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 […]
Yearly Archives: 2008
749 posts
I am the guest columnist for RUSQ’s Accidental Technologist this summer. The very cool thing is the full text of the piece is up and online at the RUSQ blog. Please take a look and let me know what you think. I wrote this last January while the snow and wind were raging outside my window – I’m glad it doesn’t seem super dated by now. http://www.rusq.org/2008/08/18/taming-technolust/ Here are some of my favorite parts: A fact: new technologies will not save your library. New tech cannot be the center of your mission as an institution. I’m still taken aback when […]
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 […]
I had a wonderful time speaking at Columbus Metropolitan Library, helping to launch Learn & Play @ CML. One very cool thing is that they have outside participants following along as well as staff from all over the system. I was most impressed with the team who put the project together. I customized a version of The Hyperlinked Library for them. The slides are here. Rock on, CML!
LJ asked the Movers and Shakers to weigh in on “future proofing” libraries. One of my favorite responses comes from Char Booth: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6585850.html Social Capital The best way to future-proof libraries is not by electronically reimagining our most valuable attributes in a collective attempt to cheat obsolescence. Our insurance is going to come from a much more basic place—we have to turn inward, understand why libraries have been such fabulously lasting cultural institutions, and reflect on how best to transfer this to the modern information climate. Libraries represent thoughtfulness, peace, and possibility, and we should strive to keep them as […]
Warren Cheetham comments on an article at Read/Write Web: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/future_of_the_desktop.php Users are going to shift from acting as librarians to acting asdaytraders. As we move into an era where content creation and distribution become almost infinitely cheap, the scarcest resources will no longer be storage or bandwidth, it will be attention…. …In order to cope with the overwhelming complexity of our digital lives, we are going to increasingly rely on tools that help us manage our attention more productively — rather than tools that simply help us manage our information. It is a shift from the mindset of being librarians […]
I’m teaching two sections of LIS 768 this fall. We’ll be using Library 2.0: A Guide to Participatory Library Service by Michael E. Casey and Laura C. Savastinuk as our text once again. I was pleased to find this review which sums up exactly why it’s such a useful book to promote critical thinking about change in libraries: According to the introduction, the book is aimed at helping librarians, administrators, support staff and students to gain a greater understanding of what Library 2.0 is. For me this was achieved. I initially expected that the book would focus mostly on Web 2.0 technologies in the Library […]
awesomeness, originally uploaded by cindiann.
By Michael Casey & Michael Stephens Sometimes, it’s simply not easy. When life throws us $4-a-gallon gasoline, rising unemployment, a housing credit crunch, and tight local, state, and federal budgets, libraries feel the pinch. It’s natural for work morale to suffer. Boards and administrators feel pressure to make cuts and increase staff efficiency. Front-line staffers get hit from both sides–supervisors who expect more (and sometimes give less) and users who expect the same services they’re used to, plus a smiling face. During times like this, the natural inclination is to “get serious,” push your staff harder, and make every dollar […]
APL staff as pirates in 2007, originally uploaded by Alexandrian Public Library. Always good to see library staff dressed as pirates!