Categories News & Life Updates

From Brian Kenney’s editorial in SLJ this month: The message that has come through on blogs and discussion boards is loud and clear: we librarians know what’s best. Yes, before we build a branch we do our demographic research. If more families are moving into the neighborhood, we expand the children’s room. If local immigration patterns indicate a need, we purchase more Spanish or Chinese materials. But actually sit down with neighborhood residents and ask them what they want? I don’t think so. Keep Dewey or kill it? There are pros and cons to each approach, and what works in […]

  We received flowers from Amanda, Lyle, and the Mississippi State University Librarians for Charlie’s passing. I can’t thank you all — and everyone who has commented, emailed, IMed — for your caring and understanding at this trying time. Thank you.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118340075827155554.html Fascinating article that features Jessamyn West, Sarah Houghton-Jan, Karen Schneider and Michael Casey and other librarians weighing in on Maricopa County’s Perry Branch Library that opened without using Dewey to organize the collection. I heart this: “We may want people to spend hours learning our arcane systems, but the reality is they’re going to default to the path of least resistance,” PubLib’s Ms. Schneider said. “We need to be in that path.” Oh yes we do! But it’s what’s missing from the library that has drawn the most attention: Perry abandoned the Dewey Decimal Classification System for its books, […]

Charles Bone 1998-2007 Originally uploaded by mstephens7

http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=4806 University librarian Jeff Trzeciak has been appointed to the EDUCAUSE Advisory Committee on Teaching and Learning (ACTL), which consists of professionals who have extensive experience using innovative technology to create new learning environments. Trzeciak is the only librarian and the only representative from a Canadian institution on the committee. Rock on, Jeff!

Michael Stephens, Ph.D., is currently Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. After receiving an MLIS from Indiana University, he spent over fifteen years working in public libraries, where he developed a passion for the practical application of technology. He published The Library Internet Trainer’s Toolkit in 2001, and two years later, he launched his popular weblog, Tame the Web. Since then, Michael’s writing has appeared in Public Libraries, Library Journal, Computers in Libraries, and a host of other publications. In 2004, Michael was awarded an IMLS doctoral fellowship […]

end of an era/error Originally uploaded by pelicanwind Wowza! From my dissertation chair Dr. Brian O’Connor.