Monthly Archives: July 2007

33 posts

New Mexico State Library Staff Can’t Access Flickr, etc.

I’ve been working on a post about South Carolina’s State Library site for TechSource and just caught this at Dr. Curtis Rogers’ blog: I recently found out that staff members at the NM State Library do not have access to Flickr, YouTube, and other social softwares/web based technologies that Libraries are using in the 2.0 world to promote their services, offer IM/Chat reference services, and more. This is a big mistake! If the state library can’t access these tools then how are they supposed to do a good job of helping the libraries in the state? This makes no sense […]

Dutch Public Libraries Offer Chat Reference

Rob Coers writes: I am happy to announce to you that the Dutch public libraries now also offer a chat reference service to the audiences. Not via IM, but via an application by a small Dutch company, called Chatfone. Behind the scenes there is a team of about 30 librarians who also work as al@din searchers, the nation-wide QnA service, running on OCLC’s QuestionPoint. In the last months of 2006, 22 public libraries tested several ways of chat reference. We tried: 1. Meebo 2. the big IM’s – MSN, GTalk, Yahoo, monitored with Meebo 3. QuestionPoint Chat 4. Chatfone Chatfone […]

The Academic Library’s Mission – Risk Taking, Creativity, Transparency

I am blown away by the new vision and mission statements from the University Library at McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario. Jeff Trzeciak, University Librarian,and his team of strategic planners have really honed in on some incredible goals. http://ulatmac.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/new-visionmission-statements/ Vision McMaster University Library will be recognized as Canada’s most innovative, user-centred, academic library. Mission The University Library advances teaching, learning and research at McMaster by: · teaching students to be successful, ethical information seekers · facilitating access to information resources · providing welcoming spaces for intellectual discovery · promoting the innovative adoption of emerging learning technologies We value: · excellent customer […]

Dominoe: A Story Told in Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/sets/72157600975093412/ What stories could you tell about your library? A day in the ______ department? The journey of a book from arrival to being placed on the shelf? The possibilities are endless! This might make a good exercise as well for learning Flickr, planning a story and creating it. Hmmmm. 🙂

Future of Librarians Interviews

DegreeTutor has a series of interviews up with various library folk. Take a look: http://www.degreetutor.com/library/librarians-online Here’s mine: http://www.degreetutor.com/library/librarians-online/michael-stephens I do get talk about grocery stores: We can learn from the “retail expectations” of our users and potential users. I was amazed to see a high end grocery store chain in Minneapolis offer a meeting room for groups. The Book Club could be meeting at the store – not at the library in the near future! One goal for the L2 library might be to restablish the idea of the commons – that shared space that can be many things to […]

Daniel Pink on Six Abilities That Matter Most

David Warlick blogged about a presentation by Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/07/18/daniel-pink-at-leadership-event-in-new-jersey/ Warlick noted that Pink said it’s no longer computer skills that we need but skills that can’t be outsourced: Six abilities that matter the most: Design Story Symphony — the ability to see the big picture, recognize patterns, see what’s not there. Empathy Play Meaning This list excites me. It’s filled with promise. But it scares me too – what are we teaching in LIS education that build these skills? Are we teaching graduate students to play? To see the meaning in what they […]