Exercise 3
1. I was watching a Gomer Pyle episode the other day and I heard Gomer say to Sgt. Carter: “What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Golly – did he make that up himself?
Source: The Columbia World of Quotations at http://www.bartleby.com/66/
I searched for the words What a tangled web we weave as Full Text (other search choices were Author and Category). Three results came up and Sir Walter Scott appears to be the originator – the other two made changes or additions to the original quote.
Attribution: Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), Scottish novelist, poet. Marmion, canto. 6, stanza. 17 (1808).
J.R. Pope, in A Word of Encouragement, added to this the lines, “But when we’ve practised quite a while/How vastly we improve our style.”
2. A friend of mine is thinking about entering the MLIS program at San José State. He’s currently working as an LTA (library technical assistant) but understands he can earn more as a librarian, once he has his Master’s degree. How much more can he expect to earn? What kinds of additional responsibilities should he expect to take on?
The Occupational Outlook Handbook http://www.bls.gov/oco is the place to go for this information. They offer a simple search box. When I input librarian, 8 results came up, including librarians and library technicians. The entire monographs for librarians http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos068.htm and technicians http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos113.htm are quite lengthy. I have excerpted them below.
Median annual earnings of library technicians in May 2004 were $24,940.
Median annual earnings of librarians in May 2004 were $45,900.
Nature of Library Technician Work
Library technicians both help librarians acquire, prepare, and organize material and assist users in finding information. Library technicians usually work under the supervision of a librarian, although they work independently in certain situations. Technicians in small libraries handle a range of duties; those in large libraries usually specialize. As libraries increasingly use new technologies—such as CD-ROM, the Internet, virtual libraries, and automated databases—the duties of library technicians will expand and evolve accordingly. Library technicians are assuming greater responsibilities, in some cases taking on tasks previously performed by librarians.
Nature of Librarian Work (note how much longer this section is!)
Most librarian positions incorporate three aspects of library work: User services, technical services, and administrative services. Still, even librarians specializing in one of these areas have other responsibilities. Librarians in user services, such as reference and children’s librarians, work with patrons to help them find the information they need. The job involves analyzing users’ needs to determine what information is appropriate, as well as searching for, acquiring, and providing the information. The job also includes an instructional role, such as showing users how to access information. For example, librarians commonly help users navigate the Internet so they can search for relevant information efficiently. Librarians in technical services, such as acquisitions and cataloguing, acquire and prepare materials for use and often do not deal directly with the public. Librarians in administrative services oversee the management and planning of libraries: negotiate contracts for services, materials, and equipment; supervise library employees; perform public-relations and fundraising duties; prepare budgets; and direct activities to ensure that everything functions properly.
In small libraries or information centers, librarians usually handle all aspects of the work. They read book reviews, publishers’ announcements, and catalogues to keep up with current literature and other available resources, and they select and purchase materials from publishers, wholesalers, and distributors. Librarians prepare new materials by classifying them by subject matter and describe books and other library materials to make them easy to find. Librarians supervise assistants, who prepare cards, computer records, or other access tools that direct users to resources. In large libraries, librarians often specialize in a single area, such as acquisitions, cataloguing, bibliography, reference, special collections, or administration. Teamwork is increasingly important to ensure quality service to the public.
Librarians also compile lists of books, periodicals, articles, and audiovisual materials on particular subjects; analyze collections; and recommend materials. They collect and organize books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and other materials in a specific field, such as rare books, genealogy, or music. In addition, they coordinate programs such as storytelling for children and literacy skills and book talks for adults, conduct classes, publicize services, provide reference help, write grants, and oversee other administrative matters.
Librarians with computer and information systems skills can work as automated-systems librarians, planning and operating computer systems, and as information architects, designing information storage and retrieval systems and developing procedures for collecting, organizing, interpreting, and classifying information. These librarians analyze and plan for future information needs. The increasing use of automated information systems is enabling librarians to focus on administrative and budgeting responsibilities, grant writing, and specialized research requests, while delegating more technical and user services responsibilities to technicians.
3. It’s ten minutes before closing time when a young girl walks into the library and says, “Our Spanish teacher gave everybody one English word that comes from Spanish. He said we have to figure out what word it comes from and what that means in Spanish. And my word is something like… buck-er-ooh. Can you help me? I really need this for our class tomorrow!”
It sounds like the English word is commonly known as buckaroo today. It comes from a Spanish word vaquero, or a man who works with vacas (cows). I found a detailed description of the word’s background in the online Oxford English Dictionary, with examples of how it was used. My search was simply buckeroo in the simple search and the online dictionary figured it out for me (even typing buckeroo in MS Word caused the correct spelling buckaroo to present itself).
buckaroo, buckayro
Also bakhara, buckeroo, buckhara, etc. [Corruption of VAQUERO.]
1827 W. B. DEWEES Let. 16 Jan. in Lett. fr. Texas (1852) 66 These [rancheros] are surrounded by..peons and bakharas, or herdsmen.
1889 Century Dict., Buckayro…(Western U.S.).
1890 FARMER Slang, Buckhara (American), a name given in California to a cattle-driver or cowboy.
1904 N.Y. Tribune 17 July, He was herding a big bunch of cattle there with the help of half a dozen buckayros.
vaquero
[Sp. (= Pg. vaqueiro), f. vaca cow. Cf. Prov. vaquier, F. vacher, and It. vaccaro, med.L. vaccrius.]
1. In Spanish America: A cowboy or cowherd; a herdsman or cattle-driver.
4. An older woman approaches the reference desk, looking tired and worried. She says, “My husband was recently diagnosed with dementia, but they say it’s not Alzheimer’s. What’s the difference? Also, the doctor has just put him on Desyrel; I’d like to find more information about this drug, please.”
The Physician’s Desk Reference’s PDR health website is one resource for information about drugs that are available. This website is different from the print version you might find in the library in that is specifically designed for patient use. http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/rxdrugprofiles/drugs/des1128.shtml
Typing in the drug name yields a drug monograph that describes the drug in various sections:
Why is Desyrel prescribed?
Most important fact about Desyrel
How should you take Desyrel?
Desyrel side effects
Special warnings about Desyrel
Possible food and drug interactions when taking Desyrel
5. The following message appears in your Ask a Librarian e-mail: “I need information about Mauritius for a social studies report. Thanks. Adam.” Please recommend 2 useful reference sources for Adam (and remember – he may need a bit of instruction in using them).
I LOVE the CIA World Factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ and hope to turn Adam on to it as well. They have a nifty pull-down menu where you can find a country by name and it pops up a page that is divided up into the following sections: Introduction, Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, Transnational Issues. It also has the country’s flag and numerous maps.
Another easy-to-use source is the freely-available Information Please Almanac http://www.infoplease.com/almanacs.html. You simply type the name of the country into the search box and select from a list of results. The results can sometimes be confusing, but for a simple search like a country name, the first result is usually pretty good.
6. A middle school student is doing a report on the musician Prince for his class and wants to know: “What’s his real name?” Oh, and his teacher says he needs several sources for this report; please identify 3 reference sources where he could quickly find biographical information about Prince.
I wanted to show the student the value of using the library’s online resources, so I first tried the online American National Biography (ANB), but it did not contain Prince. I resorted to the three easy, free, online sources below. Each allowed me to simply type in Prince and yielded the correct person with little to no scrolling. The nice thing about ANB is that it has search limits such as the person’s field (or “realm of renown”), place of birth, and range of dates for birth or death.
Biography.com http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9447278
Prince (1958– ) stage name by which Prince Roger Nelson is most widely known
Biographical dictionary http://www.s9.com/biography/search.html
Prince (orig. Prince Rogers Nelson; the Purple One, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, TAFKAP, the Artist)
Who2 http://who2.com/prince.html
Prince: Name at birth: Prince Roger Nelson
7. You get a phone call from a bar (you can hear glasses clinking and loud laughter in the background). A man’s voice slurs the following: “Hey, library person! Can you help us out with a bet here? I’m sayin’ that Australian lady, Yvonne Goolagong, was a Wimbledon champion in singles and in doubles, and my buddy here says she wasn’t. Who’s right?”
I first tried the free web sources used in question 6. After no hits in 2 of them, I did a google search to verify the spelling of the name and found it to be Evonne Goolagong. I re-searched the free resources and still came up with zero.
The Biography Resource Center (via SJ Library) gave me a record from Great Women in Sports. Visible Ink Press, 1996. The answer is “singles only at Wimbledon.”
CAREER
Won the French Open and Wimbledon singles competition, 1971; won Australian Open singles competition, 1974-77; won Australian Open doubles crown, 1971, 1974, 1975, and 1976; helped Australia to win Federation Cups, 1971, 1973, and 1974; won Wimbledon singles competition, 1980.
8. A serious looking student comes into the library and says: “I have to do a paper on Beowulf for my Honors English class, and I think I want to write about Anglo-Saxon warfare and weapons. When we were reading it I saw that they use a variation of the word ‘sword’ in there. Where does that word come from? When was it first used in the English language?”
The online Oxford English Dictionary (OED) via SJSU databases is a great place for the answer about where sword was first used in the English language. It lists the first usage as being from Beowulf in the year 971 ad.: Beowulf 2638 (Gr.) Helmas and heard sweord. 971
I’m going to give you two choices of resources for the etymology and you can choose how deep you’d like to go: Webster’s unabridged (see citation below) gives a fine, quick answer; the OED goes way in depth. Webster’s gives a great explanation of how to read the etymology. The OED is not so clear, but I’ve downloaded their entire Help pdf, so that we can try to decipher it, as needed.
Webster’s:
[ME swerd, sword, fr. OE sweord; akin to OHG swert sword, ON sverth, Av xvara wound; basic meaning: to cut, stab]
Quick translation: Middle English from Old English; related to words in Old High German, Old Norse, and Avestan (a language from Iran in the pre-Christian era).
OED:
[OE. sweord str. n. = OS., OFris. swerd, MLG. swert, MDu. swaert (Du. zwaard), OHG., MHG. swert (G. schwert), ON. sver (Sw. svärd, Da. sverd):OTeut. *swerdom.]
Gove, P.B. (1993). Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.
In Webster’s I looked up sword alphabetically and used the Explanation and Abbreviations sections at the front of the volume. I also looked up the definition of Avestan.
In the online OED, I searched for sword and clicked on the Etymology and Date chart buttons to find the two answers.
9. An undergraduate approaches the reference desk. She is doing a paper on the year she was born (1987) and wants to know: what are two major political events, one major scientific event, and one major artistic or musical event that happened that year? Please see if you can help her locate this information using only one source.
-U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Gen. Sec. Mikhail Gorbachev of the U.S.S.R. signed (Dec. 1987) the INF disarmament treaty.
-The Iran-contra affair (Oliver North’s TV testimony, July 1987) was a major political scandal.
-A vaccine for certain types of meningitis was introduced by Gordon, et al.
-Les Misérables opened on Broadway.
First I tried Britannica Book of the Year online, but it doesn’t appear to go back to 1987. I also tried Facts on File World News Digest via LexisNexis, but I was not pleased with its searching options and despite having a date range limit, it did not yield many good results.
The above results came from the World Almanac and Book Of Facts online via LexisNexis. I wasn’t in love with the results, but I was able to find them pretty easily. I first searched for 1987 (222 hits) and then refined three times by adding the keywords politics (6 hits), science (4 hits), and art (25 hits).
Either after this quick search—or likely instead of it—I would guide the student to the print edition of the various yearbooks (Britannica Book of the Year, Europa World Year Book, etc.) that the library owns where browsing is likely to yield better results than the online resources.
10. For your birthday, a friend who loves the fact that you’re in library school gives you a little book he found at a garage sale: The seven joys of reading, by Mary Plummer. As you read it, you find yourself wanting to know more about Ms. Plummer. Where might you find a brief biography of her – one that includes a bibliography of additional readings? And if you find you want to do some serious research – what archives hold material about her?
I first used the Biography Resource Center online via SJPL databases. The search is simply by author’s name. Only one Mary Plummer came up. The biography was sufficient, but the bibliography was rather scant, so I moved on to American National Biography online via SJSU. It fit the bill exactly.
Bibliography
Archives pertaining to Mary Wright Plummer are in the Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn, N.Y., which contains correspondence to the administrators of Pratt Institute as well as to her family and friends, photographs, and drafts and copies of her publications. Material concerning her management of the library school at the New York Public Library is split between the New York Public Library Archives and Special Collections of the Columbia University Library. The archives of the American Library Association at the University of Illinois in Urbana can be consulted for her work in that organization. Some biographical material, as well as an evaluation of Plummer’s contribution to librarianship, is in “Memorial Meeting for Mary Wright Plummer,” Library Journal 41 (Dec. 1916): 889-91, and in a pamphlet, Meeting in Memory of Mary Wright Plummer, Stuart Room, New York Public Library . . . (1916). A brief comment on her life is in Anne Carroll Moore, “Mary Wright Plummer, 1856-1916,” Bulletin of Bibliography 14 (1930): 1-3. An obituary is in the New York Times, 22 Sept. 1916.
11. Unabridged or desk dictionary comparison (worth 20 points!): Please compare two of the unabridged or desk dictionaries on the source list. You may find the discussion of how to compare dictionaries (B&S pp. 412-413) useful.
Gove, P.B. (1993). Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (3rd ed.). Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster.
This is a very large, unabridged dictionary whose goal is to be “a prime linguistic aid to interpreting the culture and civilization [of the English speaking world] of today.” This 3rd edition from 1993 is based on the 1961 2nd edition. It is 2662 pages long and contains over 450,000 words and 6 million examples of recorded usage, i.e., quotes of the words as used in printed works. It contains extensive explanatory notes that are useful, but are relatively complicated and require the user to dive in wholeheartedly. This includes a daunting pronunciation guide and help in reading the each part of an entry: etymologies, status labels, verbal illustrations, etc. It highlights the inclusion of taxonomic entries and scientific and technical terms, including employing specialists to prepare them. I’ve owned this dictionary for years (It was a gift) and I love it.
Plusses: It pretty much has everything, word-wise; one-page pronunciation guide is good for general use; verbal illustrations give the user context to common usage (e.g. practicing …); extensive examples of recorded use give further context and are generally pretty cool.
Minuses: No in-depth usage notes (see discussion of Random House); complete pronunciation guide is difficult to wade through; explanatory notes are complicated.
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (2nd ed.). (2001). New York: Random House.
Don’t tell my old Merriam-Webster, but I really like this Random House dictionary.
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