A TTW Guest Post by Sarah Jo Zaharako My fifth grade library students just designed their dream libraries. Every Friday for a month, during library class, students collaborated to create slideshow presentations representing exactly what they wanted in a public library. Inspired by innovative library spaces, services, and programs worldwide, students considered possibilities that went far beyond their current perceptions of libraries. Brainstorming was outlandish, collaboration was messy, and students enthusiastically poured their hearts into this project. They found images online, built idea boards using Google docs, designed spaces on MineCraft, and created totally unique models and drawings. Students who […]
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Over the past two years I have conducted interviews on fake news and misinformation with librarians, psychologist, journalist, and others for the Circulating Ideas podcast. I have done some writing related to our so-called “post truth” world as it relates to information literacy. To give myself some focus and to continue the conversations, I am sharing this post highlighting some of the things I have read and heard. Reason and reasoning are not intended to find capital “T” truth. For several decades, psychology and behavioral economics have shown us how our minds use shortcuts (heuristics) to make decisions. Psychologists such […]
Hi there librarians. The last time I made a post on Tame The Web was 628 days ago. Those six hundred and twenty eight days have come and gone by in a blur. It was a combo of my day-to-day work as a library director and my desire to spend all of my non working time with my family that has caused such a lapse in writing and sharing about libraries here at Tame The Web. But don’t let that make you think that I’ve stopped thinking about libraries and how we as librarians can continue to encourage the heart. […]
I remember being 30. I remember living off of all that kinetic energy, willing myself to do difficult things just because they were difficult, and putting myself in uncomfortable situations solely because they were uncomfortable. I approached both simple tasks and high-caliber challenges with the same vigor and enthusiasm, and I pushed myself hard to grow, learn, and experience as much as possible. I wasn’t ready to die – I was brave, naive, and also, a bit intense. In attempting to recover the same drive and energy of my 20s and early 30s, I realized the injustices and inequalities of […]
“When you say it’s gonna happen ‘now’ well, when exactly do you mean? See I’ve already waited too long, and all my hope is gone.” -Morrissey When I began a draft of this blog post, it was going to be about the five trends found in the IFLA Trend Report, which I thought would be interesting to tackle because they are interesting trends. However, I got side-tracked thinking about the ideas produced from the 2015 article, “What Technology Will Look Like In Five Years,” by Diomedes Kastanis. I want to add to Kastinas’ thoughts about how the ownership of things […]
When you ask my father to draw a picture of a dog, you get this: When you ask me to draw a picture of a dog, you get something like this: My dad is an artist and art instructor by profession and a semi-professional guitar player as a hobby. My mother was a practiced pianist and seamstress while working as an attorney. My sister can master any type of dance. I can sing, but play no musical instruments. I cannot sew and my dance moves, while enthusiastic, wouldn’t be considered skillful or graceful. The joy of being part of a […]
Devil’s advocates need not apply As I was listening to the Library as a Classroom lecture this week, the devil’s advocate component reminded me of a phrase that is more productive. That phrase is “yes, and…” rather than “no, but…” or “let me play devil’s advocate”. In conjunction with this flip on devil’s advocate, asking people to bring solutions is an excellent tool and one I’ve been actively trying to train my staff on for a few years now. When someone comes to me with a complaint or is being a naysayer, I will frequently ask them to remember I am […]
Dr. Mary Vasudeva wrote this post in response to readings in her MLIS course INFO 298 The Hyperlinked Library “Leave the library and go where the people are.” (Stephens, 2017, Built for people). I happened to be in a situation where I couldn’t listen to the lecture for this course module (on an airplane), so I was going through the slide show. . . which made me think about learning modes in general. And then, I got to slide 5, which states “The heart of libraries is learning and supporting our users’ curiosity through every means possible” (Stephens, 2017, Library […]
What do social media analytics tell us about fake news? How can these analytics help libraries and librarians? What is the Social Media Command Center? These are a few questions explored in my interview with Nathan Carpenter who is Director of Convergent Media for the School of Communication at Illinois State University. This interview is available at: Circulating Ideas episode 123: Nathan Carpenter. This interview is part of a series I am doing on fake news & information literacy. My previous interviews can be found here: Circulating Ideas episode 116: Laura Lauzen-Collins (Your Brain and Fake News) Circulating Ideas episode 113: […]