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Do You Know A Librarian Who Could be a Pritzker Fellow?

The Pritzker Fellowship from Chicago Public Media is designed to cultivate a “new generation” of journalists. The fellows are nominated by community organizations, cannot have a degree in journalism, must not be in an academic program, and must be interested in community reporting. This would be perfect for a librarian. In fact, I wish that I could [...]

Help Me Write a Job Description: Publisher of Community

For the past year, I have had a foggy notion for a new librarian position, but I can’t quite get my mind wrapped around it. So, I am turning to you, TTW community, to help.

Today, I am once again skimming through R. David Lankes’ amazing book The Atlas of New Librarianship. I am looking [...]

Think Like an Activist

At several points in my life I have had the opportunity to work closely with activists. I have seen political, social, and union activists up close and in action. The true activist is a special breed who is in touch with a different reality that is just outside the reach of the present. They have [...]

The Machine that is Replacing Me is Getting Cheaper Every Day – A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

Two years ago, I had the painful pleasure of coauthoring a textbook with three other colleagues. This textbook was written for first-year writing students, and I wrote the sections of the book that focused on research and information literacy.

As we wrote the book, my thoughts went back to one of my former high school [...]

Young Whipper Snapper No More – A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

A few weeks ago, I was doing one of my weekly reference shifts. I went to our lower level to see if students using computers down there needed any help. As I was walking along, I thought to myself that it was great that we had these computers. They were added to help ease the [...]

What Pizarro and the Inca can Teach Librarians: Why Libraries Should Not Be Part of IT – A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

Legend has it that In 1532, Pizarro overthrew the Inca Empire with 168 men. Librarians have much to learn from history.

I have been working my way through Charles Manns’ eye opening and complex book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Mann challenges us to rethink what we know about Native American culture [...]

When “Library” Is Not an Action but an Old Building – A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

 I have heard reports of the demise of libraries and librarians since I first entered library school over thirteen years ago. I tend to not pay much attention to them, but in the last few months a couple articles followed by personal experiences have caused me a bit of concern. The first was Rick [...]

Library Management and Entropy: The Information as Management Text –A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

Library management is a battle against entropy. Those of us who remember our physics know that entropy is most famously captured in the second law of thermodynamics, but it may be easiest to think of entropy as the measurement of the dissipation of energy in a system. So, if hot water and cold water are [...]

Seduced by Google – A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

When we initiated a new usability study of our library’s website, we reviewed close to 60 library websites. The one dominant trend  we observed was the placement of some sort of search functionality was present on the library’s homepage. Most libraries had tabbed search boxes that allowed users to click between tabs for searching the [...]

Your “Library” Doesn’t Participate in Social Media, But Your People Do – A TTW Guest Post by Dr. Troy Swanson

Much discussion has been made about librarians reaching out through social media to our communities and our patrons and rightly so. But, we often overlook the role that social media offers for us internally as a means to strengthen our organizations.

One thing to remember is that libraries really do not participate in social networks. [...]