It’s rare that I can sneakVermont into a discussion about technology, but today I have the perfect excuse! In today’s Barre Montpelier Times Argus (originally in the New York Times) I read an article called Podcast for your leaf-peeping?. Yankee Magazine has created weekly podcasts about the foliage, including foliage forecasts, music, narrated driving tours …
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 not …
Wow, this is some month for me! Library Journal and School Library Journal! This month, the Library Success Wiki is featuerd as SLJ’s Website of the Month. It’s a terrific, concise piece and it really promotes the wiki as something school librarians should contribute to. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like school librarians are …
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 was thinking …
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 me). …
This is not a term I am particularly fond of simply for the fact that no two people seem to define it in the same way. Also, call me a curmudgeon, but I just don’t like buzz words. Since I categorically refuse to use a term I can’t clearly define, I set out to learn …
I used to blog a lot more than I do now. I was unemployed and had a lot of free time. Now that I have a job and a house and other committments, I had to ask myself why should I continue blogging? Is it worth the time it takes? The answer I came up …
I certainly know a few. It’s time to nominate the librarians who inspire you, who create change, and/or who do great things at their library. Check out what Marylaine Block wrote about the Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers issue: NOTE: It’s time once again for nominations for Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers issue. Please participate …
I was excited to see that the Bloggers Roundtable I did with several other fabulous librarian bloggers finally made its way into Library Journal. It’s a great article, but part of me was disappointed that it didn’t capture the synergy that was going on in that room. It was a truly amazing, enlightening, and inspiring …
I feel badly that I’ve been too busy to blog as much as I used to. I guess that happens to everyone sometimes. I’m just so crazy about Vermont and am obsessed with enjoying the good weather while we still have it. So as an apology, I’m posting some photos of our travels around Vermont. …
Ok, Rilke’s title sounded a lot better. I got an email this morning from a gentleman from New York City who is in his early 40’s. He recently started library school and has been hearing all sorts of horror stories about the job market and how terrible it is to work in public libraries. While …
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 …
I just finished writing up all of the results of the Survey of the Biblioblogosphere. The results have been broken down into four parts. Since I posted them in the order in which I wrote them, I thought I’d put links to them here for easier retrieval. Survey of the Biblioblogosphere: Demographics Survey of the …
I received 116 responses to the open ended question “why do you blog?” Instead of presenting every answer to you, I went through and categorized them by the different goals one would have for blogging. Many of the answers fit into more than one category. Here are the reasons why we blog: To share ideas …
16. How many blogs are you subscribed to (or if you don’t subscribe, how many do you read regularly)? Less than 15…. 21 (12.8%) 16 to 40…. 36 (22%) 41 to 75…. 33 (20.1%) 76 to 100…. 23 (14%) 101 to 150…. 24 (14.6%) 151 to 200…. 13 (7.9%) more than 200…. (8.5%) Skipped this …
Here are the questions relating to people’s blog(s) and their blogging history: 11. How long have you had your current blog? Less than 4 months…. 20 (12.3%) 4 to 8 months…. 33 (20.2%) 9 months to 1 year…. 29 (17.8%) 13 months to 2 years…. 39 (23.9%) 25 months to 3 years…. 27 (16.6%) 37 …
Since there were 19 questions in the survey, one essay question, and many questions that allowed “write-in’s”, I figured I’d break the results up into a few blog posts. Here is the list of the other posts in the series: Survey of the Biblioblogosphere: Blog Demographics Survey of the Biblioblogosphere: Attitudes and Behaviors Survey of …
I just closed the Survey of the Biblioblogosphere and am going to work this week on making sense of the results. I’ll try to publish the results as soon as I can. 165 library-related bloggers participated in the survey, which I think is fantastic! You all rock! I apologize in advance if it takes me …
When I was looking for a job, I remember reading (and sometimes participating in) the many discussions about the job market on NEWLIB-L and NEXGENLIB-L. People would talk about how they’d read articles about a rosy employment forecast for librarians and how the graying of the profession would lead to plentiful jobs. I read those …
Over the past month, I’ve worked with the folks at WebJunction to develop September’s Online Communities focus. I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic librarians/writers/bloggers and got to do some wiki evangelizing in my own two articles. It was the first time I’ve ever been involved in the publishing process and the first …