librarianship
« Previous EntriesIs this how we encourage people to contribute?
Monday, May 5th, 2008A person I’m friendly with in California wrote me last night asking for advice about a speaking gig he just got. He’s pretty new to the speaking thing (though he is excellent) and wants to grow his reputation as a speaker, but also doesn’t get funding from his institution for professional development:
I got accepted to […]
Loex 2008 goes online!
Monday, April 28th, 2008I got this email about LOEX 2008 Encore from Catherine Pellegrino at Saint Mary’s College and wanted to spread the word:
The annual LOEX conference is trying something new as an experiment this year: three of their breakout sessions will be presented as live, interactive webcasts a few weeks after the conference: http://www.loexconference.org/2008/virtualsessions.htm
I think this is […]
The Monkey Song (with a hat tip to Louis Prima)
Sunday, April 20th, 2008Every few months, I get an email from someone in library school or a new librarian basically asking me how I’ve accomplished all that I have in this profession in three years and how they can do the same. It’s an awkward question to answer, because there are always so many factors that come into […]
On not so SWIFT otters and instilling a fear of failure
Thursday, April 10th, 2008I went to the discussion about the SWIFT conference platform, which I haven’t discussed publicly on this blog (though many others have on theirs — and many of them offer quite astute observations). I do think it is a deeply flawed tool that doesn’t provide value. I knew just about everyone in the feedback session […]
Quacking the duck
Saturday, March 29th, 2008Rachel Singer Gordon is one of the people I admire most in the profession. She thinks so much about all different aspects of our profession and has written so many thought-provoking, controversial, and helpful things. She has written two recent gems about the whole MLS vs. non-MLS debate. Definitely check out If it Quacks Like […]
Chutes and ladders
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008In spite of the fact that I’ve had one of those all-day sinus headaches, I’m walking on a cloud. Starting April 1, I’m going to be the Head of Instructional Initiatives here at Norwich, which means that I will lead and coordinate all instruction (and most assessment) work at the library. I’m also going to […]
They’re moving! They’re shaking!
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008I was excited to see so many people I know and admire had been recognized this year as Movers and Shakers by Library Journal. Congratulations to everyone, but especially to my peeps: David King, David Rothman, Evette Atkin, Chris Harris, Peter Bromberg and Tim Spaulding, and the folks I’ve admired from afar: Char Booth, Caleb […]
ACRL’s FREE Webcast (for members)
Sunday, March 9th, 2008I was thrilled to hear last week about ACRL’s decision to start offering some free Webcasts for members. This is something that many people have suggested to ACRL in the past and I’m happy to see that the organization is starting to respond:
Join us on Wednesday, April 2, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. CDT […]
Building 21st century librarians AND libraries
Sunday, March 9th, 2008There were three recent posts that got me thinking a lot about the growing necessity to have tech-savvy people in public services positions. The first was Dorothea Salo’s post about how many librarians outside of Systems see learning about (or doing anything with) technology as being something outside of their sphere of responsibility. The second […]
LISjobs Forum Contest
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Have you visited the LISjobs Forums lately? Well, now’s a good time to do it, as Rachel’s running a contest for those who post to one of the forum topics this month. Check it out!
Get active on the forums during March, and win big! OK, “big” may be a relative term. But here’s the deal: […]
Two Surveys for Librarians
Saturday, March 1st, 2008If you don’t already have survey fatigue, please consider helping out these librarians (and library school students) with their surveys:
Survey about reference transactions
[From Danielle Theiss-White] My colleagues and I are working on a book chapter about capturing reference transactions and could use your help. We have developed a survey asking how other libraries are […]
2.0 and don’t even know it
Thursday, February 21st, 2008While I was working on compiling all of the survey data from our graduate students, I had what I thought was a crazy idea. The idea came from a common suggestion and complaint from the military history grad students in the surveys. The suggestion was that we provide more eBooks in their subject area. The […]
Tech-NO-lust
Monday, February 18th, 2008After reading Rochelle Hartman, Steve Lawson, Jenna Freedman, Dorothea Salo and Laura Crossett’s posts about their “Tech-Nots”, I started thinking about what it means to be tech-savvy. I was once I was eating lunch with some people I just met at a conference and one said “well you must have the new iPhone right?” Even […]
Maintain IT Cookbooks
Sunday, February 17th, 2008Over a year ago I wrote about a project called MaintainIT, a three-year Bill and Melinda Gates funded initiative designed to identify best practices for maintaining public access computers. Well, since then, they’ve been awfully busy. In addition to going around the country talking to librarians who maintain computers, they’ve published two cookbooks, which are […]
Getting out of a rut
Sunday, February 17th, 2008Since our Coordinator of Public Services left, I’ve been the liaison to the social sciences along with being the liaison to the School of Graduate Studies (whose programs are all online). That means that I’m basically the liaison to over 2/3 of the Norwich population, but it made good sense because of my strong background […]
Flu trumps blogging (and pretty much everything else)
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008I probably owe a lot of people emails and I’ve been wanting to write up my tech trends and talk about some of the cool things I learned at the OLA Superconference last week. Unfortunately, I’ve come down with the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had, which has turned me into a coughing, […]
Some great Library Technology Reports
Friday, January 25th, 2008As I’ve been spending more time than I would like in waiting rooms over the past few weeks, I’ve had the chance to catch up on some reading; namely Library Technology Reports.
Michelle Boule wrote a terrific LTR called Changing the Way We Work, in which she covers tools for online collaboration. Michelle is really […]
The essence of Library 2.0?
Thursday, January 24th, 2008I found John Blyberg’s post, Library 2.0 Debased, very interesting and in many ways, a breath of fresh air. I agree with him on a lot of levels. I agree that mistakes have been made. I think there has been a lot of confusing rhetoric about Library 2.0. I think a lot of people lost […]
Getting ready for Building the Social Library Online
Saturday, January 19th, 2008Our classroom!
Originally uploaded by librarianmer
On Wednesday, the class I’m teaching for San Jose State University begins. It’s the first for-credit graduate-level course I’ve ever taught, so I’m really excited about it (and a little nervous). I spent the Fall developing the classroom and spent winter […]
Understanding the culture of social networking technologies
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Andrea Mercado and Kate Sheehan have both written insightful posts about the importance of librarians being aware of the culture of the social technologies they’re getting involved in for outreach purposes.
From Kate:
It’s easy to become enamored of social networking sites and Web 2.0 toys to the point where they seem like a panacea for […]
