Laura Roberts's Blog

Jazzing up your job search

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

One of the things I’m most frequently asked while on desk is whether I can help patrons search for jobs, help with their resumés, or know whether the library is hiring.

The happy answer to all of the above is “YES!”

Sacramento Public Library can steer patrons to reputable job sites, offers resumé writing assistance, and can even hook you up with a job coach that can better help you identify your talents and skills. Everything you’ll need can be found on their Career Development page.

And if you’re interested in working for the Sacramento Public Library, you should definitely set up an alert on CalJobs so you’ll immediately be notified whenever they open applications. (You’ve got to be fast, since most have a short window, so be sure to get your resumé and cover letter ready in advance!)

Fast Facts

Whether you’re actively looking for a job or would like to help others in their job searches, the library is a great place to get started. Volunteering at the library is a very common way to get a foot in the door, which can introduce you to the staff at your home branch and showcase your skills. My own journey towards employment at the library started with volunteering in the Homework Zone, helping students with math, reading and spelling questions. Other volunteers may assist with pulling books for holds, creating take-and-make kits for young patrons (art projects meant to be done at home with just a few items supplied by the library), shelving and straightening, or even sorting books for the Friends of the Library sale areas.

If you’re interested in volunteering at the Sacramento Public Library, be sure to apply online and choose your desired branch. You should hear back from a Volunteer Coordinator soon.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you tomorrow for a fresh new post!

Information vs. ignorance

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

As a famous person once said, “knowledge is power.” As a lesser-known person followed up: “and sharing knowledge is even more powerful.”

That, in a nutshell, is the goal of the library.

In a lot of ways, it feels like we’re all battling in the War Against Ignorance. Never have we had so much information right at our fingertips, a few clicks away, using the supercomputers in our pockets. And yet, at the same time, what good is access to anything you could ever want to know if you don’t have the ability to process that information?

Ignorance is a state of being that we have all experienced. It’s not a judgment, but a lack of knowledge or information. And the library holds itself up as a place where anyone can go in order to learn more about virtually any topic.

So what’s the best way to get information at your local library?

You can try a couple of things that you won’t get from a Google search:

Ask for help at the circulation desk. Everyone working in a library should be able to get you started with a basic search and point you in the right direction, no matter what your question is.Try the “Ask A Librarian” feature on your library’s website. This should put you directly in touch with subject specialists, who can give you some more in-depth assistance on your topic and give you more personalized attention.Learn how to optimize your catalog searches. Again, most library staff should be able to give you a few pointers to narrow your searches, get you to the items available at your exact location, or even assist you with InterLibrary Loans (ILL or Link+ in California) to track down material from partner libraries to help you get exactly what you’re looking for.Fast Facts

In addition to all of the above options, Sacramento Public Library also offers a Personal Shopper experience for anyone looking for something new to read. Just fill out the form with some of your favorite books, movies and genres (plus anything you definitely DON’T want to read!), and a librarian will select at least three books or movies for you based on the information you provide.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you next tomorrow for a fresh new post!

High school and homework help

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

The library is a place that high school students might go to do research for a paper, play games with friends, or even volunteer for community service hours for graduation… but did you know that if you didn’t graduate from high school, you can also get your degree through the library?

At Sacramento Public Library, there are actually two options for folks who want to finish high school. The first is a tutoring course, which enables adults to pass their GED or HiSET exams that offer high school equivalency for those who did not complete high school courses. The second option is enrolling in Career Online High School, where participants age 19+ will actually finish their high school careers fully online.

Both are awesome options for folks who, for whatever reason, didn’t get their high school diplomas and want to keep on moving onward and upward in life. If you didn’t have the support you needed in your teens, the library has your back, with dedicated tutors and teachers to help you succeed. And best of all, like all of the library’s programs: it’s totally free!

Fast Facts

Sacramento Public Library also offers lots of homework help for kids currently in school. Whether you’re a new parent looking for early learning options, have kids who need more involved assistance with specific homework questions, or just want to make sure you’re on the right track with a school project, the library offers lots of homework help options! Jump online to chat with a teen tutor or get feedback on an essay you’re working on in the Virtual Homework Zone, or by using online tutors available through HelpNow.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you next tomorrow for a fresh new post!

Games people play

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

Continuing my theme of “hey, did you know your library has THIS?!”, today is all about GAMES!

That’s right: while libraries of the past used to shush patrons for talking too loudly or engaging in any fun, silly behavior, the libraries of 2023 actually encourage fun and games. Whether you’re an online gamer in need of a computer and internet access, a console gamer in need of a new challenge, or a table-top game player, the library has something for you!

Sacramento Public Library lends out Chromebooks and wireless hotspots, so you can play Roblox at home or on the road. They also offer a wide variety of video games for Xbox, Playstation and Switch. And if you’re a fan of in-person, tabletop games, you can also borrow board games from the collection!

Fast Facts

Fun fact: Even if you’re not a Sacramento County resident, you can use the library’s computers by signing up for an Ecard. Ecards enable you to log onto the patron computer stations at any of the library’s 28 branches, and if you can prove county residence you can also use all of the databases and e-resources available as well, including access to magazines, newspapers, Craftsy classes, livestreaming concerts by your favorite bands, and lots more. Just stop by any branch and ask for access at the circulation desk and you’ll be on your way in no time.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you next Monday for a fresh new post!

Freedom and freebies

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

“Free” is a word that gets used a lot at the library. It’s free to sign up for a library card, free to check out books and other materials (as long as you bring them back on time!), and free to enjoy the library’s physical space as well as its live or virtual programs.

“Freedom” is another popular word at the library, as in the freedom to read whatever you like, freedom from censorship, freedom to continue your education throughout your life with access to library materials and services.

What other types of freedom do you get at a library?

What about the freedom from the capitalist requirement to purchase something in order to occupy space (as found in most restaurants, which require you to buy something in order to sit and stay a while or even use their restrooms)?

Or the freedom to sit in a public space, doing nothing at all, without being considered loitering?

Libraries also provide freedom from judgment: libraries are for everyone, no matter what your personal identity, political or religious beliefs, or any other -isms that folks outside of the library’s doors might use to measure a person’s worth.

What other kinds of freedom do you find yourself embracing at the library?

Fast Facts

In the United States, the freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. American libraries support this view, espoused by the ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement. It is peculiar to me every time I see librarians having to fight with politicians over this essential right, and I’m thankful that I live in a state that supports its libraries and library staff with generous funding to help serve our communities.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you tomorrow for a fresh new post!

Everything everywhere all the time: electronic services

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

As mentioned in my B post about all of the things that libraries house besides books, today let’s take a closer look at some of the Electronic items libraries loan.

Ebooks and E-audiobooks are growing in popularity at most libraries around the world, and I’m happy to report that most library staff fully believe that yes, this counts as reading! (Hey, if my brain doesn’t differentiate between reading or being read to, then I’m sticking with the science on this.) But ebooks and e-audiobooks are just the beginning of all the amazing electronic items libraries can lend.

If your library subscribes to a service like Hoopla, Libby or Kanopy, you can also stream music, movies and TV shows thanks to your library’s subscription.

And if your library is super awesome, like the Sacramento Public Library, you may even be able to borrow a laptop computer (Chromebook) and a mobile hotspot to continue your electronic learning at home!

Finally, if you’ve got your own mobile device but need a place to print out documents, the library’s got you covered. Simply head to the Mobile Printing page, follow the directions to send your documents to your closest branch, and then head to their printing station to print our the job. Prices are 15 cents per page for black-and-white prints and 50 cents per page for color prints.

Fast Facts

Sacramento Public Library originally began lending out mobile hotspots during the pandemic, as part of a grant received to expand internet access to folks stuck at home. The library continues to lend hotspots in an effort to bridge the digital divide and make internet access more easily accessible for all.

In addition to borrowing a mobile hotspot, the library’s Bookmobiles also offer drive-up access for those in the area. If you see the Mobile Services team parked somewhere, you can log onto the library’s free wifi by simply hopping onto the Sacramento Public Library internet provider in your device’s settings and clicking “Accept” when the library’s Terms of Service pop up.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you tomorrow for a fresh new post!

Defeating Dewey and his dated Decimal System

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

First things first: I know I said that I’m here to share my LOVE of libraries, and that that implies positivity and rainbows in my posts.

But. BUT!

You can’t get to the rainbow without going through a storm, right? So there are going to be some mentions of the ways that libraries are not just sunshine and lollipops here, too, and this post is going to take down a big ol’ sacred cow that I’d say most non-library folks may (still?) not realize is such a problematic figure.

Melvil Dewey is the thorn pricking the side of most modern libraries, and has been since the start.

The dude eventually . The ALA finally from their highest honor in 2019, renaming it the ALA Medal of Excellence. Melvil Dewey was NOT a good guy.

So yeah, there is plenty of anti-Dewey sentiment, both in and outside of Libraryland, and I’m not the first one to notice it.

But I did want to include him here as a part of my love for libraries, not because I think he’s a swell guy, but because learning more about how awful he truly was made me want to get more involved with social justice issues at my workplace and gave me some good starting points to dig deeper and do so.

If that sounds a bit weird, I can understand your confusion.

So let me start again with a woman named Dorothy Porter, a librarian at Howard University who dedicated her library career to decolonizing Dewey’s Decimal Classification (DDC) system, placing the achievements of Black scholars alongside those of white scholars — as they ought to have been catalogued from the start.

Unlike Dewey, Dorothy understood that Black culture was not separate from but an influential, integral part of American culture, and therefore ought to be included throughout the DDC, rather than segregated into two degrading decimal points (325 for Colonization or 326 for Slavery). Classifying works by genre and author, rather than by decimal points, she took an “Africana approach to cataloging [which] was very much in line with the priorities of the Harlem Renaissance.” (Smithsonian Magazine, November 2018)

I first learned about Porter’s work in a college class that referenced the documentary Change the Subject, which led me to wonder whether my library (which employes the DDC in its Nonfiction sections) had managed to decolonize its racist subject headings. Long story short: SPL is currently working on the issue, which is well-known in library circles and also difficult to reform quickly, given the many-headed Hydra of racist terms, linguistic slurs, and derogatory subject headings currently embedded in the DDC (as well as the Library of Congress [LOC] system, which is the one challenged by the students profiled in the documentary mentioned above).

If, like Dorothy Porter, we aim to decolonize the catalog, then major revisions are required. Perhaps even an entirely new system needs to be implemented. This can be costly, both in terms of time and money, but it’s also necessary. Who wants to see their personal identity represented negatively in an online catalog, when searching for information that is supposed to educate, enlighten and liberate us?

Clearly, Dewey’s system — and his “complicated” legacy — has got to go.

Fast Facts

For more information on Decolonizing the Catalog, I highly recommend reading this article by the American Libraries Magazine, as well as watching the 2019 documentary Change the Subject.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. See you tomorrow for a fresh new post!

Catching up with Congress (Library of)

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

The Library of Congress: what is it, what does it do, and why does Congress need its own library, anyway?

To quickly summarize: founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is both the de facto national library of the United States and our nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. It’s actually a research library, serving members of Congress, and it’s also one of the largest libraries in the world, with over 173 million items in its collection.

If you’re a writer who has ever registered an official copyright, you already know that the LOC is also in charge of providing all copyright services and creates the laws surrounding copyrights in the US (the US Copyright Office is actually a department of the Library). You may have also sent copies of your books to the LOC as part of the copyright process (the Library keeps copies of books published in the United States as part of their archive, which also helps explain why they’ve got SO MUCH STUFF).

Fast Facts

The Library of Congress offers an Ask A Librarian service, where you can literally ask an LOC librarian for assistance with your research. Pretty cool, right? You can even ask specific subject matter experts for help, if you’re looking for something a little more complicated, so you’re sure to get the best results.

In addition to these services, the LOC also operates the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, which offers free Braille, talking book and other audio materials to folks throughout the US. If you know someone who could use this kind of access, you can fill out this online form to receive more information about their services by email, phone or snail mail.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. Meet you back here tomorrow for a fresh new post!

Beautiful, bountiful books (& more!)

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This month my theme is Library Love, focusing on my love of libraries generally, as well as for the Sacramento Public Library (my local library) more specifically. I hope you find these posts informative as well as fun, and that they encourage you to visit your local library to see what’s new.

Today’s topic is obvious: If you love libraries, you’ve likely been drawn in by all the free BOOKS.

Library detractors (i.e. the kinds of folks who haven’t set foot in a library since they were kids and complain about our tax dollars funding them) grumble: “Why do they still exist? They’re just piles of books, and we have The Internet!”

Wrong, and wronger.

First, libraries aren’t just books, although we do tend to have a lot of those. Libraries also house:

newspapersmagazinesDVDsCDsaudiobooksVoxBooks (books that will read the story aloud, sometimes in multiple languages!)computers (including some you can check out)tabletsmobile hotspots (offering Internet access to folks who can’t afford it)state parks passescake pansgames (board and video!)seedsmuseum passes

Plus a wide variety of Things (stay tuned for my T post for more info!) that people can check out for use at home.

Not to mention all of the digital offerings you can access anywhere with a library card like ebooks, eAudiobooks, specialized databases, and streaming music, movies and TV shows!

Libraries offer both physical and digital materials, so that folks can access information and services in whichever way is most convenient for them. Modern libraries are not restricted by physical location, and during the pandemic this became incredibly important, allowing patrons to access their items from the comfort of home even while the physical branches were closed.

But even more importantly than offering a wide variety of materials, there’s also the fact that libraries cannot be replaced by even the most free and unfettered access to the internet, because although there’s tons of information available online, there’s also a lot of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and simply unverified nonsense. Libraries are places in our society that are dedicated to helping people find the best information available, not just the most easily grabbed stuff you can find at the top of a quick Google search.

Libraries are places that help encourage and educate patrons about the concept of information literacy, being able to identify reputable sources of information and sort facts from fiction. They’re places that help enable a more equitable distribution of access to that kind of information, by offering computers and internet access for free to patrons in their physical branches or through wireless hotspots that extend access to a patron’s home.

Libraries are definitely all about books, still and always. But they’re also so much more. And that’s why I’m sharing my Library Love this month!

Fast Facts

Some Sacramento Public Library trivia for you: SPL is home to more than 1.5 million items, all available for free 3-week checkouts with a valid library card.

All you need to do to sign up for a Sacramento Public Library card is a) be a resident of Sacramento County and b) fill out this form.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April. “C” you tomorrow for a fresh new post!

We’re going down to Alphabet City

Hello again, friends!

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? Maybe two?

But it’s April 1st, the rain has finally cleared so we can see the sun, and it’s time for another April Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I’m in need of a good writing challenge this year. In case you have been wondering what I’ve been up to, I basically changed careers during the pandemic and began working at the library. I started part-time in 2021, got promoted to full-time in 2022, and have been immersing myself as much as possible in this new world.

So, in honor of this new path, I thought I’d express my gratitude and joy with a 2023 theme of…

Library Love!

Today, let’s kick things off with the letter A, which stands for Alphabet.

If you’ve ever been inside a library, you may have noticed that things tend to be placed on shelves in alphabetical order. But things may not always be shelved simply from A to Z, as we do here in the A to Z Challenge. Why?

You can likely blame a dude named Melvil Dewey for the weird shelving system at your local library. (Or, if you’re at an academic library in the United States or Canada, you can probably blame the Library of Congress, which I will discuss in another post.)

See, Melvil Dewey thought he had a better system than the simple A to Z sorting the average person might use to put away their own, personal books on a shelf. As Wikipedia puts it:

Immediately after receiving his undergraduate degree he was hired to manage Amherst’s library and reclassify its collections. Dewey worked out a new scheme that superimposed a system of decimal numbers on a structure of knowledge first outlined by Sir Francis Bacon.

Wikipedia entry on Melvil Dewey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvil_...)

Dewey, being a recent college graduate and assuming he was the greatest thinker ever to exist, went on to “invent” a system of shelving and sorting library materials that is still used to this day. Not that folks don’t have lots and of problems with that. (He’s a pretty polarizing figure amongst library staff, and if you are any type of Other [i.e. not a straight white male land owner living in North America or Europe], his system throws major shade at the fact that you can even read and write, let alone get your book into his majestic catalog of white supremacy. But we’ll talk more about that in my D post…)

Anyway, to make a long story short (TOO LATE!), Dewey is the dude that basically told the alphabet to take a long walk off a short pier because HE had a better way.

And that, my friends, is the strange story of why books in libraries tend to be sorted alphabetically by author only in the Fiction section, and placed under some inscrutable code numbers in the Nonfiction section.

In case you’re wondering what those coded numbers mean, here is a link to a Dewey Decimal System Cheat Sheet.

These are the main Classes that Dewey came up with:

000 – General Works100 – Philosophy & Psychology200 – Religion300 – Social Sciences400 – Language500 – Science & Math600 – Technology700 – The Arts800 – Literature & Rhetoric900 – History & Geography

Why these Classes or categories? You’ll have to check back on my D post on April 5th to find out!

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more library trivia, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your local library — using all their awesome and often unpublicized free resources — throughout the month of April.