Greetings from Mississippi State University! http://library.msstate.edu/content/templates/?a=1092 I’m listening to T. Scott Plutchak, Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, open the program with his keynote. I’m here to talk about social tools and such. It’s been a whirlwind visit to Mississippi but it’s been great! Dinner last night was filled with great conversation, including T. Scott and I discussing trust in libraries. Read his thoughts here.
NASIG Electronic Journals Continuing Education Workshop
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Via Tech Crunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/11/firefox-surgest-to-15-market-share-in-us/ There are some surprising country-by-country statistics included in the report as well. Firefox usage in the U.S. stands at 16%. Australia, 24%. And in Germany Firefox commands a whopping 39% market share. Even at just 16%, I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t offer Firefox on public/student/client access computers as well as other popular browsers. The Germans may be on to something! These numbers can only grow!
Inspired by this post at the Social Customer Manifesto — get out there and mingle with all sorts of people. Learn from them. Ask them questions. Connect. The most interesting things happen where the edges meet.
Welcome to LiSRadio. This is a new and exciting series of interactive webcasts brought to you by the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Our aim with these webcasts is to help in “…creating and exploring the intersection of information and learning.” Fascinating! Another reason for LIS schools to make sure they have podcast studio space!
An Abramism via a recent email: “Blocking MySpace teaches kids as many good searching and internet safety skills as banning roads does teaching kids road crossing safety.” Stephen Abram Well said!
From a librarian who wishes to remain anonymous: Dear Michael, I heard you speak last May and I had to ask your opinion on something happening at our library. The other librarians want to write a Conduct Policy for the teens who come in after school: no skateboards or rollerblades, no games, one teen per computer, quiet behavior, etc. I want to speak up but I’m a new librarian and I’m scared they’ll all get mad at me. I think I know the answer but is this the way to pull teens in? Just sign me Anonymous Next Gen Librarian […]
Nope, not the sports bar — but the library! Via Library Garden, read this cool little post! In the early June Chris Ducko, our building manager, had a request from a patron if they could watch the afternoon match of a World Cup game somewhere in the library. Our high-tech community room was not being used, so Chris turned it on for him. The next day he came back with a few friends and from there the crowd continued to grow through word of mouth around town. We had suddenly become THE place in town to watch soccer! In fact, […]
Brian Kenney has a wonderful editorial in the June SLJ on DOPA: Yes, here we go again. A “quick fix” that we’re not asking for, which won’t work, and which subverts the real purpose of schools and libraries: educating young people. No matter where you come down on the whole MySpace-in-libraries debate, do you really want your library locked in a “technobubble,” cut off from the evolving Internet?
Glenn peterson comments on this post: Wondering if patrons are using this feature? We received 770 comments during the first full month after rollout, contributed by 635 patrons. Wowza! Those are some good numbers! It will be interesting to see the 6 and 12 month numbers. I would think the ROI for engaging patrons in the catalog via commenting will prove to be very good!
I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately. I’ve even used the phrase “What story is your library telling?” as an IM away message. So imagine the synchronicity, when into the TTW comment bin comes a nice pointer to a post by Phyllis at “Something New Everyday” — she’s adapted Brenda Hough’s eight training tips for her library: “Eight Tips for Learning in a Changing World,” including this “Look for the story that exists in every situation.” It reminded me of the images we’ve seen snapped in some libraries of some not very friendly signage mostly about cell phones. Remember, […]