Back in late 2008, I received a phone call from a friend/colleague in Germany with a tantalizing offer: would I be interested in a three-semester teaching gig? The location was the University of Applied Sciences in Leipzig (Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Kultur – HTWK) [http://www.fbm.htwk-leipzig.de/de/fakultaet-medien/], and the job was a paternity leave replacement for their professor of electronic publishing and multimedia in the College of Media. How could one say no? I was feeling a bit stale in my library work, and know from past experience that I enjoy teaching semester-length courses and possess some teaching skill. That I […]
Categories Social Media
Melbourne Museum and social media, originally uploaded by ellen forsyth. Ellen Forsyth writes: The Melbourne Museum wants to make it really easy for you to connect with them online. They have signs around the museum prompting you to connect with the via facebook, twitter, Flickr, YouTube or Foursquare. They also had signed advertising their free wifi. They also have a free ipad app Please touch the exhibit. I like the way they prompt and do not assume that you know where to find them online.
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 […]
There are costs to maintaining and fully supporting technologies. For every dollar of software or hardware that is purchased, there are additional dollars that must be committed to implementation and ongoing support. Most organizations have lists of “supported” technologies and much longer lists of “unsupported” technologies. Yet, we continue to innovate. We continue to utilize new tools to solve problems. I stumbled upon this blog post from Rosabeth Moss Kante about innovation in health care, which I think is applicable to innovation in general and libraries specifically: “Innovations always sound good in retrospect, after they’ve worked, and in isolation, when […]
http://www.personalizemedia.com/garys-social-media-count/ Via Cheri Gogo, who was in LIS768 last semester. What do these numbers mean for libraries?
How to write a paper in 140 characters or less: social media for professional development on Prezi Disclaimer: Cooper and I appear in this presentation!
Social Media, Libraries, and Web 2.0: How American Libraries are Using New Tools for Public Relations and to Attract New Users – Third Survey November 2010 View more documents from Curtis Rogers. Dr. Curtis Rogers shares a report of his most recent survey. This is useful, practical data to explore.
A new anonymous comment went up on this post from 2008 about my hometown library’s ban of social media access because of issues with teens: http://tametheweb.com/2008/03/18/no-myspace-facebook-at-mishawaka-library/ No email address or URL was shared, so I thought I’d share the comment here so the person might get some useful feedback – including ideas to welcome everyone into the library without “stricter patron codes of conduct.” I would especially like to hear from teen librarians. I am currently employed at a library in Kentucky and I must say that I disagree with your assessment that the primary goal of the library should […]
Warren Cheetham ponders the demise of AskNow in Australia and offers some insights into his view of the future of reference: I wonder if this is a good opportunity for the AskNow partners and participants to consider the idea of a proactive online reference service for Australians, that takes into account the changes in online behaviour and information seeking that has led to the decline in use of AskNow. In brief, online services like Facebook and Twitter, and specific answer services like Yahoo Answers are filled with people asking their friends, families and followers all sorts of questions. Some of […]