Categories TTW Ephemera

by: Gretchen Hams-Caserotti Head of Children’s Services Darien Library ——— When I joined Darien Library Head of Children’s Services we were building a new library. An opportunity to reorganize a library doesn’t come very often. The Adult collection was already being rearranged and Louise Berry, our Library Director, encouraged me to explore some ideas I had about how Children’s Libraries are arranged. I took a leap of faith and committed to the idea of reorganizing the collection with a user-centered approach by considering Function instead of Format. Our KidLit ReOrg was a huge project! In Children’s Services, we define the population […]

MS: Each semester, during an intro class unit on organization of information, we discuss these issues. Dewey designed a system that worked well for its time—and way beyond—but it has deficiencies we’ve tried to cover with Band-Aids, like more signage. We listen to Marshall Shore interviewed on NPR about the original project at Maricopa County Library District’s Perry Branch. Then the students share their views and personal experiences—and many echo what Michael mentioned above. Smith has an answer: “WordThink allows library staff the freedom and creativity to develop collocation relationships that could never happen in Dewey. [It] allows staff to […]

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670421.html Libraries had better prepare for an explosion in the capacity of mobile devices as well as the transformative increase in user capacity and expectations. This was the message conveyed by a panel yesterday at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference on Libraries and Mobile Devices: Public Policy Considerations. After all, explained Jason Griffey, assistant professor and head of Library Information Technology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, cell phones are the most popular and ubiquitous information device worldwide; in 50 countries, cell phone penetration (phones/person) exceeds 100 percent. By the end of 2010, he continued, 90 percent of the world’s population will […]

A great big shout out to Bob Fox, Georgia Tech Libraries, Alan Gray, Darien Library, and Francoise Puniello, Rutgers, for an incredible program at ALA. Download my slides here: https://tametheweb.com/talks09/ZoneswithHeart.pdf Read about the program here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670403.html

http://schoolof.info/infomancy/?p=588 Christopher Harris writes: In the Standards in Action book, there is a great 2-page spread on the self-assessment strand that speaks directly to the student. One librarian asked if she could make copies of the pages to share with students. That led me, as an ethical user of information, to check on the copyright and permissions for the book. What I found was quite chilling. Though these two pages present a letter to students, there is no permission given in the book to allow copying of those pages to share with students. I thought maybe there would be something […]

Don’t miss this guest post by Mike Richwalsky, assistant director of public affairs at Allegheny College at UK Web Focus: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/facebook-usage-by-us-colleges-and-universities/ I’d like to examine how schools in the US are using Facebook and share some thoughts and experiences I’ve had from managing my school’s presence there. First, why are schools using Facebook? First, it’s where the students are. College students today in the US live and breathe Facebook all day long. For us, using it to reach them makes sense – after all it’s a medium they are comfortable in. Second, it’s free for our institutions to use. Finally, the […]

Please take Nicole’s survey: I am working on some very very broad research on open source use in libraries for a book I’m working on.  The focus of the book will be on software you can use that is open source.  If you have a chance to answer this brief survey to help me out that would be greatly appreciated: http://opensource.web2learning.net/limesurvey/index.php?sid=63946&lang=en Thanks a bunch!!!  (and feel free to share with others) Thanks Nicole C. Engard

Greetings from Northern Michigan! The days of summer are flying by and I’m splitting my time between trying to wear out our new Labrador Retriever Cooper and prepping for upcoming talks at ALA Annual. I’ll be presenting for LLAMA BES (that’s the Library Leadership & Management Association Buildings and Equipment Section if you’re spinning the wheel of ALA acronyms) in a program called  “Library 2.0 Buildings: Creating Zones with Heart.” I’m excited about the topic because sometimes we get so caught up in talking about technology, the spaces and places of our libraries take a backseat. Libraries need to encourage […]

Janie Hermann writes: We are a pilot site at PPL for having Red Box services to supplement the library collection. This gives our library customers 24 hour access to the newest DVDs, means that we do not have to buy as many copies of new releases (thus saving money), and we can a cut of the money from having the Red Box on site that we can use for collection development. Win, win, win — at least we hope so. Pilot projects are exciting. Article about the pilot program — we have been waiting six months for the arrival. http://www.towntopics.com/dec2408/other2.php […]