Monthly Archives: September 2008

72 posts

Membership data in ALA Connect

Membership data in ALA Connect, originally uploaded by ALA staff. Jenny writes: A momentous day, here at the mothership – that’s iMIS membership data appearing in ALA Connect (Drupal)! I was able to log in using my regular website login, and the system automatically knew which ALA units I’m affiliated with, including events for which I’m registered. Oh happy day! Don’t worry – the interface is far from done and many of these terms will change. 🙂 I am very excited to see ALA Connect coming to fruition!

CONGRATS to Skokie PL: National Medal for Museum and Library Service

Washington, DC—First Lady Laura Bush will award five museums and five libraries the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor, at a White House ceremony on October 7. Each year, the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in coordination with the White House, presents the National Medal to 10 museums and libraries in recognition of their extraordinary civic, educational, economic, environmental, and social contributions. http://www.imls.gov/news/2008/092908.shtm “These 10 museums and libraries have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make a real difference in their communities. They reach out to people of […]

Plugged in at The Marriott

Speaking of cisutomer relationships, don’t miss Jenny Levine’s post about her experience at a Marriott hotel: Apparently this is part of a service called Plug into Marriott, and it’s a traveling geek’s dream come true. In fact, I’d love to have one of these in every room in my house! The panel has four surge-protected outlets, an ethernet port, an audio-in port, RCA jacks, an S-Video port, a computer video port, and even a memory card reader. This means you can plug in your laptop (to do work or watch a DVD), an MP3 player to listen to music, a digital […]

Is the Customer the Enemy?

Christopher Carfi writes about Oracle and Oracle’s Social CRM (I had to look it up: stands for Customer Relationship Management.) http://www.socialcustomer.com/2008/09/1000-miles-to-g.html First, the pragmatic bits.  Oracle still has a long way to go to truly embrace the notion that the customer can be in control, or at least be a mutually beneficial party, in the business relationship.  Exhibit A, the cringeworthy tag line and subhead on the page shown above.  What does it say? “Oracle Social CRM Applications leverage Web 2.0 technologies to help sales people identify qualified leads, develop effective sales campaigns and presentations, and collaborate with colleagues to […]

Types of Blogs

  Types of Blogs, originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg. Don’t miss the Technorati report on the State of the Blogosphere. http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/who-are-the-bloggers   Bloggers are not a homogenous group, but they are an educated and affluent one: three out of four U.S. bloggers are college graduates, and 42% have attended graduate school. They skew male, and more than half have a household income over $75,000. They are experienced: although it has only recently exploded into the mainstream, blogging is not a new phenomenon. Half of bloggers are on their second blog, and 59% have been blogging for more than two years. The […]

Why No Comments?

Don’t miss: http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=36272 One of the stumbling blocks for libraries when we talk about blogging is the fact that so many library blogs never get comments. This article – focused on associations – might be very useful for strategic planning for the library blog. I especially like this one: 2. Open and easy. If you really want to build comments, you have to be open and make commenting easy. Limiting your blog content or commenting features to members also limits what you can achieve with your blog. A members-only strategy may be appropriate in some cases, but not if your goal […]

Rate that library website @ Libsite.org

I’m a big follower of library websites.  They are virtual representations of their physical presence and they also say a lot about a library’s innovation (or lack thereof).  All this summer I investigated different libraries to see what they were doing and how they were designing their online presences as I redesigned the website for my employer, the A.C. Buehler Library at Elmhurst College.  But it would have been great to know that I could have gone straight to one location to look at a plethora of library websites instead of Googling sites I knew of. Well – that one […]