In addition to giving out free water, a free keychain with a combination compass, pen light and whistle, free candy necklaces and free frisbees, Weldon Library had a pretty cool idea to help promote the library for their Frosh Week display – producing on-the-spot postcards at their display just outside their front entrance.
On a different topic, in the comments of my recent post about some of the reasons I'm not a fan of LPL, I also talked about how they have self-serve holds and that they print out date due slips with the patron's name rather than their library card number – both of which have major privacy implications.
I mentioned that Shea had found the date due slip of a UWO librarian in a book she has out right now. Now, I opened up a book I borrowed from LPL for my “Shaping of News & Information Through Technology” class to find the date due slip of a person who took the class two years ago – and who turned out to be former Spirit of Librarianship Award winner) – Guida da Silva! Crazy coincidence, eh?
Speaking of privacy implications, this isn't huge either but if you go on the “Stalker Pages” on the FIMS Intranet, it's a pretty easy hack to modify the address in the URL to see students who have gone through the program going back to 1998, most with photos and a still-existing record of which classes they took. (To do this: view the main page for everybody in the program then change the year element to whichever year you want to see. The pulldown menus for each class will work for that year as well.) For example, using this technique, I was able to confirm that Guida did indeed take that class two years ago. And hey, I just realised I should be able to get the very-flattering DMV-style photos for a couple people who aren't yet pictured on the Spirit of Librarianship page as well.
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