Contributors TTW Editor

240 posts

Does Information Flow freely?

Greetings TTW readers! My name is Michael White. I just finished my first year of classes at Dominican University and I was lucky enough to land in Michael’s Introduction to Library and Information Science class last August. Needless to say, I am very honored to be invited to guest post. I’ll confess: I was a little uncertain about what I could bring to the conversation. I’ve been reading, book marking, and subscribing to the RSS feeds of so many great library blogs since last fall and I’ve read so many insightful and thought provoking posts across the Biblioblogosphere these past […]

Notes from an Academic Librarian

Thank you Michael for asking me to guest post to TTW. I enjoy reading TTW and I am a believer in technology but find that there are times when the theory works better than practice. I find that people have to have a comfort level with technology and with their own craft to successfully incorporate technology into their daily work. You have to know it is going to work and you have to be willing to assess it and rework it until you get it right. Hi! I am Donna Goodwyn, Head of Reference and Assistant Professor from the A.C. […]

Down With DRM -0 A TTW Guest Post by Eric Whitfield

I can no longer recall the exact date, but at some point in the recent past I stepped over the line and became a criminal. I didn’t steal from anyone’s home. I certainly didn’t cause anyone physical harm. In fact, I didn’t even leave my office chair. Nevertheless, my dastardly deed landed me squarely on the wrong side of the law. So what had I done? Well, I had removed the embedded DRM from a digital music file. A music file I purchased. Legally. Confused? Yeah, me too. Let me start with a short primer for the unfamiliar. DRM, or […]

What story are you telling?

Hi, Pete Bromberg of Library Garden here, honored and pleased as punch to be guest-posting for Michael on TTW. A few days ago the New York Times published a fascinating piece on the importance of telling our stories. Researchers have long known, and any parent or teacher will quickly confirm, that our brains are wired for storytelling, and we are much more likely to remember facts if they are presented in story, rather than given to us as a string or list of items. The Times article focuses on a growing body of research that suggests that the stories we […]

Generation Jones

Hi Everyone, my name is Michael Colford, and I am the on the Senior Management Team of the Boston Public Library in charge of Regional Services. When Michael asked me to guest blog on Tame the Web, I was both surprised and honored. I’ve done a fair bit of blogging, but not a whole lot in the library profession. That said, in my position at the BPL, I do a whole lot of talking up of using technology in the support of public service, and meeting users where they are using Social Networking and other Library 2.0 tools. I thought […]

Library Books versus Gaming

A blog post describing a teacher’s personal reservations about allowing students certain types of technology use, on a blog site that promotes technology and libraries may seem paradoxical, but here it goes. By the way, my name is Michael Westfall and I’m a media information specialist in a Chicago public elementary school and a Dominican University LIS graduate student. A big thank you to Michael Stephens for allowing me to get my voice out there. So here is my issue: I don’t like kids playing games on the computers in my library because I feel it is at the expense […]

Lonely? Just call the library!

This is Janie from Library Garden making an appearance as a guest blogger for TTW (and am quite honored to be included). I will be back with something a little more thoughtful at a later point, but I just came across this article and had to post it here because it is HOT — and I so wanted a reason to use that word legitimately while guest blogging for Michael 😉 It is all over the news tonight — the main public library in Vienna, Austria is fundraising with a hotline to erotica! Oh yeah… that is HOT alright! What […]

Minds Turned Off

Who knew guest blogging could get the blood rushing so much? When I got Michael’s e-mail about a week ago I was, well, surprised but pumped. I’ve been chilling out over at my own blog, The Corkboard for a few months doing some random musings, reflections, and the occasional techy DIY posts that were typically non-library related. I’m a senior undergraduate at Elmhurst College studying English and secondary education and I’m currently student teaching at a west suburban school outside of Chicago. I’ll be attending Dominican University in the fall for my masters in library and information science. Want to […]

Information is Not Sacred

Hello. Jeff Nowak here. I am a first-year library school nube who got into this whole library thing because I was a literature freak and a book fiend. I am currently the editor of something called Any Four Words. What amazes me about our Web, Library, or Catchphrase 2.0 era is the game it plays with information. The 19th and 20th century public library phenomenon helped take the book off its pedestal by opening up its shelves to the proles. When large amounts of people really started putting books to use, it suddenly dawned on these people that books were […]

Open post to the unappreciated Library

The Indomitable Michael Stephens is giving me a shot at guest-blogging. I wanted some guidelines from Mike, so I typed this response up to his offer. Michael seems real cool; I wanted to confirm that before I started blogging. Me: “Give me the particulars of what not to say. It’s cool; be frank. Say things like, “Feel free to cover anything as long as you speak ethically, honestly, and true (cite your sources) -above all else relate it to