Perhaps I have been living under a rock but I just stumbled across the Idea Box from Oak Park Public Library, IL. Very interesting. TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen
Categories Creativity
67 posts
Last week, a poet was in my office. We had planned a poetry reading, but she was pitching me a new idea focusing on a book she was writing about her birth father. Before that, a geography faculty member was describing a lecture about how hedgehogs can be used to explain key concepts in geography. Before that, I was at our marketing department proofing publicity for our upcoming One Book series. Before that, I was in a meeting about training staff members to run our HD cameras. When I was in library school, no one told me that one of […]
Two years ago, I had the painful pleasure of coauthoring a textbook with three other colleagues. This textbook was written for first-year writing students, and I wrote the sections of the book that focused on research and information literacy. As we wrote the book, my thoughts went back to one of my former high school teachers, Michael McAvoy. This morning I learned through Facebook that he lost his battle with cancer. I have many memories of high school (most of them good), but out of all of them, Mr. McAvoy is the one person who rises above most of the […]
Dangerous ideas for libraries: ASLA 2011 View more documents from Mal Booth
Thanks to all the librarians at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City for inviting me to visit the campus library for a tour and lunch on Front Street a few weeks ago. We had a great conversation – including a discussion about the library’s “graffiti wall” – seen above. Each month, a statement goes up that students can answer on sticky notes. The above is an answer to “This semester I will…” Thanks to Stephanie DeLano Davis, Librarian at NMC, for organizing the visit. Below is a shot of us after lunch:
Josh Hadro provides coverage of the “Play, Learn, Innovate” Symposium: Guiding the event was the prevailing notion of integrating “playfulness in your life, career, and work as a whole,” noted opening presenter and moderator Liz Danforth, a freelance game illustrator, scenario designer, and game developer, and librarian at the Pima County Public Library. Danforth established the framework for the session, touching on “innovation, creativity, motivation, games, critical and strategic thinking,” all in an effort to spark positive change and overcome fearful reaction and resistance. As she noted and other panelists affirmed, activity flexibility and a positive, fostering environment are some […]
Over the past year, I’ve gotten to watch a group of teens that come into the library grow into full fledged hip hop artists. It all started with The Telling Room, a nonprofit writing center in Portland, ME, and their 2011 program Play. Their amazing Young Leaders and Writers workshop was the start of a collaboration between three teens (Chrispo, Emmanuel, and Ali) with local hip hop artist Sontiago (aka Sonya Tomlinson). THE CREATION The group of teens started coming into the library on a daily basis and used our study rooms as their rehearsal space. They would freestyle over beats and furiously scribble down […]
On Tuesday May 17, 2011, my library had the pleasure of hosting a show featuring the wizard rock band Harry and the Potters. The show itself was awesome: the music was great, the band was super nice, and everyone had a good time. The highlight for me had nothing to do with the actual show. Instead, it came from the patrons. The first moment where I noticed that this wasn’t going to be just any old program was when I stepped out to announce to the fans that were waiting for the show to start that the band was just […]
http://www.cyclingforlibraries.org/ It’s the first cycling unconference for librarians! Cycling for libraries is a politically and economically independent unconference and a bicycle tour. We are bicycling from Copenhagen, Denmark to Berlin, Germany via Gedser and Rostock from 28th May to 7th June 2011. Read more about the route. The tour will take about 10 days. At the moment we have confirmed only the day of the closing seminar, which will be on June 6th in Berlin. The official closing will be on the next day after participating the opening ceremony and the joint cycling event of the German Library Conference. It […]
Tony Tallent, Director of Literacy and Learning at the Richland County Public Library in Columbia, SC sends along a poem by bell hooks that speaks to me: …take hold take heart and enter here at this point where truth was once denied. Thanks Tony!