Contributors Michael Stephens

3983 posts

That Federated Searching is hot right now…

And yes, Hansel is too.. But really, I just chatted with one of our IT staff who was at the big Innovative Users Group meeting this week and she raved about Metasearch, iii’s version of federated searching, which pullss all of a libraries resources into one place when searched. I like that idea. One of the big concepts I took away from CIL this year was that it is all about PEOPLE (Thanks Steve Abram!) and if we are to serve our users we should give em one stop shopping for all the stuff we buy. How much does your […]

Notes from a Gay Librarian

I met Dale in my pre-conference workshop and he joined us for the big bloggers dinner at CIL. Take a look at his blog: http://gaylibrarian.blogspot.com/ His frank “Heart of Darkness” piece about a conference trip to Nashville and the Opryland Hotel is a hoot. Describing the “opening of the exhibits reception” he writes: “They would be a lot less tense about these things if their organization, like all good librarian organizations do, knew that free booze (even if it is cheap-assed Sutter Home) makes for a pleasanter conference. Vendors like free booze, too, I might add.”

Taming the Public Computer in Miami

I grabbed this from LISNews (I think) days ago and forgot to post it: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/8289061.htm?1c I work the reference desk and I know what it’s like when all of your terminals are full. I’ve seen arguments, scary situations and downright nastiness over access to the Internet. I’m all about access but as the article states it needs to be fair access… not the same folks for 8 hours everyday. What I wrestle with is the game players and chatters who tie up machines when other folks may want to research reports or personal matters. I know it’s none of my […]

Rachel Singer Gordon: NextGen Libs

I blogged this before but it deserves a close re-read. Gordon gets it! http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA379266 She writes: “In order to keep up with constant change, our profession has the responsibility for integrating the contributions and perspectives of younger librarians into the field. The best way to start is by adopting their perspectives on and comfort with a variety of technological advances.” IM anyone? Unwired PDAs anyone? Walking Paper anyone?

SJCPL Blog make the Local Paper

Library communicates with blogs Web logs easy to update, viewed via Internet By ANNIE BASINSKI Tribune Staff Writer This morning in the South Bend Tribune, SJCPL received some nice press in the form of an article about our blog, which last week underwent a change from two seperate blogs to one BIG one! “Blogs ranging from personal to political are turning up everywhere on the Internet — from Howard Dean’s presidential campaign blog to Newsweek’s “MarthaWatch.” Michael Stephens, head of networked resources development and training at the St. Joseph County Public Library, started “blogging” last year after he learned about […]

Google: Free Web Mail? Hooray! (Google has become a Portal)

CNN reports this am the Google announced yesterday a new Web mail service. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/31/google.email.ap/index.html I have taught Yahoo Mail for years at my library and on other training/consulting jobs. I’m interested to see how Google stacks up. I can already tell, I may switch. Why? The Google name – be all end all for searching for most folks (I know…I know…) carries a lot of good connotations for me. “But analysts said that Google — whose technology is behind nearly four out of every five Web searches — could shake up the free e-mail market.” The public uses Google big […]

Communicating with Technology in Libraries

I haven’t got to post about this yet but on March 17th I was a guest speaker at Professor Bill Cowley’s class on Organizational Communication in Libraries at Dominican University GSLIS in River Forest, Ill. (In my opinion, Dominican ROCKS! The staff I met, students, everyone was were friendly and energetic. The campus is beautiful. And I know some GSLIS grads who are pretty excellent librarians!) My topic was using to technology to communicate in libraries. I covered e-mail, delivering a library’s message vis Web sites, the internal Web presence (Intranets), Instant Messaging, chat-based services, blogging, RSS and future innovations. […]