MPOW

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What’s the deal, JSTOR?

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

I’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 [...]

Tips for library job applicants in a tight market

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Another 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 [...]

Looking beyond the technolust

Monday, April 6th, 2009

Let me preface this post with the statement that I hate the term Luddite. I think it’s often used to dismiss people and ideas that differ from our own. It’s much easier to dismiss someone as being anti-tech than to try and understand what may be their very rational argument against something you love or [...]

Reinventing the Rook Tour

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Last week was one of the most stressful, but also most satisfying, weeks I’ve had at work. That week, we did our “rook tours” which are orientations to the library for the new Freshmen entering the Corps of Cadets (our school’s population is around 50% ROTC). For three days a week before classes start, we [...]

The best laid plans of mice and Meredith

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

It’s amazing how I manage to delude myself year after year. Every spring I make a list of projects I want to get done in the summer when I “have more time.” And every year, I barely get through any of them. This year I was really optimistic about what I could accomplish and I’m [...]

Help Wanted!

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

I just got back to work this evening and was pleased to find that the job ad for the Distance Learning Librarian position at Norwich has been posted. If you’re interested in a job where you get to do a little bit of everything, work in a change-oriented environment, and get bossed around by me [...]

Online learning and its impact on public libraries

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

I’ve been wanting to comment on this thought-provoking post by Carleen at Woodsy + Wired (a pretty new blog) for a few weeks now and just haven’t had the time. But almost every day, her post has been on my mind.
In Effects of distance learning on public libraries, Carleen writes about her library’s struggles [...]

A day in the life of a distance learning librarian

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

This morning, I received an e-mail from a librarian who is applying for a position as a distance learning librarian. She asked me what a distance learning librarian does. I would guess that every single person with the title (and some without it who work with online learners) have somewhat different job responsibilities. I’m the [...]

Shameless self-promoter

Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

I have been reading the discussions regarding “movers and shakers” and the “self-promoting elite” with great interest. See these posts (and many comments on the first two) at The Shifted Librarian, Walt at Random, Caveat Lector and The Liminal Librarian. I find it very interesting how a post about how libraries can keep [...]

Technology Implementation: My Brilliant Failures

Sunday, December 4th, 2005

I’m never afraid to try something and have it fail. I’d rather learn from a mistake than learn nothing because I was afraid to make a mistake. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly, in the four months I’ve been at my job, I’ve learned a [...]

Coders wanted.

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

I’ve talked a lot in the past about the gulf that is growing between libraries that are change agents and libraries that are change averse. Lately, I’ve been seeing a new gulf growing in libraries, that has less to do with one’s attitude towards change and more to do with the skills of one’s [...]

My year in blog

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

Today is the anniversary of my blog (Adam laughed at me when I used the word “blogiversary”). Part of me can’t believe it’s already been a year since I first started this blog. The other part of me can’t believe it’s only been a year for all I’ve written and for all [...]

New communities, physical and virtual

Sunday, October 30th, 2005

For background, this post was inspired by Laura’s (of lis.dom) excellent post on the uses of the biblioblogosphere, which was in response to posts by Mark Linder, Angel, and Joy Moll.
It’s now been almost three months since Adam and I moved to Vermont and since I started my job at Norwich (note that I am [...]

Tick marks or high tech?

Friday, October 28th, 2005

I have a problem remembering to keep track of my reference transactions on the little clipboard we keep at the reference desk. My office is three floors above where the reference desk is and, more often than not, I am answering reference questions from my desk (or even from home). By the time [...]

Public speaking and wiki-evangelizing

Sunday, October 16th, 2005

I am not one of those people — like Steven Cohen or Jessamyn — who is very comfortable giving talks. No matter how well I know the material, I still get insanely nervous when I have to get up in front of people to talk. I’ve never had a talk go badly, but [...]

WebCT and Blackboard are merging!

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

The big buzz on my campus (and probably many others) is that Blackboard is buying WebCT.
Here’s a snippet from a very long press release at PRNewswire:
The merger of Blackboard and WebCT marks a major milestone in the build-out of networked learning environments by colleges, universities, schools and other education providers. It creates a [...]

Librarians in Academia: Faculty or Support Staff?

Saturday, October 8th, 2005

There’s been a lot of talk about the place of librarians in academia. It’s something I thought about a great deal in the during the job search as I applied for tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions. I would have been happy with either position since I’m going to publish and speak regardless of whether or [...]

Leaving the paper calendar world?

Thursday, October 6th, 2005

I got our Virtual Private Server all set up at work so now I can get to the business of actually putting up webby things. I’d really love to create some sort of Staff Intranet where we can post announcements and info so that our email boxes don’t become clogged with them. I [...]

MPOW: two month progress report

Tuesday, October 4th, 2005

I’m nearly two months into my job as a Distance Learning Librarian. When I think back to what my dream job was in library school, I am shocked by how close my reality fits the dream (other than the fact that Michael Stephens, Jessamyn West and all my other favorite bloggers don’t work with [...]

Website redesign at MPOW: What I’m Learning

Wednesday, September 21st, 2005

I am in charge of our website redesign at my job, and I’ve been putting my graduate coursework in Web Usability to work over the past few weeks. This week, I’ve been doing usability testing of students (all Freshman and Sophomores) and here are a few interesting things I’ve learned:

The average Freshman doesn’t know [...]

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