2020-12-30 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 7, Issue 4

Featured Story

Ultimate “Doomscrolling”

We’ve all been there this year — scrolling through all the bad news on our phones, panicking about what’s happening in the world. This is doomscrolling. Between natural disasters, violence, the pandemic, and our fraught political climate, it’s easy to slip into this mindset of needing to know what the next disaster is going to be. But knowing about all the things going wrong in the world isn’t actually preparing us to deal with these events and is hurting our mental health. Looking at all the bad news makes us anxious and alert for threats, which then pushes us back towards the bad news; it’s a vicious cycle. Some suggestions for stopping yourself from a doomscroll are: 

 

  • setting a timer for yourself while you look at the news

  • plan a way to unwind after looking at the news

  • do a mindfulness activity instead of looking at your phone (this one is also good for your posture!)

 

For these and more ideas, see this article from UW Medicine and this one from NPR. 

 

But what if you WANT to doomscroll? Well then, you can really commit and visit the UN’s EM-DAT: The International Disaster Database. It catalogs all the major natural and technological disasters in the world and is meant to help with disaster preparedness. Happy (or unhappy) scrolling!
– Jessica Martinez
 

Fail Forward

We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.

Test, test, test

The move to virtual programming has allowed a lot of opportunities to learn from failure. Recently our Library was recording a series of interviews with community members.  A staff member would carry on a conversation with a community member using a framework of questions, but the conversation was designed to be organic and allow the interview to go off-script.  After a great conversation with a local artist library staff eagerly uploaded a video to see how it looked recorded.  But when the video was rendered… the audio was gone!  We found out that our capture camera software has a setting that will mute the output of the microphones while recording. All other indications show that the microphones are working, but nothing is captured.  We also found that this setting is located mere centimeters above the Microphone Output levels that we learned to check for audio consistently.  During a mic check, the Mute setting had been pushed and nobody realized it. 

This failure has taught us the importance of taking a few extra minutes to complete a test recording.  It also showed us that pushing all of the buttons to find out what every part of the software program does is valuable indeed.  The Mute Output button check is now a standard part of every video recording set-up list after losing that recording.
– Mike
 

Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!

Garden City


While sending some ILLs around the state, I had a brief encounter with Garden City Library.  When I googled them, I was pleasantly surprised that their URL was… Not a quiet library!  I was tickled!  

 

I know we all think of libraries as a quiet space, and they generally are, but knowing that patrons can get a little excited about learning is a bit exciting.  It means they are enjoying the learning process.   That’s why I’m crushing on Garden City – they are embracing the concept of having a fun learning space for their community!
– Vanessa Thiele
 

SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org

SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.