Will Richardson has a nice post rounding up recent articles about schools, students and tech: http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/headlines-from-the-frontlines/ This caught my eye: …Seems the beligerent kids in San Diego schools are actually text messaging during class, admitting to cheating with their phones, and listening to iPods during lectures. Why is that? “Social psychologist Jean Twenge believes she knows why personal technology devices are all the rage among teenagers. Her research indicates young people today are [wait for it…] more self-absorbed than ever before, and iPods and cellphones play into that.” Was that absorbed or abs-bored? The administration response? No surprise… “So Vista […]
Daily Archives: September 12, 2007
11 posts
Michael McGrorty had an interview: http://librarydust.typepad.com/library_dust/2007/09/down-in-the-bas.html During the interview I was asked the usual question, “As a new librarian, what would you do to determine the needs of your community of patrons?” My response was as it has always been: “I would do my best to make contact with a broad cross-section of the patrons by any means possible, but especially by the Internet, which is fast, cheap and easily used to communicate ideas and questions, and to receive responses in return.” I added that I would immediately establish a personal blog as a means of maintaining a conversation with […]
IMG_0339 Originally uploaded by National Library of New Zealand More cards from New Zealand, via Tim Grieg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationallibrarynz/sets/72157601707383805/ Wouldn’t this be a neat way to get user feedback? offer a physical and virtual card that simple says: “In 2017, my library will be…..” Choose the number of years out depending on what type of feedback you’d like. I might choose 2012 – a five year plan in the making with user feedback. Nice!
Library 2.0 Socks Originally uploaded by mstephens7 I owe a lot of folks a hearty THANK YOU for all sorts of assistance and kindness these past few months. One of those folks is Don Yarman, who attended one of my talks this summer in Ohio. I follow his blog and know that he knits. I commented in the talk how cool it was to see an online connection transform into a real world connection – and Don was knitting during the talk. Those socks became the L2 socks. 🙂 Thanks Don! http://yarmando.blogspot.com/2007/06/library-20-socks.html
Including: What an excellent teaching tool!
Stephen Abram on marketing: I suspect that we’re not being assertive enough. Too many of us try to influence subtly. Too many of us are not direct enough. Too many of us only use a small range of the tools in the marketer’s toolkit. Many think people will notice the good work we do naturally. They won’t. And too many of us believe that it’s just good enough to be right, good, and to tell folks stuff. It’s not. http://www.imakenews.com/sirsi/e_article000862006.cfm?x=bb1LCGK,b5PTDpv0 This article made the rounds awhile ago, but a reread this morning was refreshing. Are we timid about marketing too?
http://lblog.jalcorn.net/archives/954-Whats-Wrong-With-Recreation.html Another from the archives. Louise at Librarian’s Rant comments on the blocking of MySpace on public computers at Manatee Library: I guess my ultimate question is what is this policy intended to solve? If it’s a question of equitable time limits on public computers, there are other solutions. Is it that they don’t want anyone to enjoy themselves while on the computers? That’s a great way to get people to hate your library system. This seems ridiculously self-defeating, and ultimately difficult to enforce. What a great question to ask when a new policy or policy change is coming up: […]
I’m prepping reading lists for my Library 2.0 course, and I happened to come back to this by Brian Mathews: http://www.lisjobs.com/newsletter/archives/nov06bmathews.htm His points are all gems, including: Initiate change. We can’t always wait for others to do things; sometimes we have to make changes ourselves. If something is wrong, missing, or inefficient, let’s not complain, but let’s do something about it. I am inspired by the initiatives of two of my colleagues: Ross Singer, a web applications developer, was dissatisfied with many of the commercial products that we purchase, so he designed a value-added link resolver and is redeveloping the […]
I work on the web Originally uploaded by circulating Circulating adds an entry to iWoW: My day job is all about building relationships too now. I work on the web so that customers and team members may have a valuable personal experience with our services. I train and encourage and support them all to play on the web as they work so that they may know and understand each other and our community better. It doesn’t stop when I come home. There is no quitting time. Work on the web becomes play again as I explore and teach myself more. […]
I work on the web Originally uploaded by webchicken Webchicken adds to the IWoW meme: More and more people can use the Web to get around, but I like empowering people with the tools to search and evaluate. I feel most proud when helping someone “get it” and overcome their technophobia, if just for a minute. I’m sometimes disappointed with the lack of vision in embracing technology (from administrators and educators). Unless we start doing a better job of teaching information literacy, this will only get worse.