(from TribLive, Pittsburgh, PA: http://goo.gl/Tu7GM) Monessen residents soon will be able to borrow library books – at the laundromat. Jill Godlewski, children’s director at the Monessen Public Library, is planning to place several portable libraries scattered around town. Godlewski hopes to situate the wooden dispensaries once the weather clears. “The idea is to get books to people instead of people having to come to the library to get books,” Godlewski said. “We want to make sure there are no barriers to getting a book. My favorite part? A partnership with the local school! Monessen school district Superintendent Linda Marcolini is […]
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Advancing the User Experience from Monica Harris
I’m sorry I won’t be in Portland,ME to see the unveiling of the most excellent I’m Your Neighbor, Portland, Maine project that was put together by Kirsten Cappy of Curious City and is a partnership between the Portland Public Library, Congressman Jon Hinck, Maine Humanities Council, NAACP, Portland Branch, and Portland Adult Education. So what’s it all about? I’m Your Neighbor, Portland is a Portland, Maine community-wide read and series of public events in designed to promote a sense of community among the diverse people who make the port city their home. I’m Your Neighbor, Portland is sponsored by the Portland Public Library and funded by the Maine Humanities Council. Over […]
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink explores the capabilities of the brain and spirit in this conceptual age where high touch and high concept aptitudes are gaining serious ground. Emotional intelligence is becoming just as important as IQ due to abundance, outsourcing, and automation. People are now required to use both sides of their brain. L-Directed Thinking pertains to sequential, literal, functional, textual, and analytic thinking. R-Directed Thinking is simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contextual, and synthetic. No longer can we just be knowledge workers. We must be attuned to the big picture, how things work together, patterns, […]
“Look, we’ve got more computer junk than we know what to do with and a generation of kids whose “information literacy” extends to learning PowerPoint and being lectured about plagiarizing from Wikipedia and putting too much information on Facebook. The invisible, crucial infrastructure of our century is treated as the province of wizards and industrialists, and hermetically sealed, with no user-serviceable parts inside. Damn right libraries shouldn’t be book-lined Internet cafes. They should be book-lined, computer-filled information-dojos where communities come together to teach each other black-belt information literacy, where initiates work alongside noviates to show them how to master the […]
Higher education has been abuzz about the potential behind service-learning opportunities for many years. The logistics behind service-learning can often be a significant obstacle. Connecting volunteer and social justice efforts to the classroom and also accommodating students’ busy lives can difficult to say the least. Our library has supported a significant service learning project on our campus, ActOut Now!: Education Through Action. This is a project organized by one of our writing faculty and his students. Our library offers the space for them to hold a volunteer fair where local nonprofit groups, students, and activists come together to discuss issues and build […]
Note from Michael: I caught mention of this event on Facebook from Stacie Ledden. I’ve been watching what Anythink has been doing for some time and the R-Squared conference only made me more interested in what’s happening at this most forward-thinking, innovative library. Stacie put me in touch with Matthew, who graciously agreed to write this guest post. Give a read and take a look at the photos Matthew provided for a glimpse at what is possible when you move from being an “experience library to a participatory library.” I’ll be sharing this post with students in my Hyperlinked Library […]
The Architecture of Understanding from Peter Morville Don’t miss this fascinating slide deck from Peter Morville.
“I am “, I said To no one there. And no one… heard…at all… not Even the chair. “I am”, I cried. “I am”, said I. And I am lost and I can’t Even say why. Leavin’ me lonely still (Neil Diamond, 1999) It use to be that being physically isolated meant being alone. But now, internet access allows us to be connected to the world. As information professionals, we can create thriving communities that are face to face, site to site, app to app. I am a teacher without barriers and a humanitarian aid volunteer without borders. […]
I’ve recently completed a temporary 10-month stint as sole tweeter and community manager for Hennepin County Library (@hclib). About a month in, I wrote a guest post for Tame The Web exploring what I’d learned about tweeting for public libraries at that point (https://tametheweb.com/2012/04/20/tweeting-for-public-libraries/). “Follow Your Patrons” is a follow-up, a slide deck with lots of practical examples as to how libraries can best leverage our Twitter presences to not just describe what we do, but to do what we do. (Note: while the examples draw from my experience tweeting for HCL, this is a personal presentation made on my own time, not as […]