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.
I have received many e-mails in regards to the first article in my tenure as a columnist for American Libraries, "Balancing the Online Life" (wish I could link to it,…
Jennifer Macaulay, who really just has to stop writing such insightful pieces or I will never get anything done, wrote a piece on her experiences as a distance learner a…
In light of what I was writing about wikis and participation, I would like to ask for your help. I have been wanting to have some guidelines on the Library…
David King is in the middle of a terrific series on his blog about inviting participation in Web 2.0/social software tools. Here are the ones he's come out with so…
My post earlier in the week may just have gotten more comments than anything I've ever written. I believe Steve Lawson called it "a great trainwreck of a comments thread."…
You know, I was kind of wondering why everything was so quiet today in terms of comments after the post I'd written yesterday. It seemed a bit... odd. Then I…
I remember a few months ago, my friend Rochelle wrote a terrific post about the Second Life Library 2.0. She basically wrote about her first-time experiences in the Second Life…
Nintendo Wii: Meredith's Mii Originally uploaded by SirStan. I have a Mii! I have to say, I thought I could wait until the summer or next Fall to buy a…
I am pleased to announce that, after much deliberation, we have chosen our participants for the Five Weeks to a Social Library course! They are a diverse group -- geographically,…
Loyalty, foolish consistency or whatever you wish to call it I am an incredibly loyal person. When I find a product, person or service I like, I will stick with…
This morning, I received an e-mail from a librarian who is applying for a position as a distance learning librarian. She asked me what a distance learning librarian does. I…
I think I will second Jill Stover's nomination of Ken Varnum for the title of "great guy". In response to some comments on his blog regarding library marketing, Ken created…
I just wanted to take a moment out while slogging through my book galley (more on that at a later date) to congratulate my friend Casey Bisson on being awarded…
Last summer, I was talking with someone from the planning committee of the Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries' Fall Conference. Their theme was "Cool Tools and New Technologies" and I asked her…
I just wanted to remind folks that December 1 is the deadline for applications to participate in the Five Weeks to a Social Library course. You can find the application…
A few months ago, David Rothman asked me if there was any tool for searching the biblioblogosphere. At the time, there really wasn't much. I told him about LISFeeds, but…