Categories TTW Ephemera

From Beatrice at edifice ref comes this gem of a post, looking at the start of a new semester at Providence College Phillips Memorial Library : “Just coming up for a bit of air after 3 solid weeks of back-to-school activities. This is my first full ?fall? semester and it has been a doozy. I haven?t done a tally, but I have to believe the early indicators that our new IM service is a big hit. We launched on the first day of classes, sent campus-wide emails the following week, and we?re now receiving several IMs a day. Lot of […]

Stephen Abram links to two articles he has written for SirsiDynix One Source: http://stephenslighthouse.sirsi.com/archives/2005/09/32_tips_pat_two.html Go. Read. Now.

My colleague and cohort chum Joyce Valenza sent me a message this morning: Dr. Laurel Anne Clyde, a professor of Social Science at the University of Icelandin Reykjav?k, Iceland, suffered a fatal heart attack on Sunday, September 18, 2005. I have read many of Dr. Clyde’s scholarly papers, presentations and articles on social software. She authored Weblogs & libraries last year, the first scholarly work on the topic! I had hoped she and I would meet at some future info science conference because I she was certainly a source of inspiration for my research and writing. Here is her page […]

Christina has a great post about IM, some recent research and setting expectations here: http://christinaslibraryrant.blogspot.com/2005/09/more-on-im-at-reference-desk.html Good stuff: And I was thinking that besides the fact that we?re afraid we?ll scare the customer away? we still need to properly negotiate the question if we?re going to successfully use this service with people we don?t know. The point is that we?re in an unequal power relationship: we have the info the customer needs (customers aren?t known to appreciate the fact that we need to keep ref stats to justify our existence). What?s preventing the IM reference staff from asking more questions? Is […]

From Blake, who rocks my web-hosting world, comes “10 Ways To Make The Internet A Better Place.” Well done and we all should take note. http://www.lisnews.com/article.pl?sid=05/09/19/1140228

http://www.tametheweb.com/presentations/RSS.pdf http://www.tametheweb.com/presentations/IM_and_JYBE.pdf

http://www.librarian.net/talks/iu/ This was my first time hearing Jessamyn speak and she did a great job looking at how libraries make choices about services and technology. There were SLIS Bloggers in the room as well: here’s a transcript, some photos and more.

Last night, from 6pm to 7pm, I gave a talk with a group of 60 librarians at the State Library of Victoria, Australia. It was 9am today for them… so as I was nearing the end of my day, sitting in front of my Mac with my boys on the floor beside me, those folks were at work, probably enjoying coffee or tea and planning for the day’s activities. ( There was actually a test of the fire alarm system about halfway through!) We used a combination of Skyp and Jybe to do the “Virtual Visit,” which was planned by […]

LISDOM ponders it…This makes for an intriguing discussion: in some instances, like tomorrow when I give a presentation to librarians in Australia, the world seems amazingly flat. In others, there is a great disparity. http://lisdom.blogspot.com/2005/08/world-is-not-flat.html Friedman, toward the end of the book, concedes that the world is not truly “flat” but advances and shifts in the global economy are certainly making it seem that way.

Sometimes it’s good to return to an article/blog post/presentation and see how it stacks up after some time has passed. For example, I just found a print of this from a 2001 LJ: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA71785.html Roy Tennant writes in April 2001 about building agile organizations and suggests three key factors to have a grip on: Communication, management and staffing. Through my late 2005 lens, this resonates: Good communication within the organization – both from above and below – is essential. Communication should not be stifled by overcontrolling management or by resentful staff. An agile organization offers many avenues of communication. Line […]