Collaborative tech, virtual participation, and what is an “open meeting” anyways?ALA, free the information!, librarianship, our digital future, social software

by Meredith Farkas on 1/12/2011 with 15 comments

Let me say this first. I am not an expert in ALA or LITA (or even ACRL) bylaws regarding participation, open meetings, etc. I’m sure a lot of very experienced and awesome people like Jason Griffey, Aaron Dobbs and Cindi Trainor could speak to these issues from the standpoint of someone who is immersed in …

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Transliteracy from the perspective of an information literacy advocateinstruction, librarianship, libraries, our digital future, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 12/21/2010 with 31 comments

A colleague of mine and I have been talking about transliteracy for some time and came to very similar conclusions as David Rothman did in his smart and respectful critique. I’d thought about writing about it myself for months but two things stopped me. The first was that I thought perhaps there was something I …

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What do they really need?instruction, librarianship, libraries, our digital future, screencasting, tech trends, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 12/13/2010 with 15 comments

I’m not sure if I’ve become more cynical or just more observant, but lately I feel like I’ve been seeing things through new eyes. We make so many assumptions in this profession, often based on the idea that we know what students need and want. Time and again, research has shown that we’re usually wrong. …

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Inspiring stuff to read, Take 2instruction, librarianship, libraries, library school, our digital future, tech trends

by Meredith Farkas on 9/7/2010 with 11 comments

I was thinking about writing a post reflecting on recent posts about the myth of the graying of the profession (and the coming librarian shortage) and Peter Brantley’s post about involving young’uns in discussing the future of libraries, but Colleen Harris beat me to the punch. And because she really knows how to tell-it-like-it-is, I …

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Inspiring stuff to read, Take 1Inspiring Stuff, librarianship, online education, our digital future, social software, tech trends, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 8/13/2010 with 6 comments

Between work, my son and the class I’m teaching at SJSU (which is about to start), I rarely have time these days to blog. It’s certainly not that I’m uninspired to do so, as I’m constantly reading things that inspire me, provoke me, or just plain interest me. But anyone who has read my blog …

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Numbers vs. meaningassessment, instruction, librarianship, libraries, management, reference

by Meredith Farkas on 7/21/2010 with 19 comments

Forgive this less-than-well-thought-out post. I’ve been thinking a lot about assessment lately and the librarianly love of numbers in assessment, and I’m a troubled by the way that some academic libraries tend to measure how well they are supporting the academic mission of the institution. Librarians keep a lot of statistics and measure a lot …

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The Social Dividescreencasting, social software

by Meredith Farkas on 7/7/2010 with 14 comments

I think it’s fantastic that companies are using social media to promote their brands and communicate more directly with their customers. It’s wild when I write about my favorite wine and the New Zealand winemaker actually responds to me on Twitter. Great brand monitoring St. Clair (update: fixed incorrect URL)! There are so many inspiring …

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History and changelibraries

by Meredith Farkas on 6/23/2010 with 11 comments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about finding a balance between honoring history and promoting change. Then I read a post by Kendra entitled “The tension between ‘memory’ and ‘complacency’” where she talks about the struggle to find “the balance between memory/history and change/innovation in my library community.” She says that while it’s important to …

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It’s unconference time!ALA

by Meredith Farkas on 6/7/2010 with 1 comment

Last year, Michelle Boule and I organized what ended up being a FANTASTIC first Unconference at ALA Annual. I was so impressed with the quality of the talks and discussions, and how everyone took on the roles of both teacher and learner. I think the best kind of conference is one where everyone can teach …

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Old media really doesn’t “get” new mediafree the information!, social software

by Meredith Farkas on 6/2/2010 with 5 comments

Last semester, one of my students linked to this great conversation between Teresa Nielsen Hayden (community manager for Boing Boing) and John Scalzi about community-building through comments and moderation. It’s a fantastic read — check it out. Nielsen Hayden made a comment about the need for moderation to promote good behavior in a community and …

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Tips for library job applicants in a tight marketamerican libraries, free the information!, job search, librarianship, libraries, library school, MPOW, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 5/18/2010 with 46 comments

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 …

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