Via Ken Smith:
http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog.php?id=P3344
Greatest Hits Collection: Tim Porter went on holiday and left behind a list of what he considers to be his best pieces. This is a list of maybe four dozen posts, with a link and a brief synopsis for each one. That’s an act of self-scrutiny that many bloggers should undertake, if we dare. Bloggers need to do what they can to give some staying power to their best writing.
I thought I’d pull out my all-time favorite TTW posts and point to them here. Links to the posts are BOLD.
TTW Favorites!
The Balanced Librarian: Or “Librarians Unplugged.” Anytime I can quote Frances Mayes in a post is a good thing! Today, I read about Meredith’s loss of Delta and it breaks my heart.
Meredith also writes about balance and unplugging. You, dear readers, know how I feel about that. She writes: “I guess this has made me think about what’s important. I’ve been so engrossed in the book and in work that I’ve hardly had time for family and friends. There are friends I haven’t been in touch with in almost a year. I see Adam plenty, but from behind my laptop. I barely leave the computer other than to sleep. Even when I was in Florida for Thanksgiving, I spent too much time on my book and and not enough time with family (especially Delta and my grandparents). If I miss a week’s worth of stuff on Bloglines, will the ceiling come crashing down? If I don’t blog for a few weeks, will people kill me? This all isn’t life or death. Yes, my book has to get done by a certain time, and it will. But I need to put a little more energy into friends, family and my own health. So I apologize if my posts get shorter or if I write less often. But I need to put the people I love and myself first.”
Balance… breathe…unplug.
Libraries Doing Cool Things with iPods: This was when the “Library Circulates Shuffles” story broke and people were starting to talk about iPods in library settings. This post ultimately lead to this piece at LJ Net Connect. I really think it’s cool that what starts as a blog post can become an article.
The Library Blogger’s Personal Protocols: The ethics post. I believe these things are important. Karen gets it too!
Ten Things a Blogging Librarian Must Do: More ethics and guidelines for successful library blogging. One of my favorites: “And share yourself. I love learning about folks and how they see the world. Their POV may help me understand or change mine. It also adds to the community that is the blogosphere and more so the Internet. We are people… be yourself!”
Ten Steps to Insure Staff Buy-In: A recent post tied to a talk from Internet Librarian. One of the most important things library directors and administration should recognize is however you play out projects or implementations directly impacts library staff. They take the brunt of the change. Keep them informed and ask for their input. Library staff are not going to care about Technology X if their usual response is “No one tells us anything” when confronted with change.
Ten Things A Library Can Do to Boost their Techie Stuff* (*without breaking the bank): This post is a favorite of mine and it all rings so true in almost 2006. Michael Casey commented recently: “Looking at this more than a year after posting causes me much frustration and angst when I realize that so many libraries — libraries that can and should have embraced all of these long ago — have yet to adopt more than one or two. Blogs and RSS feeds, especially, seem to be a no-brainer, yet they continue to be difficult projects to push upstream.” Well said!
Ten Things I’ve Learned Presenting at Library Conferences: This was born out of a conference I attended where one speaker of two talked so long, the other person hardly got to say two words. The first speaker went on tangents and blah blah blah’ed too long. I was irked as were many in the audience. Check out the comment too – it’s so easy to fall into that acronym trap! I catch myself all the time. ILF..RSS..PDA..CMS..PHP…
Ten Tips for Technology Trainers in the Trenches: A precursor to the presentation I did in London with Rob.
Twelve Techie Things for Librarians 2005: A look forward for 2005, posted in January. How did we do? Where are we at?
Ten Things I’ve Learned as a Blogging Librarian: Ethics again! Typos! Virtual Communities! A cornucopia of my thoughts on blogging and libraries.
Threads of Conversation at ALA (2005): Could also be subtitled “Queer Eye for the Library Guy” because of a chance meeting with Ted Allen. A futurist post, I guess, as well, that includes this: “In my mind: Libraries will be headed by directors who grew up as gamers and got their degrees in new permutations of MLS programs. Librarians, I hope, will be visible and relevant and have presence. We won’t be hiding behind a reference desk or a mental wall of technophobia.” Written pre-discussion-of-Library 2.0 this is even more important now!
Anway, those are some of my favorites. I’d gladly entertain comments here or on the posts themselves. And with that, TTW is unplugging until 2006! Happy Holidays to one and all! Thanks for reading and commenting! Thanks to all the Bibliobloggers out there who do such amazing stuff that inspires me and makes me think. Rock ON!