Contributors Michael Stephens

4147 posts
Pursuing the PhD

Notes from ALISE

I spent three days at the Association of Library and Information Science Educators conference listening to talks, meeting other students and faculty, a discussing some of my interests with various folks. Here are some highlights and quotable quotes: A meet-up with Jonathan Furner, Assistant Editor, Dewey Decimal Classification for OCLC who writes the Dewey Blog and has the following personal interests, according to his “About Me” page: 306.42 709.04062 782.421660941 796.3340942615 840.9110904 901 “What happens if we do things ina whole new way? What do we need to do to create flexible propfessionals?” Dr. Randall Bass, Keynote A HOT conversation […]

Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

Where Do we Go From Here?

Chris Deweese listens to Moby and gets reflective in a great post at Clam Chowder. He discusses how important buy in is for technology projects, especially administrative buy in! One thing I can tell you is that I had (have) a director that supported and encouraged my creativity and staff that understand the value of the web. I think you could have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t have the support of people you work with and if they are not on board with where you want to go, then your talent will not reach it’s […]

Pursuing the PhD

ALISE Keynote: Randall Bass

http://www.alise.org/conferences/2006_Conference/2006_keynote.html The Difference that Inquiry Makes: Fostering a Scholarship of Teaching and a Culture of Learning Bass spoke to a an audience of library and information science educators about how education is changing. He showed a video a student made on civil rights (content creation!) and discussed what learning came from it. I finally had to say “Amen” at the end! Educators should ask: “what happens if I try this a whole new way?” We should be teaching for understanding. Understanding = flexible performance capability We should strive to educate flexible professionals.

Interviews Library Organizations

A Conversation with John Blyberg at ALA TechSource

http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/01/on-the-l2-train.html I’d suggest that librarians not shut themselves off to the discussions taking place. “Library 2.0″ may be a buzz word, but it’s not a weightless one. There is actual work and intelligent discussion that accompanies it. L2 is certainly not about exclusion—quite the opposite. You will do yourself and your organization a great disservice is you embed yourself in a semantic quagmire.

Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

Better Library Services for More People

Michael Casey and I weigh in on the ongoing discussions of Library 2.0 and call for the next wave: stepping stones to best practice and more. http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/01/better-library-services-for-more-people.html The next few steps, after all this discussion—and after the dust has settled from some virtual sparring—should manifest in the form of “stepping-stones”: let’s move from discussion only to developing and implementing best practices for Web 2.0 tools, to “How-we-did-it-and-did-it-good” case studies, and to empirically based discussions about our “We-tried-it-and-it-failed” lessons. And let’s keep looking for the best ways to serve our users, wherever they are.

News & Life Updates Pursuing the PhD

Posting from ALISE

Greetings from San Antonio & the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE)Conference! We gathered last night at the Omni Hotel. Today we are prepping our posters, which were printed for us at UNT, having a group lunch, and finding our way around this conference. We set up posters at 5:30pm and the Works in Progress Session and Reception starts at 6pm. I have my poster, cards, handout, and a bibliography for interested folks.