One of the big themes running through my life as a student this semester is connecting, mainly through connecting to others in the profession through the Internet. When I recently read the quote from the New Yorker about “some of our closest friends and most significant professional connections are people we’ve only ever met on the Internet,” my heart jumped and my ears opened to listen a little closer–in other words it really resonated with me. As an English speaking, budding librarian living in Hungary, my ‘in-person’ professional network, at least with other librarians, equals zero, which means that all of […]
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This week we held our own Human Library event at my library. The short video below is a quick overview. The Human Library as an idea has been around for a while now, but it is becoming increasingly common in libraries. We utilized it as a way for students from a range of classes to come together with our “books” to explore diversity and understanding within the context of their classes. Faculty members signed up by course section and built assignments that connected to the program. Books Come Alive at Moraine Valley Troy A. Swanson is Department Chair and Teaching […]
I have always been interested in the cognitive side of information literacy. How does our existing knowledge, personal beliefs, worldview, and experience intertwine into a decision-making process? How can we understand this process and use it to improve the teaching of information literacy skills? That being said, I really enjoyed David McRaney’s interview with Yale University’s Matthew Fisher as they considered how the online context impacted self-perceptions of knowledge. Here’s a description from the You Are Not so Smart Podcast page: The latest research suggest that though technology probably doesn’t make us stupid, it can, however, cause us to believe […]
My Context Book report for INFO 287 is a Keynote presentation that I have uploaded to YouTube. Want to learn more about the events going on at the Burton Barr Central Library in Arizona? Click here. ———————————————————————————- Megan Bergeron, or Red as she prefers to be called, currently works in retail and is working on her Master’s degree in Library Science at San José State University. She loves anything to do with technology, learning, and fandom and is currently trying to specialize in digital services and emerging technologies. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two cats, Flynn and […]
Back in 2012 I had watched Susan Cain‘s TED Talk on how introverts can share ideas, a talk otherwise known as “The power of introverts” (video below). I purchased her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking… And it sat on my (virtual ebook) shelf for long time — a very bookish, very librarian, guilty habit. Until now. After several years in the MLIS program, listening to and conversing with classmates, this report became an opportune assignment! As I read Cain’s book, I found myself reflecting on creativity and motivation, the diversity of personalities we […]
This week my library held our annual Graphic Novel Symposium, which was a great program emphasizing diversity, creativity, and community . This event is essentially a mini con but is aimed at the curriculum. The conversations were thoughtful and engaging, and I thought that TTW readers may enjoy them. Here are the links: Graphic Novels and Their Use as Tools of Tolerance and Diversity Eric Kallenborn, Ronell Whitaker, and Claire Overton YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUHy5vqFL40&index=15&list=PLEenmBjMCRGg81l_w-fF8ywZivwQmlbR3 Generation Next: How to Keep Nerd Communities Growing Carlye Frank, Dawn Xiana Moon, Michi Trota, and Ytasha Woman YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqzlBX0LNgM&list=PLEenmBjMCRGg81l_w-fF8ywZivwQmlbR3&index=13 From Pencils to Print: Small […]
Librarianship has long been informed by ideas outside of the profession that are then brought into it. One of the intersections that has always interested me is libraries and film. Some areas of this overlap have been well documented, while others represent very new terrain. The portrayals of libraries and librarians in movies, and more broadly librarian stereotypes, as the recent title The Librarian Stereotype addresses, has been of continued interest to the profession–entire books and films have examined the topic. These representations have interesting things to tell us about how others conceive of librarians and what that means for our work (see, […]
Since Heather Jagman and I co-edited our book Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Thing About Information, I have enjoyed several email exchanges with librarians around the country focusing on topics of the book. The larger theme of these conversations center on the larger concepts around information literacy beyond the mechanics of searching. It seems that our profession has long recognized that information literacy is more than using a library, and it is more than just searching Google. But, we are just now entering a time of broader discussion about the dispositions, modes of thinking, and levels of understanding […]
For me, summer time is important prep time as we get ready for our fall programming. This year, our One Book, One College program is looking at the book Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant by José Ángel N. who is an alum. This book was suggested by several of our faculty . To promote the programming for the academic year, a couple colleagues and I interviewed our One Book author. It was a fun and meaningful conversation. I thought it would be fun to share this with all of you Tame the Web readers. I love tinkering around with videos like this. Interview […]
As part of Michael Stephens’ Hyperlinked Library course offered through San Jose State University, I reported on the book Now you see it: How the brain science of attention will transform the way we live, work, and learn, by Cathy N. Davidson. We were encouraged to use creative means to convey our reports, so I took the book’s central theme to heart and utilized several free and available web tools to comment across platforms. Part 1: TameTheWeb – “Introduction” The main thrust of this book is the notion that we are using outdated criteria to measure our educational progress. This […]