Monthly Archives: August 2008

What story is the Grafton Library telling about its users by forwarding two overdue books to the police? How long will the library be known as the one that arrested the lady for two books? http://www.wisn.com/news/17258567/detail.html http://lisnews.org/woman_cuffed_booked_not_paying_library_fines

by: Robin Hastings Information Technology Manager at the Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City, Missouri   This all started because the employees at the library at which I work, the Missouri River Regional Library, were complaining about all the spam in their email. As the Information Technology Manager, part of my job is managing the email server we had – which used to be a server in our server room running Exchange 2003 with Outlook Web Access enabled, so people could use both Outlook and web-based email, whichever they chose. Trying to keep spam out of an Exchange server is difficult […]

Amanda Clay Powers writes: i’m following 51 people on twitter. today one of them “tweeted” that it was shawerma wednesday at shaherazad, our local mediterrenean restaurant. i love shawerma wednesday, but i’d forgotten all about it. when i signed up for twitter it was an experiment. i looked for everyone at msu and in starkville–there weren’t many–and “followed” all of them. and then they “followed” me. i started getting updates about when exams were happening (and what people were doing to de-stress!). then mpbonline and the clarion ledger started following me. mississippi public broadcasting is doing some pretty cool things, it turns out. then i […]

My good friend Adam sent this. 🙂

Tony Tallent writes: http://yestoknow.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/207/ Today I had the pleasure of attending a meeting with the Boulder Public Library Teen Advisory Board.  One of the things I realized during the meeting is how far Public Libraries have come in the past 10 years or so with their commitment to the Teens in our communities. The very fact that I was sitting in a meeting room chatting with this vibrant group of Teens talking about libraries, podcasts and how to make the library a better place for them is quite wonderful. Salute to BTAB! Check out what they’re up to at www.boulderteens.org I’m […]

Brian Kelly looks back at ten years of his involvement with Internet Librarian International: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/the-ili-tenth-anniversary/ I was on a panel with him in 2004, the first time I attended ILI and then again in 2005. I’ll never forget his “skeptic’s view” of tagging because he playfully used my Flickr stream as an example of bad tagging! Pulling up my most used tags in Flickr he said to the group and me: “What’s a Jake, Michael?” I am excited to be attending and speaking at ILI’s 10th this year with Michael Casey. The gathering of people from all over the world […]

Libraries—all libraries—should be fun, even in difficult times. Just scan LJ‘s recent Movers & Shakers (M&S) roster or peruse the library blogosphere to see library workers who have discovered that a sense of play and creativity, even what seems like frivolous experimentation, can result in useful services and solutions. M&S Tony Tallent, while at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, NC (he’s now at Boulder PL, CO), devised “Drop Everything and Learn Day,” aiming at “encouraging staff to stay curious and inspired.” But some libraries, mired in hierarchical leadership structures, closed communication systems, and restrictive policies, drain the life […]

Via Knittinmama, a former student: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/08/15/ot-knitting-080815.html A six-year-old girl says she is disappointed after her knitting group was asked to leave an eastern Ontario library due to a new ban on arts and crafts. “I really had fun in there in the library, and I’m really sad that they stopped that,” said Kingston Currie, who used to spend two hours a week with the Itch and Stitch Club at the Long Sault Library in Long Sault, Ont., about 95 kilometres southeast of Ottawa. Pamela Haley, manager of library services for the united counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, said the […]

http://themwordblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/exciting-news-dutch-guys-are-releasing.html Kathy Dempsey writes: And you will not want to miss it. It’s called ShanachieTour: A Library Road Trip Across America. It features insightful writing by Erik Boekesteijn, amazing photographs by Geert van den Boogaard, and wonderful video by Jaap van de Geer. The book is all-color throughout and the DVD movie is a full hour long. The combo takes you on a coast-to-coast trip of U.S. libraries and landmarks. As the publisher’s site explains it:  “With its infectiously upbeat outsider’s view of American libraries and the many challenges they face, this book and video set is sure to galvanize librarians of all […]