Meredith Farkas is a faculty librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon. From 2007-2021, she wrote the monthly column “Technology in Practice” for American Libraries. Meredith was honored in 2014 with the ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award, in 2008 and 2011 with the WISE Excellence in Online Education Award and in 2009 with the LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology. She has been writing the blog Information Wants to be Free since 2004.
As 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…
I 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…
Our 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…
Andrea 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…
Sometimes we start a project or create a new service and it's an instant success. Other times, we try something and it becomes obvious that it's not meeting patron needs.…
Library Research Guides wiki Originally uploaded by librarianmer A while back, I wrote about the challenges I had in finding the right platform for our subject guides. Well, I'm pleased…
I can't wait to get my hands on this! Information Literacy Programs in the Digital Age: Educating College and University Students Online Edited by Alice Daugherty and Michael F. Russo,…
This will actually be my very first trip to ALA Midwinter, and I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. With my job covering the exhibit hall…
As liaison to all of the distance learning programs at our University, I frequently deal with our Interlibrary Loan Librarian. We can't do traditional book interlibrary loan with our distance…
Now it can be told! Rachel Singer Gordon's been working on this terrific project: LISJobs Forums, a series of forums for librarians to share ideas and experiences related to career…
The Pew Internet and American Life project just released a report about how people access information to solve problems. While I've only had the chance to skim it so far,…
I am so pleased that The Code4Lib Journal's first issue is out. The projects described are really interesting and what I like most is that they include an explanation of…
There are some libraries that most of us think must be the best places to work ever because of the innovation that goes on there. And in some cases, we…
Starting in January, I'll be teaching an online class on social software at San Jose State University. I am beyond excited about it! I'm really interested in having guest speakers…
I'm reading a really interesting management book right now called First, Break All the Rules. I'm reading it rather slowly since I'm busy with putting together the material for the…