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« Previous EntriesWhat’s the deal, JSTOR?
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010I’ve written some posts in the past about vendors that have done some pretty slimy things in the name of making a profit. At least that makes sense to me. That’s their model — they’re profit-driven. Then there’s JSTOR. JSTOR is not an EBSCO or an Elsevier. JSTOR is a non-profit. JSTOR is a “service [...]
Numbers vs. meaning
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010Forgive this less-than-well-thought-out post. I’ve been thinking a lot about assessment lately and the librarianly love of numbers in assessment, and I’m a troubled by the way that some academic libraries tend to measure how well they are supporting the academic mission of the institution.
Librarians keep a lot of statistics and measure a lot of [...]
History and change
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010I’ve been thinking a lot lately about finding a balance between honoring history and promoting change. Then I read a post by Kendra entitled “The tension between ‘memory’ and ‘complacency’” where she talks about the struggle to find “the balance between memory/history and change/innovation in my library community.” She says that while it’s important to [...]
Tips for library job applicants in a tight market
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Another semester of teaching at San Jose State’s SLIS program has ended. Many of my students are graduating and others are starting to think about applying for jobs so they’ll have one when they do graduate. For so many of them, the job search is going to be a struggle. It wasn’t an easy job [...]
Computers in Libraries Recap: Day 3
Thursday, April 15th, 2010I took an absolutely obscene amount of notes from Ken Haycock’s keynote, because it was just one pearl of wisdom after another (I’m only including some choice bits here). I’ve seen Ken speak once before, and he is someone I would go out of my way to hear speak because he has such deep knowledge [...]
A lot of Davids make one heck of a Goliath
Monday, April 5th, 2010In 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 [...]
Has EBSCO become the new evil empire?
Friday, April 2nd, 2010Absolutely.
I was less than thrilled with the way EBSCO has dealt with some of its customers vis-à-vis Harvard Business Review. I thought it was pretty evil that they signed exclusive deals for all of those Time, Inc. magazines. But what they’ve done now has really sent me through the roof.
We used to get online access [...]
Shades of gray
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Ever 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 [...]
Who should teach library instruction?
Thursday, October 1st, 2009Don’t worry, Walt, I won’t apologize for being away and I won’t promise that I’m going to post more often (though I have a lot of ideas for posts, something has been preventing me from getting them out of my head and onto the screen).
Wayne Bivens-Tatum recently wrote a very interesting post questioning who [...]
Roles and responsibilities for 2.0 technologies
Sunday, August 30th, 2009I get asked a lot of things via email from librarians, but very few actually make it to this blog. This question was so interesting and probably better answered by the “hive” than just by little old me. I am also curious how others would respond.
I was wondering if you had any advice or links [...]
It’s not about us (or more ramblings on possessiveness)
Friday, August 28th, 2009I know Jenica wondered if her blog post, Rambling about possessiveness, really had a point, but it was right in line with things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Jenica wrote about the fine line between taking ownership of a project/thing in terms of really being really invested in the success or failure of [...]
Help the Louisville Free Public Library!
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009I know a number of people in the Louisville area, so I’ve heard all about the horrible weather they’ve been having this year. But the flooding of the Louisville Free Public Library was the kicker. Check out some of fellow blogger Greg Schwartz’s pictures of the damage — it’s really bad. They’re estimating at least [...]
Day 3 in the life of a head of instructional initiatives
Friday, July 31st, 20098:00 am – Checked my email. Checked reference email accounts. Answered a few reference questions, forwarded a database error on to our Head of Digital Initiatives and a Norwich history question to our Archives.
8:30 am – Director called me into her office to let me know that she’d heard back from the office that created [...]
Great new books on my “to read” list
Monday, July 6th, 2009I must admit that the last time I read a non-baby-related book was probably last Fall. And now all these great books are coming out from the LIS presses that I’m absolutely dying to read! This is torture!
The one I’m probably most excited about is Chrystie Hill’s long-awaited Inside, Outside and Online which is all [...]
2.0 or and bust
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Since before my brain was hijacked by baby stuff, I’ve been thinking a lot about how many third party Web 2.0 vendors libraries are dependent upon (not to mention all the ones we’re dependent on personally!). I actually wrote a column for American Libraries on the subject, but 600 words could not reflect the whole [...]
Do you link to Harvard Business Review from EBSCO?
Friday, June 26th, 2009Paul 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 known [...]
Do we need library ombudsmen?
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009I recently had a not-so-fun experience with our local hospital which reminded me of how important it is to ensure one’s front-line staff are empowered to question things.
During our childbirth class – which was sponsored by the hospital where I was going to be giving birth – we were told by our childbirth educator that [...]
Didn’t know I needed to be a salesperson
Friday, April 10th, 2009Yes, I knew I’d have to teach people how to use email. And unjam printers. And help people use copiers. But I don’t think I ever understood in library school how important sales and marketing would be to the success of our profession.
Within a month of starting work as the Distance Learning Librarian at [...]
I’ve been provoked!
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009Steven Bell commented in a recent ACRLog post that there hasn’t been much reaction to the Taiga Forum Provocative Statements. I’ve seen a few reactions online and here’s mine — YAWN.
Seriously, I found a lot more to like about John Dupuis’ crititicisms of the Taiga Forum Provocative Statements than about the statements themselves. I’m just [...]
Congrats to the 2009 Movers and Shakers!
Monday, March 16th, 2009Take a look at this truly amazing group of people that Library Journal chose to recognize this year. I’ve never known more folks on the list and so many are folks I absolutely adore:
Sarah Houghton-Jan – it’s kind of amazing that she had not been recognized as a Mover and Shaker before this given the [...]
