Posts

4225 posts
TTW Ephemera

On Innovation, Control and the Organization

A wonderful post by Eric Schnell caught my eye last week. http://ericschnell.blogspot.com/2008/09/library-innovation-requires.html His words are so well-chosen and ideas so spot on IMHO: To move towards a move innovative organization requires experimentation, trial and error, doing new things, and breaking rules.  Libraries looking to become more innovative are confronted with reality: it takes 100 crazy ideas to find 10 worth funding experimentally in order to identify 1 project worth pursuing. As it has been said, that it takes a lot of acorns to grow an oak tree. The challenge is that most library organizations are structured and managed to continue current […]

Library Organizations

Online Meeting Space from ALA & OPAL

http://discuss.ala.org/marginalia/2008/09/11/new-online-meeting-space-now-available/ Basically, though, ALA has four rooms available for groups to use – two 25-seat rooms, one 50-seat room, and one 100-seat room. Because these are virtual spaces, they’re available 24/7. Any ALA unit (divisions, round tables, sections, committees, etc.) or ALA-affiliated group can use a room to hold a meeting (following existing ALA bylaws for meetings), a discussion group, or as a presentation space for up to 100 participants. OPAL rooms provide: Text chat (including the ability to save the transcript); Voice chat for participants with microphones and speakers (including the ability to record the conversation); The ability  to […]

Library Spaces

Please Eat in the Library

Please Eat in the Library, originally uploaded by JenWaller. Jen writes: DOK has no rules, and good food is sold and eaten in the library! This area is super bright and cheery, and there were a lot of people reading here. Now that I look at this photo I realize I didn’t go to the back of this area (up the three steps in the background) and check out the comfy looking black and white chairs. I did check out the selection and great display of magazines and newspapers. Sigh. Adding this to “The Hyperlinked Library.”

Social Media

When Worlds Collide

By Michael Casey & Michael Stephens As the buzz around social networking continues, consider that author Kevin Kelly has called the emerging web “One Machine” and predicts that “total personalization in this new world will require total transparency.” So, where do we fit in? Where do we position ourselves as professionals? We two don’t completely agree, so we thought we’d try to tease out the relationship between personal/social transparency and library transparency. MS: I think the line between the personal and the professional online has blurred so much recently that it’s impossible to separate them. MC: Our worlds are colliding-I […]

Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

The Transparent Library: When Worlds Collide

MC: And how do we manage this personal/professional divide? Should we be worried that supervisors “friend” subordinates on Facebook and can look into their personal lives while at the same time they must evaluate their performance? Do we go to someone’s Flickr stream or Twitter status to check on them when they call in sick? Ethical questions surround what we can now “find out” about coworkers, job applicants, potential friends, etc. MS: Indeed! Our location-aware iPhones and applications like Loopt make it very easy to follow someone’s movements. I am both excited about broadcasting my whereabouts to trusted friends/colleagues and a little […]

Presentations

Workshops at ILI

Will you be attending Internet Librarian International in London next month? There are some cool workshops, including one taught by Michael Casey and I based on our work at LJ and our blogs: http://www.internet-librarian.com/2008/day.php?day=Wednesday Please say hi if you will be there! I am really looking forward to a few days in London.