Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois 60062. Although we only saw it for that one day, one of the greatest collaborations took place in a library.A brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal each assigned to write an essay of no less than a thousand words describing who they thought they were. One of the things that always struck me when watching the John Hughes classic The Breakfast Club, even long before I started the MLIS program, was how advanced the Shermer High School library was. Hopefully adding to what Jenkins (2006) calls the “Collective Intelligence” of media […]
Tags Guest Posts
319 posts
Everyone gets naked every once in awhile. Everyone has to squat on the toilet. There’s nothing shameful, deviant or weird about either of them. But what if I decreed that from now on, every time you went to evacuate some solid waste, you’d have to do it in a glass room perched in the middle of Times Square, and you’d be buck naked? Even if you’ve got nothing wrong or weird with your body and how many of us can say that? You’d have to be pretty strange to like that idea. Most of us would run screaming. Most […]
Warren: Hi Justin! I found this weird avant garde art video online that you’re featured in! I didn’t realize you were into that – tell me more! Justin: No, not an art video…I was actually testing out On Air Google+ Hangouts with my co-worker James McNutt. We’re using the On Air Hangouts to record the guest speakers we have for our DEV DEV:<summer of code/> camp at the Chattanooga Public Library. W: So it was just a test? Why put it online? J: Yah, just a test. We put it online because that’s the whole point of the on air hangout…to record […]
Note from Michael: Carlie will be a Participatory Learning Guide for the #hyperlibMOOC this fall. She was a WISE student in my classes at SJSU SLIS. Her ideas below resonate with my teaching and views. Enjoy… As a recent LIS graduate I really don’t feel different, but looking back I think I had an exponential increase in library and life knowledge throughout the second half of my graduate degree. It’s been almost a year since I shared the promises of a then future librarian, so I thought it couldn’t hurt to share those of a new one. As a […]
During the month of July 2013, my colleagues, community partners, fifty teens, and I were stationed on The 2nd Floor of the Chattanooga Public Library for DEV DEV: Summer of Code. It was, to be completely honest with you, the greatest single experience I have ever had in a public library. Let me tell you why. Partners Since the program happened on The 2nd Floor of the Chattanooga Public Library it would be easy for everyone to think that this all happened at the library and it was all the library and that was that. But that’s not the case […]
Every ILS and database vendor at ALA Annual seemed to be touting their new flashy, single-search discovery tool that groups together all kinds of information sources in a list of search results. Discovery is the hot topic, and your library surely doesn’t want to be left out in the cold. The sales folks have been putting on the full-court press within higher education, and I assume also in public libraries. After leaving ALA, I just don’t get it. The hype doesn’t seem to match the impact. I struggle to see who these tools benefit. Who’s the Audience? Over the years, […]
“There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t” – Robert Benchley When I walk in to a library I can usually tell what type it is fairly quickly. I don’t mean public, special, academic, school, etc. but a library for stuff or a library for experiences. When I walk in to the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, IL it is obviously centered on experiences. When I go in to a museum library it is obviously about stuff. This isn’t to say that AHML doesn’t also have an […]
Make sure you check out Library’s 3-D printer spits out all kinds of fun and learning over at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I’ve been talking with Saxonburg Area Library Director Erin Wincek about 3D printing over the past few months and I am in love with the things she’s doing for her community. I also love the support that her community and her board has for her passion: “We’re going to grab up these fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders and show them their future,” said Ms. Wincek, who thinks the printer could influence some of their career choices. Library board president […]
Yesterday morning (Tues 17th June 2013) I found myself at the Urbana Free Library, which is the focus of a lot of attention in library land at the moment. I count it as a professional privilege to have spent two hours with some of the most inspirational public library staff I have ever met. Here I offer a few observations and opinions based on my visit to the library. I’m travelling through the USA for the next two weeks on a VALA Travel Scholarship, investigating existing and planned projects where fibre-broadband rollouts affect libraries. The twin cities of Champaign and Urbana in Illinois […]
Yesterday I was reading Breaking Up With Libraries by Nina McHale. I had a few thoughts. First and foremost, I was bummed that our profession was losing such an amazing and talented person. Nina has done amazing work for libraries and she will be sorely missed in this field. Secondly, this one passage of Nina’s hit me really hard: Also in the mix is my general frustration with library technology. We pay BILLIONS to ILS and other vendors each year, and for what? Substandard products with interfaces that a mother would kick to the curb. We throw cash at databases […]