Quick Ergonomics tip for your eyes - 20/20/20

If you sit at a computer screen for any amount of time, this is a handy way to easily relax your eyes, and potentially save your eyesight.

Remember 20/20/20:  Look 20 feet away, every 20 minutes for 20 seconds.

Now you just need to figure out how to estimate what in your library is 20 feet away. :)

The National PAC for libraries - Help fund library campaigns in the US!

You may have received this message from Turner Masland through the libs-or mailing list, if not, here is a neat way to help out libraries around the country. And as of this post, Oregon has climbed to #4 in the fund-raising totals with $250!

"Hopefully by now you have all heard of EveryLibrary - a start up National PAC whose mission is to build financial and tactical support to ensure that local library initiatives pass at the ballot box.

EveryLibrary is attempting to raise $50,000 by November 7th. This money will be used to (A) Fundraise nationally to transfer "seed money" to local ballot committees and PACs; (B) Hire great campaign consultants to make sure we do voter outreach and education right; and (C) Fund full time staff to keep the PAC engine growing for future success.

In an attempt to hit this goal by election day, (founder)John Chrastka has put forth a challenge to every state to raise $1,000. Here are how the top six states are doing so far:

NY - $1185
NJ - $700
CA - $255
CO - $145
TX - $125
OR - $110

Oregon is still in it to win it! We are only $890 short. Which means, if 89 people each threw in $10, we could hit $1000 in no time
.
Donating can be done online here: http://tinyurl.com/OR4ELPAC
 
You can also follow our progress on Facebook and Twitter.

If you haven't already, be sure to read John's great article over at American Libraries."

Ouch! Ergonomics for (not just) library shelving

Hi, Rebecca here. I'm the person behind the blog for the SSD and will be occasionally blogging about library ergonomics, as it's something of a personal interest of mine.  I'm by no means an expert, so will be relying extensively on what I find on the web.

There is a really great guide of do's and don'ts for library shelving from the folks in Environmental Health & Radiation(!) Safety at the University of Pennsylvania.  It is a MS PowerPoint document.  If you don't have PowerPoint on your computer, you can look at it through Google Docs Viewer.

Did you know:
"Pinch grip strength is approximately 25% of the strength of using the whole hand, increasing the risk of wrist injury." After thinking about it, it makes sense that using your thumb and only 1/4 of your fingers would be 25% of your hand strength!

Remember to shift between using your right and left sides for shelving.  It can be difficult to get  used to using your non-dominant hand, but that has the added benefit of slowing you down (for a little while anyway) and decreasing your chance for injury even further.

There's a handy chart with the maximum weights for shelving tasks based on starting and ending points.  My only further question is how many items does that translate to?  Books are deceptively heavy.

When you don't lift with your knees, guess how much 10 pounds feels like in your back.  


So my questions to you, dear readers, are: what is your favorite alternative to the "pinch grip"?  What stretches do you use at work, if any?  Will you start stretching after reading this?  Do you know how much what you shelve weighs?