Aynsworth Rand Spofford, Librarian of Congress, 1864-1897
For a while during the internet boom, I worked as a sourcer locating people for an internal recruiting department. There are some librarian positions at the larger recruitment agencies and outplacement services. At the outplacement companies they help executive locate companies and find information on companies they are applying to.
Internet Sourcer is a kind of specialist position, it is finding people on the internet to interview as hires. It can also include other things like examining company web sites, tracking certain kinds of news, looking at layoffs, finding sales leads, and identifying similar companies to the company you are working at.
At the company, I took the beginning, AIRS training-- Advanced Internet Recruting Strategies. http://www.airsdirectory.com/, What this really means is that I was trained in how to find people on the web. Recruiters look at web sites, forums, people databases, blogs, alumni associations, social networking sites and anywhere that people may gather on the internet. They often take the time to learn the more advanced commands in internet search engines like link, url, file type so they can find specific documents leading to resumes or people. They also use specialty people search engines http://www.zoominfo.com/ , a biographical database, http://people.yahoo.com/ an excellent people finder.
I also used many more web tools as a recruiter than as a librarian. I had the Alexa toolbar which I checked to see who used a certain site. I used the http://www.completeplanet.com/ deep web search engine, I had several tools on my desktop like http://www.webferret.com/
and http://www.copernic.com/
In addition, they extract information from web sites, phone numbers, titles and addresses using software like Black Widow Site Sucker, or Webmole email extractor. There are various trainers who show people how to find people on the web. Probably the most famous of these is http://www.jobmachine.net/ , Shally Steckerl. There are others as well.
This makes many of them more proficient in searching the web than many librarians who are mainly focused on searching for documents and basic information. In fact in most public libraries, librarians are discouraged from letting people use email, forums, or blogs because they consider it disruptive. Things like myspace.com and facebook.com are frowned upon. But, this is where people are going to now. Social networking sites are becoming very popular. There is even one to share personal libraries, http://www.librarything.com/ .
Things like http://www.linkedin.com/ are an incredible opportunity for people who find people as their business on the web.
Librarians in the public setting and in many cases in the corporate setting have fallen very far behind the curve in using the internet to find information. They are now just getting into blogs and other social networking software. Recruiters have been there from the beginning because they are looking for people.
The other group which is using the web much more extensively than librarians in many cases are the competitive intelligence professionals. People like David Carpe use the internet as a source for finding information about competitors companies. http://www.researchzilla.com/ is one of David Carpe's websites. They also spend a lot of time finding people to interview so they can find out what is really happening inside a company. The web is a giant interconnected group of people that are writing about themselves, their interests, the places they are working at, the places they are working for, and just about anything else under the sun.
Librarians are not connected into the people part of the web. The web is not static, it is not the printed page. It changes dynamically. This is a nice little diagram of what social networking is:
http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html . People share websites in clusters. There is usually a central authoritative website which most people are linked to or discuss. The same goes for newsgroups. There are usually one or two people who have the most clout in a forum or newsgroup. Finding these people often identifies who you can ask where certain information is.
Librarians should take the time to learn more about how the internet works, especially the people focused part which is being ignored for the most part.
A lot of the strategies I have used to promote this site have come from my brief experience as a sourcer. I have searched newsgroups to find the proper group to post to, I have searched forums to identify where to drop links, I have looked at social networking sites to see where I can post comments or get widgets.
Anyways, this is part of my two cents for the day.
I have learned quite a bit trying to promote this web site. It has been a very interesting experience so far.
___________________________________________________________________
Let me get back to what I am focusing on books. I am thinking about bookselves right now and the proper way to shelve books in a bookstore or library.
Ideally when books are placed on the shelf, all the spine labels should be visible as well as writing on the spine, they should be hal an inch in from the edge of the bookshelf. The books should not be packed too tightly together because it breaks the spine of the book and causes it to split in half.
There should be a bookend on each shelf with approximately 3-5 inches of space at the end of the shelves. Shelves should be dusted regularly.
No books should be laid on top of other books. This can be dangerous because this leads to a chance for the books to fall off the shelf and hit somebody. Larger books can be dangerous especially if they fall and hit someone in the head or foot.
Ideally bookshelves should not be too deep and should include a bracket in back to prevent the books from falling behind other books.
I've always found steel case bookshelves to be the best. Wood may look nice but it is not very practical in some cases.
__________________________________________________________________
I am further into A Feast for Crows. I am on about page 60.
Internet Sourcer is a kind of specialist position, it is finding people on the internet to interview as hires. It can also include other things like examining company web sites, tracking certain kinds of news, looking at layoffs, finding sales leads, and identifying similar companies to the company you are working at.
At the company, I took the beginning, AIRS training-- Advanced Internet Recruting Strategies. http://www.airsdirectory.com/, What this really means is that I was trained in how to find people on the web. Recruiters look at web sites, forums, people databases, blogs, alumni associations, social networking sites and anywhere that people may gather on the internet. They often take the time to learn the more advanced commands in internet search engines like link, url, file type so they can find specific documents leading to resumes or people. They also use specialty people search engines http://www.zoominfo.com/ , a biographical database, http://people.yahoo.com/ an excellent people finder.
I also used many more web tools as a recruiter than as a librarian. I had the Alexa toolbar which I checked to see who used a certain site. I used the http://www.completeplanet.com/ deep web search engine, I had several tools on my desktop like http://www.webferret.com/
and http://www.copernic.com/
In addition, they extract information from web sites, phone numbers, titles and addresses using software like Black Widow Site Sucker, or Webmole email extractor. There are various trainers who show people how to find people on the web. Probably the most famous of these is http://www.jobmachine.net/ , Shally Steckerl. There are others as well.
This makes many of them more proficient in searching the web than many librarians who are mainly focused on searching for documents and basic information. In fact in most public libraries, librarians are discouraged from letting people use email, forums, or blogs because they consider it disruptive. Things like myspace.com and facebook.com are frowned upon. But, this is where people are going to now. Social networking sites are becoming very popular. There is even one to share personal libraries, http://www.librarything.com/ .
Things like http://www.linkedin.com/ are an incredible opportunity for people who find people as their business on the web.
Librarians in the public setting and in many cases in the corporate setting have fallen very far behind the curve in using the internet to find information. They are now just getting into blogs and other social networking software. Recruiters have been there from the beginning because they are looking for people.
The other group which is using the web much more extensively than librarians in many cases are the competitive intelligence professionals. People like David Carpe use the internet as a source for finding information about competitors companies. http://www.researchzilla.com/ is one of David Carpe's websites. They also spend a lot of time finding people to interview so they can find out what is really happening inside a company. The web is a giant interconnected group of people that are writing about themselves, their interests, the places they are working at, the places they are working for, and just about anything else under the sun.
Librarians are not connected into the people part of the web. The web is not static, it is not the printed page. It changes dynamically. This is a nice little diagram of what social networking is:
http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html . People share websites in clusters. There is usually a central authoritative website which most people are linked to or discuss. The same goes for newsgroups. There are usually one or two people who have the most clout in a forum or newsgroup. Finding these people often identifies who you can ask where certain information is.
Librarians should take the time to learn more about how the internet works, especially the people focused part which is being ignored for the most part.
A lot of the strategies I have used to promote this site have come from my brief experience as a sourcer. I have searched newsgroups to find the proper group to post to, I have searched forums to identify where to drop links, I have looked at social networking sites to see where I can post comments or get widgets.
Anyways, this is part of my two cents for the day.
I have learned quite a bit trying to promote this web site. It has been a very interesting experience so far.
___________________________________________________________________
Let me get back to what I am focusing on books. I am thinking about bookselves right now and the proper way to shelve books in a bookstore or library.
Ideally when books are placed on the shelf, all the spine labels should be visible as well as writing on the spine, they should be hal an inch in from the edge of the bookshelf. The books should not be packed too tightly together because it breaks the spine of the book and causes it to split in half.
There should be a bookend on each shelf with approximately 3-5 inches of space at the end of the shelves. Shelves should be dusted regularly.
No books should be laid on top of other books. This can be dangerous because this leads to a chance for the books to fall off the shelf and hit somebody. Larger books can be dangerous especially if they fall and hit someone in the head or foot.
Ideally bookshelves should not be too deep and should include a bracket in back to prevent the books from falling behind other books.
I've always found steel case bookshelves to be the best. Wood may look nice but it is not very practical in some cases.
__________________________________________________________________
I am further into A Feast for Crows. I am on about page 60.
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