Do you have any experiences with planning for technology in your libraries? Writing the big technology plan? How about issues of “technolust?” I’m writng an article and need some input. You can be anonymous if you choose! Email me at mstephens7 (at) mac.com…
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Check out Aaron’s post at WP about IM and some young ladies at his library. I’m watching his IM the Library service closely… intrigued… And, do older online folks IM? Technobiblio’s post about the Silver Tsunami leads me to believe they probably do. IMing grandkids across the country. And what about the folks that have bought Web cams for grandma or grandma so they can see the kids?
CJ at Technobiblio writes about our older users and a study from The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. “While we often talk about the younger generation and how their expectations will/are changing how libraries provide services, remember that there is also a large base of users who, once they get online, are just as enthusiastic about technology as the younger generation.” Well said and I wholeheartedly agree! We teach a “Senior Seminar” Internet series at SJCPL and it is POPULAR!
Dale Prince, who I blogged about a few days ago, e-mailed this question and I responded: Dale asks: Hey, do you consider yourself to be a Next Gen librarian? The criteria seems to be Gen X or Gen Y. Coupland, I believe, puts people born between 60 and 72 in Gen X. I tend to agree with that assessment since the 60s and 70s are not watershed times for me. The eighties were my defining moments, I think. What about you? I have wrestled with this. I will be 39 in a few weeks. Sometimes I think I’m over the […]
Yesterday I was scheduled to speak at the Indiana Library Federation statewide conference. My talk was called “Big on Blogging” and what FUN it was! We had a packed room, with folks standing in the back. What that said to me is Indiana librarians are very curious about the blogging phenomenon!!! We talked about blogs as external communication, internal communication and “keeping current” tools. We discussed setting up blog software, who writes for library blogs, where to place them on the library’s Web site and all kinds of other issues. One person asked how to wrench control of his library’s […]
Caught your IMs after you had logged off. Watch for me and let’s discuss!
While in the greater Chicagoland area, after my Dominican lecture, I zipped down to Western Springs, IL and dropped in on Aaron at Thomas Ford Memorial Library. NICE library. Friendly folks. Cool Technology… or shall I say, they have some sexy wifi and an official library IM presence. Well done. Aaron and I go to chat about libraries and conferences over dinner with his wife Kate. We had a great time at CIL this year and I hope we are all together for IL this year as well. Here’s a gallery…. (Oh..and I got to meet Mao!)
Yesterday, I drove back into Chicago to Dominican University to speak at Prof. Bill Crowley’s Public Libraries class. What fun! What great students. We had three hours of engaging discussion about technology in public libraries from OPACS to RFID and back again through blogs, RSS and building tech-spaces. One of the women in the class mentioned libraries wanting to have the sexy technology because it was cool. Oh yes! Technolust! What a great way to describe it: sexy. RFID is sexy. WiFi is rather sexy. Federated searching? SEXY! I was impressed with the student’s questions – one about copyright stopped […]
And yes, Hansel is too.. But really, I just chatted with one of our IT staff who was at the big Innovative Users Group meeting this week and she raved about Metasearch, iii’s version of federated searching, which pullss all of a libraries resources into one place when searched. I like that idea. One of the big concepts I took away from CIL this year was that it is all about PEOPLE (Thanks Steve Abram!) and if we are to serve our users we should give em one stop shopping for all the stuff we buy. How much does your […]
I met Dale in my pre-conference workshop and he joined us for the big bloggers dinner at CIL. Take a look at his blog: http://gaylibrarian.blogspot.com/ His frank “Heart of Darkness” piece about a conference trip to Nashville and the Opryland Hotel is a hoot. Describing the “opening of the exhibits reception” he writes: “They would be a lot less tense about these things if their organization, like all good librarian organizations do, knew that free booze (even if it is cheap-assed Sutter Home) makes for a pleasanter conference. Vendors like free booze, too, I might add.”