Contributors Michael Stephens

Don’t miss this guest post by Mike Richwalsky, assistant director of public affairs at Allegheny College at UK Web Focus: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/facebook-usage-by-us-colleges-and-universities/ I’d like to examine how schools in the US are using Facebook and share some thoughts and experiences I’ve had from managing my school’s presence there. First, why are schools using Facebook? First, it’s where the students are. College students today in the US live and breathe Facebook all day long. For us, using it to reach them makes sense – after all it’s a medium they are comfortable in. Second, it’s free for our institutions to use. Finally, the […]

Please take Nicole’s survey: I am working on some very very broad research on open source use in libraries for a book I’m working on.  The focus of the book will be on software you can use that is open source.  If you have a chance to answer this brief survey to help me out that would be greatly appreciated: http://opensource.web2learning.net/limesurvey/index.php?sid=63946&lang=en Thanks a bunch!!!  (and feel free to share with others) Thanks Nicole C. Engard

Greetings from Northern Michigan! The days of summer are flying by and I’m splitting my time between trying to wear out our new Labrador Retriever Cooper and prepping for upcoming talks at ALA Annual. I’ll be presenting for LLAMA BES (that’s the Library Leadership & Management Association Buildings and Equipment Section if you’re spinning the wheel of ALA acronyms) in a program called  “Library 2.0 Buildings: Creating Zones with Heart.” I’m excited about the topic because sometimes we get so caught up in talking about technology, the spaces and places of our libraries take a backseat. Libraries need to encourage […]

Janie Hermann writes: We are a pilot site at PPL for having Red Box services to supplement the library collection. This gives our library customers 24 hour access to the newest DVDs, means that we do not have to buy as many copies of new releases (thus saving money), and we can a cut of the money from having the Red Box on site that we can use for collection development. Win, win, win — at least we hope so. Pilot projects are exciting. Article about the pilot program — we have been waiting six months for the arrival. http://www.towntopics.com/dec2408/other2.php […]