By Kee Malesky

For the last year and a half, the host of the weekend version of All Things Considered (WATC, pronounced WAHT-see) has ended the show with a little segment called "Parting Words" -- a quote that sums up the feeling of the day's news, or connects and relates to the final story.

Perhaps I shouldn't reveal that the quote doesn't spring full-blown from the mind of the show's host, spontaneously on the air. They let the Librarian help.

So, if I'm not otherwise busy searching for phone numbers or fact-checking under a tight deadline, I spend a bit of time looking for that perfect quotation. I have a beat-up old copy of The Home Book of Quotations Classical & Modern, by Burton Stevenson (2000 pages of quotes, first published in 1934!). Other classic print resources (Bartlett's, Columbia) are available online through Bartleby, and there are lots of interesting quote sites on the web.

Sometimes we start with a thought, an idea we want to convey. Sometimes we start with a name -- a writer or philosopher or politician -- who must have said something appropriate. We've quoted a wide range of people -- from Harriet Tubman and Nikola Tesla to a "teen angst poet," Sandra Day O'Connor, and both Cole Porter and Michael Jackson.

One of my recent favorites was on Valentine's Day:

Love is the magician, the enchanter that changes worthless things to joy. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. (Robert G. Ingersoll, 19th century orator)

By Kee Malesky

Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon mentioned us on this morning's show -- I'm listening to it right now!

Thanks, Scooter!

By Amy DeCicco
A somewhat stale stereotype about librarians is that we tend to be conservative dressers: sensible shoes, ill-fitting clothes from a generation ago, and unfortunate decisions about hair. Lately, though, it's been pretty well-documented that we can also be a hip, well-dressed lot, and the NPR library is no exception. I submit to you just one day's worth of librarian fashion in the following slideshow.

By Hannah Sommers

Can you remember what you did during your last spring break? Were you sipping mojitos at the beach, or catching up on Law & Order? (Or were you slaving in a windowless computer lab trying to stamp out an incomplete?)

Li Li at NPR for Alternative Spring Break / Hannah Sommers

This week nearly a hundred students from the University of Michigan's School of Information are taking advantage of their Alternative Spring Break program, which matches students with real-world information projects. NPR was lucky to get one of these dedicated students, Li Li, who is specializing in human-computer interaction.

A week is a short time to complete a project, but Li is providing some very thoughtful analysis of the contracts we have that provide NPR transcripts to the public through commercial databases. Having this information will help us make smarter business decisions -- crucial in these tough economic times. Thanks Li, and good luck in your studies!

An invitation to all interested LIS students out there, NPR offers several library internships each semester. Although the summer application deadline has passed, fall applications are being accepted. Click here for application forms and instructions.

By Jo Ella Straley

We in the broadcast library are often called upon to find vintage audio clips--ads, speeches, you name it! While poking around recently, I came across the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting. They have a very fun page LAB Sound Bites where you can hear hilarious old timey ads for pimple cream and beer, among other things!

I should mention that this proves University of Maryland Libraries have the most interesting collection in the world, as they also kindly house a portion of NPR's program archives in the National Public Broadcasting Archives.

By Barbara Van Woerkom

The Reference Library creates internal Wiki pages whenever topics cry out for them -- things like the Obama transition, Mr. Blagojevich, and, of course, the Financial Crisis.

A helpful resource has been beSpacific, a law and technology news blog that compiles links to useful documents. Thanks to Sabrina I. Pacifici for her work on this!

By Maureen Clements

Got a thing for librarians? You're not alone. My Morning Jacket does too. Take a listen.

By Maureen Clements

Still life with Cupcakes and Typewriter / Maureen Clements

This past Friday, NPR organized a bake sale in honor of Black History Month. I have only one word, YUM! I asked bake sale organizer and NPR On-Air Fundraising producer, Amy Blaszyk, to write up a small post about the purpose of the bake sale.

The goal of the Black History Month Bake Sale was to raise money to help our local DC library build their collection of African-American related or written literature. It's an important component of a library's collection, and we hope this donation will allow them to continue to add these types of books and thus better serve the community. And a bake sale seems so appropriate since READING IS DELICIOUS!

We should make it clear that no books were eaten during the bakesale, only cupcakes (and cookies, and cake, and lemon bars, and brownies and.....)

By Mary Glendinning

In between bites of cupcake and sips of Ale-8-One, the NPR reference librarians have been working with our Digital Media colleagues to bring you a fact-laden multimedia tracker as a different way of looking at the events, developments, and actions of the new administration in its first 100 days. Check out the tracker!

By Hannah Sommers

Anne Ledford with some cool Ale-8 / Hannah Sommers

There's a new face in the NPR Library -- lately she's been hiding in plain view at our Broadcast Library Reference Desk. Anne Ledford recently joined NPR from the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, KY, where she facilitated metadata sharing between publishers and accessible media producers, and took a stand for quality metadata every day. In her short time at NPR she's already contributed to the stories we hear on-air and online. The archival sound of George Wallace heard in this Debbie Elliott piece is just one example: Rep. Artur Davis To Run For Alabama Governor.

However, the most important thing we learned about Anne today is that her Kentucky bourbon balls are totally badass. And we can thank her for a proper introduction to the one and only Ale-8-One. Welcome Anne!

Anne's favorite things / Hannah Sommers

 

By Kee Malesky

Monday night, NPR librarians hosted the annual meeting of the local chapter of Beta Phi Mu, the international honor society of library science. Yes, it's a science, and we have advanced degrees! It's a great organization to belong to.

Usually, our professional activities involve primarily other news librarians who share our specific interests, but in Beta Phi Mu, we meet librarians we would otherwise probably never cross paths with. So we get to chat with public librarians, and children's lit specialists, and researchers at government agencies or law firms. They're all great people and they all have fascinating jobs. I'm not kidding -- I rarely meet a librarian who doesn't love going to work every day.

Joan Weeks and Roberta Stevens strike a pose with Kee /Maureen Clements

 

By Jo Ella Straley

Tonight we look forward to hearing President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress. If there's one thing almost everyone can agree on about Mr. Obama, it's that he's good at public speaking. Ever wonder what he might have sounded like before he spent two years out on the road campaigning for president? I did, so I searched our library database and found this 1994 commentary that ran on All Things Considered. It's a response to Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve. Does he sound familiar?

Who knew this skinny kid with a funny name would one day go on to even greater fame than making commentaries for All Things Considered? We can find this today because a librarian in the past took the time to get the name right. By the way, the odd spelling in the title of this post is lifted directly from the October 28, 1994 All Things Considered rundown. A rundown is like a table of contents for shows, and often contains phonetic spellings of unfamiliar names, places, or terminology.

By Amy DeCicco

My colleague Jo Ella Straley and I are fresh from Taxonomy Tuesday -- a monthly dc-area gathering of taxonomists talking about organizing information. Today we heard about the ERIC Thesaurus. When I describe to non-librarians that I go to taxonomy discussion groups I'm often met with looks of horror as they imagine me ruminating on how to best stuff and preserve a dead pet. I have to reassure them that taxonomy does not involve animal corpses.

Continue reading "Taxonomy not Taxidermy!" >

By Barbara Van Woerkom

You never know where the search for primary sources might lead. In this case, it led to a closet where I keep my collection of Barbie dolls from my childhood. These "antiques", as my stepdaughters called them, came in handy for a request from Weekend Edition. They were looking for Barbies of all kinds for their photo shoot in honor of her 50th anniversary in March.

Barb brought along her friend Midge, Ken, his bud Allen, and even the red T-Bird. Who knew my antiques would find a place in public radio?

By Maureen Clements

I'd like to thank filmmaker Amy Seidl for making librarians look like such badass rock stars in her documentary The Hollywood Librarian. Even though the film has been around since 2007, DVD copies will be available in April 2009. You can also watch the full documentary in preview mode at the Media Education Foundation.

By Barbara Van Woerkom

NPR's brand-new CEO, Vivian Schiller, will be speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, March 2nd. Her topic is "Local Is the New Global: The Multiplatform Evolution of Public Radio." She's been an enthusiastic listener and supporter of NPR and now, after only two months on the job, has become a tireless promoter of NPR's radio and web presence.

To see what she has to say, check C-Span -- they carry Press Club Luncheon speeches live, when Congress is not in session. Video of the event will also be available on the Press Club's website.

By Maureen Clements

Today, I came across this Talk of the Nation segment, Blogging for Beginners. Panic set in when blogger Rex Sorgatz mentioned his feed reader has probably 600 or 700 sites in it. My blog reader only has 15. I better get to work.

By Maureen Clements

Over the past few weeks, I noticed the New York Times has been devoting a whole lot of paper real estate to the library profession.

First, there was the article about the Discovery Channel video library, then the story about digital archivists, and just this past weekend, the story about school media specialists.

All three stories appeared on the most emailed list. The New York Times, making librarians proud.

By Maureen Clements

Cookies from Fresh Air / Maureen Clements

Back in December, All Things Considered aired this story about the enforcement of Louisiana's ethics policies and its effect on public librarians. In short, no cookies.

That kind of policy that may not sit too well in our library, where treats and cookies are the norm rather than the exception. As a matter of fact, just two weeks ago the lovely folks from Fresh Air sent us the most delicious tin of cookies as a thank you for helping them with a digitization project.

That got me to thinking, if I accept and eat the cookies would I be violating the NPR ethics policy? After an exhaustive and thorough review, I was happy to discover eating said cookies would not result in ethics violations. That may not be the case if the cookies were gilded in gold and baked by Betty Crocker, but I digress. Needless to say, we accepted the cookies. Now, all that remains are memories and photographs and a silly little blog post.

Ethics compliance was maintained during cookie acceptance and ingestion / Amy DeCicco

 

By Maureen Clements

Glass Ceiling at Covent Garden in London / iStockphoto.com

 

If not, you certainly missed a milestone in the field of librarianship. England's Cambridge University Library recently appointed its first female University Librarian and it only took 650 years. Congratulations, Anne Jarvis. You rock!