Clive Thompson recently gave an excellent interview on the findings tumblr as part of their “How We Will Read” series. In the interview, Thompson discusses his ideas on eBooks, social reading and the future of print. But I think that his thoughts about print on demand books are the most interesting. What you see with print on demand in the last couple of years is that there’s been explosion in the number of things printed, but they’re printed in small quantities: three, four, five copies total. They tend to be things like very specialty books; weird memoirs only three or four people […]
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This is a guest post I asked Lian, a volunteer in the Skokie Library Digital Media Lab, to write. What is life like for DML volunteers and workers is a common question from people interested in DMLs, I hope Lian’s post will help explain what her volunteering looks like. – Mick Jacobsen With four tricked out Macs, a chroma key green wall, Blue Yeti microphones, a drawing tablet, scanners, various electronic instruments and more, the Skokie Public Library Digital Media Lab is the place to be if you’re looking to create. Each of the four Macs at the DML is […]
I have read quite a bit lately about the concept of social curation and sites such as Pinterest, a “virtual pinboard” for organizing and sharing images. ”Curation” is very much the nom en vogue these days for a number of disparate activities, and I imagine many librarians roll their eyes when they see this term used to describe RSS news aggregators, search filters and even brand strategy. Nevertheless, the rise of Pinterest has been nothing short of meteoric, and even Syracuse University’s iSchool is getting into the act, so I decided to try out the site and see for myself just how “curative” it really is. The first […]
I just finished Carson Block’s article, If Books Are Our Brand, in Public Libraries magazine. It’s yet another look at the changing world of libraries and how e-books have shaken things up. Block says, “I would love our brand to be ‘access to the resources and tools in an ever-changing world.’ That means access to e-everything, including the tools and training needed for content creation, and in physical spaces. Places to gather and discuss ideas. Places to learn, and places to teach.” I agree with Block when he says we need places to gather, learn, and teach. But, Block’s statement […]
We librarians are in a war for survival but we keep getting caught up in battles. The battle with Overdrive, the battle with Harper Collins, Penguin, other publishers, the battle with database providers, the battle with Apple, Facebook, and everybody else trying to limit choices/privacy, etc. and we are losing them and losing them badly. It is time to remember the War. I don’t know about you, but I am fighting the War to make the Library vital to my community and make the community I serve the best in the world. I don’t care about eBooks, I am not […]
If you can be in charge/start your/be part of a Digital Media Lab (DML) I highly recommend it… for you. Now, I think all the community building, etc. aspects of a DML are awesome and one of the futures of libraries – see a Library Journal article I co-authored for that all important aspect. However, this post is for those of you who are considering starting a DML and wondering if you will enjoy it as an aspect of your job. This is what my work life looks like being in charge of the Skokie DML ( I have other […]
Yesterday, a patron came to me for help with finding a book. She said she thought it was checked in, but she wasn’t sure. I looked it up, found it was checked in, so we went to the shelf and got the book. On our walk through the stacks, she said to me that libraries are intimidating. I simply reassured her, and said that they’re really not. WHAT?!?! That was the wrong response. I should have asked her “How can we make the library less intimidating?” I could have gained a lot of insight had I just thought to ask […]
Note from Michael : I am honored to have written over two years of The Transparent Library with Michael Casey. I am pleased he took me up on an offer to do a guest post about participatory service for the Salzburg Global Seminar week. I asked him to explore where we’ve come from 2005 and where we are headed. This was the topic of a blog he started in 2005 and a book he co-authored in 2007. But the world has changed a great deal since 2005. Perhaps the biggest change has been that of the economy derailing many initiatives and […]
This is the second and final installment of my interview with Vanessa Morris. Part 1 was posted on Wednesday, July 13th and is available HERE. – TTW Contributor Ben Lainhart —- BL: I know that you have both a professional and personal interest in virtual worlds and and social media. You mentioned their usefulness in relation to education. What are some other purposes they could serve? Do you think they are changing how we interact with others or how we view ourselves? VM: Social media is definitely changing how we interact with others and how we view ourselves. For those […]
When Michael asked me to be a Contributor here on Tame the Web I knew that one of the things I wanted to do was start an interview series with different people in the profession that I find interesting, instructive or challenging. My goal with this series is provide interviews that are more conversational in nature and touch on a wide variety of topics. While my approach is that of a recent MLIS graduate trying to make sense of the LIS profession and its future, I hope that these interviews help foster dialogue about the many difficulties and triumphs LIS […]