My name is Eileen Fischlschweiger. I’ve worked at the Fort Lauderdale PTRC at the Broward County Main Library in the capacity of Patent and Trademark Librarian for 22 years, and have been the PTRC Representative Librarian for 20 years. I have been a librarian with the Broward County Library System for over 28 years. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in both Chemistry and Physics (double major), a Master’s degree in Communications, a considerable amount of graduate level coursework in Education, and a second Master’s degree in Library Science.
The Fort Lauderdale PTRC has been located at the Broward County Main Library in Downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida, since its designation on November 1st, 1984. During 1984 – 1996 it was a part of the Government Documents Department, later it became a part of the Business, Law, and Government (BLG) Section (November 1996 – January 2010), and it is currently a part of the Reference Section.
2016-2017 Highlights
· During this past year our library has begun a user experience initiative by doing customer interactive activities in an effort to attract more customers and have those who are already coming in for other reasons stay a while and enjoy partaking in the activities. Some activities are not hosted and are set up for people to enjoy at any time, such as jigsaw puzzles (including 3D jigsaw puzzles!) and a long adult coloring banner with colored pencils available for customers to color whenever they wish, while some are scheduled activities hosted by staff, such as board games, adult coloring, karaoke, and music jam. Activities are evaluated for their capacity to attract customers, and, if necessary, they are replaced by other activities to try out. The music activities do very well. We have many very talented staff who enjoy sharing their talents with library customers. Eileen joined in on several of these, including the adult coloring for which she shared some of her own freehand drawings, an example of which is pictured here (it is based on Edward Lear’s Blue and Yellow Macaw, from his “Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots”, published in 1832), as well as the music jam where she played the tambourine as an accent to staff who played guitar. Captivated by this, Eileen began learning how to play guitar on her own, and she is steadily progressing along with her husband Tom.
· Tom Fischlschweiger, our Federal Depository Library Representative, was selected to serve on the Depository Library Council for a three year term.
· In April 2016 Eileen created book displays for World Creativity and Innovation Week (4/15-21/16), World Creativity and Innovation Day (4/21/16), World Intellectual Property Day (4/26/16). She created signage for the display and also used poster art by the World Intellectual Property Office for World Intellectual Property Day. In May 2016, Eileen also created a National Inventors’ Month book display.
· Eileen created a public presentation titled Patent Searching on the USPTO Website: The Revised New Seven Step Strategy and presented it on August 6, 2016. During the presentation she provided a chart she created titled Comparison of Structure and Terminology of USPC vs. CPC since most of the audience was well versed with USPC, and learning CPC could present a challenge due to the different structure and use of familiar terminology such as class and subclass in a different framework. This presentation also included a mnemonic Eileen created for remembering Section/Subsection, Class/Subclass, and Main Group/Subgroup, in that order, for CPC. This very memorable mnemonic is “Some Cats Glow” for the letters S, C, G. It is based on information received back in April 2012 from fellow PTRC librarian Charles Malone about the Mayo Clinic’s glowing transgenic cat (with jellyfish genes to make it glow and used as a marker in feline AIDS research, because of its similarity to human AIDS. Some links to find more information about the glowing cat are https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/09/11/mayo-clinic-teams-with-glowing-cats-to-fight-aids/, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-glow-in-the-dark-kitty-77372763/, and https://www.livescience.com/15994-glow-dark-cats-aids-virus-research.html. The two-hour presentation was followed by a one-hour tour of the library’s new facilities including the Creation Station Business, The Studio (for teens only), and the Creation Station provided by the staff directly involved with those areas. The Patent searching presentation was also presented to staff on 9/27/16 and 9/29/16.
· Eileen also created a public presentation titled Trademark Basics and presented it on August 27, 2016.
· In December 2016 the Fort Lauderdale PTRC volunteered to participate in the Virtual Assistance Pilot Program with the USPTO’s Office of Innovation Development and are currently in the process of working with them on getting the system operational.
· Roving Reference continues at the Main Library. Librarians on the third and fourth floors rove with Microsoft Surface laptops, walkie-talkies, and cell phones so that they are accessible to customers in the stacks and reachable by staff on other floors needing to refer or transfer customers for shelf checks for circulating materials found on those floors.