I had 8 responses from librarians/library assistants (numbered A-H below). Some answers have been edited slightly and not every respondent answered every question. I think the answers are very interesting. Sincerest thanks to all who took the time to respond! Ann > > 1) What are the websites that you find most useful? A. CONSER Departmental website with links documentation Google for researching corporate bodies B. NLM's Locator Plus http://130.14.16.150/locatorplus.html http://melvyl.cdlib.org/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=cdl90 C. Arts and Letters Daily (http://www.aldaily.com/), which links to interesting articles on a wide range of subjects. D. Worldcat as a tool to link directly to the catalogs of its holding libraries (for bibliographic details) E. Depends on the purpose F. Some of the links on Tools for Serials Catalogers Publisher and vendor websites, ALA, NASIG, ARL G. I find that I rarely go to a library-related website anymore, instead relying on RSS feeds. And if a library-related website doesn't offer an RSS feed, I am highly unlikely to refer to it much again. > > 2) What listservs do you find indispensable? A. CONSERLST (private list for CONSER members) SERIALST B. SERIALST, medlib-l, sla listserv, InfoPeople listserv with class announcements C. SERIALST and in order of importance: LIBLICENSE SPARC-OA Forum NGC4LIB Voyager-L Web4Lib SPARC-IR DIGLIB GOVDOC-L D. SERIALST E. SERIALIST, LIB-LICENSE, MEDLIB-L (surprisingly a lot of good serials info comes from MEDLIB), LITA-L F. SERIALST, OCLC-CAT & AUTOCAT, Since we are a Federal Depository and this is part of my responsiblity I also subscribe to DOCTECH-L and GOVDOC-L. We also belong to a library consortium that has a listserv to which I subscribe. G. I am finding myself really paring down my participation in listservs. I'm still subscribed to SERIALST and I also pay attention to SFX-DISCUSS-L, LIB-STATS, LIS-E-JOURNALS, and ERIL-L. H. Serialst -- helpful. Autocat -- pretty overwhelming, but sometimes helpful ERIL-L -- not very busy TLA and the Tennshare list-- so I don't miss a consortial deal NGC4LIB and web4lib > 3) What are the most important formal publications (in print or > online) that you read on a regular basis? A. I don't read them on a regular basis. When I do I read CCQ, LRTS, and JIC. Of the three I read LRTS the most. B. Information Outlook (SLA) JMLA Journal of Hospital Librarianship several medical librarian newsletters C. I still scan Library Journal and American Libraries, but I feel like I get less out of them than I used to. I almost never read anything in C&RL or LRTS anymore. Wired is good for tech trends, though you have to filter the gosh-wow tone. I get a lot out of the Chronicle of Higher Ed., but it's too big -- if I read it one week, I often don't get to anything else. D. LRTS E. Don't really read any on a regular basis. F. Chronicles of Higher Education Current Cites DttP Internet Resource Newsletter LRTS NextSpace, an OCLC newsletter G. Serials Review, LCATS, D-LIB, Library Journal. Increasingly, though,I am not reading formal publications as much, instead, as in the case of websites and listservs, relying on blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds to obtain the information about what's going on in my areas of interest. I am much more selective about what parts of formal publications I read. > 4) What are the top 5-8 blogs that you read? A. Catalogablog C. Open Access News (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html) -- by far the most useful thing I read in any format librarian.net Caveat Lector (http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/) T. Scott (http://tscott.typepad.com/) Library Stuff (http://www.librarystuff.net/) Library Law (http://blog.librarylaw.com/) E. Information Wants to be Free Lifehacker UBC Academic Search Google Scholar Blog LISNews.org G. Walt at Random, Thingology (LibraryThing's ideas blog), Tennant's Digital Libraries, Peter Scott's Library Blog, One Big Library, Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog, LISNews.org, Information Wants to Be Free, Hectic Pace H. I set up an RSS Reader for the first time just since the beginning of this year. I have 58 subscriptions! Now, not all of these are turning out to be very helpful, but I had to see what I liked and found the most useful. There are not very many people blogging about serials issues, but there are a few related to cataloging. Some useful blogs: Cataloging Futures http://www.catalogingfutures.com/ Planet Cataloging http://planetcataloging.org/ is a aggregator for blogs that have anything to do with cataloging. There are a lot of good blogs included in this. PennTags http://tags.library.upenn.edu/ has a Cataloging list http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/cataloging that includes some Serials things. You can do a tag search and then subscribe to just the ones that come up. I like Hectic Pace http://blogs.ala.org/pace.php for info about library automation vendors > 5) Are there podcasts that you listen to on a regular basis? A. None B. None C. None D. None E. None F. None G. Not really, but ones I have listened to and/or recommend include Library Geeks by Dan Chudnov, and the podcasts output as part of the SirsiDynix Institute. H. None > 6) What other resources do you consult or recommend? A. Catalogers Desktop, Classweb online I'm also really excited about del.icio.us--I finally set up a page. It's a way to store your bookmarks and create tags for it. Also, since it's a "social bookmarking tool" you can see who else is linking to the same sites you are. It'd be a good way for you to get an idea of what people are using. E. A good RSS Reader/aggregator. I use Bloglines. F. Ulrichsweb.com G. I am a huge fan of RSS because it saves me so much time and money. Use a free RSS reader like Google Reader or Bloglines and begin collecting library-related feeds. You won't be sorry. > > Ann > > Ann Ercelawn > Vanderbilt University Library > phone:615-343-2088 > fax: 615-343-1292 > ann.ercelawn@vanderbilt.edu
