(*without breaking the bank) (Thoughts this am, connected to Panera’s WiFi network, an iced tea, and the whole weekend stretched out before me..) Blog! The tools are free. Blog internally and externally. Promote your stuff to your users. Promote the library to the staff. Bring out your staff’s hidden creativity. It’s time well spent. Send out your Web content via RSS. Not everyone may know what’s up with RSS but they soon will. That little on your site says a lot! Use IM to answer patron’s questions. The software is free! Publicize your library’s screen name and see what happens. […]
Contributors Michael Stephens
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Via Librarian.net and RFID in Libraries: SFPL RFID! WOW! Library officials will seek about $300,000 in the city’s 2004-05 budget to begin the program, which could take at least six years to fully implement and ultimately cost millions of dollars. I’ll be watching this. Please please…will a librarian at SFPL start a blog and chronicle the project???
Working on the article about “technolust,” Chris introduced me electronically to librarian Wanda Bruchis in Louisiana. We spent an hour on the phone talking tech and planning it was just the coolest. Wanda’s library was featured in that NYT article I mentioned here. Thanks Wanda! I look forward to meeting you at a library conference someday!
I’m finishing up the first draft of my “technolust” article today. IMing with Jenny and reading over my notes, I’ve decided Kansas City is, in the words of Beck, “where it’s at.” David King, cool IT/Web guy there just sent me this page for the KC initiative to get 100 wifi hotspots in KC, including some parks:”That’s right – KC (the city) is providing free wireless access, through this company – http://www.flashnetwork.net/hotspots/? I think the goal is to have 100 hotspots in KC. They have about 87 now (some free, some not, I think). The cool thing is that some […]
Nice post at Liz’s mamamusings:: http://mamamusings.net/archives/2004/05/03/teaching_new_technologies.php I enjoy Liz’s stuff a lot. This one I particularly liked. As a fella who someday would like to teach, this bit was interesting: The future, I think, is to let go of the traditional approach of teaching how to do things in a specific language, and instead offer a more studio-like environment in which students are given access to resources and tools, and then work on developing a project. (We teach most of our classes in ?studio mode,? but in most cases they?re far from real studio approaches?they?re lectures with occasional hands-on exercises.) […]
Check out this Wired piece about shuffling: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63068,00.html?tw=rss.TOP As I sit here this chilly Saturday am at Panera Bread, writing the tech planning article and blogging, I’m shuffling and it’s wonderful… I’d forgotten about “Love is a Stranger” by the Eurythmics and Blondie’s “Shayla.”
Librarians are great! One of the real pleasures of talking about blogging is seeing what people start to invent for themselves with the tools, rather than assuming that the tools are good for some handful of particular things. – Ken Smith http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog.php?id=P2679 I had lunch yesterday with IUSB Director Michelle Russo. We always have so much to discuss in the realm of librarianship and technology. She told me about a professor at IUSB who blogs and who presented a session for her staff on blogging. Ken Smith teaches in the English Department at IUSB and writes about blogs and higher […]
Ok icontemplate, I’m in. A bit of verse that Stevie eventually turned into a song about the AIDS crisis: And walking through the room together In suspended animation No one saw us go – No one said goodbye And from my heart I leave behind Great expectations And that you find the answers to your questions And that life will once more be a celebration And that you will be touched by an angel Stevie Nicks
Library consultant Richard Dougherty detailed the 5 requirements of offering digital reference in the May 2002 issue of American Libraries. They include: ? Staffing ? Acquiring the Technology ? Training staff ? Promotion ? Creating policy These five gems could be applied to any technology planning in a library setting. You can’t do one part and not do the other or you are setting your service up to fail. An untrained staff? No promotion? Forget about it!
My new PB 17″ is on its way! It left Shanghai this morning….