Yearly Archives: 2012

171 posts

Heading to Chicagoland – Learning 2.0 Focus Groups this Week

I wanted to share with you a little bit about what I will be doing Monday & Tuesday of this week.  I was awarded the grant by SJSU to begin studying the impact of  Learning 2.0 in US libraries. We’re starting with a pilot project as outlined in the grant proposal: Three public libraries in the Chicago metropolitan area will partner in this study. All three libraries have offered Learning 2.0 programs within the last five years, and all three library directors have agreed to participate in this study. The libraries include Mount Prospect Public Library, a mid-size public library where […]

Tweeting for Public Libraries: A TTW Guest Post by Emily Lloyd

I’ve been thinking a lot about public libraries/organizations and social media lately, especially on the differences between Twitter and Facebook. I wanted to jot down some notes about what I think works and what doesn’t, & figured I’d share them publicly so that folks can do anything from heartily disagreeing with them in the comments to potentially benefiting from them. I’ve had a personal Twitter account and followed libraries with it since fall of 2007, but have only recently started tweeting for a library system (about a month now). I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve also learned […]

Help Me Write a Job Description: Publisher of Community

For the past year, I have had a foggy notion for a new librarian position, but I can’t quite get my mind wrapped around it. So, I am turning to you, TTW community, to help. Today, I am once again skimming through R. David Lankes’ amazing book The Atlas of New Librarianship. I am looking over page 67 at the idea of librarians as “Publisher of Community.” This may be the closest definition to what I have in mind. Lankes writes, “I foresee the day in the near future when librarians spend the majority of their time working with community […]

Indiana Library Federation District 6 Presentations

I’m excited to be presenting a keynote and breakout session at the Indiana Library Federation District 6 conference this week. This will be my first presentation for ILF since 2005! Also on the docket is Jessamyn West – I am excited to meet up with her in person. http://www.ilfonline.org/events/2012/04/13/district/ilf-district-6-conference/ Here are my slides:   Keynote: Driving Change, Creating Experience & Moving Forward: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/239835/ILFDist6ExperienceStephens.pdf Breakout: Trends and Technologies: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/239835/ILFDist6ExperienceStephens.pdf If you are attending, please say hello!

New White Paper: Think Like a Startup

Please go here ASAP: http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2012/04/04/think-like-a-startup-a-white-paper/ to find out all about the new white paper from Brian Mathews: This paper is a collection of talking points intended to stir the entrepreneurial spirit in library leaders at every level. I think it is also useful for library science students as they prepare to enter and impact the profession. My intention is for this to be a conversation starter, not a step-by-step plan. The future is ours to figure out and I hope that this captures the spirit of the changes ahead. So here you go: Think Like A Startup: a white paper to […]

My Courses in WISE

I am happy to announce both of my fall  2012 courses will be available in the WISE program:  Web-based  Information Science Education (WISE) is a unique and groundbreaking opportunity in online Library and Information Science (LIS) Education. Leading schools in the information field have extended their reach outside the traditional classroom to broaden the educational opportunities available to their students. The WISE Consortium uses advanced technology as a means to enrich LIS education and foster relationships among students, faculty, and universities, through course sharing an cooperative pedagogical training. The vision of this initiative is to provide a collaborative, cost-effective distance education model that will […]

Happy 9th Birthday Tame the Web!

I missed it by two days, but I wanted to acknowledge that TTW turned 9 on Sunday. Here’s the first post – back in the OLD TTW archives in iBlog format (remember that?) I want to send a big shout out and thank you to everyone who has read the blog, commented and participated here at TTW in various ways. I appreciate it. I also greatly appreciate the wonderful contributors who have signed on to write for TTW as my time for blogging has decreased over the years. I grabbed my contribution to the Passion Quilt meme as an image […]

Libraries as Publishers: Possibilities with print on demand

Clive Thompson recently gave an excellent interview on the findings tumblr as part of their “How We Will Read” series. In the interview, Thompson discusses his ideas on eBooks, social reading and the future of print. But I think that his thoughts about print on demand books are the most interesting. What you see with print on demand in the last couple of years is that there’s been explosion in the number of things printed, but they’re printed in small quantities: three, four, five copies total. They tend to be things like very specialty books; weird memoirs only three or four people […]