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.
In this article from Inside Higher Ed, Steven Bell, apparently the authority on academic blogging (perhaps because of the title of his blog?), says: “I can’t say any individual has…
When the wiki was first created, I put up a page for people who are blogging the conference so that people would know where they could find conference reports. Well,…
Aaron at Walking Paper recently wrote a great post entitled Letting Go. In it, he encouraged librarians to let go of rules that really serve librarians rather than patrons (and…
I just had another really great interview today. I could get used to this (though I could also get used to having a job and being done with these shenanigans)!…
In the past, I've written about the do's and don't's of interviewing and have described some of the bad experiences I've had in interviews. So I thought it would be…
I found this link via Nexgenlib-L and I found it so amusing/horrifying that I had to share it with everyone. Human Events Online, which is a conservative journal, came out…
I just read a fantastic article about wikis from the Educause Review (Sept/Oct 2004). Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not, by Brian Lamb, includes mentions about just about everything…
Not that we don't have enough going on at the ALA Conference, but there are going to be two other very cool events happening in Chicago at the same time.…
What I love best about wikis is that their content is not limited to the imagination of just a few people (like most websites are). Anyone can add new sections…
Where I got my MLIS, distance learners had to pay more per credit hour than students who took classes on campus. I understood that the extra fees paid for the…
I just saw this article, by Henry Raymond, in the Chronicle of Education that rivaled even the worst of my interview woes: The committee members repeatedly warned me that their…
This morning (at 8 am Central Time) I got a call from a college on the east coast. They wanted to interview me for a reference librarian position I'd applied…
Let me preface this post with the statement that I didn't become a librarian in order to get rich. The average librarian's salary is more than the average salary for…
The June issue of Walt Crawford's Cite & Insights is out with some interesting articles, particularly those about the open access movement and the broadcast flag. What surprised me was…
The Indian Blogger recently posted an excellent survey of screencasting and the software that can be used to create screencasts. People tend to talk about Qarbon Viewlet Builder, Macromedia Captivate,…
So, I've heard from several sources that there are no rooms left for the ALA Conference at the hotels suggested on the ALA's website. Yikes! I live in Chicago, but…
I've read a lot of posts and articles lamenting the fact that many students and patrons prefer using Google to the library's print and electronic resources, but few look at…
I just want to wish a hearty congratulations to Dorothea Salo who just received her MLS today. So glad you made it through! Ever since I started reading her blog,…