Sticky 'Brary

If you have ventured out into the community to do presentations/speaking engagements, here's a suggestion: keep a spreadsheet listing the contact information for each group. When a year rolls by, send them a quick note letting them know that you'd be happy to come speak with their group again and show off all the cool new things that your library has implemented in the past year. Wish I'd thought of that sooner than right now.

It's what libraries do. We buy something and then we share it. Pretty simple, really. But why oh why are we so clumsy when it comes to sharing with other libraries? Sure, we've got our Interlibrary Loan program which certainly rocks. Within the span of just a few days, I can have delivered to my hands pretty much any book or journal article I could desire. That's amazing. But what about our subscription databases? Yeah, yeah. Our contracts prevent us from allowing "non-authorized" users access to our databases. The price we pay is largely dependent upon use and/or population area served. But can't we be a little more creative than that? At the very least, every library in the state (academic or public) should have an option to purchase a "non-resident" library card that would then grant access to that institution's electronic resources. With constrained budgets, that would mean that the smallest library could pony up ~$50/year to p...