I have written previously about Digital Media Labs and their ilk. I have also been a small part of helping a number of libraries starting media labs of one sort or another. An aspect of DMLs that often gets lost in the shuffle of all the shiny hardware and expensive software is a place to display art. This space can be a wall in the main lobby of the library for photos, slides, graphic design work and whatever else can be put on a poster. A LCD screen or something that can be used to show films or a movie […]
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Michael asked me to write a guest post for Tame the Web to celebrate its tenth anniversary. I’m honoured. Tame the Web has been in my feeds since the very first day. Secondly, Michael is awesome and is one of the dynamic, positive forces in our profession through his writing, research, speaking and teaching and just being Michael. This opportunity set me to thinking about the nature of sharing. My wife, Stephanie, teaches grade four so I know that about age ten you’re in grade four, just like Tame the Web. Ten-years-old is a critical time as we move from […]
Note from Michael: I look to the State Library of Queensland often for inspiration and examples of participatory engagement for users. I also have a special spot in my heart for the librarians and info professionals of Australia, who welcomed me for two extended visits that I will never forget! ALICE is the colloquial name State Library of Queensland (SLQ) has given to a research project lovingly called Digital Library Project 5! You can see why we needed another name to give us some creative inspiration and as we felt we were heading down the proverbial rabbit hole and […]
From Michael: Thanks FGL for contributing this guest post! I can’t believe how many years it’s been since I interviewed you for LJ: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6262153.html Hi, friends – Feel-good Librarian here, with biggest, shiniest congratulations to Michael and the whole Tame the Web community! Ten super years of information sharing and general quality assurance in the library world. Awesome! TTW has covered so many topics, but the ones that appeal most to me have been about keeping the heart in technology. Most of my interactions are still in person, but many occur through technology: email, internet, IM and texting, as well as […]
I decided to be a librarian in late 2006 at the urging of my mother in law Jill. She had been a librarian for many years and spoke of her work very passionately. With a simple poke and a simple “you know, you’d be good at this library thing“, I was off to attend Clarion University of Pennsylvania in January 2007. When I was a kid visited the Northland Public Library in Pittsburgh, PA on a weekly basis. I remembered two things about my time there: they had rabbits in the children’s area and they had the best selection of books […]
(from TribLive, Pittsburgh, PA: http://goo.gl/Tu7GM) Monessen residents soon will be able to borrow library books – at the laundromat. Jill Godlewski, children’s director at the Monessen Public Library, is planning to place several portable libraries scattered around town. Godlewski hopes to situate the wooden dispensaries once the weather clears. “The idea is to get books to people instead of people having to come to the library to get books,” Godlewski said. “We want to make sure there are no barriers to getting a book. My favorite part? A partnership with the local school! Monessen school district Superintendent Linda Marcolini is […]
Advancing the User Experience from Monica Harris
I’m sorry I won’t be in Portland,ME to see the unveiling of the most excellent I’m Your Neighbor, Portland, Maine project that was put together by Kirsten Cappy of Curious City and is a partnership between the Portland Public Library, Congressman Jon Hinck, Maine Humanities Council, NAACP, Portland Branch, and Portland Adult Education. So what’s it all about? I’m Your Neighbor, Portland is a Portland, Maine community-wide read and series of public events in designed to promote a sense of community among the diverse people who make the port city their home. I’m Your Neighbor, Portland is sponsored by the Portland Public Library and funded by the Maine Humanities Council. Over […]
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink explores the capabilities of the brain and spirit in this conceptual age where high touch and high concept aptitudes are gaining serious ground. Emotional intelligence is becoming just as important as IQ due to abundance, outsourcing, and automation. People are now required to use both sides of their brain. L-Directed Thinking pertains to sequential, literal, functional, textual, and analytic thinking. R-Directed Thinking is simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contextual, and synthetic. No longer can we just be knowledge workers. We must be attuned to the big picture, how things work together, patterns, […]
“Look, we’ve got more computer junk than we know what to do with and a generation of kids whose “information literacy” extends to learning PowerPoint and being lectured about plagiarizing from Wikipedia and putting too much information on Facebook. The invisible, crucial infrastructure of our century is treated as the province of wizards and industrialists, and hermetically sealed, with no user-serviceable parts inside. Damn right libraries shouldn’t be book-lined Internet cafes. They should be book-lined, computer-filled information-dojos where communities come together to teach each other black-belt information literacy, where initiates work alongside noviates to show them how to master the […]