Monthly Archives: April 2008

106 posts

Quote of the Day from Will Richardson

http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/quote-of-the-day-new-knowledge/ From “Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace” (600+ page .pdf) comes this passage by Robert Steele in his essay “Creating a Smart Nation:” Published knowledge is old knowledge: The art of intelligence in the 21st Century will be less concerned with integrating old knowledge and more concerned with using published knowledge as a path to exactly the right source or sources that can create new knowledege tailored to a new situation, in real time.” While this is in the context of national security and intelligence, I think it’s applicable to the ways in which we think about networked learning, […]

“I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling” – Doing Something with Feedback

Library Revolution ponders “one point that kept coming up at Computers in Libraries is the importance of not asking for feedback unless you actually intend on doing something with it.” http://libraryrevolution.com/2008/04/15/feedback-followthrough-and-rick-astley/ When you ask your staff, users, and colleagues for feedback, are you prepared to do something with that feedback? Do you have a mechanism in place for handling suggestions in a productive way? Are you ready to encourage the development of the ideas offered up, constructively criticize, and put forth the effort necessary to transform raw ideas into effective, creative, and innovative efforts? How do you prove that the suggestions […]

SJCPL News: Library cuts summer hours to reduce expenses

Margaret Fosmoe writes at the South Bend Tribune: (Link will expire very soon) The county library plans to cut service hours, purchases and staff by 12 percent this year and 12 percent in 2009. Staff will be reduced through attrition and not layoffs, Napoli said. The summer Saturday closings will help achieve the goal of fewer service hours, thus reducing salaries and utilities, he said. Very similar to what ACPL has planned. I feel bad for Indiana libraries. Didn’t the folks in charge down in Indy realize how the prperty tax reform would mess with library budgets? Do they care? Library […]

French Fry in the Library

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/04/23/grimace-and-the-fry-kids/ The school in l.a. where anna works is under renovation, so a lot of the kids cut through the library on their way to and from the cafeteria. recently, one of these fine young scholars spilled an entire basket of fries…and kept walking. one of anna’s coworkers picked them up, but he missed one. another coworker posted this note. the amazing thing, says anna, is that the sign actually worked. “the student came in, took responsibility and even apologized.” happy meals all around!

TTW Mailbox: “Take Responsibility”

This kind librarian agreed to let me publish this email in response to our talk at CIL2008: Dear Michael: I attended the presentation about transparency given by you and Michael Casey at CIL2008, and I wanted to share a comment I had directly with you.  As you talked about transparency, the one concept that seemed intrinsic to all you said, but I thought should have been said is “TAKE RESPONSIBILITY” I think it needs to be said because so few people actually do it when it comes to libraries. When I worked as a paraprofessional in a large library, I […]

Transparency & Communication in Action: ACPL Director Krull on YouTube

Allen County Public Library’s Sean Robinson writes:   The property fax reform in Indiana is causing library budgets to shrink across the state. In an attempt to be more transparent and to inform both our staff and the community on how we plan to handle this change our Director Jeff Krull has created this video. We are planning for it to be part of a series as we go through this process. I really like Krull’s take on staff and the library’s preparation for the future. I applaud Sean and Jeff Krull and everyone at ACPL for taking such a bold step […]

Emerging Library Leaders: Kathryn Deiss on Leadership

As part of Dominican GSLIS Emerging Library Leaders series, we had Kathryn Deiss, ACRL Content Strategist, in to present on Leadership. I captured some of her points but it was so interesting I stopped typing to listen. Her slides were beautiful — filled with lovely images of nature and flowers. Some thought provoking statements/questions: Multiple communication channels are available now for social interaction. How do we lead in this environment? How do we innovate? Some libraries are innovating like crazy: Users vist the Delft DOK library get an automatic text: “Welcome to the world’s most modern library!” It’s got to be fun. The […]