Rachel Singer Gordon is one of the people I admire most in the profession. She thinks so much about all different aspects of our profession and has written so many thought-provoking, controversial, and helpful things. She has written two recent gems about the whole MLS vs. non-MLS debate. Definitely check out If it Quacks Like …
In spite of the fact that I’ve had one of those all-day sinus headaches, I’m walking on a cloud. Starting April 1, I’m going to be the Head of Instructional Initiatives here at Norwich, which means that I will lead and coordinate all instruction (and most assessment) work at the library. I’m also going to …
I was excited to see so many people I know and admire had been recognized this year as Movers and Shakers by Library Journal. Congratulations to everyone, but especially to my peeps: David King, David Rothman, Evette Atkin, Chris Harris, Peter Bromberg and Tim Spaulding, and the folks I’ve admired from afar: Char Booth, Caleb …
I was thrilled to hear last week about ACRL’s decision to start offering some free Webcasts for members. This is something that many people have suggested to ACRL in the past and I’m happy to see that the organization is starting to respond: Join us on Wednesday, April 2, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. …
There were three recent posts that got me thinking a lot about the growing necessity to have tech-savvy people in public services positions. The first was Dorothea Salo’s post about how many librarians outside of Systems see learning about (or doing anything with) technology as being something outside of their sphere of responsibility. The second …
Have you visited the LISjobs Forums lately? Well, now’s a good time to do it, as Rachel’s running a contest for those who post to one of the forum topics this month. Check it out! Get active on the forums during March, and win big! OK, “big” may be a relative term. But here’s the …
If you don’t already have survey fatigue, please consider helping out these librarians (and library school students) with their surveys: Survey about reference transactions [From Danielle Theiss-White] My colleagues and I are working on a book chapter about capturing reference transactions and could use your help. We have developed a survey asking how other libraries …
While I was working on compiling all of the survey data from our graduate students, I had what I thought was a crazy idea. The idea came from a common suggestion and complaint from the military history grad students in the surveys. The suggestion was that we provide more eBooks in their subject area. The …
After reading Rochelle Hartman, Steve Lawson, Jenna Freedman, Dorothea Salo and Laura Crossett’s posts about their “Tech-Nots”, I started thinking about what it means to be tech-savvy. I was once I was eating lunch with some people I just met at a conference and one said “well you must have the new iPhone right?” Even …
Over a year ago I wrote about a project called MaintainIT, a three-year Bill and Melinda Gates funded initiative designed to identify best practices for maintaining public access computers. Well, since then, they’ve been awfully busy. In addition to going around the country talking to librarians who maintain computers, they’ve published two cookbooks, which are …
Since our Coordinator of Public Services left, I’ve been the liaison to the social sciences along with being the liaison to the School of Graduate Studies (whose programs are all online). That means that I’m basically the liaison to over 2/3 of the Norwich population, but it made good sense because of my strong background …
I probably owe a lot of people emails and I’ve been wanting to write up my tech trends and talk about some of the cool things I learned at the OLA Superconference last week. Unfortunately, I’ve come down with the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had, which has turned me into a coughing, …
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 Technology Reports. Michelle Boule wrote a terrific LTR called Changing the Way We Work, in which she covers tools for online collaboration. Michelle is really …
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 that mistakes have been made. I think there has been a lot of confusing rhetoric about Library 2.0. I think a lot of people lost …
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 excited about it (and a little nervous). I spent the Fall developing the classroom and spent winter break finishing up the assignments and creating the …
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 purposes. From Kate: It’s easy to become enamored of social networking sites and Web 2.0 toys to the point where they seem like a panacea …
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. Too often though, a project is neither an obvious success or failure. Even with statistics, it can be difficult to know what constitutes success and …
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 to say that I just linked to our subject guides from the front page of the library website, so they are live! I ended up …
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, ACRL Information Literacy Programs in the Digital Age: Educating College and University Students Online describes significant and innovative online instruction programs in a straightforward, narrative …
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 for American Libraries, I suspect that I’ll be spending more time at the exhibit hall than I’ve spent at the three Annuals I’ve been to …