Monthly Archives: June 2012

12 posts

An Opportunity for Library Advocacy (by TTW contributor Troy Swanson)

Each month, our college has a show on one of the local public access television station (PHTV 4 in Palos Heights, Illinois). I was invited to participate to discuss libraries and librarians as well as help spread the word about services we offer to our local community. I saw this as a chance to do some local library advocacy, so you can judge how well I pulled it off. This was definitely something new for me (my segment starts at minute 3:33). Meet with Moraine (June 2012)

Mal Booth Named New University Librarian at University of Technology Sydney!

http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/news/20071/congratulations-to-new-university-librarian UTS Library is pleased to introduce the newly appointed University Librarian, Mal Booth. Mal joined UTS in 2009 and has led significant changes in the way the Library organises and delivers the information and services it oversees. Amongst many initiatives he has been instrumental in introducing Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) tagging to the entire print collection, ensuring the Library is in a strong position to make best use of the new Library Retrieval System (that is currently underway) and for which he has led the design process. Before joining UTS, Mal was the Head of the Research Centre at the […]

News from the Zukunftswerkstatt: 2012 Prize for Pathbreakers in Library Science Awarded

Julia Bergmann writes: There is a new award for librarians and other knowledge-workers in German-speaking Europe. It’s called “Zukunftsgestalter in Bibliotheken”  (“Pathbreakers in Library Science”), is sponsored by the German publishing house De Gruyter and is awarded in cooperation with the Journal “Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis” (BFP)  as well as the Foundation “Zukunftswerkstatt Kultur- und Wissensvermittlung e.V.” The idea for this award roots in the observation that the current discussions of new developments concerning the library world, such as library 2.0, open innovation in libraries or the new role of gaming etc. is mostly academic, while the practitioners out there, […]

German-American Gaming League (by TTW Contributor Justin Hoenke)

I had the honor of helping unveil the German-American Gaming League while I was in Hamburg last month for the Bibliothekartag Library Conference.  If you’re interested in the league, please visit this link for more information (please note: the page is in German, so have Google Translate handy!) What is the German-American gaming league? In the gaming league take people from Germany and the United States in an open competition against each other. Here are several computer games such as Wii bowling and playing Mario Kart. Why did the German-American gaming league? We believe that gaming will have a major impact on […]

Eat Your Heart Out, Hollywood, I’m a Librarian! (by TTW Contributor Dr. Troy Swanson)

Last week, a poet was in my office. We had planned a poetry reading, but she was pitching me a new idea focusing on a book she was writing about her birth father. Before that, a geography faculty member was describing a lecture about how hedgehogs can be used to explain key concepts in geography. Before that, I was at our marketing department proofing publicity for our upcoming One Book series. Before that, I was in a meeting about training staff members to run our HD cameras. When I was in library school, no one told me that one of […]

Fall Class: The Hyperlinked Library & Emerging Technologies

This is a course preview video for those SJSU SLIS students who may be interested in my fall class “The Hyperlinked Library & Emerging Technologies.” The Hyperlinked Library is an open, participatory institution that welcomes user input and creativity. It is built on human connections and conversations. The organizational chart is flatter and team-based. The collections grow and thrive via user and staff involvement. Librarians are tapped in to user spaces and places online to interact, have presence and point the way. Casey & Savastinuk describe the participatory service model: “It is a model for library service that encourages constant […]