Monthly Archives: February 2005

32 posts

PL Toolbar

Via LISNews: http://www.lisnews.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/26/1759210 Get a load of that! Talk about PRESENCE! Well done Harris County Public Library. If we are selling our message of provideing access and materials, what better way than actually putting that “message” into someone’s browser. The public library needs to be in people’s minds — not just as an afterthought when other resources fail. I’d be interested in what prmotional activities the library is doing as well as what training staff and the public received!

An Open (yet personal) letter to Michael Gorman

Dear Mr. Gorman: After being struck speechless early this morning when your article and commentary related to it began to pop up on the LIS Weblogs I monitor, I feel the need to write a bit. Maybe I can assist you with the question you posed in Library Journal: Who are the Blog People? I realize this is a broad question and your article did not single out librarians as bloggers, but here goes: I am a librarian and I am a blogger. I love libraries — especially the public library. I’ve been with the St. Joseph County Public Library […]

iPod as Listening Station

From a reader Down Under: Hi Michael, Yesterday I was thinking about using iPods in our public library, and some web and blog searching today uncovered your comments at your blog. I said almost exactly the same thing to a colleague yesterday – iPods are the coolest device around at the moment (in terms of public perception), so how cool would it be for the library to be seen using them? Anyway, my idea was this: The library buys an iPod mini – or several The library purchases music online and uploads to iPod. New music (top 10 etc) can […]

Libraries Doing Cool Things with iPods:

I’ve been thinking a lot about what libraries might do with iPods and I’ve actually written about it here before. I’m glad to see Pew report on MP3 at http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/p/1047/pipcomments.asp that Karen pointed to. I’ve lamented that some of the big names in recorded e-content don’t recognize the iPod as well. But finally come two synchronous “iPods in Libraries” happenings. First, from Jeff Steely at Baylor comes this short article about what the library there is doing with iPods, emailed a few days ago: Audio Reserves To Go Program Launched This spring, the Crouch Fine Arts Library and the Electronic […]

Six Tips to Enjoy Computers in Libraries 2005

I am really looking forward to this year’s Computers in Libraries conference at the Washington DC Hilton March 16-18. This will be my sixth trip out to DC for this conference! I’ve been reading Chad’s writing at Hidden Peanuts and was happy to see he found a way to attend CIL this year — his first. I would recommend this conference to any librarian interested in learning more about what is happening in that space where technology and libraries meet. For those going, have fun! Here are Six Tips to Enjoy Computers in Libraries 2005: 1. Six Feet Under: Don’t […]

Exploring Weblogs at Purdue University

Last Friday I presented a 90 minute talk on Weblogs, RSS and Wikis for a group of 35 Purdue University librarians. It was a wonderful experience! My goals for the session: Demonstrate how powerful blog software can be to meet the needs of delivering content externally and internally in libraries Provide explanation of how blogging works, what RSS is about and how to use Bloglines to gather content. Define some of the top tech trends swirling around this whole idea of blogs/rss/wikis… and OSS, folksonomies, etc. Some of the coolest parts: * Playing Karen’s podcast of TTT on some great […]