel Islands, where she was the Digital Resources and GIS Librarian. Previously, she held positions in the UCSB Library as a library assistant. Kristen earned a MLS from Southern Connecticut State University and an undergraduate degree in geography from UC Santa Barbara.

Beth Namei (USC) began working in November 2011 as the Reference and Instruction Librarian for U.S. and Canadian History, American Studies and Ethnicity, African-American Studies and Asian-American Studies. She received her MLIS from Simmons College in 2000 and just completed her Master of Arts degree in British & American Literature from Hunter College. Beth has worked as a reference and instruction librarian at a variety of academic institutions east of the Mississippi prior to moving to Southern California.

Melanee Vicedo (USC) began working in August 2011 as the Social Work Librarian. She received her MLIS from UCLA in 2007. Melanee completed a fellowship at OCLC and worked as a reference librarian in Georgia and North Carolina before returning to Los Angeles.

Edwardo Tinoco Appointed to Board of Library Commissioners

Eduardo Tinoco (USC) has been appointed to the Board of Library Commissioners, the governing body of the Los Angeles Public Library, a department of the City of Los Angeles. Tinoco was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and confirmed by the Los Angeles City Council. Also serving on the Board of Library Commissioners are Commission President Dr. Tyree Wieder, Commission Vice President Dr. Marsha Hirano-Nakanishi and members Paula Madison and Rita Walters.

Tinoco is Associate Dean of Public Services at the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries. Prior to his appointment as Associate Dean, he served as a business librarian at USC, the California State University, Northridge, and at Lehman Brothers, Inc.

Tinoco received a Master of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University and a Bachelor of Arts in English at California State University, Northridge. His professional affiliations include membership in the California Academic Research Libraries. He has extensive experience as a consultant, lecturer, writer and editor.

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Events and Exhibits

Pepperdine University Libraries is pleased to announce the launch of Pepperdine Digital Commons, the university’s new centralized platform for Pepperdine journals, faculty webpages, conference proceedings, and exemplary student research. Pepperdine Digital Commons is a digital repository and publication platform designed to collect, preserve, and make accessible the academic output of Pepperdine faculty, students, staff, and affiliates. It is the mission of Pepperdine Digital Commons to facilitate the discovery of Pepperdine’s scholarly communications, provide instant access to full text works, and preserve these materials in an open, digital environment.

Pepperdine University faculty, staff, students, organizations or departments, or individuals or groups sponsored by or closely affiliated with Pepperdine University can submit materials, including original, creative work that is scholarly in nature, research oriented, or of institutional significance. Pepperdine Digital Commons accepts a wide range of file formats (including text files, datasets, audio files, and video files) and there is no formal limit to size of material. Pepperdine Digital Commons is available at http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/

Submitted by Elizabeth Parang, Pepperdine University

Endowed Chair for USC Libraries

USC trustee Ronald D. Sugar and his wife, Valerie Sugar MS ’72, have endowed the Valerie and Ronald Sugar Dean’s Chair of the USC Libraries. The $5 million gift is the first to support a named chair in the libraries and the largest to endow a dean’s chair in the history of USC. USC Libraries dean Catherine Quinlan was formally installed as the first holder of the chair in January. “This is an extraordinary moment for our libraries and for me personally,” Quinlan said. “With this gift, the Sugars are helping the libraries support research excellence and innovative scholarship throughout the entire university.”

Submitted by Anthony E. Anderson, USC

A Sneak Peek at SFSU's Renovated J. Paul Leonard Library

The much-anticipated re-opening of San Francisco State's J. Paul Leonard Library is here! On Monday, March 26th, students were welcomed into Neda Nobari Hall on the first floor, with additional areas opening in phases throughout Spring semester.

Photo montage courtesy of Mira Foster, San Francisco State University

Renovations for Yuba College Library

The Yuba College Library located on our main campus in Marysville, CA is undergoing major renovation slated be completed in Summer 2013. Additionally, a brand new Learning Resources Center is  being built in our satellite campus in Clear Lake, CA to replace a portable LRC; it will be completed by Fall 2013. At the same time, a Learning Resources Center is being built at our brand new educational facility in Yuba City, CA; it will be completed by Fall 2013 as well. Library construction is sponsored by voter supported Measure J with some matching funds from the State of California. Needless to say, this is an exciting time for Yuba College with all our libraries being remodeled or constructed.

Submitted by Elena Heilman, Yuba College

Unshelved

Obsession, Office Supplies and the Library Service Desk

The library where I work is moving from temporary quarters into its newly renovated building. This is as good a time as any to stop, reflect and reassess services. I don't mean the big ones that involve furniture or computers or giant budgets. It is almost too late in the game to change those and, quite frankly, out of my control. No, let's take a quick look at some of the odd services we offer at the reference desk, the ones that make me feel like I work in an office supply store.

I will not lie. I love office supplies. Fresh reams of paper, new pencils to sharpen, Post-it notes in fun colors and shapes. I love the story behind Post-it notes - a manufacturing mistake turned into profit. I love knowing that Liquid Paper was invented by the mother of Michael Nesmith, from the Monkees.

But do we really need to have so many office supplies available for students? Paper clips, scissors, highlighters, tape, 3-hole punches. Without scissors, our service desk would never have had to create the "use it here at the reference desk" rule, established to keep community
users from using said scissors to cut their hair or toe nails in the bathroom.

Some days the only questions I get are about office supplies. Can I borrow a pencil? A pen? Do we have folders? Is there tape? In these days of service trainings, should we have specialized sessions on how to politely tell a student they may have 1-3 paper clips, but 25 is asking too much?

Some of you are nodding your heads or rolling your eyes. Here, for any doubters who are still reading, is a visual example. I got obsessed the other day with staplers at the service desk, specifically how many different kinds seemed to be available.

Appendix: Inevitably, once you share your obsessions, people will continue to bring you things they find at the back of cabinets well after you have run out of paper in your sketch book and you are forced to draw on the fly leaf.

Text and illustrations contributed by Diane T. Sands, San Francisco State University

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About the CARL Newsletter

The CARL Newsletter (ISSN: 1090-9982) is the official publication of the California Academic & Research Libraries organization and is published online quarterly. The RSS feed for this newsletter is available at http://www.carl-acrl.org/newsletter/feed.xml.

Deadlines for submissions: February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15.

Newsletter submissions, including creative contributions, People News and Places News should be sent to carlnewsletter@gmail.com. For corrections, questions and comments please contact the Editor, Nicole Allensworth (nallensw@sfsu.edu), J. Paul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University, 1630 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132.