Tame The Web

From ALA TechSource:

Ask and ye shall receive. Not 24 hours after I lamented our challenges in covering school libraries, I received an e-mail from an employee at a private, K-12 school in New Jersey:

I am running a non-profit private school and I need some help in setting up my library. The main help that I need [...]

http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/01/podcast-tech-roundup.html

Don’t miss this outstanding post by Jason Griffey highlighting how easily librarians can contribute to the conversation via these tools. This is a roadmap for creating programming for users – teaching them how to do it as well as a cost-effective plan for those librarians interested in audio:

The Core
Nothing really happens without my Black Macbook [...]

The flurry of excited “Yes I used my laptop for council business and so much more” messages like these has been encouraging. It reminded me that I also need to encourage laptop use in all of my classes for many of the same reasons – especially Saturday/Sunday classes. We’ve seen an increase in student laptop [...]

I get very excited at the power and promise of what we’re doing: innovative services, new buildings, the harnessing of new technologies to extend our services in surprising ways, and much, much more. With that in mind, I offer  a few simple hopes for this shiny new year. Many libraries are doing these things already [...]

An interview with Edward Byrne, Senior Librarian Web Services, Dublin City Libraries:

EB: The end product was rolled out to all branch libraries in January 2008, and can be deemed a success in that it successfully meets the need to provide a single point of access to diverse resources for our users, and it does so [...]

I have a new post up at ALA TechSource:

http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2008/11/a-commons-experience.html

The Commons puts students at the center. The idea of student-centered innovation was a theme woven throughout the commons field trips. The commons did not make it any easier for the librarians or to enforce library policies. In fact, Stacy Greenwell of the University was happy to tell [...]

Don’t miss:

http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2008/09/sopac-for-the-smaller-set.html

KJS: How about the staff’s relationship with the web? Has that changed?

GH: When the blogs were a separate function of the old site, they were disconnected from our online presence. Blogging was doled out as a staff responsibility to one or two people. When we first started working in the staging site, I encouraged [...]

Bob also outlined some organizational changes–staff across the library were “repurposed” as 8 service points were reduced to 3.

Fox, Mathews and the other folks at Tech took the important step of convening a focus group to ask students what they wanted in the library. The list Bob shared was fascinating:

Students want a comfortable, attractive space
Students [...]