Following the inspiration of TED (actually, copying TED), our library partnered with our campus’ Center for Teaching & Learning to create a special event that highlights our campus’ faculty and staff. This event which we affectionately called TLC: Teaching & Learning Community event, featured five faculty and staff members who gave mini-lectures on a range of topics. Our goal was to host a program in our library that produced web-ready content. We purposely limited each speaker to 15 minutes per presentation. Our Goals Find teachers, innovators and leaders who are able to inspire us with “ideas worth sharing.” Create a […]
Yearly Archives: 2012
171 posts
My new column is available at LJ’s site: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/06/opinion/michael-stephens/our-common-purpose-office-hours/ “Get a blog, launch texting, create a Facebook page” has been the rallying cry—from me, too—for some time, but the reasons for doing these things should be clear. They’re an extension of what we have always done, the foundational purpose of libraries. Service. Access. Context. Many LIS programs include “how-to” technology classes. These are useful for providing the skills new grads need to be marketable. Along with those skill-based courses, however, we must give students opportunities to learn how to engage actively with people, facilitate people’s interests and conversation, and promote […]
Thanks to Warren Cheetham for sharing this via Twitter.
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)
Say Cheese, a photo by Lester Public Library on Flickr. Summer Reading on the Road to Mishicot, Lester Public Library, Two Rivers, Wisconsin
Perhaps I have been living under a rock but I just stumbled across the Idea Box from Oak Park Public Library, IL. Very interesting. TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen
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 […]
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, […]
My Keynote, a photo by mstephens7 on Flickr. Uploading a bunch of pictures from South Africa! Thanks to all!
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 […]