Computers in Libraries Recap: Day 1free the information!, librarianship, our digital future, social software, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 4/14/2010 with 5 comments

Since it had been two years since I’d been to an Information Today Conference, I was really excited to attend Computers in Libraries and it did not disappoint. It was a fantastic learning and social experience with a much more diverse array of sessions than in previous years. I was really happy to see a …

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Coming to terms with Twitterfree the information!, librarianship, library school, our digital future, social software, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 4/7/2010 with 14 comments

I’ve been teaching a class on Web 2.0 since 2007, and this semester is the first time that I’ve actually had a full week on Twitter (well, microblogging and lifestreaming to be specific). Before, I treated it sort of as an afterthought, including some information on Twitter during the two weeks that I covered blogging. …

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A lot of Davids make one heck of a GoliathALA, free the information!, libraries, open access, our digital future, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 4/5/2010 with 9 comments

In response to my post a few days ago about EBSCO, Sarah Houghton-Jan just wrote an impassioned post about unethical vendor practices, suggesting that we let our vendors know when we are not happy with what they’re doing. While I do agree that libraries should make their dissatisfaction with specific vendors or vendor practices known …

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Teaching Web 2.0 with Web 2.0free the information!, librarianship, library school, online education, social software, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 1/23/2010 with 6 comments

After a year off from teaching to take care of baby Reed, I’m getting back up on the horse. I’ll be teaching a class on Web 2.0 and Social Networking Software for San Jose State University’s SLIS program starting this Tuesday. As usual, I’ll be using Drupal for my online classroom (rather than Angel, which …

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Shades of grayassessment, librarianship, libraries, open source, our digital future, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 11/2/2009 with 26 comments

Ever since the news of LibLime’s enterprise version of Koha and whether or not their actions consisted a fork of the code, I’ve been thinking about how black and white some of us (me included, at times) tend to see library products and library vendors. Stephen Abram’s “position paper” on open source ILSes got me …

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Do you link to Harvard Business Review from EBSCO?free the information!, libraries

by Meredith Farkas on 6/26/2009 with 6 comments

Paul Pival wrote today and yesterday about “mafia tactics by Harvard Business School Publishing”, wherein they are trying to charge libraries to link to articles from Harvard Business Review in EBSCO for online classroom use and then are turning off PURLs to HBR articles in Business Source products if the school refuses to pay. I’ve …

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It’s not all about the tech – why 2.0 tech failslibraries, management, online education, our digital future, social software, speaking, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 3/14/2009 with 6 comments

Yesterday, I gave a talk for the ACRL Virtual Conference entitled Can’t Get There From Here: Achieving Organization 2.0. If you’re registered for the Virtual Conference or the regular ACRL Conference, you can access the archive of the talk, and if not, my slides and links to what I discussed are provided on my presentation …

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Online conferences – the future is nowALA, free the information!, librarianship, online education, our digital future, social software, speaking, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 2/15/2009 with 11 comments

I’ve been lucky to have had some recent involvement with two online conference models — one that recently happened and one that will be happening soon. I’m really pleased to see more organized professional development opportunities being offered online in light of the current economic situation and, selfishly, the fact that I personally won’t be …

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Separate but not equal?librarianship, libraries, online education, our digital future, reference, social software, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 1/10/2009 with 24 comments

When I read David King’s post about Ask-a-Librarian services last week, I didn’t have a strong emotional response to it. That was, until he wrote a follow up which brought my attention to some of the responses people had made to it. With email reference, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not a synchronous medium. We …

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Technology education and the “real world”american libraries, instruction, librarianship, libraries, library school, open source, our digital future, social software

by Meredith Farkas on 12/15/2008 with 20 comments

I just love that feeling of serendipity when I find that people are thinking about the same things I am at the same time. Karin Dalziel made an impassioned case for every librarian to learn how to program. Dorothea Salo responded to it and described how she thinks technology should be taught in library school. …

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Validation of my crackpot teaching ideasblogging, free the information!, instruction, library school, online education, social software

by Meredith Farkas on 12/11/2008 with 5 comments

Last week, my students in the Web 2.0 and Social Networking class I teach (at San Jose State) presented their fantastic proposals (via web conference) for implementing a specific social tool at a specific type of library. I was so impressed with their creativity and professionalism. Each of them made a very good case for …

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Satisfaction with free/open source software surveyopen source

by Meredith Farkas on 11/6/2008 with 1 comment

I know I’m late in posting this, but Brenda Chawner (a long-time expert on library open source software in New Zealand) has developed a survey for her PhD research that explores people’s satisfaction with free/open source software and their satisfaction with any F/OSS projects they’ve been involved in (MediaWiki, Koha, Drupal, MyLibrary, DSpace, etc.). If …

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Fomenting revolt in Icelandfree the information!, librarianship, library school, our digital future, social software, speaking

by Meredith Farkas on 10/29/2008 with 5 comments

I got back from Iceland this weekend just in time for a storm to knocked our power out at home. It’s back on and I’m slowly recovering from the travel, jet lag and mountains of emails and to-dos. Iceland was absolutely amazing! The landscape is so unique — I got to see lava fields, double …

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