Contributors Michael Stephens

3974 posts

TTW Guest Post: KidLit ReOrg 2008 at Darien Public Library

by: Gretchen Hams-Caserotti Head of Children’s Services Darien Library ——— When I joined Darien Library Head of Children’s Services we were building a new library. An opportunity to reorganize a library doesn’t come very often. The Adult collection was already being rearranged and Louise Berry, our Library Director, encouraged me to explore some ideas I had about how Children’s Libraries are arranged. I took a leap of faith and committed to the idea of reorganizing the collection with a user-centered approach by considering Function instead of Format. Our KidLit ReOrg was a huge project! In Children’s Services, we define the population […]

The Transparent Library: It’s Fine to Drop Dewey!

MS: Each semester, during an intro class unit on organization of information, we discuss these issues. Dewey designed a system that worked well for its time—and way beyond—but it has deficiencies we’ve tried to cover with Band-Aids, like more signage. We listen to Marshall Shore interviewed on NPR about the original project at Maricopa County Library District’s Perry Branch. Then the students share their views and personal experiences—and many echo what Michael mentioned above. Smith has an answer: “WordThink allows library staff the freedom and creativity to develop collocation relationships that could never happen in Dewey. [It] allows staff to […]

Takin’ It to the Streets

Don’t miss this post by Aaron Schmidt: http://www.walkingpaper.org/2108 On Wednesday afternoons during the Summer outside of the MLK Jr. Memorial Library in Washington DC you will find a table full of friendly librarians talking to the passersby. The librarians also bring out an assortment of library materials to illustrate what’s available in the library. It is a great program and I’d like to see it go even further. Take a look at the images Aaron shares, highlighting some recent tweet conversations that are perfect examples of the possibilities of engaging with users via Twitter.

It’s Fine to Drop Dewey

By Michael Casey & Michael Stephens We think it’s good news that the Rangeview Library District, CO, is experimenting in one of its branches with an alternative to Dewey. MC: I started highlighting Dewey’s failings when I was helping build and open a new branch library. I asked the many contractors and vendors if they used the library. Many responded that they had gone as kids but that they never continued use into adulthood. Many said they went to the book superstores but had given upon the library. Why? Coffee, collection, and classification. Today’s busy, working adults want to find […]

Congrats to John Blyberg

John accepts his award, originally uploaded by louise.berry. John Blyberg is the 2009 recipient of the LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award for his development of the Social OPAC application suite (http://thesocialopac.net), also known as SOPAC (for Social Online Public Access Catalog). SOPAC is a suite of open source software (OSS) tools that brings the power of social computing and Web 2.0 to the library catalog. The current version of SOPAC (2.0) was developed and implemented by Blyberg at the Darien Library in Connecticut. SOPAC has also successfully been implemented on top of Innovative’s Millennium and the Sirsi ILS at other libraries. […]

Mobile Devices & Libraries Experts Speak at ALA

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670421.html Libraries had better prepare for an explosion in the capacity of mobile devices as well as the transformative increase in user capacity and expectations. This was the message conveyed by a panel yesterday at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference on Libraries and Mobile Devices: Public Policy Considerations. After all, explained Jason Griffey, assistant professor and head of Library Information Technology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, cell phones are the most popular and ubiquitous information device worldwide; in 50 countries, cell phone penetration (phones/person) exceeds 100 percent. By the end of 2010, he continued, 90 percent of the world’s population will […]

From Infomancy: “AASL Restricts (Eliminates?) Use of Standards”

http://schoolof.info/infomancy/?p=588 Christopher Harris writes: In the Standards in Action book, there is a great 2-page spread on the self-assessment strand that speaks directly to the student. One librarian asked if she could make copies of the pages to share with students. That led me, as an ethical user of information, to check on the copyright and permissions for the book. What I found was quite chilling. Though these two pages present a letter to students, there is no permission given in the book to allow copying of those pages to share with students. I thought maybe there would be something […]