submitted by Tom Wojcik

"So how many librarians does it take to change a lightbulb?"

• "Can you explain to me just a little more what you mean by lightbulb?
  
• Would that be a bulb that weighs less than average, such as the more exotic Dutch tulip root systems which were bred to market at very low shipping weight.
  
• Or did you mean an incandescent lamp that weighs 50% less than the average lamp, although the average lamp is not very heavy anyway..."

Tim Wojcik
Librarians/ Library Science
http://librarians.about.com
librarians.guide@about.com

originally submitted to medlib-l, 7-18-00, by Dena Hanson

Library as Therapy

Dear colleagues, one of my VPs forwarded this on (wondered if the library could become a revenue-producing center on the strength of it!). For your interest / information! Rather than prescribing antidepressants or counseling to treat stress, depression and anxiety, physicians in West Yorkshire, England, will soon be sending patients to the local library. Starting in September, some patients will be referred to a bibliotherapist, who will "scour a database" for suitably inspirational or humorous titles and prescribe an individual reading list as part of a six-month pilot program funded by the government, the local health district and private libraries. The service was initiated by librarian Catherine Morris, who stresses that the voluntary program is not for those with severe psychiatric illness, but rather for people with mild anxiety or depression who could use a little cheering up. The reading therapy works in a number of ways, Morris notes, adding that one person told her, "I really enjoyed this book because it was about somebody more miserable than I was."

From the BBC News, 7/17

Dena Fracolli Hanson, MLS, AHIP Director
Schwarz Health Sciences Library
Cook Children's Medical Center
801 Seventh Avenue (817) 885-3978 (VOICE)
Fort Worth, Texas 76104 (817) 885-4177 (FAX)