MyInfo in the library stacks

< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >

Posted by WSP
Nov 9, 2015 at 04:44 PM

I’m pasting below a note I sent recently to the MyInfo forum, which unfortunately has the atmosphere of a graveyard nowadays. (I do hope Petko bestirs himself and finally delivers the new version he has been promising for years.) Anyway, I thought I raised an interesting subject and was disappointed to get no response. My old habit of lugging a laptop into a library and merely tapping out a few notes is changing nowadays, as I try to describe here. I’m sure the technique I’ve been experimenting with would work equally well with other laptop/tablet hybrids. And there are probably ways of doing this sort of thing with other programs. I’m just reporting on my own experiences.

———————————————————

Lately I’ve been using MyInfo in a new way (new to me, at least).

For quite a few years I’ve kept an enormous collection of bibliographic references (for books in progress and for family history) in MyInfo, though I’ve often wondered whether I should transfer them over to Evernote or OneNote so that I would have access to them on my iPhone. Then about a year ago I replaced my old laptop with a Surface Pro 3, and gradually I realized it was so light and convenient that I could easily carry it around the house and to libraries without giving it a second thought.

Just recently I’ve been trying to move this process a step further. Here’s what I’ve done:

In all my bibliographical notes, I of course record either a library location (including a call number) or an online source. For big libraries (like the Library of Congress) with closed stacks, I just order the items and that’s that. But it’s more complicated in libraries with open stacks where I have to retrieve things myself. For the sake of books or periodicals in libraries like that, I have now created a new attribute (“Library A,” for example), and copy and paste the call number of each item in that field. Then I go to the Filter screen, click on the “Library A” column, and immediately I have a list in alphabetical order of all the call numbers I have to find in the stacks. Next I fold the Surface Pro type cover back behind the device and carry the Surface Pro into the stacks: at that point I have in my hands an ordered list of the things I must pull off the bookshelves. Believe me, it’s much easier to do it this way than to search for call numbers on the shelves in random order.

I can imagine that some variation of this technique might work well (if you have a Surface Pro in your hands) for certain other nonbookish activities.

Posted by Slartibartfarst
Nov 10, 2015 at 11:20 AM

Thanks for posting this comment. I’m a CRIMPer, but not a MyInfo user, though I have trialed it in the past. What you describe shows a new way of using MyInfo that I hadn’t previously seen. It’s rather interesting.

Back to topic list