On leaveabout me, Work, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 4/4/2009 with 4 comments

Friday was my very last day at work and I’m now officially on maternity leave. Our little boy is due April 7th, so hopefully I’ll have a few days to relax and catch up on sleep before baby time (sleep has become more difficult in the last few weeks of my pregnancy, but I’ve been …

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LIS Publications WikiWikis, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 4/2/2009 with 2 comments

Now this is a great project to come from an LIS class! LIS Publications Wiki Welcome to the Library and Information Science (LIS) Publications wiki. This wiki gathers information about publications that LIS professionals might want to write for — whether they want to reach their colleagues or their communities. All editors, publishers, and LIS …

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Congrats to the 2009 Movers and Shakers!career, librarianship, libraries, management, our digital future, social software, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 3/16/2009 with 3 comments

Take 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 …

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It’s not all about the tech – why 2.0 tech failslibraries, management, online education, our digital future, social software, speaking, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 3/14/2009 with 6 comments

Yesterday, I gave a talk for the ACRL Virtual Conference entitled Can’t Get There From Here: Achieving Organization 2.0. If you’re registered for the Virtual Conference or the regular ACRL Conference, you can access the archive of the talk, and if not, my slides and links to what I discussed are provided on my presentation …

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Online conferences – the future is nowALA, free the information!, librarianship, online education, our digital future, social software, speaking, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 2/15/2009 with 11 comments

I’ve been lucky to have had some recent involvement with two online conference models — one that recently happened and one that will be happening soon. I’m really pleased to see more organized professional development opportunities being offered online in light of the current economic situation and, selfishly, the fact that I personally won’t be …

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Libraries in tough times – what about librarians?ALA, american libraries, job search, librarianship

by Meredith Farkas on 1/21/2009 with 13 comments

Yesterday I received the ALDirect (from American Libraries) Special Issue on the Tough Economy in my Inbox. It contained great information about library advocacy during tough times. What I found glaringly missing from this email was any discussion about or tips for librarians who’ve been laid off or about-to-graduate LIS students. Obviously, if we advocate …

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Separate but not equal?librarianship, libraries, online education, our digital future, reference, social software, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 1/10/2009 with 24 comments

When I read David King’s post about Ask-a-Librarian services last week, I didn’t have a strong emotional response to it. That was, until he wrote a follow up which brought my attention to some of the responses people had made to it. With email reference, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not a synchronous medium. We …

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A lesson in bad customer service: Pottery Barn Kidslibrarianship

by Meredith Farkas on 1/2/2009 with 5 comments

You can view an update to this post (and an update to my update) here. In an economy where there’s lots of competition for a smaller and smaller number of dollars, good customer service becomes an issue of survival. While product is important, customer service can make the difference between creating a life-long customer and …

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