Opening up knowledge on the tenure track

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Opening up knowledge on the tenure trackfree the information!, librarianship, libraries, open access, research, tenure track, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 10/23/2013 with 10 comments

I’m not a hero. I’m not an open access warrior. I’m not one of those people who would risk their career on the cross of Open Access. I’m not a badass who makes demands of publishers. I ask nicely. I’m on the tenure track and the idea of walking away from an opportunity to publish …

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Understanding why errors happen is more important than spotting them

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Understanding why errors happen is more important than spotting themassessment, instruction, librarianship, libraries

by Meredith Farkas on 9/10/2013 with 13 comments

People incorrectly using “big words” has always been one of my pet peeves. When I see a fancy word used incorrectly in a cover letter (and I have seen way too many… we’re librarians people!!!), I cringe. There’s something about it that rubs me the wrong way; like someone is trying to be something they’re …

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Good for what? Considering context in building learning objects.

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Good for what? Considering context in building learning objects.hi, instruction, librarianship, libraries, reference, tech trends, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 8/19/2013 with 12 comments

I’m working with a colleague of mine (Amy Hofer of Threshold Concepts fame) to create a suite of tutorials that are going to be integrated into online University Studies (think General Education) classes. One of the learning objects we plan to create is envisioned as being called “good for what?” Students tend to look at …

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Our new model for Freshman instruction and how it went

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Our new model for Freshman instruction and how it wentinstruction, librarianship, management

by Meredith Farkas on 7/17/2013 with 5 comments

One year ago, I became our General Education Instruction Coordinator, which meant that I was in charge of our instruction to Freshman Inquiry and Sophomore Inquiry (our first and second year general education courses), 100 and 200-level writing classes, Speech classes, and the Intensive English Language Program. Last summer, I wrote about the new model …

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Library DIY: Unmediated point-of-need support

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Library DIY: Unmediated point-of-need supportinstruction, librarianship, libraries, management, MPOW, our digital future, reference, tech trends, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 7/2/2013 with 18 comments

I recently realized that while I write about a lot of things, I do not often write about the work I’m doing at Portland State and through the Oregon Library Association. I think it comes partly from a desire not to toot my own horn, but it also reflects my nervousness about writing about work …

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DIY vs. Startup, or false dichotomies and labels

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DIY vs. Startup, or false dichotomies and labelsfree the information!, Inspiring Stuff, librarianship, management, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 4/24/2013 with 12 comments

ACRL was a terrific conference experience for me. Not only did I get to see a lot of good friends and have a lot of deep conversations with other instruction coordinators, but I got so much out of the vast majority of sessions I went to. I will freely admit that the conference was overly …

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Mobile Learning: The Teacher in Your Pocket

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Mobile Learning: The Teacher in Your Pocketfree the information!, instruction, libraries, open access, our digital future, tech trends, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 4/23/2013 with 4 comments

There’s a great new book out on mobile technologies in libraries and I was fortunate to have been asked to contribute a chapter on mobile learning and mobile instruction in libraries. The book is called The Handheld Library: Mobile Technology and the Librarian and it was edited by the undeniably awesome Tom Peters and Lori …

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My critique of Value of Academic Libraries and a happy update

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My critique of Value of Academic Libraries and a happy updateassessment, instruction, librarianship, libraries, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 4/21/2013 with 1 comment

My critique of the Value of Academic Libraries initiative has just been published in OLA Quarterly (it’s the first article in the PDF). I wrote it on the fly after a desperate request for content from the Oregon Library Association President, so it’s not my most thoughtful work, but I’m pretty happy with how it …

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Shared vision, transparency, and the high performing organizationfree the information!, knowledge management, libraries, management, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 3/12/2013 with 2 comments

As I’ve mentioned before, Lisa Hinchliffe and I presented on and authored a paper for the Library Assessment Conference in October. The spoke about applying the High Performance Programming Model of organizational transformation to building a culture of instructional assessment in libraries (and then applied that to our own libraries!). One of the major characteristics …

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The entrepreneurial libraryfree the information!, Inspiring Stuff, instruction, librarianship, libraries, MPOW, tenure track

by Meredith Farkas on 11/29/2012 with 9 comments

Years ago, I visited the libraries at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After lots of conversations, the one word that stuck with me was entrepreneurial. The library faculty there were a truly entrepreneurial bunch, creatively finding opportunities to improve services and raise the profile of the library through collaboration, experimentation, partnerships, grants, etc. When …

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