Much discussion has been made about librarians reaching out through social media to our communities and our patrons and rightly so. But, we often overlook the role that social media offers for us internally as a means to strengthen our organizations. One thing to remember is that libraries really do not participate in social networks. People do. In fact, your “library” doesn’t exist. You may have a building. You may have items on your shelves. You may have people who show up to do work. But, there is no “library.” Often, we speak of our libraries as if they are […]
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Brilliant! Please take a few minutes and watch Peter Bromberg’s video from ACPL. I was honored to take part in this series in 2008: http://www.youtube.com/user/askacpl#p/a/5C3DEAAE3B8A1DBE/0/PzBC8q_hTHY
What challenge will you seek out today? How will you continue to learn? Maybe next to my “still learning” plaque, I’ll place a Post-it as another reminder: “Find your next challenge.” Last Thursday I accepted an offer to join the full time faculty at San Jose State University School of Library & Information Science. On Monday, I resigned my appointment at Dominican GSLIS effective in August 2011. This has been an incredible few weeks of pondering, making decisions, and seeking a challenge. Yes, I wrote “Seek a Challenge” for my Office Hours column at LJ about the decision to apply […]
Many technology policies are created out of fear. They are created to protect the organization from its own members. They present a laundry list of illegal activities from copyright infringement, to libel, to harassment, to intellectual property theft, etc. They “protect” the library from lawbreakers and heart breakers. Of course, policies have never done an hour’s worth of work…ever. Policies don’t do anything. People do things, and the best policies should offer guidance to the actions of organizational members. The goal of all policies should be to prevent problems before they occur, not act like “red light cameras” taking photos […]
I’m speaking this morning at the WNYLRC’s Library Innovation: Thinking Outside the Book meeting. The slides are here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/239835/StephensWNYLRCTransparency.pdf
My new column is up at Library Journal: http://bit.ly/fAPW2s If you are on the fence about emerging technologies, take a look at the new Horizon Report (www.nmc.org/horizon). The 2011 report not only pre sents technologies to watch but offers a road map for planning and an ongoing dialog about change in education, learning, and libraries. Supported by research and evidence, it points the way to the future. This rich trove will spark your thinking, as it did mine. Here are some of my observations and ideas. Conversation-based reading Reading becomes social. While the ebook market continues to steamroll past libraries, the […]
I’m so happy to see John Schumacher named a Library Journal 2011 Mover & Shaker! John was a student in three of my classes. His work – with a strong focus on serving the needs of children – was outstanding in all of them. It’s so good to see him putting his skill set into practice. Congrats Mr. Schu! This makes John Schumacher (aka Mr. Schu) an xtreme librarian: he uses a high level of exertion—along with some gear and stunts—to get kids reading. Examples of his xtreme tactics include visiting Anderson’s Bookshop almost every day, “so that there […]
From The Go Librarians, Steven V. Kaszynski writes: http://golibrarians.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/what-are-words-for/ Everybody loves ALA’s classic celebrity READ posters. And for good reason. Multi-age, culturally relevant celebrities inspiring multi-age people to read books and get literate. They’re popular and possibly even effective. Still, the READ poster is alone in its work. It wants a family. It needs siblings. Libraries continue to evolve and struggle against their own underrepresentation. They seek ways to break the mold. The READ campaign advocates literacy and promotes the library as a literacy center or, from a non-LIS perspective, a place to get free books. But isn’t that the […]
Just got the proof from our article in NRAL! Very excited about this piece.
Administrators face two conundrums with Web 2.0 tools. David Weinberger called the first a “conundrum of control” in his book Everything is Miscellaneous. This conundrum states that organizational leaders have an important interest in ensuring that 2.0 tools are used to further the organization’s mission. However, the more controls that they put in place (such as approval processes for blog posts) the less useful the 2.0 tools become. The second conundrum is what I call a conundrum of adaptibility. This conundrum states that organizations with looser controls allow for more experimentation by individuals as they work to solve problems. However, organizations […]