Category Archives: General

Today’s post is a friendly reminder to complete your NLC supplemental survey. If you have not completed yours, log in to the supplemental survey and knock it out. It won’t take much time. The supplemental survey provides information used in online web pages, public library maps, and other directories. The survey asks questions about public library staff, board members, friends groups, hours, website URL’s, and library social media accounts. It is important to keep this information up to date. The survey can be completed at any time the library information changes, but reminders are sent around the time of the annual public library survey (that’d be now). The ID and password for the supplemental survey are the same as your Bibliostat ID and password. If you don’t remember yours, contact me and I will send it to you. Shaka.

Emotionally, watching Nurse Jackie gives you a taste of what actually living with or having some sort of relationship (e.g. romantic, ex-spouse, work) with an addict might feel like. Albeit the Nurse Jackie TV experience may not be quite as dramatic as living it in real life, certainly the TV Nurse Jackie gets a lot of the typical behaviors of an addict right. And, let’s face the truth, it ain’t pretty. Nurse Jackie, played splendidly by Edie Falco, is a NYC nurse in an ER trauma center. At first, we feel empathy for Jackie because she is a really good nurse. She cuts through red tape to make things happen, is responsive to her patients, saves lives, gets things done when they need to be done, and has a good bedside manner. Rather quickly, however, we discover the sketchy moral ground Jackie walks on, and while we still feel some degree of empathy when it comes to her work relationships (e.g. between Jackie and the ER patients), in the other areas of her life things start to slowly erode. Yet still, as these things diminish, the affinity the Dude felt for those other people in Jackie’s life increased. In addition to Jackie’s sketchy interpretation of the code of nursing ethics, she often makes questionable life choices when it comes to the other areas of her life. Jackie’s drug of choice is prescription medication (mostly painkillers).

Just like real life, there is much comedy surrounding the tragedy, and this is mostly due to a strong cast of supporting characters. Notably, these include nurse Zoey (Merritt Wever), pharmacist Eddie (Paul Schulze), best friend of Jackie Dr. O’Hara (Eve Best), Dr. Cooper (Peter Facinelli), hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith), and nurse colleague Thor (Stephen Wallem). The comedy is not always under the blanket of Jackie’s addiction, but rather the recurring oddball characters, strange ER situations, and typical daily life situations. And because this is Showtime, it probably lends itself to a bit more believability, as the normal network constraints are absent. Many times in the past, we’ve seen male lead characters unravel in front of us, often predictably so as they sink down a moral mudslide (e.g. Walter White, Don Draper, Dexter Morgan, Ray Donovan, Hank Moody, and Frank Underwood to name a few), but in rarer times do we see this in female leads. Arguably, Nancy Botwin (Weeds) and Carrie Mathison (Homeland), might fit the ticket, but that also might be a bit of a stretch. There is a parallel here (with the unraveling bit), and as Jackie wavers here and there she undoubtedly is headed down that same path.

According to FirstSearch and depending on the season, only 4 Nebraska public libraries have Nurse Jackie in their collection. If your library is looking for something that is half drama half comedy, Nurse Jackie would fit the bill. Thank you, Showtime, for permissions on the cover art. Shaka.

Now that the deadline for the public library survey has passed, perhaps it might be beneficial to reiterate the importance of collecting this data. If, as you were collecting and reporting this data, you might have been thinking that this is all a complete waste of time, today the Dude will attempt to illustrate that not all of your work was done in vain. And please, while thoughts are fresh in your head, feel free to e-mail suggestions about how things might be better for next year’s survey. Are there questions that are no longer relevant in your opinion? Questions that were ambiguous? Edit checks that didn’t make sense (admittedly, the Dude got tired of looking at “we did not loan any items to other libraries”)? No suggestion is too trivial for consideration!

As many of you know, the public library survey is a requirement for your library if you are accredited, and if you aren’t accredited, there is candy dangled in front of you in the form of 200 bucks if you complete the survey. This program is called Dollar$ for Data. Now aside from these perceived bribes and threats to complete the survey, what are some of the other reasons for doing it? There certainly are some, aren’t there? Well, let’s first mention some of the national reasons, as every state (and U.S. territory) must collect and submit public library survey data to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (a/k/a IMLS). IMLS, in case you didn’t know, is an independent agency created by the U.S. federal government, and is responsible for the primary support of the libraries and museums in the nation (and U.S. territories). This involves many things such as the formulation of policies, research, and collaboration with state library administrative agencies (such as the Library Commission). But part of all this is that IMLS also distributes funding and grants to libraries and museums. Data collection and analysis is a part of the development and continuation of those federal programs.

At the state and local level, collecting this data is important for those same reasons. An example is that it would be hard to demonstrate funding requests for things like the Nebraska OverDrive consortium without having any data, statistics, or trend files that illustrate the use of electronic materials. What about strategic planning? Many of you might already know that every library in the state has what are called “peer libraries”. These are libraries that are identified as similar to your library. Most of the time this means that they are within a certain range of your legal service area (or LSA). At the local level, this is important because you can then compare things like your collection, staffing, budget, and other library services with your peers (a/k/a keeping up with the Joneses). Some of the peer libraries are Iowa libraries because there aren’t enough comparable libraries in Nebraska.

Finally, if you want data for your peer libraries (and after this year’s survey cycle is over, we will re-calculate your peer libraries – most likely this coming summer, so keep that in mind), you can contact the Dude and he will extract and send (E&S) those data files to you. There is also the IMLS compare public libraries tool, which allows you to pull comparable nationwide data. Keep in mind, however, that the data for the compare tool is usually a year behind the data that many states (including Nebraska) collect and publish. It might, however, be a good starting point to identify similar libraries. Finally, if you are looking for more current data from states other than Nebraska, the Colorado Library Research Service provides a page that has links to the data files for each state, if those are available. Shaka.

For you procrastinators, it is now the moment of truth for the annual IMLS Public Library Survey. The deadline is February 19, 2016. The Bibliostat Collect portion of the data services section of the NLC website has a link to the login, instructions, tips, and other tidbits to help you complete the survey. Keep in mind that the survey is required for your library to receive state aid if you are accredited. If you aren’t accredited, you still have an incentive to complete the survey ($200), called Dollar$ for Data.

If you run into a bind and have special circumstances, please let me know. I am here to help you with the process in any way I can. Don’t hesitate to contact me. Thank you in advance for your participation and patience. Shaka

Shaka. It is getting close to crunch time for the annual IMLS Public Library Survey. The deadline is February 19, 2016, a mere 9 days away. The Bibliostat Collect portion of the data services section of the NLC website has a link to the login, instructions, tips, and other tidbits to help you complete the survey. Keep in mind that the survey is required for your library to receive state aid if you are accredited. If you aren’t accredited, you still have an incentive to complete the survey ($200), called Dollar$ for Data.

As of yesterday, our response rates are still pretty low. If you run into a bind and have special circumstances, please let me know. I am here to help you with the process in any way I can. Don’t hesitate to contact me. Thank you in advance for your participation and patience.