SPARC

Last Thursday, April 9, SPARC hosted the annual Staff Appreciation Party for all Smithsonian Libraries employees. The SIL staff, armed with goodies, trekked across the Mall to the National Museum of American Indian’s Patron’s Lounge, which boasts amazing views of the Capitol and the U.S. Botanic Garden.  Amidst platters towering with french toast, trays piled high with scones and Starbucks coffee boxes filled the brim, lively conversations could be heard at each table of SIL staffers.  SPARC members had assembled the perfect centerpiece for the tables: five Peeps chilling on plastic Easter grass.  After all, what can say “spring” better than a Peep??  

Not losing sight of the “appreciation” part of the event, four SIL staff members were recognized for their exceptional service to the Libraries: Kathryn Phillips won the Keystone Award, Kathy Hill took home the Lifesaver Award, Sheila Riley swept up the Heart of Gold Award and Sharon Layne scored the Superwoman Award.  All of these ladies were nominated by co-workers who realized their special dedication to SIL over the past year.  In addition to these peer recognition awards, a few lucky SIL staffers walked away with Starbucks gift cards, which were given out through a drawing by Melinda Jane Tomerlin and Phu Pham.

The Staff Appreciation Party was a wonderful time for SIL staff to relax, get away from the office and get to know each other better.  Thanks to SPARC members for organizing this great event!  

Staff Appreciation Breakfast and Peer Recognition Awards

Please Join us:

When:  Thursday April 9, 2009
            9am to 11am
Where: NMAI Patron’s Lounge (Room 4018)

Breakfasty items will be served*, but feel free to bring baked contributions!
SPARCles (tm) will be awarded!
Speeches will be minimal!

Please enter the museum through the Independence Ave. staff entrance near 4th St.
The Conference Room is located on the fourth floor, beyond the top of the stairs.

*contact a SPARC member if you have questions/concerns about what we're serving. I think there will be something for everyone.

Time to SPARCle (tm)

SPARC is hard at work planning our annual staff appreciation party (more details on that coming soon!) and, as is traditional, that means it’s time to think about:

the SIL Peer Recognition Awards (tm)

 

SPARC can't nominate, or be nominated, for an award so we need YOU to write about that special someone and let us know why he/she deserves a SPARCle (tm).   What other kudo could possibly compare with the expressions of appreciation from our peers - the people who actually know what we do (or at least pretend to).  Nominations can be for any thing big or small that someone has done in the past year that you feel needs to be recognized - from innovative thinking to outstanding patron service to just being the one person you can always count on to get the job done.

To nominate someone, and to see award categories from last year, please see the online form:

Due to the fact that the staff appreciation party will be in early April, we must close the call for nominations on March 18th (to allow time to fabricate the awards).  Don’t worry – we accept nominations in incomplete sentences with spelling errors!

Any questions, etc. can be directed to me, or your favorite SPARC member.
And Yes, you can nominate someone who has been nominated or has received an award before.  (Last years winners were the inestimable Sharon Glenn, the unflappable Claudia Edge, and the incomparable Claire Catron.)

Next Brown Bag and SPARC sponsored tour

                                                                Hi All,

This month, SPARC is sponsoring a brown bag and a tour in collaboration with Horticulture Services Division staff.  On Friday, March 13th, from 10 - 11 am, join Tom Mirenda, for an in-depth tour of NMNH exhibit, "Orchids through Darwin's Eyes" .  This tour is limited to 15 people, so please RSVP directly to me at everlyr@si.edu. Then on Thursday, March 19th, at noon in the SIL conference room, join Rick Shilling, for an informal session entitled, "Getting your garden ready for spring." He'll answer your early spring gardening questions and any others you might have. I'll bring some gardening books from the Botany-Horticulture Library and my personal collection to consult.  For this brown bag, I'm asking participants "to blog" with their questions in advance by replying to this post, so we can be ready with answers.

                                                                Please join us for one or both events!  Robin

Brown Bag: Jennifer O'Neal, Head of NMAI-CRC Archives

Please join SPARC as we host a brown bag from someone outside of the Libraries!

Wednesday, December 3 at Noon in the SIL Conference Room, Jennifer O'Neal will be presenting a brown bag about the National Museum of the American Indian / Cultural Resources Center Archives. 

Jennifer O'Neal is the Head of Archives there, and will be presenting on the purpose of the archives, the collections within the archives, major projects the archives is working on, and basic information regarding the protocols for Native American Archival Materials.  She will also be showcasing various portions of the collection, so it should be a visual treat as well as an educational experience!

An Easier Way to Schedule Meetings

Have you spent more time trying to arrange a meeting than actually attending that meeting?

If you are willing to try something else, there are a number of web based services you can use to find a time that works for everyone.Whenisgood, Doodle, Presdo, and Diarised are a few of the ways you can set up a meeting, send out possible available times, and have your fellow meeters reply with when they are available. 

Outlook also has an option for Scheduling, which compares the availability of the list of attendees you enter based on their Outlook Calendars.  Ctrl+Shift+A will open a new appointment.   There is a Scheduling tab where you can add your attendees and see when everyone is available. (Of course that assumes everyone enters their information into their own Calendar consistently.) Alternately, you can try this.

Finally, if these don't float your boat, you can also try an oldie but goodie approach of passing around an actual piece of paper with dates and times, and have everyone block out when they are not available.  Something like this:

Download schedule.doc

I must give credit to Lifehacker, where I first came across whenisgood.net 

Like this post? Leave a comment and let us know!

Welcome Doug Dunlop!

Doug Dunlop has joined SIL staff as Metadata Librarian.  He is originally from Texas and comes to D.C. via Central Florida where he was a cataloger/metadata specialist at University of Central Florida in Orlando.  While at UCF, he was instrumental in the work done on the Central Florida Memory project http://www.cfmemory.org/  Doug has two masters: MLS (focus on information organization and digital resources management) and MA (in art history with a focus on 20th century, contemporary, and modern art ) both from University of North Texas. He wrote his thesis on the artist Rebecca Horn and has research interests in: information and technology, spirituality and psychology in art, and pop art and culture.

He arrived July 21st to a new city (Alexandria), new to Smithsonian, and into a new position for SIL!  He has already begun to look at the metadata needs of our SI Bibliography, DSpace, CHM’s Caldwell Lighting project, and NASM’s Sheet Music project.

In his spare time, he is an artist/writer working in photography, oil and acrylic paints, and film and digital art.

Doug works in Natural History building, Room 30. Please come by and share your knowledge of the D.C. area.

NASM Summer Intern, Amanda Dendor

Amanda Dendor, a graduate of James Madison University, is currently enrolled at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies where she is working toward her MLIS. She began her internship at the National Museum of Air and Space Library on May 27 with NASM librarian, Bill Baxter, who introduced her to the Bella C. Landauer Collection of Aeronautical Sheet Music. A couple of days later, Amanda moved over to a workstation in the Original Catlaoging Section to work on a data entry project, under Lowell Ashley, to provide metadata for the collection based on a card file of bibliographic descriptions. On June 23, Amanda finished inputting data from the cards, creating nearly 900 MARC records in a local data file using a specially developed macro in the OCLC Connexion client. Amanda then moved back to the Ramsey Room in the NASM Library to input further data, working directly from sheet music, that had not been included in the card file. When Amanda concluded her internship on July 10, she had created 1,033 records, constituting a nearly complete inventory of the collection. The Landauer Collection attracts much interest at NASM, and the current Wright Brothers exhibition includes items rotating from the collection and an online exhibition of recorded performances of selected items.  This very successful intern project has produced electronic data that will enable much better control the collection and provide the essential metadata component for a future digital collection of the Landauer sheet music.

New Cataloger in CSD, Polly Khater

Polly Khater joined SIL on June 9 as the Serials Cataloging Coordinator. She was formerly Director of Technical Services at George Mason University Libraries and has more than fifteen years of experience in technical services, including serials cataloging and receiving, acquisitions, and electronic journals.  Polly's workstation is temporarily located in the Original Cataloging Section in NHB Room 30, and she will be moving to a new office in Room 25 on completion of the remodeling there.  Polly is currently working on the project to set up automated check-in records for Freer-Sackler Library periodicals.

SIL initiatives on display at staff picnic research tent

The Smithsonian Staff picnic included two tents dedicated to showcasing Institution research again this year. The Smithsonian Research Bibliography and the Digital Repository were included in the Congress of Scholars Research tent. Visitors from several different units stopped by to ask and learn about these two SIL initiatives, including some who have been named as their specific museum’s Research Bibliography coordinator. Although the new secretary didn’t make it over to this table, many researchers did and it was an opportunity to inform and remind them that these programs are a service to them and that they have the support of the various undersecretaries and museum directors.