Our profession has lost one of its best. My friend, Mark Lindner, died on Monday. Mark wrote one of the best library blogs during that lovely golden age of blogging in the aughts (where it truly felt like we were part of a close-knit and supportive community) and was someone from whom I learned a tremendous amount. I …
It has been exactly 10 years today since I started Information Wants to be Free. My life has changed in so many ways since then. I’m not sure I really had a vision of where I’d be at 37, but I don’t think it looked quite like this (I certainly never guessed I’d be living on the West …
There are things on the Internet about me that I regret. Things that embarras me. Things that make me cringe. However, it’s nothing that I didn’t do to myself. I own it. I feel like, for the most part, I am responsible for my online persona. I created the “me” that people see online (which, …
I have had some great discussions on Twitter. Professional discussions, discussions about parenting, conversations with friends. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that you can have a quality professional discussion with multiple people (some of whom you may not normally follow) in that medium. I have also gotten great information and advice in response to “querying the …
Since having my son, I have not been the best blogger in the world, but that doesn’t meant that I’m not thinking about blogging. I probably have a year’s worth of posts in my head, but always time with adorable toddler trumps blogging. I wish I could be more of a Tweeter, but I find …
In this post I’m just registering my nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards. My Nominations for The 2009 Edublog Awards are: Best New Blog – In the Library with the Lead Pipe (just over 1 year old; hope that counts as new!) Best resource sharing blog – The Distant Librarian Best librarian / library blog …
One of the things I always loved most about social media was the transparency it created. If a product, service, hotel, etc. was terrible, you could be sure that you’d hear about it from plenty of bloggers. On the other side of things, small companies and talented individuals were able to get noticed because of …
I remember the first OCLC Blog Salon at ALA very fondly. It was like fangirl overload for me. I have to laugh now when I remember that I begged Michael Stephens to introduce me to Roy Tennant because I was too nervous to introduce myself to someone so smart and awesome. There was such a …
Since before my brain was hijacked by baby stuff, I’ve been thinking a lot about how many third party Web 2.0 vendors libraries are dependent upon (not to mention all the ones we’re dependent on personally!). I actually wrote a column for American Libraries on the subject, but 600 words could not reflect the whole …
I have been so touched by the kind words people have written about me with respect to my winning the LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology (or as my father-in-law started calling it to everyone he saw last weekend “tech librarian of the year” — lol). I always feel …
Last week, my students in the Web 2.0 and Social Networking class I teach (at San Jose State) presented their fantastic proposals (via web conference) for implementing a specific social tool at a specific type of library. I was so impressed with their creativity and professionalism. Each of them made a very good case for …
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commented on the fact that I hadn’t written anything about the Annoyed Librarian being paid to blog for Library Journal. That was more a result of my having kidney stones and being in excruciating pain than my not wanting to comment on it. But also, I really …
I often tease my husband about his need to always be involved in a project. He’s always got to be working on something outside of his “day job”, whether it’s cleaning out his storage room (better known as the troll room), digitizing his parents’ slides, digitizing all of our documents, or creating the most awesome …
A student in the class I’m teaching for San Jose State University asked me the following the other day: How did people first learn about your blog? Do you have a previous blog post on how it became popular? It would be an interesting read! It’s a good question and one I thought I’d post …
One of my former students from SJSU had an interesting question for me about archiving student and faculty blogs: I am in the midst of reading Varsity Letters : Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities and I realized that a major hole in our archives is the documentation of the teaching and learning that is taking …
Note: 95% of this was written on a flight from San Juan to Philadelphia, so please excuse any spelling/grammatical errors or anything that just doesn’t make sense. I haven’t had time to really proofread this and I wanted to finish the challenge in a reasonable amount of time. Day 26: Exploring Other Ways to Comment …
Day 19: Respond to a Commenter on Your Own Blog This activity is supposed to be about responding to people who comment on your posts. The person who created the activity writes “if readers have made time to comment on your posts, you should always make sure to respond back (ideally to each reader) in …
I’ve been reading and experiencing things lately that have really gotten me thinking about blogging, social media, and why people share so much of themselves online. If you’re looking for deep insights into this or some sort of logical argument, step away from the blog. My own thoughts are rather a jumble. I often ask …
Day 15: Give a Comment Award I’m supposed to recognize one or a few commenters on my blog today, and for whatever parameters I choose (they write good comments, they comment frequently, they make me think, etc.). I’m going to recognize a few commenters who really challenge me and make me think. Many of the …
Day 14: Turn Your Blog Over to Your Readers In this post, I’m supposed to turn my blog over to you by asking you to answer a question. This one is actually something I’ve been thinking about for a while and am curious to hear other people’s answers. I frequently get asked what courses I …
