Re: Benefits of Create List?

[Elizabeth Thomsen <et@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Nicole Abbott wrote:
 > I'm interested in knowing how various types of librarians (eg.
 > collection development, catalogers, etc.) utilize the create list
 > function in their work.

Our libraries, public and academic, use Create Lists for many different 
purposes, and so does our central site staff.  As I always say in 
training, basic Create Lists literacy is the single most useful skill 
that people can acquire, and we have many people in our consortium who 
are not only list-literate, they're fluent.  This includes 
administrators, circulation librarians, tech services and collection 
managers, and public services librarians (including reference, readers' 
advisory, YA and children's services people.  Our staff uses the program 
constantly as well, sometimes directly and sometimes through scripts. 
It seems like no matter what we're trying to do, whether it's improving 
an existing service, maintaining our databases, or troubleshooting a 
problem, pulling together a file of records is our first step.

We're expecting our libraries to enjoy the program even more with Phase 
3, when they'll have the ability to easily download data from records in 
a delimited format.  We've done a lot with getting records into Access 
for different kinds of reports, but the exporting options in Phase 3 
will make this much simpler.

Feel free to use any of our examples or other material, which you'll 
find here:
http://www.noblenet.org/swapshop/lists/

-- 
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
Danvers MA 01923
et@xxxxxxxxxx