StephensCV2012 Just updated my CV for my 2nd year retention, tenure & promotion dossier. Curious about the dossier? I made a video!
Categories Library Jobs & Careers
285 posts
Ten Rules for New Librarians – How do they look 6 years later? Ask questions in your interviews. Hard questions, like “How many projects are on the library’s list right now?” or “What is the technology planning process like here?” Read this and remember! Pay attention to the answers and what the librarians interviewing you say about their users. Are they dismissive, bothered by them and their presence in the library? Run away! Read far and wide and immerse yourself in culture, pop and otherwise. It will help you know what your users are doing and into! Understand copyright and the Creative Commons very well […]
By Michael Stephens As the school year wanes, I’ve spent the last few days grading electronic portfolios for a cadre of SLIS students. The portfolio is part of their culminating experience at San José and serves as a lexicon of learning, detailing experiences and evidence of their mastery of our competencies. It promotes a high degree of self-evaluation by articulating a statement of professional philosophy. Truth be told, both students and practitioners can benefit from careful consideration of what it means to be a professional in libraries in 2012. A crowded field In a market where one library job may […]
Don’t miss: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/04/opinion/peer-to-peer-review/defining-authentic-librarianship-peer-to-peer-review/ So here’s how I propose to use the idea in this column: to me, authentic librarianship is motivated primarily by concern for those we serve as librarians, rather than by concern for our own agendas or preferences. To be more specific, “authentic” would describe professional practice that is motivated by all of the following: Concern for the success of the library’s patrons in their particular tasks Concern for the long-term intellectual welfare of the library’s patrons Desire to further the goals of the library’s sponsoring institution How can you know whether a librarian is acting in an […]
For the past year, I have had a foggy notion for a new librarian position, but I can’t quite get my mind wrapped around it. So, I am turning to you, TTW community, to help. Today, I am once again skimming through R. David Lankes’ amazing book The Atlas of New Librarianship. I am looking over page 67 at the idea of librarians as “Publisher of Community.” This may be the closest definition to what I have in mind. Lankes writes, “I foresee the day in the near future when librarians spend the majority of their time working with community […]
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 […]
My new column is up at Library Journal: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/03/opinion/michael-stephens/embracing-chaos-office-hours/ Part of me is tempted to argue that this is not a debate between those who want control and those who want chaos. The forward-thinking librarian understands that Shirky’s “everybody’s coming” is the future. We are now living in the chaotic world, and we do not have a choice regarding where we can position ourselves. Our choice lies in how we respond. If we continue to respond to chaos using tools from the old world of control, then we will always fail. LIS students need to understand that the world is […]
Very nice article about Jeff Trzeciak in the McMaster University newspaper that highlights his student-centered focus for the university libraries. The initiatives identified align well with current trends in academic libraries: http://issuu.com/thesil/docs/mar15_master In close collaboration with students and the mcmaster Students Union (msu), he has worked to maintain the focus on the student experience with every undertaking. “I am proud of the fact that we have been so student-focused,” he said of the recent developments to the libraries, explaining that much of those changes have been in response to student requests. A strong student-body push for 24-hour library space during […]
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 […]
Take a look at Thomas Frey’s post about libraries: http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2012/03/future-libraries-and-the-17-forms-of-information-replacing-books/ Somewhere in the middle of this question lies the nagging fear and anxiety that we see brimming to the top among library insiders. People who think libraries are going away simply because books are going digital are missing the true tectonic shifts taking place in the world of information. Libraries are not about books. In fact, they were never about books.