The Obscure Reference Librarian

Supremely interesting information and commentary collected and summarized by a real, live librarian.

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1 in 10 Americans use smartphones during sex. Seriously, people. Just turn it off.

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Here's some advice on I'm planning on implementing for my next meeting at work: Send out the presentation and supporting data beforehand. That saves the meeting time for the most important part of face-to-face meetings: The discussion.

(Photo credit: Adikos)

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Research keeps hammering on this point: Taking breaks during the workday makes for better work and happier workers. This article details a simple pattern of reflection to help you spot activities that waste your time or that you can change to improve happiness and effectiveness. As a bonus, the few minutes of mental breaks will help you re-center and re-focus on your task.

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Those brainteasers Google was infamous for using on job applicants turn out to have been poor predictors of employee performance and suitability. Turns out more traditional measurements and good, old fashioned interviews are better at determining who will thrive.

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A little humor for those librarians facing the crappy job market. How many of these have you seen on the ALA job list?

(Image credit: Joe Hardenbrook)

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Um. No. Do not test 3-year-olds on reading and math. For pete's sake, they're 3-year-olds. Better to grade them on mudpie construction.

(Photo credit: madgerly)

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Investigations of and research on the CIA, its actions, and policies are about to get much harder. The CIA has decided to close its office that declassifies old files in order to save money. FOIA requests will still be handled the old way but that office will have to absorb time-based declassifications, too. The general opinion is that this will slow down the process of getting access to old materials that shed light on what the secretive agency was up to decades ago.

(Photo credit: Matt Scott)

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submitted by deathdestruction

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One of my suggestions made what might be the funniest tumblr I've seen all year. And I'm not just saying that because I've become a bit of a Kaiju groupie.

My weekend is now a totally awesome success.

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All the talk of the benefits of the burgeoning "freelance economy" seems to miss one crucial thing: How this type of piecemeal employment affects the freelancer. There's no insurance, no benefits, no guarantee of a steady paycheck. And breaking big jobs down into tiny ones starts a race to the bottom in terms of pay. This article from Salon lays out the oft-overlooked downside to this trend in a humane and thought-provoking way.

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Great (and somewhat humorous) flow chart for determining whether or not you should take on a project that promises no pay. Since librarians are known for their tendency to sacrifice their sanity to help others, it's especially apt for us.

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Here's a little blurb restating what research is documenting: Multitasking or even switching between tasks rapidly greatly decreases productivity. Stay focused and switch off after 40 working hours to keep your energy and creativity up.

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This simple flow chart helped me get my inbox under control. I went from well over one hundred messages to none in two days. And I've been maintaining that for a couple of weeks now.

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Another helpful little article on how to write persuasively. Again, it's great for writing on the web and also for making your case with the public or funding organizations.

(Photo credit: woodleywonderworks)

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Here's a great, quick read that will help you write more effectively for the web. It's aimed at marketers, but the principles are the same for online information.

(Photo credit: Guomundur D. Haraldsson)

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This has to be one of the most brilliant statements about the growth of surveillance I've run across. Subtle, poetic, and fun, too.

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The pesky spies at the NSA have got some serious wiggle room in what rules they do have about what data they can collect and keep on American citizens in the United States. Seems that if you go to the trouble of encrypting your data so that prying eyes can't read it, the NSA is allowed to hang onto it for a much longer time than if you send messages in the clear. And there's nothing saying that they can't throw their code-breakers at it to find out what it actually says.

(Photo credit: Jon Callas. Image is of the British code-breaking computer Colossus)

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I remember arguing this back in 2004 when I started my web development career. Library research online, with all of its different databases and pop-up windows was just too damn confusing for students. The search process needed to be fixed.

If this article is any indication, it looks like that sort of searching (which hasn't really improved in the nigh-decade since I started whining) no longer frustrates just students, but now university faculty are getting confused and sick of it.

The author makes the brave suggestion that maybe we need stop expecting students to search at all and just make a selection of appropriate materials available to them on reserve. That would be a lot of work, especially in fast-changing fields. But we're in this business to serve, so would this sort of work be the logical continuation of the services we already offer?

(Photo credit: Stevie Rocco)