ASSOCIATES (vol. 7 no. 2, November 2000) - associates.ucr.edu
Library Links Galore (and More)
by
Michael D. Brooks
Acquisitions Technician
Francis A. Drexel Library
St. Joseph's University
brooks@sju.edu
One of those individuals is one of our own. She is Mary Niederlander. And her pages are stuffed full of useful and interesting bits of information. As a subscriber to the LIBSUP-L listserv, I try to stay tuned in to the goings-on in my profession. Sometimes the volume of mail is just too much for me to handle. So I scan the subject headings and the names of submitters for posts more in line with my interests and professional duties. Almost without exception, I usually end up reading Mary's posts.
I have visited her Web site before, but I never really took the time to actually take a look. Usually, I go to her site, click on a link and off I go perusing whatever information I am interested in. But I recently stopped to smell the roses. (I actually took a good close look at her site and was impressed.) I even made a mental note to seriously revamp my own pages. She has managed to locate and link an enormous collection of valuable and informative sites.
She has amassed so much information that her homepage, The LibMary's Link. Mary's Library Links, at http://link2mary.com/libmary.htm is rather long.
Shorter pages and a directory would allow visitors to more quickly access links more closely aligned with their interests instead of scrolling through the various sections to locate pertinent links-especially for those working within time constraints.
But that is a minor concern. After all, this is not a commercial venture. She is not competing in the open market for potential customers. She has provided a comprehensive list of links that are of interest to all who work in libraries. So if all you want to do is browse the site and you have the time, then there is plenty for you to browse through.
Want something interesting to read about libraries? Check out her links to personally recommended books and articles on library-related topics. If reading the latest literary treatises about events taking place in the library field is of no particular interest to you, then scroll through Mary's homepage. You will inevitably find something that will pique your curiosity.
There are links to tons of helpful sites. One I found to be of interest is the link to ODLIS (Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science). Now I can understand what some of those pesky terms catalogers bandy about. Another link I found of interest was Library Humor Links, which takes you to the LibMary Humor Sites page at http://www.geocities.com/libmary//libhumor.htm.
If you are the type that likes to track down urban legends, the link to About.com's Urban Legends and Folklore might prove useful. About.com, but the way, is a search engine compiled and maintained by humans, not spider programs.
The abundance of information found on all of Mary's pages is impressive. The amount of work she has apparently put into her pages is inspiring. The amount of information that is available from just the links on her pages alone is staggering. It is more than apparent that a lot of work and careful thought has gone into the development and maintenance of these pages.
Now I have just one more thing to say: Bookmark this site!
