Meredith Farkas on Social Software Originally uploaded by madinkbeard. I did a lot of blogging at the last two major national conferences I attended. I decided this time, given that I’m giving so many talks, doing the book signing, etc., I would just kind of take things in without writing everything down. I’ll still write …
My flight’s delayed until 2:20 (I’ve been here since 8:00 am) so I thought I’d blog a few things I’ve been wanting to mention but just haven’t had the time to write a substantial blog post about: Sarah Houghton-Jan’s amazing Library Technology Report, Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries. Well, I can only assume it’s …
At my school, we used to subscribe to the Science Direct engineering package for our online engineering students. It worked well, but got very little use since most of the engineering classes do not require research. Last year, we were informed that Science Direct was getting rid of the package we were subscribed to and …
Wow! I’m really shocked that people would name me as a biblioblogger hero, but am even more shocked that Dorothea Salo would actually start a meme (yes, you did it Dorothea!). 😉 I don’t think I could possibly name just five bloggers who have influenced, inspired, challenged and educated me. I’ve learned something from every …
One thing I have loved about the whole Library 2.0 movement is the push to stamp out the “but we’ve always done it this way” attitude. I am a strong believer in questioning the common wisdom. So often we do things because of tradition, not because it’s the best way to do it. I think …
I’ve got a long list of things I’d like to post about, but I’m just feeling crabby and unable to focus on them right now. I’m not feeling down about my own life. Other than the folks in IT doing something horrendous to our proxy server, my life’s pretty good. It’s just the state of …
Last Spring, while Chairing the library track of HigherEd BlogCon and feeling like it was not an engaging enough online conference model, I had a crazy idea to create a free online conference with more synchronous and asynchronous pieces to really draw people in and build a community. I refused to believe that the only …
I’m back from Florida, but am probably about to fall asleep since I got up before 3 am to make my flight. I just consider myself lucky to have gotten here with relatively few problems in terms of air travel (though we did have a bird fly onto our plane as we were getting off …
I received this e-mail from Rachel the other day. If you are a librarian and consider yourself to be in an alternative career, please do consider helping her out. You could be part of what will certainly be another very cool book by Rachel Singer Gordon: I’m working on a book on alternative careers for …
Wow! I can’t believe we’ve just finished Week 4. It’s definitely a bittersweet feeling. I can’t imagine waking up in a little over a week and not finding new posts from my friends in this program. I have gained so much from my interactions with them, more than I could have ever imagined. I only …
Every day, I see something amazing and creative that people have done online with photos, audio or video content. Whether they are creating something totally new or remixing things to develop something that the original creator had never envisioned, I am just blown away at what the Web now allows us to do creatively. Since …
Could you ever have imagined a couple of years ago that a candidate for ALA President would have a campaign video on YouTube??? 🙂 This isn’t why I personally endorsed Jim Rettig for ALA President. Nor is it his very cool blog. I think Jim is a librarian who has not lost touch with the …
I always tease Roy Tennant about how so many geek girls (me included) — and probably geek boys too — are totally crushing on him. He doesn’t really “get it”. I think his recent post in TechEssence, “Open Letter to ILS Vendors” is a great example of how smart, pragmatic and (as John Blyberg puts …
I have always been an idea person. I probably get that from my dad who has had dozens of business ideas in the 29 years I’ve known him. However, before I became a librarian, I rarely pursued any of the ideas I had. I usually either didn’t know where to start or I didn’t think …
I’ve been meaning to write about Walt’s great Cites and Insights piece on conference speaking. If you haven’t already read it, do take a look. He combines insights from Rachel Singer Gordon, Dorothea Salo, Jessamyn West and 90 people who participated in Rachel’s survey on the subject with his own insights to create a really …
I just wanted to give people a head’s up that the wiki for this year’s Computers in Libraries conference is up and people are already starting to add content. I’ve already got my schedule online and I’m really excited about speaking at the conference and seeing some of the terrific talks on the roster. I’m …
I’m so happy to finally be able to publicly congratulate Dorothea Salo on her new job as Digital Repository Librarian at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I knew Dorothea enjoyed her job at George Mason, but like me, she is not a city person and I know how city life can wear on someone …
On a happy note, a friend of mine has recently started a blog in an area of librarianship that doesn’t get enough discussion in the blogosphere: access services. Mary Chimato is the head of access and delivery services at NCSU, and started Circ and Serve because she saw a gaping hole in its representation on …
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, but it isn’t online). Most of them have been very positive, but I did get a few complaints. All of them were from librarians who …
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 couple of weeks ago. And if I didn’t know better, I would have thought that I had written the entire thing myself, so much did …