Promoting SLA's Business & Finance Division, and Oh Yeah, Me, Too

Kyle Naff, the Webmaster for the Business & Finance Division of SLA*, was kind enough to ask me about my career and my work with the division as Membership Chair. You can read the result of the interview here.

* Special Libraries Association

Loving Lucy: Centennial Celebrations

Lucy loving is breaking out all over! August 6 will be Lucille Ball's 100th birthday, and October 15 will be the 60th anniversary of the first airing of I Love Lucy.

Here's a calendar of upcoming events and celebrations. I’ll be in New York City for the Paley Center screenings, and I hope to get to D.C. for the Library of Congress exhibition. Unfortunately, I won't be in
Jamestown (Lucy’s birthplace) for its centennial Lucy Fest.

• Jamestown, N.Y., Aug. 3-7, 2011: Lucille Ball Festival of Comedy Lucy Fest. Lucy's birthplace celebrates her 100th birthday, returning to a festival format that started in 1991. The headliners are Joan Rivers and Paula Poundstone. "Be a Lucy" by dressing as Lucy Ricardo for a Guinness World
  Record event, and attend a recreation of Lucy radio shows. There will also big a parade, baseball game and other family-friendly events. For the full schedule and more information see http://www.lucycomedyfest.com/. The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Center, 2 W. Third St., Jamestown, NY 14701. Phone 716-484-0800. Email info@lucy-desi.com.
  
  Also see the articles Love Lucy? and Celebrating the world's most famous redhead, from The Morning Call of Allentown, Penn.
• Los Angeles (Hollywood), Calif., Aug. 3 through Nov. 30, 2011: The Hollywood Museum presents Lucille Ball at 100 and I Love Lucy at 60, showcasing memorabilia saluting the careers and romance of Hollywood's most famous lovebirds. On Aug. 4, the museum and CBS DVD Paramount Home Entertainment are paying tribute to Lucy in a gala reception.
• Washington, D.C., Aug. 4, 2011, through Jan. 28, 2012: I Love Lucy: An American Legend, exhibit at the Library of Congress. Free and open to the public, I Love Lucy: An American Legend explores the show’s history through the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz family scrapbooks as well as photographs, scripts, printed and manuscript music and other documents from the library. Location: Library of Congress James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540. Phone 202-707-2905. Email pao@loc.gov.
• New York, N.Y., Aug. 5 through Sept. 3, 2011: We Love Lucy: Screenings at the Paley Center. The Paley Center Celebrates Lucille Ball’s Centennial: A look at Ball’s unparalleled work in the medium of television. Compilation screenings: “A Variety of Lucy” and “Lucy Rarities.” Location: Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio), 25 W. 52nd St., New York, NY 10019. Contact information is online.
• New York, N.Y., Sept. 28 through Oct. 30, 2011: The Paley Center Celebrates I Love Lucy’s 60th Anniversary. Compilation screenings: “Classic Lucy and Desi” and “Eventful Lucy Moments.” Location and contact information under previous Paley Center listing.
• Washington, D.C., Oct. 15, 2011, Lucie Arnaz at the Library of Congress. (That’s all the information available now at LucieArnaz.com.)
  
  
  Shout-outs (just because) to Lucy fans:
  • Everything Lucy
  • Greg in Hollywood’s I Love Lucy Friday
  • Michael Stern (Lucy’s #1 Fan)
  • The Weekly Charlow

Remembering Shirley Bookey, 1926-2011

My partner Seth's mother, Shirley Bookey, passed away Friday. I knew her for several years before her stroke in 2008, as she welcomed me into her home in Great Neck for frequent visits. Now that I live in the same home I see and feel her influence every day. She was always kind to me, and she continued to be as she lived her final years. Her senses of creativity and justice live on in her sons, Seth and Sandy. I am grateful to have known her.



Read Seth's tribute: Remembering Shirley Bookey, 1926-2011.

(I'll pass along to Seth any pertinent messages; my email address is here.)

Promoting Libraries at Breakfast

I was surprised to see, on the back of a cereal box, a full-panel promotion for libraries, including exhortations to use the library for:

• Reference services
• Business services
• Internet access
• Books-by-mail
• Interlibrary loan
• Literacy services

There's a lot of copy promoting the use of the library for kids with a boy (or a girl with a pageboy haircut) behind books and two hip teen girls in front of some stacks. "Consider the library next time you are looking for a place to hang out." (Should we hang out at the abandoned factory? No, let's try the library instead, since ShopRite says so.)

Anyway, the cereal box was a nice surprise for a library fan/librarian like me.

See a bigger (PDF) copy of the box in Google Docs.

The meaning of value-added research, from some top info pros

The students in our Principles of Searching class are studying the effective presentation of search results this week, as they prepare their final term reports for their clients. So it was timely that one of my favorite info pros (Mary Ellen Bates, via her Librarian of Fortune blog) reminded me that we should strive to provide insight, not just information, and that Colorado is home to some of the best independent researchers around.

These include Bates Information Services, Phelps Research (Marcy Phelps) and the team from Access/Information (Wanda McDavid, Judy Goater and Marcy Dunning).

In addition to their own consulting services, all offer free newsletters with tips on effective searching and presentation skills. The April 2010 Access/Information newsletter provides "a great summary of what 'value added research' means," Bates writes. 

Here are links to the newsletters offered by these great Centennial State info pros:

• Access/Information Newsletter
• Bates InfoTip
• Bates Info-Entrepreneur Tip
• ResearchNOTES from Phelps Research

Nearsighted No Longer

Yesterday's laser eye surgery was a success, and I now have 20/20 vision without glasses. My eyes are still dry and red (I have to take extra care for the next week), and I'll need to keep wearing sunglasses as usual. It's a big adjustment after 25+ years of wearing glasses all the time.

My new profile photo on Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., was taken in March by Nat Clymer for my part-time job at Rutgers' School of Communication and Information. If I appear a little nearsighted in the picture, it's because I was.

Seth has been there the whole way to support me. Thanks, Honey!

Betty Turock Kicks Off ALA Scholarship Fund-Raising With $100K Donation

Betty Turock, past president of the American Library Association and a professor and dean emerita at Rutgers, has donated $100,000 to provide scholarships to MLS candidates from traditionally underrepresented groups. She made the donation as a challenge toward a $1 million goal.

For more information please see the news article.

For more about Betty please see her Friends of Rutgers School of Communication and Information entry and a 2001 ALA news release about a scholarship in her name funded by her family.