Testing information literacylibraries, our digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 1/17/2005 with Comments Off on Testing information literacy

According to the New York Times, ETS has developed a test to measure a college student’s level of information literacy in order to determine how well schools are preparing students for a world where IT literacy is increasingly necessary. The test is designed to show how well a student is able to use critical thinking …

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Encouraging discussions at ALAlibraries

by Meredith Farkas on 1/15/2005 with Comments Off on Encouraging discussions at ALA

While I’m kind of bummed about not making it to ALA Midwinter, I’ve gotten to hear all about it from the PLA Blog, Library Techtonics, and It’s All Good. A lot of what I’ve been reading has been very encouraging in terms of librarians and libraries embracing change and new ideas. Alice from OCLC wrote …

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User-centered technology implementationlibraries, our digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 1/13/2005 with Comments Off on User-centered technology implementation

David King wrote two responses to Michael Stephen’s 2005 library tech predictions. The first one highlights the importance of user-centered technology planning and implementation. This is something that cannot be stressed enough. There are libraries that are completely adverse to change and to technology, and there are libraries that are so tech-forward that they pass …

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Michael Stephens’ crystal balllibraries, our digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 1/13/2005 with Comments Off on Michael Stephens’ crystal ball

I find myself often linking to Michael’s posts on Tame the Web. So much so that I would urge all of my readers to subscribe to his blog (most of whom already have, I’d bet). Instead of looking back at 2004, like so many others have, Michael listed Twelve Techie Things for Librarians 2005, which …

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Questioning information literacylibraries, reference

by Meredith Farkas on 1/9/2005 with 1 comment

Here is an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that has been causing some controversy on the library-related listservs. Information Literacy Makes All the Wrong Assumptions rails against the traditional ideas behind information literacy curricula. While I disagree with much of what the author has written, he does raise some interesting points. I’ve never …

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Economics 101 for the ALA?libraries

by Meredith Farkas on 1/6/2005 with 4 comments

I have two job interviews coming up that I’m very excited about. It’s made me optimistic that perhaps my job search will be over soon (fingers crossed). I haven’t been looking for so long — it hasn’t even been a month since I’ve graduated. There are plenty of people I hear about who have spent …

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Maslow and library technologylibraries, our digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 1/5/2005 with 3 comments

As a former social worker/psychotherapist, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a very familiar concept to me. People must fulfill their basic material needs before they can start thinking about things like self-actualization and intellectual fulfillment. I worked with families who could barely keep their electricity on and get the children to school, and I always …

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Why RSS rockslibraries, our digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 1/4/2005 with Comments Off on Why RSS rocks

From Extension 337 [via Tame the Web], comes 10 Reasons why Nonprofits Should Use RSS. The post lists some very good reasons why RSS is a much better way to get news and information out and connect with interested users/patrons/clients/etc. than most traditional methods (newsletters, unsolicited or solicited emails, etc.). I’m just reproducing the basic …

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GuruNet now offers Answers.com for free!reference, search

by Meredith Farkas on 1/4/2005 with Comments Off on GuruNet now offers Answers.com for free!

According to Gary Price at Resource Shelf, GuruNet has become Answsers.com and is now offering a ready reference search engine for free. Answers.com culls its information from a variety of free and pay sources, including Columbia Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, Merriam Webster, Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, SparKNotes, Who2, and Wikipedia. The user submits a query and …

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Free reference websitesreference

by Meredith Farkas on 1/3/2005 with Comments Off on Free reference websites

RUSA has come out with its 2004 list of Best Free Reference Websites. They cover a variety of subjects and come from academia, government, industry, non-profits, the media, libraries and librarians. One of my personal faves is The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams, definitely one of the coolest reference librarians in the universe. If you’re …

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Questions about the Google Library Projectlibraries, our digital future, search

by Meredith Farkas on 1/2/2005 with Comments Off on Questions about the Google Library Project

Barbara Quint has put together a list of questions and answers about the Google Library Project that have been pondered by various people in the library and search worlds. Some questions remain unanswered. Others, like what the Google Library Project means for brick and mortar libraries, involves answers ranging from unconcern to grudging acceptance to …

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An Introduction to Feedsreference

by Meredith Farkas on 12/30/2004 with Comments Off on An Introduction to Feeds

From Resource Shelf, I have found An Introduction to Feeds, which does an excellent job of describing what RSS is and how to use aggregators. I will definitely send this on to my dad, who I recently got set-up with Firefox, Bloglines, and del.icio.us. What is Christmas for if not to work on family members’ …

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Searching handwritten manuscripts and Googlelibraries, our digital future, search

by Meredith Farkas on 12/30/2004 with Comments Off on Searching handwritten manuscripts and Google

Earlier this month, I had reported on a new way to search handwritten manuscripts that was developed by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Today, the New York Times has written about this exciting development, along with the fact that the head of the project is going to brief Google on it next month. So …

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