Quiet week

It's been a full week since my last post, and there's not too much going on in {my academic} library land.

Here are a few tidbits:

• As the liaison to the history department, I've been working on updating various history guides on the website. I was dismayed to find out that I would have to get them all reapproved by my supervisor before sending them to our systems librarian for posting, which is a very lengthy process. Luckily, I found out yesterday that this is not the case (only for new pages or pages that are not just my responsibility), so that makes the update work more worthwhile to do. Does anyone know of research on the basics of how effective library websites work--specifically how regularly they need to be updated?
• I got a bit.ly account for use while Tweeting--because I had a long url I wanted to send someone. It only took 5 minutes, but felt like a major "techie" step.
• Gave some freshman a tour of the library. I need to spruce up my tour presentation, but it really seems that "short and to the point" is the best way to go with 20-30 freshman at 5:00 PM, just before dinner.
• Despite a quiet reference week (it's the last week of the first summer session, and it seems like exams are the norm rather than projects), I had a doozy of a ref question today--finding detailed literary criticism on Maya Angelou's poetry. It seemed like it should be a snap but most criticism is on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and her other prose. Finally found a few short (but specifically critical and analytical) articles on specific poems and two dissertations (thank you, Proquest!). The patron then had to create a new free online e-mail account, as his first e-mail account couldn't hold the huge files (he was from a cooperating institution, so couldn't access the dissertations online from home). Phew!

No new LibraryH3lp testing, but I will hopefully get back on that bandwagon next week.