A weekly round up of library and information centre news and opinions from around the world.

Another in Greg Lambert’s Geek in Review recordings

In the Scoop edition 10/2018 we briefly discussed the use of emojis in legal writing. If you haven’t listened to any of The Geek in Review podcast – Episode 11 (from way back in Septmber) relates to the subject. You can listen to it by clicking on the title link above. In this podcast Greg and Marlene Gebauer speak with Jae Um on the topic of Legal Innovation, Emotions, and Emojis. You can use the Archives field drop down arrow on the Blog page to access all of the podcasts.

Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library is one of the Nicest Places in America

Congratulations the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore USA picked as a finalist in the Reader’s Digest’s “Nicest Places in America”. It’s not like most librarians and their users don’t already know that libraries are some of the nicest place to be, for a multitude of reasons. Nevertheless, Baltimore’s library users made sure their opinion was heard! Click on the title above to see Catherine Thorbecke of abcNews’ ‘Good Morning America’, Catherine Thorbecke’s report on the library. Congratulations to the staff who are the reason their library system is held in such deep affection by its users. To all libraries and their staff everywhere, without you where would so many of us be?

Softlink IC’s Liberty’s October Training and User Group Meetings in London and Edinburgh

The last, but not least, of this year’s series of Liberty Library Management System Training and User Group Meetings (UGMs) were held in London and, for the first time, in Edinburgh. The second location was in response to feedback last year that indicated distance, time, and cost of travelling to London, was prohibitive for many Liberty users. We were delighted that the opportunity to attend a training and meeting event closer to those in the North and Scotland was well received. We hope to do it again next year. Thank you to our London and Edinburgh hosts for their help and hospitality.

When you need someone to translate a supposedly English text

The article’s heading says it all “MPs seek librarian to translate Brexitese”. So, if there are any UK librarians out there looking for a “unique” job, this could be the one for you!

Did you know…

Will Roper, one of Softlink IC’s US staff sent a very interesting little tidbit about the history of barcode use in libraries. The US national register was held by GEAC now part of Infor. More interestingly, Will gave us a bit of background on how library barcodes were derived. Apparently, barcodes were invented to track railway cars. However, they did not work very well. He was told (which is not mentioned as a reason in online discussions on the topic) that they didn’t work for railways because the cars got too dirty and dusty which obscured the barcodes so they couldn’t be found and scanned! Sounds plausible doesn’t it. As Will notes, the same problem doesn’t apply to barcodes on library material.