Categories TTW Ephemera

Jetlagged here but back from an incredible time in London for Internet Librarian International. While the fun in Monterey continues, I’m in Illinois prepping for the next few things and excited about this post from Hey Jude: http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/were-living-in-a-conversation/ After using Twitter for IDEA2008 and ILI2008, these thoughts for conference microblogging, etc are spot on: How do you feel about the undirected use of laptops during conference presentations? It is essential to have the freedom to search links, explore ideas and interact with concepts being presented at a conference. I choose my options as to when to listen and stare at […]

Congrats to Jill on her new position as a Professor of Practice at Syracuse: http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/2008/10/ch-ch-changes-or-changes-in-attitude.html While I have been influencing my “community” through writing, speaking and project work, I have decided to do something that allows me to influence the next generation of information professionals even more. In January, I’ll be joining the School of Information Studies(iSchool) at Syracuse University (SU). Some of you may know that I have been associated with SU since 2001. This year, I decided that teaching full-time would move me towards my goal of influencing the industry more, and SU decided that adding me to their faculty would […]

The rules of marketing have changed. Do libraries know that? Corporate PR-types used to control the message. Sitting behind a desk, they’d write a carefully crafted press release and then send it off to newspapers and upload it to their web site. The attention the company got might barely justify the salary of the PR professional. Today’s world is fundamentally different. Neither news nor brand identity are controlled through press releases or carefully choreographed newspaper articles. Brands are molded and shaped by the audience—and the audience is everyone. People talk. And people listen. Social tools, social media, and social engagement […]

Brian Herzog writes: http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/10/07/work-like-a-patron-day Last week, a library volunteer and I were working on a project together. We each needed to work on a computer, but be close enough together to talk. The only arrangement like this in the library are the public workstations, so we worked out there. In addition to getting the work done, I learned a few things: some of the keys of the keyboard didn’t work very well the monitor had streaks and fingerprints on it it was hard to concentrate with people walking and talking around us both of us forgot to bring a flash […]

The unbook View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: books book) I saw Dave Gray at IDEA2008. His talk knocked me out. This one is outstanding too.

Via Kyle: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/03/library-celebrates-b.html Adrienne sez, “We’ve created a ‘live’ Banned Book Display at our library [Twin Hickory Public Library, Glen Allen, VA]. We have volunteer readers who sit in the display and read (silently) banned and challenged books. So far it’s gotten a lot of attention – we hear a lot of ‘Mom, what are those people doing in there?’ The best part has been hearing parents explain to their kids what the display is all about which is exactly what we wanted to happen!” Twin Hickory Public Library, Glen Allen, VA (Thanks, Adrienne!)

Helene Blowers presents “Ten Tips for 23 Things” in the new SLJ: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6600689.html I especially appreciate this one: 9. Enable transparency and practice radical trust. Transparency and radical trust are two of the cornerstones of the whole 2.0 movement, and these elements are no less important to the learning environment. In creating this effort to fully engage and empower the staff, my library had to assume an unprecedented trust in our employees and practice transparency when it came to communicating with them. Allowing staff members to blog openly and anonymously implies a great deal of faith and is not something […]

Take a look: http://www.thetechstatic.com/ The Tech Static’s creator, Rachel Singer Gordon, wrote Library Journal’s “Computer Media” review column from 2002 until it was retired in October 2008. She launched The Tech Static in November 2008 to fill the resulting gap in the library literature; few library-oriented publications currently review computer books. The Tech Static is focused on technology-related collection development in libraries. To this end, it contains: Reviews of current computer books Reviews of technology-related titles targeted at librarians Collection development articles (weeding, “must-haves,” balancing a computer book collection) Prepublication alerts Publisher press releases DVD and ebook reviews … and more! Contact Rachel with questions […]

Columbus Metropolitan Library, originally uploaded by mstephens7. Congrats to everyone at CML! Via LIS News: The Columbus Metropolitan Library has been rated the best library system in the nation as ranked by the Hennen’s American Public Library Rating. It is the 3rd time since 1999 that they have been ranked #1 and they have been ranked in the top 4 every year since 1999. NOTE: American Libraries reported an error in the rankings this year: American Libraries has discovered an unfortunate error that invalidates the results of Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings published in the October 2008 issue of the […]

Karl Fisch blogs: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-more-librarians.html Dan Maas, my district’s CIO, has a new post titled Sunset for the Librarian: So what’s in a name? Well, everything. A name conjures an image, a shared understanding and it is from these understandings that we begin to do the work at hand. The term library is rooted in the latin word libriwhich means paper or books. The very terms library and librarian are obstacles to the future of this critical school service because the business is no longer based in the media of paper and the book. In fact, I don’t even like the term media center because […]