I am honored to guest write at Tame The Web – a lighthouse for positive librarianship – with Michael’s philosophy of encouraging the heart. We all have different things that encourage our hearts and give us inspiration to do what we do – and make the world better. For me music is a big inspiration, a shelter and a motivator. Being a library person deep down in my heart, I have a theory that a lot of artists have positive experiences with libraries from their lives and that they have been inspired by libraries in some way when they were […]
Contributors TTW Editor
173 posts
Malcolm Gladwell famously defined the “tipping point” as that magic moment when an idea or practice crosses some invisible threshold, tips, and spreads widely throughout a culture or society. Lately I’ve been wondering if the practice and benefits of mindfulness meditation are hitting that tipping point. The many benefits of mindfulness meditation have been known to Buddhist monks and western scientists alike for many years. But it is only recently that mindfulness seems to be recognized in the workplace as a valuable practice worth promoting and fostering among employees. In the past few months there have been a flurry of […]
Note from Michael: I am thrilled to have Leah writing here for TTW. Way back in 2006 when I started at Dom, I taught my very first LIS701 class. There was Leah, smiling on the front row every Monday evening. Watching her study, graduate and do incredible work has been incredibly rewarding to me as an LIS educator. Thanks, Leah! What do you think of when you hear the word extrovert? Loud, chatty, pushy? Yeah. Me too. It’s funny – the first time I ever took the Myers Briggs was in grad school. I remember my professor asking if anyone […]
When, in the early 2000s, you were passionate about your work in libraries, full of ideas and eager to hear others’ ideas about how libraries can best serve their communities, excited about what the future holds for libraries, hungry to discuss this stuff with people who shared these interests, and NOT a librarian or enrolled in library school or headed there, there were two great free channels where you could jump into the fray and educate yourself: listservs and blogs. These tools not only flattened geographies–so librarians from far-flung areas could ideashare– they flattened hierarchies: library paraprofessionals who might never […]
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 […]
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 […]
Advancing the User Experience from Monica Harris
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, […]