wat3rm0le's burrow

Beware books. . .

2010-06-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

"After the contents of a parchment scroll were copied in codex format, the scroll was seldom preserved."

Murray, Stuart. (2009). The Library: an illustrated history. Skyhorse Pub Co Inc.

My definition of leadership

2010-03-17T03:26:00.000-07:00

Honest self-confidence. There is no influence without self-confidence, there is no leadership without influence. Vision will come, communication can always get better, but leadership begins with real self-confidence.

My first real screencast. . .

2010-03-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

Review of Maxwell's Leadership 101

2010-02-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

Maxwell, J.C. (2002). Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Made up of 108 pages divided into 3 parts and 10 chapters, and one short page of notes, Maxwell’s book is the very cliché of popular leadership titles. And yet, banality sells. Three of Maxwell’s books have sold over a million copies each, and Leadershipgurus.net named him the World’s Top Leadership Guru. Born February 20, 1947 in Garden City, Michigan, Maxwell followed in his father’s footsteps of being a minister by ultimately completing his Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. He served as a senior pastor at Skyline Church near San Diego for 14 years until he left to become a full-time public speaker and writer.
Part 1: The Development of a Leader
Chapter 1: Why Should I Grow as a Leader? –
Maxwell begins this book by describing his “Law of the Lid.” Basically his point is that the level of a person’s leadership skills determines that person’s level of effectiveness or potential. Presumably to clarify, he provides the example, “if your leadership rates an 8, then your effectiveness can never be greater than a 7” (1). Seemingly brushing aside critical questions like ‘How are you measuring leadership?’, ‘What is your unit of measure if the score is 8?’, ‘How do you define effectiveness?’, Maxwell launches into the story of Dick and Maurice McDonald, the famed brothers who created the first McDonald’s Hamburgers. He uses them as an example of his Law of the Lid because they were successful restaurant owners, but they were not successful franchisers; it took Ray Kroc’s greater leadership abilities to make McDonalds a great franchise. He admits that success is possible without developing leadership skills, but claims that leadership multiplies your level of effectiveness. He gives a picture of what this looks like (7), a graph with leadership ability on the vertical axis and success dedication on the horizontal axis and numbers marking increase. Ultimately, I agreed with his point (it is hard not to because it is such an abstract generalization), but the pseudo-scientific graph felt manipulative. To the uncritical eye, it denotes a certainty that simply isn’t supported. He makes absurd claims like, “If you were to raise your leadership to 8, where it matched your success dedication, you would increase your effectiveness by 700 percent!”(8). Maxwell ends chapter 1 by changing his focus to organizations. Leaders define the direction of an organization and when an organization begins to fail the people that make up the organization start looking for new leadership.
Chapter 2: How Can I Grow as a Leader? –
Chapter 2 is divided neatly into what Maxwell calls “The Four Phases of Leadership Growth” (13). Phase one, “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know” means that our first step is to realize that leadership is something that can be learned—we can’t assume that leadership is for a few naturally born leaders. Phase two, “I Know What I Don’t Know” makes the humbling admission that we often come to a point when “we are placed in a leadership position only to look around and discover that no one is following us” (14). Leaders are life-long learners who are clear about what the do and do not know. Maxwell explains that in 1969 he began writing to the top ten leaders in his field (ministry?) and offered them $100.00 for a half hour of their time so that he could ask them questions (15). Phase three, “I Grow and Know and It Starts to Show” tells an anecdote about an audience member who Maxwell assures can be a great leader if he continues to read books, listen to tapes regularly and keeps attending seminars, (all things that keep ‘leadership gurus’ in business coincidentally). Finally phase four, “I Simply Go Because of What I Know” can be recognized when leading becomes “almost automatic” (17). Maxwell finishes this chapter by describing some leadership qualities of Teddy Roosevelt and how these qualities were developed slowly over time.
Part 2: The Traits of a Leader
Chapter 3: How Can I Become Disciplined? –
This chapter begins with anecdotes about football player, Jerry Rice’s self disciplined training routines. He also outlines 3 action points: 1. Challenge your excuses 2. Remove rewards until the job is done 3. Stay focused on results. A quote by La Rochefoucauld caused me to suspect that Maxwell is guilty of cherry-picking quotes from Bartlett’s rather than his own reading, so contrasting are these two authors in their word-views.
Chapter 4: How Should I Prioritize My Life? –
In chapter 4, Maxwell defines success: “the progressive realization of a predetermined goal” because he highlights the discipline of prioritizing. He also introduces the Pareto Principle (30), or the 80/20 rule and gives examples of the application of this principle from “Time” to “Picnics.” His reason for introducing it is to inform the reader that they should spend 80% of their time developing the top 20% of their workers. Maxwell is sophisticated enough to observe that prioritizing is not always made up of simple choices and lists a series of questions that a leader can ask herself to help the priority process:
What is required of me?
What gives me the greatest return?
What is most rewarding?
Once priorities have been established, he gives advice on keeping them in place through evaluation, elimination, and estimation (37). He then describes strategies for making choices between two good options (39), for breaking out of the paralyzing power of too many priorities (40), and for avoiding the little things that can “trip us up”(41). Ending this chapter is a warning about time-- its ability to force us to prioritize and to realize what is really important.
Chapter 5: How Do I Develop Trust? –
“Trust is the foundation of leadership” is the hackneyed platitude (similar to the truisms that precede the other chapters) that begins this chapter on trust. Maxwell lists competence, connection, and character as the three qualities that leaders must possess to gain their followers’ trust and then quotes Craig Weatherup, Norman Schwarzkopf, and Anthony Harrigan in support of his assertion. He settles on character as the most important quality and goes on to illustrate what character communicates: consistency, potential, and respect. He peppers these explanations with characteristic sports, military, and religious personalities and anecdotes.
Chapter 6: How Can I Effectively Cast Vision? –
Walt Disney is the model leader to illustrate vision, hardly an inspired choice but effective none-the-less. In typical fashion, Maxwell explains that vision starts within, draws on your history, meets others’ needs, and helps you gather resources. His last point uses the notable simile, “vision. . . acts like a magnet—attracting, challenging, and uniting people”(55). As if to compliment the four aspects of vision, he goes on to describe four “voices” that must be listened to: the inner voice, the unhappy voice (discontent with the status quo), the successful voice (the mentor), and the higher voice (God). Maxwell ends by challenging the reader to improve his vision by measuring himself and doing a “gut check.”
Part 3: The Impact of a Leader
Chapter 7: Why is Influence Important? - Influence, according to Maxwell, is the true measure of leadership—more than position, or salary, or any other external measure. But how is influence measured? He reminds the reader of the huge impacts of the deaths of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana and asks the question “How did someone like Diana come to be regarded in the same way as Mother Teresa?”(62). Given his own history as a minister, I was surprised and even disappointed that he didn’t ask the more interesting question in transformative leadership; how did Mother Teresa come to have the level of influence she had by the end of her life. Instead he follows Princess Diana from kindergarten teacher to the end of her life and famous funeral. His ultimate point is that leadership is not something someone can give you like a position; it can only be measured by influence. Changing tack, Maxwell outlines the five myths about leadership (64-7):
1. The management myth (being a manager does not make you a leader),
2. The entrepreneur myth (making a lot of money does not make you a leader),
3. The knowledge myth (having a high IQ does not make you a leader),
4. The pioneer myth (being first does not make you a leader),
5. The position myth (being CEO does not make you a leader).
The obvious question then is what does make you a leader. In a rare moment, Maxwell tells a story from his own life about his first job out of college as a senior pastor in a small church (68). He realized that although he had the position, he was not the leader and that being the leader was all about influence. As an interesting side-note, Maxwell observes that the most challenging leadership environments are ones that rely on volunteers (like many libraries) since it is in these environments that leadership works in its true form, pure, naked influence.
Chapter 8: How Does Influence Work? –
Every individual influences ten thousand people during their lifetimes, according to Tim Elmore, Maxwell’s associate. Whether or not we believe this, he goes on to share that influence can be developed and proceeds to describe the five levels of leadership-influence through which leaders can progress:
1. Level 1: Position- people follow because they have to (73)
2. Level 2: Permission- people follow because they want to (76)
3. Level 3: Production- people follow because of what you have done for the organization (77)
4. Level 4: People Development- people follow because of what you have done for them (79)
5. Level 5: Personhood- people follow because of who you are and what you represent (81)
After this, Maxwell seems to abandon even the appearance of continuity and simply lists “some additional insights on the leadership-levels process”(81-3). He ends this inspired chapter with, you guessed it, his own poem entitled, “My Influence.” Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz comes to mind. . . . Ok, maybe it’s not that bad.
Chapter 9: How Can I Extend My Influence? –
The theme of this chapter is empowerment. The leader who empowers her followers is a leader who has extended her influence. Maxwell appealed to my librarian soft spot when he said, “empowering others by giving them your authority has the same effect as sharing information: You haven’t lost anything” (87). He moves on by analyzing the qualifications of an “empowerer”: position, relationship, respect, commitment, and the right attitude (89). To test your attitude, Maxwell provides 10 questions to ask yourself (91). But the reader may ask, how can I empower others to their potential. Maxwell gives his 7 point answer:
1. Evaluate them (92)
2. Model for them (93)
3. Give them permission to succeed (93)
4. Transfer authority to them (94)
5. Publicly show your confidence in them (95)
6. Supply them with feedback (95)
7. Release them to continue on their own (96)
The end of chapter nine emphasizes the results of empowering others— most of a leader’s life is changed for the better.
Chapter 10: How Can I Make My Leadership Last? –
Maxwell begins his final chapter with the last of the capitalist trinity following McDonalds and Disney, Coca-Cola of course. Specifically, he tells the story of then chief executive, Roberto Goizueta’s death and the seemingly surprising non-effect this had on the Coca-Cola Company. The reason? Goizueta understood how to leave a legacy of succession. Maxwell’s final leadership lesson for the reader is how to gracefully leave an organization so that it can continue in a long and healthy manner after your departure. Leaders who are good at this lead the organization with a ‘long view’, create a leadership culture, pay the price today to assure success tomorrow, value team leadership above individual leadership, and walk away from the organization with integrity (103-4). Maxwell rides into the sunset relating his own paradigm-shifting realization about leadership when he found out after he had left that his first small church was not doing well, “That really bothered me. A leader hates to see something that he put his sweat, blood, and tears into starting to fail” (106). Not wanting to leave on a bitter note, Maxwell describes a more successful departure from Skyline Church (107).

Lessons I would like to apply from Leadership 101

If you noted a slightly critical tone when reading my abstract it will come to no surprise to you that John C. Maxwell’s Leadership 101 was not my favorite book. If Chemers’ An Integrative Theory of Leadership is one extreme of the leadership book continuum almost strangled by scientific objectivity, then this book is the other extreme with its clichés, banal platitudes, and pseudo science.
That is not however to say that I didn’t learn from it or that I can’t apply leadership lessons from this book. While I don’t particularly like the writing, I can not argue with the results. That John Maxwell has sold millions of books cannot be disputed. So rather than simply turning my nose up at Maxwell, I began thinking about why it is that his writing is so successful. I began to compare Maxwell’s controversy-free truisms, memorable slogans, and bullet-point logic to the rhetorical habits of presidential candidates who intentionally avoid details so that they don’t get nailed down to a specific position and thus have the luxury of not contradicting themselves when they must act in office in a way that necessity demands of them. I may find Maxwell formulaic and prosaic, but he’s not easy to disagree with either. This is a good lesson in communicating my vision of the school library. If I keep my most public communications short, memorable, and in line with the most well established platitudes chances are that they will not meet much resistance. I apologize if this sounds a little too Machiavellian, that’s not my intention. I really do believe in my vision for our school library, but I also understand that there a political realities no matter how large or small the political community.
Honestly I take almost all of his points to heart, the problem is that Maxwell’s advice evaporates at the point the “tire hits the pavement.” He can make claims like, “Mutual respect is essential to the empowerment process” (88), but how do I manifest that in everyday-leadership-situations? Noticeably absent from this book are true-to-life, detailed examples of the kinds of situations leaders face. Certainly he provides anecdotes of famous leaders, but they are so simplified as to be useless for anything other than a punch-line. They are absolutely not ripe for analysis.
My objections aside, I will try to practice his points about influence and the progressive levels of influence. Because their were so many, I did not include them in the abstract, but Maxwell lists several characteristics to be mastered for each of the five levels of influence. These seem like a solid foundation for developing influence. Points like knowing my job description as school librarian thoroughly, being aware of the history of Saint Mary’s, accepting responsibility and doing more than expected are all specific actions that I can take right now to improve my influence.
Empowerment was also a theme that I was particularly attracted to. I viewed my relationships with students from the perspective of developing each of them as leaders and it was a surprisingly new way of looking at them. A few students immediately came to mind as I was thinking about them as leaders in need of grooming. I’m considering empowering one of my student aids with more responsibility in the cataloging of new materials. I’ve always reserved this kind of work for myself, but she is certainly bright enough to take on some of this job and I think she would benefit from doing it.

I'm reading Chemers' An Integrative Theory of Leadership. . .

2010-01-30T21:15:00.000-08:00

Library of Congress and Open Source Software

2010-01-29T22:33:00.000-08:00

Library Explores Ways to Release Open Source Software

Fascinating Documentary on Netscape

2010-01-13T22:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight

2009-12-24T01:55:00.000-08:00

Me

Chilling words make a wall of sickening unreality,
Chilling words make a wall of sickening unreality,
Chilling words make a wall of sickening unreality,

You.

A couple of sites worth remembering

2009-12-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

DIY Book Scanner: wow very cool, but how much of a pain would it be to make?

Check out the possibility of whether or not a book is in the public domain. Just remember that it is not legal advice.

Latest Study on Information Consumption

2009-12-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to Roger Bohn and James Short's information consumption study.

"Information Mavens" are needed more than ever.

Experience & Education by John Dewey

2009-11-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

It has been 79 years since Dewey wrote Experience & Education and yet if I simply put into practice the ideas he describes in this very short book; I'd be considered a radical teacher, a maverick outside the usual educational bounds.

"The educator is responsible for a knowledge of individuals and for a knowledge of subject-matter that will enable activities to be selected which lend themselves to social organization, an organization in which all individuals have an opportunity to contribute something,and in which the activities in which all participate are the chief carrier of control." pg. 56

“[O]nce more, it is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas.” Pg. 79

“What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul: loses his appreciation of things worth while, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur?” pg. 49

I want an invite "super-bad", but this guy deserves one more

2009-10-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Several people have been asking me what Google Wave is; this video is a good "in-plain-English" explanation. I'll say it again, if anyone gets an invite, please invite me. . .please. (yes I know I'm playing right into Google's marketing strategy)

Reading Plan for LIBR 250

2009-09-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

I'm taking Design and Implementation of Instructional Strategies for Information Professionals, and one of our continuing assignments is to do broad reading in educational theory. I'm going to blog my reading notes here.

Taking Wiggins & McTighe’s Understanding by Design as my focal point (This is a text I have read and that we are using where I work so it seemed a logical focal point) I set out to read various supporting texts from its bibliography. In the first phase of my reading I wanted to get as close to the foundation of their thought as I could, so I limited myself to works in the bibliography published before 1970. The assumption being that this would be the work of their predecessors upon which their own work would rely and/or respond to.

The first work that I randomly selected was Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing by Jerome S Bruner.

“On Perceptual Readiness” pg. 7-14
This very dense and deeply psychological work begins with a review of scientific and psychological studies of perception. He maintains and defends two theories of perception:
1. Perception involves an act of categorization
2. Perception is somehow a representation of the world and therefore predictive
in varying degrees
While these theories may seem obvious to some, Bruner makes it clear that neither of these two claims can easily be assumed.

I was especially interested in Bruner’s discussion of categorization given its prominence in Library and Information Science. He takes us back to the level of primitive or autochthonous categories such as: motion, causation, intention, identity, equivalence, time and space (very close to Kant’s a priori categories). Though even here there is some question given the phenomenon of synesthesia (one remembers Nabokov’s colors being associated with letters)

Older me vs. younger me

2009-08-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

I just had an experience that made me reflect on growing older. I was in my car about to walk up to my apartment door when I was faced with a problem. I had picked up 10 rolls of quarters from the bank (for laundry) and I had my laptop and a long power chord to take up as well. The younger me would have tried to hold all of the quarter rolls in one hand while trying to hold the laptop and the tangled power chord in the other hand and walk up. But older me calmly looked around, found a pair of shorts that I had left in the car, put the quarter rolls into the pocket of the shorts, rolled up the tangled chord and took them all up easily. Now I'm not saying that younger me would have necessarily dropped the quarter rolls, scattering quarters all over the place or drop an expensive laptop, but it would have been a riskier enterprise than what a little calm thought avoided altogether.

Dublin Core Metadata for this blog

2009-06-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

I just found DC-dot which generates the Dublin Core Metadata for any website. This is the list of keywords that the site generated for my blog:

Atom; Bibliography; Delft; Chicago; Debating; October; view; power; Testing; Monitoring; sooo; Subscribe; Setting; private; Class; Sh; follow; comparison; Random; catharsis; 3:27; February; ounce; Twitter; Daddy; Evaluating; electronic; BAISL; Cybriarian; Blog; Pete; AM; cells; progress; obligatory; Friday; tips; charge; checker; Books; reading; Browsing; 8:04; Wave; spell; review; post; comments; Library; Media; Service; War; December; seen; 4:54; 9:37; future; red; user; links; Viewpoints; definitely; Librarian; Fair; data; Librar; Learning; Hard; burrow; ready; Giving; List; otherwise; Musings; Anderson; 0 comments; doing; free; Mary; personal; intermediary; Personal; Sites; tax; phone; Archivist; 10:11; September; Cooley; Teacher; worth; View; Sunday; Ebsco; Se; Hosting; hands-on; list; Pixelpipe; Review; School; video; Commons; Information; Reference; Extremem; Links; Alice; Ch; negative; January; 3:09; Alpha; August; April; Google; watermole; Subj; Learners; Im; libraries; curse; web; Practices; Saying; Seamless; school; students; Opposing; Holy; movement; David; faculty; running; using; Posts; 6:46; Code; Dream; iGoogle; March; Platypus; Integrated; G1; search; page; ton; November; Blogs; patterns; 9:43; aeonity.com; Archive; algo; translator; Koha; interface; 11:32; nympholepsy; sites; Finding; wikis; questions; Investigations; Mashable; Pro; Sorry; Antitrust; Martha; 6:15; Time; Tuesday; Taxonomies; Makeover; library; Morphing; drive; July; Followers; reference; Moonlighting; June; dead; article; Loertsche; Wolfram; Thursday; Sean; Notes; databases; information; PM; teens; Updates; blood; iPhone; Saturday; Systems; Eugene; book

Interestingly enough, when I tried to embed the metadata into this post I got this error:

Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: link rel="schema.DC" href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"

This is the html sans tags:

link rel="schema.DC" href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
link rel="schema.DCTERMS" href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
meta name="DC.title" lang="English" content="wat3rm0le's burrow">
meta name="DC.creator" content="Brian Luke Thomas">
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meta name="DC.description" lang="English" content="A blog on many topics, but tends to center on librarianship and the internet.">
meta name="DC.date" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" content="2009-06-26">
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meta name="DC.format" content="107590 bytes">
meta name="DC.identifier" scheme="DCTERMS.URI" content="http://wat3rm0le.blogspot.com">
meta name="DC.language" scheme="DCTERMS.URI" content="English">

Evaluating Integrated Library Systems

2009-06-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at various job openings for librarians and noting the different ILS's of which I would like to get at least a passing familiarity. I'll record my impression of them and compare them to Koha here.

In the mean time, I need to explore Integrated Library Systems Report (http://www.ilsr.com/vendors/search2.cfm). It's old, but looks like a good place to start.

List of Free Blog Hosting Sites

2009-06-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

A Working List of Free Blog Hosting Sites (last revised 6.25.09):

Aeonity.com
Atom5
Blog.com
Blogabond.com
BlogCheese.com
Blogetery.com
Blogger.com
Blogr.com
Blogsome.com
Blogster.com
Bravenet.com
BusyThumbs.com
ClearBlogs.com
ExperienceProject.com
Freeblogit.com
Freevlog
InsaneJournal.com
LiveJournal.com
Multiply.com
Netcipia.com
Open Diary.com
ShoutPost.com
SoulCast.com
Tblog.com
Terapad.com
Thoughts.com
Trippert.com
Tumblr.com
Vox.com
Weebly.com
Windows Live Spaces
Word Count Journal.com
WordPress.com
Xanga.com
Zoomshare.com

Most of this list comes from Sean P. Aune's Mashable article.

2009-06-02T15:09:00.001-07:00

Holy Sh$%! The spell checker and translator alone are worth using.

2009-05-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

The obligatory negative view.

http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

http://www.waveprotocol.org/

Debating the power of Google's Wave
A hands-on review

I'm definitely doing this once I get Koha up and running

2009-05-24T10:11:00.001-07:00

Wolfram Alpha

2009-05-24T09:43:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not, I've already read "dangers of Wolfram Alpha" articles but if you haven't been introduced to this new tool watch this video

2009-05-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

Hard To Say Im Sorry - Chicago

Monitoring myself. . .

2009-05-17T23:32:00.001-07:00

My readers in Mumbai are not getting the best service possible!

Eugene The Librarian

2009-05-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

Listen to Sarah Thomas, librarian of the Bodleian and head of Oxford Library Services & Robert Darnton, director of Harvard University Library discuss the future of libraries and Google here.

Some cool new features for searching on Google:

Keeping in mind my users: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/16/how-kids-use-the-net.html

Not as inspiring as Susan Boyle but fun none-the-less:

Google Faces Antitrust Investigations

2009-05-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

For the catharsis . . .

2009-04-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

This is the only one I could embed so see the original here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Daddy

2009-04-04T22:14:00.001-07:00

"You, with colorful dreams!"

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Why does Ebsco charge school libraries more than they charge banks?

2009-04-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

So I was looking for a way to renew our magazine subscriptions online through our magazine jobber-- Ebsco and found ebscomags.com
I was outraged to find that businesses like banks, corporate centers, and advertising agencies get a greater discount on magazines than school libraries!

After taking the selection of magazines that we offer in our library and finding out how much the same magazines would cost for "Corporate Centers/Building Lobbies" I found they would only have to pay $404.61 whereas we will have to pay $1004.52.

Here is the raw data of the prices charged to "Corporate Centers/Building Lobbies" compared to prices charged to our school library:

What Building Lobbies pay........What a school library pays
Black Enterprise $17.95............................$22.00
Business Week $46.00............................$60.00
Car and Driver $11.00............................$21.94
Consumer Reports $29.00............................$29.00
Discover $19.95............................$29.95
Entertainment Weekly $24.95............................$59.95
ESPN Magazine $29.97............................$29.97
Esquire $8.00.............................$15.94
Essence $12.00............................$22.00
Harper's $12.97............................$21.00
Hispanic $15.00............................$18.00
Latina $11.97............................$17.97
Mad $16.00............................$29.99
Money $14.95............................$41.95
National Geographic $34.00............................$34.00
New Yorker $49.95............................$52.00
People $52.47............................$116.07
Popular Science $19.97............................$19.97
Rolling Stone $14.95............................$25.74
Sports Illustrated $39.00............................$88.95
Time $29.95............................$76.13
Vanity Fair $24.00............................$24.00
Vogue $29.95............................$29.95
Wired $12.00............................$24.00

Who qualifies for these special rates? The most needy of course:

"Businesses that qualify for discounted rates:
To qualify for reception room discount magazine subscriptions, all you have to do is include your business name or professional title with the order. Here is a short list of types of businesses we currently service:
Doctor Offices
Dentist Offices
Orthodontic Offices
Chiropractic Offices
Medical Clinic Lobbies
Physical Therapist Offices
Hospital Lobbies
Salons/Barber Shops
Spas/Massage Therapists
Photographers
Engineers
Attorney Offices
Accountant Offices
Hotel Lobbies
Bank Offices
Realtor Offices
Auto Dealerships
Insurance Offices
Health Clubs
Corporate Centers/Building Lobbies
Interior Designers
Advertising Agencies"

Platypus otherwise known as watermole

2009-03-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

My comparison of free wikis (work in progress)

2009-03-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've worked with wikis for almost every class in the MLIS program and they have all been hosted at PBwiki, but I was curious whether or not it was the best choice (for my purposes) or just the popular choice in the program and amongst the Library Learning 2.0 crowd. I started with Wikipedia's entry on wiki farms. I immediately ruled out subscription hosting sites which left:

BluWiki
ClearWiki
EditThis.info
GROU.PS SuperWiki
Hive Wiki
Intodit
MyFreeWiki
Netcipia
Uwiki.com seems to still be a work in progress the wiki is here.
Wikia
Wikihost.org
Wiki-site.com
Wiki Spot
Wikkii
WikyBlog.com

This is a good reference to using the engine that most of these wikifarms use.

Still reviewing these sites. . .

This is a great article that deflates some of the hype around wikis.

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

2009-03-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks Chad!

Testing Pixelpipe

2009-03-07T20:47:00.001-08:00

So I should be able to update my status and write blog posts to multiple sites from my phone with this app.

Tiger Girl
Sky@Catherine's birthday

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Library Service Class

2009-03-06T22:55:00.001-08:00

We had a great time this week!

Giving red blood cells for the blood drive

2009-03-02T06:30:00.001-08:00

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Notes on Ch. 12-15 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

2009-03-01T00:08:00.000-08:00

"Like other levels of the model, however, it is easy to spend an inordinate amount of time on direct services and ignore the information infrastructure and the four central program elements." So true.

I'd like to get students to do reading advisory through our catalog. I imagine a catalog that is Amazon like in that it will list reviews by students of the books that are held in the library.

I'd also like to work on business and national partnerships.

If my number one problem is lack of support staff, I need to create job descriptions of each of the things that could be delegated.

Six principles of collection development:

1. The collection of the library media center must be appropriate for the community a school draws from.
2. A plan to build a curricular-oriented collection with the accompanying policies, staff expertise, and realistic budgeting practices is in place.
3. An acquisition system that matches curricular priorities is in place.
a. How do you select your materials? Mostly I try to get feedback from others, then I try to see gaps in our collection that need to be filled, finally I try to get books that have received awards.
b. How do you prioritize your purchases? Text books first - then texts found in the bibliographies of text books, then faculty requests, then student requests.
c. How do you keep track of spending in terms of curricular support? I don't. This is an area for growth.
4. Each type of media included in the library media center is considered a system consisting of the materials, the accompanying equipment, the support staff, and facilities, among other concerns.
5. Collections in single schools are constantly changing to meet current needs.
6. Collections reflect democratic ideas, intellectual freedom, and cultural diversity.

I need to review the collection policy made in the past and develop a collection mapping plan using the model on pg. 210.

I'd like to create the Experimental Learning Commons and one of the first steps will be creating the Teacher Respite area-- both physically and virtually.

We covered a lot of evaluation in the management class and I have been to a Balanced Scorecard seminar, so much of the last chapter was a review.

Notes on Ch. 7-11 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

2009-02-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

1. How often does collaborative planning take place in a normal school day? Well I know it isn't 50%, that is for sure! "Many groups may come to the LMC to work on projects of which the library media specialist has only cursory knowledge and in which there is very little planning invested" This is the case the majority of time right now.

2. What is the spread of collaborative planning throughout the faculty? Wow, I already did one of the suggestions before I reached this question. I do plan on talking with administration about patterns I see. One of the most obvious patterns was that most of the teachers who have not collaborated at all are math and science teachers. A surprising pattern was that many of the teachers who have not collaborated with me are the senior teachers on the staff. This makes me wonder if they have had bad experiences in the past, or their perceptions of the LMC are just more entrenched. It could also mean that these are the teachers who don't need to bring their class into the library as way to take a break from the class room.

3. What type of teachers plan with the library media specialist? Two of the teachers who collaborate the most with me are very far on the constructivist side of the continuum. The other two are closer to the behaviorist side but are close to center I would think. While subject matter may be an indicator for teachers who are less likely to collaborate, it doesn't seem to be an indicator of those who collaborate the most- Religion, English, History, and Science are all represented by high collaboration.

4. What subject areas seem to be affected the most and the least by collaborative efforts? Math is clearly the least collaborative subject and History closely followed by English and Religion is the most collaborative subject. I like the idea of having P.E. and Math collaborate in the library using spreadsheets.

5. What organizational factors seem to encourage/discourage collaborative planning? One of our English teachers habitually comes to the library to do his grading--I could also use this time to create a collaboration with him. It is very difficult to get out of the library if no one is available to take my place since the library always has students in it. Not having a support staff means that if I leave, the library closes-- this is just not an option, so most of the time I am bound to the library.

"Collaborative planning with teachers and students (during a constructivist project) is the most powerful link between the library media program and raising academic achievement."-- I'll be making this my mantra.

I'm starting to see why I was balking at the idea of an LMC that was open to students at any time without class appointments. "For example, Mr. Smith's students were disruptive, lost, and confused. The library media specialist and teacher plan to spend 10 minutes before the next LMC time to make sure that students understand their project before they are turned loose in the LMC." It was this disruptive, lost, and confused behavior that I was trying to avoid. One class like this is difficult enough. Now imagine three classes in the library at the same time and none of the teachers had planned with the librarian ahead of time. This happened to me multiple times during my 1st year, before I complained enough to stop that practice from happening. I'm completely happy to have students from multiple classes droping in when they have time, when they (and I) know what they are working on!

"Both teachers and administrators must realize and support the notion that preplanned learning activities deserve the best treatment in the learning laboratory."-- I need to make this planning my first priority.

A list of all the things tha might build avid and capable readers in the school:
1. One community, one book (I need to start planning it for next year and make the proposal to the curriculum committee.)
2. Find out the status of our SSR program in C-blocks--coordinate visits to C-blocks to do book-talks (perhaps I could even get students from the book club to do book talks)
3. Video tape book comercials for new books that could be played during homeroom.
4. Check with the English teachers about independent reading projects-- do more planning with them on this
5. Corporate-sponsored reading motivational activities

Chapter 10 was basically expanded in the New Learning Commons and In Command-

It would be interesting to have students study the topic of "research", log their own Anomalous States of Knowledge (ASK) during a typical week and how they found the information that they needed. Then talk about the research process. The idea is that students should see the research process separate from class assignments first.

Notes on Ch. 1-6 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

2009-02-28T18:39:00.000-08:00

Library Media Specialist Taxonomy

I want to note where I have done work on the levels in this taxonomy. I'm going to take levels 1-3 as given.

"Level 4- Spontaneous interaction and gathering: Networks respond 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to patron requests and the LMC facilities can be used by individuals and small groups with no advanced notice. . . . Spontaneous services, however, might become an excuse for a lack of planning by teachers or turn into babysitting." This is one of the things that I had to get a handle on my first year-- it is very easy for the library to turn into a room for child-care. I'm still working on our catalog being accessible 24-7. We'll be subscribing to OCLC express and I'm hoping that Koha will work better than Follett CircPlus--we'll see.

Level 5-Cursory planning. I have sent out emails suggesting ideas and websites and to get feedback. I hope I'm not percieved as a pest!

Level 6-Planned Gathering. I've created pathfinders, handouts, bloglines, and saved Google searches for teachers "A clear idea of exactly what is needed is essential if success is to be achieved." As I found out in my reference class, this is much, much more difficult than you would think. The greatest obstacle to communication is the illusion that it has occured. I've found this to be true on many occasions.

Level 7-Evangelistic outreach/advocacy. There are degrees of advocacy- Advocating to just administration, to administration and faculty, to administration, faculty and students, to parents, and to the public at large. There can be some resistence when you seek to advocate to parents and the public at large. I was surprised to find this when I was trying to promote the fact that we had received the Picturing America posters from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Level 8-Implementation of the four major programmatic elements of the LMC program. I created a strategic plan for the library in my management class, but I'm not completely satisfied with it. I know I need to expand my articulation of reading programs like SSR, Reading Motivational programs, Book Club, etc. I also want to include students in this process.

Level 9-The mature LMC program. We're not there yet, but we are getting close. This is my 2nd year as school librarian and in many ways it is like my 2nd year teaching-- I still haven't quite found my footing but it is certainly not as chaotic as the 1st year!

Level 10-Curriculum development. "Curriculum development is more than just an invitation to attend curriculum meetings; it means that the library media specialist is recognized as a colleague and contributes meaningfully to planning." Yep this is the golden ring. I'm going for it. Having worked on the curriculum committee as English Department Chair will make this easier.

Teacher Taxonomy

A rough estimate of the % of teachers working with me at each level

Level 1: 42%
Level 2: 25%
Level 3: 7%
Level 4: 10%
Level 5: 5%
Level 6: 10%
Level 7: 1%

Looking at it like this, it is very disappointing. Part of this is being a one person librarian gives me little to no time to collaborate with teachers. Part of this may also be me rating too harshly-- I'd like to give the Teacher Taxonomy to each of the instructors and have them rate the level at which they feel we are collaborating to get a better picture of this. This was a very interesting way of looking at my work with teachers. One other thing to note, when looking at the level 1 teachers, the majority are math and science teachers-- I'll know I have arrived when I get a math class into the library!

Student Taxonomy

I've had students evaluate their information literacy skills on TRAILS, but I need to develop a more generalized survey that could be given school wide. This may be a challenge when there are so many competing agendas.

Administrator Taxonomy

I'm very interested to see where my principal sees himself on this taxonomy. I'm hoping it will inspire a constructive dialog about the library media program.

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 6-10

2009-02-28T17:10:00.000-08:00

"Such projects build knowledge bases tagged by many, searchable by everyone." A quick thought about tagging- I love the idea of folksonomies, but I wish that the people who design these sites would give just a little more subtlety to tagging. Instead of just tags, imagine if you could also tag an item as a Broader item, a Narrower item, or a Related item. This to me is an example of a best practice that librarians have had forever that could be incorporated into web design. (Del.icio.us webdesigners if you're reading this, take note--great feature to add!)

Our school is using Ubd, so many of the ideas presented were familiar. Reading the material only adds weight to my conviction that I must get coverage for the library so that I can attend curriculum and planning meetings. Too much of my current work is clerical and could be done by support staff. "This includes the teacher librarian whose first responsibility is to the improvement of instruction rather than tending and managing the Open Commons. For the most part, the Open Commons is the province of support personnel under the direction of the teacher librarian."

I'm going to propose the On the Right Foot idea to our principal. I would also like to do action research based on using blogs and bloglines for a class. It makes me wonder about the idea of a paperless class-- is it possible?

Action Research in the Expermental Learning Commons sounds like a dream come true! "It takes the best theories of education and research results and applies them to a local situation." This sounds challenging, interesting, and damn fun!

"In the context of the Learning Commons we recommend that the Experimental Learning Center be the center of such research activity that informs the faculty as a whole. There is an atmosphere of collaboration in the achievement of excellence because everyone expects that this is a place in the school where experimentation is the central focus. It follows that a positive attitude toward continuous school improvement is likely to develop and be sustained across years and across faculty turnover or student demographic evolution. . . . Such a focus would go a long way in promoting the idea that everyone has a stake in school improvement rather than just isolated teachers in closed classrooms."

Some links to look at more closely:
webquest.sdsu.edu/taskonomy.html
novemberlearning.com
www.criticalthinking.org/index.cfm
http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
OfCultivatingYourPersonalLearningNetwork
weblogged.wikispaces.com/New+Internet+Literacies
cissl.scils.rutgers.edu/guided_inquiry/introduction.html
www.projectnml.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 4-5

2009-02-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

"The fantasy book club having a brown bag lunch in simultaneous discussion with the same club in a different school across the city." This is a great idea, and should be fairly easy to achieve with other high school library programs.

Imagine a group of students selecting books for the library to buy based on selection criteria that they have developed. I love this idea. I can imagine giving a student group a budget to do this so that they learn how to manage a budget as well.

"A comment made by the police officer clicked with the teacher librarian and technology teacher. The office [sic] said that on the social networking sites that young people frequent, there is often misbehavior and inappropriate mimicking because they only have each other as role models. Adults do not tread in these spaces. The specialists had failed in their efforts to encourage teachers to use blogging with students in spite of all the evidence they had gathered that showed how engaged students are on the read/write web." This is probably the best evidence I have seen that libraries and even teachers should have a myspace page. If we really want our students to act responsible in the spaces, then we need to be in these spaces. (I can hear teenagers everywhere screaming NOOOOOOOOOO!)

"It is important to make a distinction between administrative computing in the school and instructional computing. Administrative computing is a tightly controlled space for budgets, schedules, student records, grades, and anything else related to administration. Security for this system is essential . . . . The instructional system is constructed cooperatively. It is a virtual learning community consisting of many different commercial tools, open sources, Web 2.0, and perhaps Web 3.0 virtual worlds."

Brilliant. This is part of the perception problem that I mentioned in the last post. Getting people to make a split in their conception of the computing system at the school-- one administrative and one instructive is exactly what needs to be done. This has to be a talking point that is repeated over and over again so that it sinks into the public consciousness.

Stop. Think. Click. OMG (yes I went there OMG) why haven't I seen this site before, it will be on our website and I'll be using it in lessons-- thanks! For review, here are the seven practices:

1. Protect Your Personal Information
2. Know Who You're Dealing With
3. Use Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, & a Firewall
4. Update Operating Systems and Browsers Regularly
5. Protect Your Passwords
6. Back Up Important Files
7. Know Who to Contact if Somehting Goes Wrong Online

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 1-3

2009-02-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! by David V. Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan. Chapters 1-3.

"A move to client-side information systems is often stalled because of a great deal of fear and suspicion about users: 'If you let them on the Internet, they will instantly stray away from their purpose and possibly encounter predators.' Thus, systems are filtered heavily in response not only to those fears, but also because of federal laws and the threat of lawsuits."

This is exactly where many schools seem to be today. Too often fear and ignorance are causing decision makers to cut off access which leads to student confusion (if the goal is education why can't we get information ourselves) and resentment (our school allows me to leave classes early for games but I can't play a game after school on a computer in the library?!)

"We posit that both adults and young people need to learn to build their own information spaces and to learn to be responsible for their actions in those spaces."

I think this is an important statement as information technology changes so quickly. I see decision makers spending time on hardware and even the selection of software but virtually no time on how to teach people to use these tools. We have spent too much money and too little time on our information spaces.

I am beginning to understand this new vision for school libraries. The idea of a learning commons (both real and virtual) and the experimental learning center are definitely radical changes to the common understanding of the school library. This means no longer paying lip service to "The library is the heart and center of the school" but actually making that a reality. I love and admire the idea. I also believe that to realize this vision will take a sea-change in the perception most people have about school libraries. Perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is how can we school librarians most quickly and effectively change the stereotypical thinking of not only administrators, but of parents and students.

"The space [learning commons] runs on its own calendar to avoid chaos and overcrowding."

I'm not sure I understand how running on its own calendar will avoid overcrowding and chaos. I get the idea that if you don't have scheduled times that you avoid classes needing to use the library resources at the same time, but I already have a problem with overcrowding after school and having a calendar or not doesn't seem like a solution to me. . .

The experimental learning center idea is also exciting and insightful. Faculty have often voiced a feeling of isolation in classrooms and feeling like they wanted to know what was working for other teachers. Loertscher, Koechlin, and Zwaan describe a workable solution. But when I think about making these changes, I again run into the perception problem. How does the teacher-librarian go from being treated as "support personnel or slaves" to leaders that make "collaboration and school improvement work." And more importantly how does the teacher librarian do this without stepping on any one's toes since this is very clearly a shift in the dynamics of power at a school?

I was thinking about the scenarios that the learning leadership team could take on:

A Major Decision: The process described could be applied to our "Enrichment Week" a special program in which teachers and students take a week out of their normal studies to try a more diverse range of learning opportunities. Students could take a more active role in the creation of these courses.

A Big, Big Think: I would love to see everyone in our school community thinking together to solve the problem of making our school environmentally sustainable and responsible.

Action: I don't have an immediate application for this but the problem of competing agendas is very familiar and I was impressed by how this particular situation was handled! I will be sharing this example with our administration.

Notes on "Extremem Makeover" by David V. Loertscher

2009-02-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

"Librarians have become pigeonholed as a result of managing library facilities and technology infrastructures. More often than not, they're treated as support personnel or slaves rather than as valued teaching partners. During Henne and Gaver's heyday, the introduction of audiovisual materials into schools created a struggle for survival between two educators with contiguous roles -- the AV guy and the library lady. Today, education technology threatens the coexistence of the media specialist and the technology coordinator in much the same way. Which one will survive?"

I'm of the mind, that librarians need to learn:
1. how to run a small 5-10 computer network
2. the basics of internet access
3. the basics of internet publishing
4. the basics of the digitization of text, sound, and images

I don't think that they should only learn these skills, and I believe that cataloging, research and patron relationship skills are the most important, but I list these because I'm surprised that they aren't among the skills that are required in many library programs.

I know that some people feel like they are fighting against the barbarian hordes of the internet and that they want to take their last stand amongst the great books and wisdom of the ages in the safe and cozy library, but I find it hypocritical that many of the same people who feel this way will learn the difficult and technical skills of book repair and preservation but are offended
if you tell them that they should also be learning the technical aspects of internet access.

As a reality check, I'll mention that I do not know the technical skills of book repair or internet access, but I am trying to learn them both because I believe that both of these skills are important skills of librarianship.

Notes on "Finding Time" by Mary Alice Anderson

2009-02-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

Reading this, I was reminded of different time management works that I have read. My current favorite is Getting Things Done by David Allen. I started looking at my own routines in light of Minnesota Department of Education's check list:

* Does this task really make a difference to the learner?
* Has the curriculum changed so the task has become obsolete?
* Is the task more of a time-consumer than a time saver?
* If this is a time-consuming task, will the end product be worth the time spent?
* Is the task a fad that won't have lasting value?
* Is it a routine task that can be done by someone else (clerical work?)?
* Is it a task that can be automated?

I do many things that could be done by someone else: putting newspapers on sticks; opening windows; getting simple office supplies for students; helping students with the copier and unjamming the copier; helping students when their documents won't print. These are all tasks that absolutely make a difference to the learner (in very practical terms), but at the same time distract me from work that would be using my skills better.

I want to spend more time reading and reviewing new books, thinking of interesting questions for our book club, creating new and interesting displays, creating new pathfinders for teachers and students.

I also believe that there is a part (and I want to stress "part" here) of web 2.0 that is a fad and won't have lasting value, but there is much that will absolutely be with us in the future, and even some of the temporary skills that we are learning will be steps for learning future skills.

Should students use automation tools for creating their bibliographies? I see people who aren't open to new learning-media and hold an almost fetishistic adherence to print obsess over the minutia of print bibliography work and wail about the "death of the book." On the other extreme I see kids who can use these new tools grabbing digital text, images, sound, and video and slapping them together like a sloppy collage then publishing it to potential millions with no regard for where this digital material came from and little critical thought about the ideas represented. In order to navigate a safe course between this desperate print-Charybdis and this mad digital-Scylla I'm moved to think deeply about the fundamentals of learning-- of searching for the source and the best way to share sources with others . . .

Notes on "Morphing from Teacher to Cybriarian" by Ted Nellen

2009-02-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

It was funny reading about Nellen's day since some of it is very familiar. "Upon reaching the fourth floor, I'm greeted by students sitting on the floor outside the class. 'You're late, Mr. Nellen,' they chime and tease. 'Yeah, I decided to have a chat with my family this morning; sorry,' I quip." I can imagine Nellen's chaotic class room environment fairly easily; it sounds like a lot of fun, but I think it requires a very subtle balance to be successful. Reading this, I was thrilled at the idea of students doing virtually all of their work on computer and online. The use of "telementors" sounds like a tremendous opportunity, but it only takes one cynical, paranoid perspective to worry about exposing young students to potentially harmful strangers. Suddenly the hope and excitement of the World As Your Classroom turns to fear and suspicion. If you have students who surf safely, and an administration who understands and embraces technology and parents who are not paranoid then I think Nellen's class reaches the ideal, but ultimately I think harnessing that kind of chaos is a tricky endeavor

Setting students up with an iGoogle page

2009-02-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=ddrtch8j_0cdd2j6fc

Ironically, I've had trouble putting this presentation up to help students learn 21st century web skills because our school has blocked YouTube and "Gaming Sights" due to bandwidth issues.

Saying the book is dead is like sooo last page . . .

2009-02-14T00:45:00.000-08:00

Who's afraid of Kindle 2? Saying the Kindle will kill the book is like saying the vacuum cleaner killed the broom. We should know better-- at this point saying the book is dead is just flamebate. And yet I have heard more than one librarian share this fear and even worse that it spells the end of libraries.

I'll make it clear for you.

The library is not just a book warehouse, and librarians are not just book-pimps. Find a bigger vision.

Bibliography on the web & reading patterns

2008-12-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

I've been considering bibliography on the web a bit more these days. PermaLinks.cc is an interesting site that I want to watch.

http://www.permalinks.cc/Default.aspx

Link rot is real and I think librarians need to be on top of this.

On a different topic, reading the article "Electronic Journals and Changes in Scholarly Article Seeking and Reading Patterns" in D-Lib Magazine I came across this interesting bar graph (click to zoom in):

Good sites to show faculty

2008-11-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/11/teaching-administrators-about-wikipedia.html

http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/11/help-wanted---v.html

G1 is a reference librarian's phone

2008-10-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

You can take reference calls,

and then you can scan books :~)

Few days later I saw this. . .

Google reads my blog!

Review of Pete Scott's Library Blog

2008-09-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Peter Scott's Library Blog
URL: xrefer.blogspot.com
Blogging since: February 2003
Updated: Daily (could be automated)
Average Visits Per Day 61

Peter Scott (b.1947) was the Internet Projects Manager in the University of Saskatchewand Library in Saskatoon. He created Hytelnet "the first online, hypertext Internet directory"

This is a minimalist blog that points to online resources as they are made available.

For example today's entry included Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter, September Early Reviewer books at LibraryThing, 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting Announcement, Vol. 13 No. 9 issue of First Monday, EBSCO's Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center, Bloomsbury Academic, ACRL Podcast: The Desk and Beyond, I Love My Librarian Award 2008

Looking over the past couple of weeks I found that he posted about newly released newsletters, conference and online class information, new databases, podcasts, information on library acquisitions, book prize information, book festival information, information software, websites, etc. The scope of this blog seems far reaching and its consistency (everyday for the last 5 years) for a blog is noteworthy.

You won't find any personal revelations here, but it looks like a great blog to follow in order to stay abreast of new reference resources.

Browsing Librarian Blogs and came across. . .

2008-09-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

"Any librarian who ever thinks the solution to a problem involves hiding information should go into a quiet room somewhere and slap themselves with a copy of AACR2 until they come to their senses."- Darth Libris

Possibly the funniest librarian joke ever.

Two questions from my Reference and Information Services class

2008-09-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

What do you think are the requisite qualities for a reference librarian?

A deep and abiding respect and kindness for all people.
A joy in service.
An eagerness to quest for art and knowledge with and for another.
A fearless self awareness in order to follow the curiosity of another without assumptions or bias.
A thrill in the hunt!

If I sound as old fashioned as Green I apologize, but if you allow me, I'll try to explain what may seem to some as "over the top."

I have a friend who said, "I think people are born librarians," and I believe this is true. Now I don't want to be accused of mysticizing librarianship, but when I compare what I do everyday for high school students to phrases like, "using interpersonal communication to identify information needs" I feel like my garden grown potatoes have been changed into McDonald's french fries. Yes, talking about librarianship in this way releases an air of scientific accuracy and neutrality, but it also insidiously complicates and devalues what we do.

Justin said in his excellent post, "In my own job, people groan and roll their eyes when customer service is mentioned, but ultimately, that is what we are there for." I think we all understand why people roll their eyes when they hear the phrase "customer service;" it changes a civil or educational service into a function of the market. And while "customer service" for a shoddy librarian might be an improvement and probably for whom it is being invoked in the first place, I think for most librarians it sounds like a cheap ploy. Justin is right, ultimately and primarily we are there for the people of the library; but I do not want to exploit them as customers, I want to serve them as guests. Unfortunately for many the sacred trust of Host is simply unknown and the shadow that is left is "customer service."

Perhaps Green was right about his own time, but I think today that he does not go far enough. He says to, "Instruct this assistant to consult with every person who asks for help in selecting books. This should not be her whole work; for work of this kind is best done when it has the appearance of being performed incidentally. Let the assistant, then, have some regular work, but such employment as she can at once lay aside when her aid is asked for in picking out books to read." I don't want to wait for someone to ask for help. I believe we should seek out people in the library and ask them how we can be of service. I do this everyday with students and many do not need my help, but I don't want any student to leave the library without feeling like I wanted him or her to be there and I was ready to help him or her personally.

I was amazed to read Karen Crow's comment: "I wish that I were allowed to leave the desk, wander the floors, and accost (for lack of a better word) patrons with questions like: "Are you finding everything you need?" "Can I help you?" "What are you researching today?" "Topic X/ is certainly interesting. What specifically are you looking for within the topic? Have you tried looking under _Fill in the Blank_ for more information on the subject?" "Hey! That's a really cool book. If you enjoy this title, you might like _Fill in the Blank_."" I know that working in a one person library is different than working in a large public or academic library but I can't help but feel this is tragic.

The reference desk must not be a ball and chain, especially with the technology tools that we posess today. The reference librarian needs only a headset and mobile phone and the phone number posted prominently around the library. Instantly she would be free to walk among her guests and answer their questions even if it meant walking a library that has multiple floors.

As for Genz's question of professional vs. the paraprofessional I hope it is not too arogant or provoking to say that I find it tiresome and ultimately distracting from far more important topics. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a solid piece of scholarship and a handy review of the literature on reference librararianship (and it would be politic of me to say that this is not criticism of its selection), but to me it screams insecurity like that person who insists on being called Doctor so-and-so because they earned that PhD damn it!

What has changed over the past century and what are the constants?

To me what has changed is what is least important: the media that convey art and knowledge. Today I may laugh at a YouTube video that I watch on my iPhone while in days gone by a person would chuckle at the Jibes-n-Jokes section of their local news paper, but humanity and our desire for truth and beauty have not changed and will not change. I believe it is simply the job of the librarian to help others in this search. Again if this sounds "over the top" please forgive me.

iPhone nympholepsy

2008-07-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

So I'm in line in front of the Corte Madera Applestore. I've been waiting with my brother for 45minutes, he's been waiting four hours. I'm not buying an iPhone. I'm here in my anthropologist capacity studying a post-post modern historical phenomenon. . . iPhone techno-lust.

Overheard:

"Alright my friend, your getting close, close. I can smell the iPhone from here." -Apple employee giving out tickets for a free drink at Peet's.

"I called at 8am, they said it wasn't a long wait. When I got here the line was back there," she points to the line about 100 people back and rolls her eyes.

"Are you getting the big one?"
-a woman asks my brother, who then goes on to discuss with her whether or not she needs to store video on her husband's phone.

"Wow, it's moving now!"
-a man with his son talking about the line.

"I saw a software demonstration where you could look at your iphone and see everyone on a map."

"I imagine there is a way to turn the GPS off on the phone."

"How long have you been in line?"-Man with a cane.
"Four hours."-Woman in line
"Wow. . .Good luck."-Man with a cane.

"I still haven't seen that guy come out, and it's been like 25minutes."

Above: My brother looking at this blog post on his new iPhone. Like I said, post-post modern.

"A ton of data is worth more than an ounce of algorithm"

2008-06-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

Kai-Fu Lee speaking in Beijing about Google.

Library War

2008-05-24T17:00:00.001-07:00

I found this intriguing anime checking out Summize, a twitter search engine. I'm going to have to add Summize to my list of standard places to check for info, especially breaking news.

Hiro Arikawa's Library War

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Post Script: Looks like you don't have to go to Summize after all. Twitter just bought them!

Musings about user interface and teens

2008-04-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

“Pogosticking”
This is a great term from Jared Spool’s article Galleries: The Hardest Working Page on Your Site on the User Interface Engineering web site referred to in the Week #13 Lecture. “When a gallery doesn’t contain the necessary information for the user to decide, they have to resort to ‘pogosticking’. Named after the children’s bouncing toy, pogosticking is when the user jumps up and down in the hierarchy of the site, hoping they’ll eventually hit the content they desire.” When Spool criticizes the interface of SonyEricsson’s and Motorola’s websites I want to cry, not because I have any love for cell phone companies, but because I applied his criticism to the databases that my student’s use.

The User Interface of a Standard Educational Database
When a student does a search on say GALE’s Student Resource Center Gold for a common high school topic like Maya Angelou they are brought to a page with 7 tabs. If they remember what I’ve taught them about the database they can navigate the different tabs (another level of granularity) if not they are unknowingly stuck in sources that are just reference rather than magazines, academic journals, news, creative works, etc. My point is that if ‘pogosticking’ is said to be frustrating to people who want to buy a cell phone, then the kind of ‘pogosticking’ that students do using a standard educational database is outrageous. Educational databases have so far to go before they even begin to match the usability of a common website.

Misconceptions About Teenagers
If you are going to work with teens and computers this is a great page (wwww.useit.com/alertbox/teenagers.html)to spend three minutes reading! “Teenagers are not in fact superior Web geniuses who can use anything a site throws at them. We measured a success rate of only 55 percent for the teenage users in this study, which is substantially lower than the 66 percent success rate we found for adult users. . . . Teens’ poor performance is caused by three factors: insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and a dramatically lower patience level.” This is of absolutely no surprise to me. I see examples of this everyday (yesterday I had a student express gratified surprise when I showed him how easy it was to use the help function in imovie)! The next time I hear some administrator spouting off about “digital natives” I’m going to send this article.

#$@*&^%$!!!

2008-04-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

If you had been watching me read Anthony Bernier’s “A Case Study Like No Other: Taking the San Jose Challenge”, you would have seen me yelling at the screen, slamming my fists down on the desk, and getting up and having to count to ten. I’ve had a few days to calm down, but this discussion post is a revision of angry notes that I took as I was reading the piece. I am angry at Dan Noyes for being a lazy, irresponsible news journalist out to stupidly exploit the reputation of the King Library for ratings. I am angry at Pete Constant for being a thoughtless and possibly corrupt or opportunistic city councilman who submitted a proposal to the city council that is frankly insulting to librarians and the educated citizens of San Jose. And I hold a little resentment towards the leadership of The King Library that they haven’t fought back harder against this kind of ignorant slander. So I chose to answer Bernier’s questions that he poses at the end of his case study. First though, I’ll give you my angry notes.

As I was reading, the first thing I did was to look at Constant’s proposal. There is a very special feeling that you get when you are reading and you find that your own mind has sprinted ahead and is unknowingly following the same train of thought as that of an author. Anyone who has had this experience will understand my excitement when I found that the very part of Constant’s proposal that made me yell at the screen was the same quote that Bernier cites:

“For a temporary unblock request, the patron should make the request to a library employee, who will refer it to the IT specialist on duty. If the IT specialist determines that the site is appropriate for viewing (i.e. falls outside the appropriate filtering categories) the site will be unblocked for 24 hours.” from Pete Constant’s proposal to the San Jose City Council.

IT specialists are supposed to get to decide what is appropriate or not for people to view??? This is insulting at best and fascist at worst! I’m not saying that IT specialists aren’t proponents of intellectual freedom, in fact I think most IT specialists are. But for an enlightened and intelligent city like San Jose and more importantly a university to reduce a question of intellectual freedom to the level of spam filter (falls outside the appropriate filtering categories?!) is ludicrous and shows just how far Pete Constant is from having any sort of intellectual value system!

Ok, calm down. Let’s think about this. Why are we simply assuming that filtering is the best solution here? Has there even been an attempt to think about other possibilities? Well after reading about all of the work and thought that was put into the Joint Library agreement with the city I find that yes, other possibilities had been considered but Noyes either chose not to report them (possibly to sensationalize the story) or he never did the research himself (a measure of incompetence, in my opinion, for an investigative reporter). And while we are on the topic—why would any investigative reporter worth his or her own salt attack a library that is trying to uphold complete unfettered access to information. Yes, that means that we will have to suffer pornography, hate speech, and other abuses, but the answer to bad speech is good speech not limited speech. But I cringe even to write that because it has been said better by so many for so long that I’m flabbergasted that we are even having this tiresome rerun of a debate which is what made me think about this from an entirely different perspective. Who would gain from the King Library implementing a filtering system?

I want to examine the role that the very influential tech industry in San Jose played in Pete Constant’s proposal. How many companies that write “Filtering Software” are based in San Jose? In reading Marianne Messina’s article in Metroactive, “An Unsexy Truth: Myths and misconceptions in the debate over library filters.” We find that Secure Computing which owns “SmartFilter” the program mentioned by name in the news article does indeed have its corporate headquarters in San Jose. . . 4810 Harwood Road to be exact. Did any tech companies contribute to Constants campaign financing? Which ones? Ok, maybe this is cynical, maybe it is dead on, but my point is instead of asking this question, “At the request of the Council’s Rules Committee, the Library engaged a variety of research steps” (Bernier).

What about the news report? It is very trendy to go into libraries now with hidden cameras to “expose” this. It is absolutely exploitative journalism. If I were the San Jose’s Library director I would want to have a long talk with the ABC 7 News Director and Dan Noyes about what it means to value the Truth. On top of that if Noyes is going to attack Jane Light’s professionalism as a librarian she needs to attack his “professionalism” as a journalist!

“And the Martin Luther King Library has a problem with pornography. They have no rule against viewing photographs or full-screen sex videos from Internet sites, even with children nearby.” (Porn, Sex Crimes At Libraries http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=4808374)

Aside from the fact that the headline and this entire story is trying to sell sleaze and titillation as news, Noyes is passing off opinions as if they were fact—“The Martin Luther King Library has a problem with pornography.” That is an opinion! It’s one thing to get a quote from a citizen saying this; it is sloppy, lazy, and unethical for a journalist to say this themselves in their “investigative reporting.”

And what about the fact that the public library is also the university library which by definition will have very adult and controversial material. “You might recall here that
universities are among the very least likely institution to be challenged for
their collections and services.” (Bernier) Why wasn’t this a part of the news story?? That is very irresponsible journalism! Isn’t the public of San Jose more enlightened than this???

So to finally get to Bernier’s questions, “Have the complex organizational and bureaucratic resources this matter consumed been worth what will likely (though still not determined) amount to no change in library policy or practice? What are the costs of assembling and mounting such a process? How much did this process cost in terms of staff hours to research synthesize, and weigh? How much money did the meetings of the ULB cost in deliberation over the University’s side of the equation (15+ full-time faculty members)? What are the outcomes of these various processes? Who benefits and how are those benefits determined? As new professionals you should respond to these questions.”

Damn right we should respond! I think the library’s response has been too passive. The library director has done research, and investigations, and reported to boards! What about getting the right story out to the people who saw that irresponsible slander against the city’s public library and heart of the university? Instead of worrying with the ULB or even the City Council, the library should be getting the story out to the public, through other news media, through the library itself, though political action.

Anthony Bernier’s claim that “while most of the procedures thus far have been more on the Library’s terms, a more public exposure will likely also now attract and re-activate the interests that support the filtering proposal” shows very little faith in the citizens of San Jose to understand the value of intellectual freedom if given a chance to hear about the issues on an equal basis. Even Tom Sims of the San Jose Police Department doesn’t see this as a grass roots issue: “the push to filter ‘is not City Council putting this forth but a certain organization putting this forth before City Council and their concern is adult pornography.’" I think it is clear here that the problem lies in the possible public perception that came from an irresponsible news story, not with the library. An effort needs to be made to change that public perception. And I don’t believe that it would be that hard a fight. Bernier seems to fear a “silent majority” when he writes, “none of the supporters of the Councilmember’s proposal appeared at the Library Commission meeting? One answer might be that there was very little support for this proposal. But that would be naïve.” I don’t think it is naïve to believe that the majority of San Jose’s citizens are just as intelligent as most librarians and when given the full story will agree to the King Library’s original and current policy. All that is required is clear and visible opposition to this absurdity. Part of that opposition is going to be a critique of the ABC 7 News show. The library should not be intimidated by TV journalists and should ask in competing TV news media serious questions about the reporting that was done.
I’m interested in finding out the statistics behind how much ratings go up for the ABC 7 News show when the word “sex” is used in a story title, or how about simply listing the number of times ABC 7 has had a news story with the word “sex” in it.
I mean come on, as Bernier says, “complex organizational and bureaucratic resources” have been consumed which means that all of that time and money was basically spent not addressing the real problem: public perception after a lazy piece of yellow journalism. Instead of doing what is in our comfort zone, which is staying quiet and doing redundant research to prove what we already know to be true, we should be bringing the fight to Dan Noyes and Pete Constant.

Reference Librarian's Moonlighting Dream

2008-04-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was reading Twitter's Blog and came across a reference to ChaCha. Check out this video for a short explanation.

Now rather than freaking out and bewailing the fate of librarians everywhere when companies are offering information "hack" services, I think this is a great opportunity for reference librarians. If you are sitting at the reference desk answering questions from people smart enough to use the library, you might as well get double paid for your time answering questions from people who are clueless about the library but have heard of ChaCha. Here's the job description for "guides".

Being a good information intermediary

2008-04-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

Being an intermediary for domain experts
“Helping an inexperienced searcher who is knowledgeable in the general subject matter of the search but not the database, and who has had an inconclusive search result, may be among the most difficult tasks for the intermediary” (Meadow 294). Ironically enough, being a school librarian puts me in this position quite often. When I help a student with a database they are generally pretty flexible and there is a natural give and take in the research interview; however, when I am working with a teacher on a database I feel a definite tension in the interview. The threat of “not knowing something” gets in the way. . . on my part as well as theirs. I try my best to disarm this kind of thing with jokes and whatnot, but it is real. Also when a teacher has the domain expertise and is not able to find something, the immediate reaction is to believe that the database must be faulty since they know their content, History, English, Science etc. I’ve heard more than once a teacher embarrassingly say that they know they should know how to use the library better, but just haven’t had the chance to learn and now they feel too embarrassed to ask and this is even more true with databases.

Automated Search Mediation 14.4
The first thing I thought of when I read Meadow's section on automated search mediation was (forgive the nerd factor here) a Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode, 6th Season titled “Schisms”. If you are a fan, you’ll recall the episode as the one in which Troi, Riker, Geordi, Worf, and Kaminer all go to the holodeck to reconstruct their fragmented memories of an alien abduction. If you would like to boldly go, watch the scene here:

Watching it again, I realize this is more the creation of a record rather than the retrieval of one, but it is interesting to see some of the parallels to information retrieval. I like the way that they must identify attributes “metallic” rather than “wooden” and also narrow the search “Troi: computer -- show me a table... COMPUTER VOICE: There are five thousand forty-seven classifications of tables on file. Specify design parameters.” -heh

At first I remembered the computer voice taking a little more active role in their memory reconstruction, but reviewing it I see that Troi was still functioning as an intermediary in some respects to the “database.” I also like Geordi’s frustration with the “interface.”

Don’t wait for the ASK, go searching for it!
If you go into a store often a clerk will greet you and later ask you if you need any help finding anything. If you go to a restaurant a waiter will take your order, bring you your food and then ask you if everything is alright. Imagine a library that gave the service of a great restaurant. Firstly it would take a much larger staff than most libraries have, but the service could be fantastic. You walk into a library and a librarian gives you a quick tour and shows you to a comfortable seat. He or she then asks you your information need and goes to fetch you a wireless reading device, a portable DVD player, MP3 player, or laptop. While you wait, you enjoy nibbling on entertaining information bits, today’s headlines or recent Flikr photos scrolling on a Chumby. I know that this may be counter to what many think of the library, but this is certainly achievable and people will love it.

Google search tips . . .

2008-04-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

I'd like to tax you for my personal information infrastructure

2008-04-08T23:47:00.000-07:00

My personal information infrastructure
“Taken together, these types of knowledge, skills, and attitudes compose our personal information infrastructure” (Marchionini p. 61). I thought it might be interesting to actually reflect on my own PII if you can forgive yet another acronym. I feel like so much of what we are reading stays in the abstract or feels so barren of real life that I have this continual urge to humanize the concepts that we cover. Formally I have knowledge and skills in English language and literature and I’m developing my knowledge and skills in library and information science. Do problem domains map out to the DDC subject headings or the LC subject headings? I have knowledge and skills for the search system and setting of our school library, the Gale databases, and the World Wide Web but they are still developing. My attitude is the strongest element of my personal information infrastructure. I’m very curious, I am no stranger to ambiguity and uncertainty, and I have a lot of confidence and tenacity when it comes to looking for information.

Studies of professional information seekers
“One approach is to use the various online searching patterns, strategies, and tactics identified in studies of professional online searchers to create systems that optimize thos activities.” (Marchionini p. 75) What struck me about this quote was the idea of doing studies of professional searchers. Reading Marchionini’s observation that journalists, librarians, and detectives are all engaged in the same general activity, stimulated me to wonder what it would be like to follow and observe information seeking professionals at work. I would love to shadow several different professionals as they engage an information problem. I imagine that at the “move” level of granularity there would be much difference between even individuals in the same field, but I also imagine that as we move up to the coarser levels we would see some of the same patterns showing up.

Recording my own information seeking process
In an attempt to understand this more I want to try to record my own moves, tactics, strategies and patterns as I encounter different information needs. I’m just not sure what the best way of doing this would be. I can see keeping a small tape recorder with me and then as a student asks me for help, or a teacher needs some information, or if I need to know something take the time to turn on the recorder and try to describe my thoughts as I go. I wonder what an information seeking diary would look like after just a week? Would the process of recording and reflecting on moves, tactics, strategies, and patterns change that very process? How many case-studies are already out there describing the processes that professional information seekers engage in?

The Archivist by Martha Cooley

2008-04-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

An unlikely protagonist (or is it antagonist?) named, Matthias Lane, a “grey-mustached” 60year old archivist overseeing “The Mason Room”, (presumably the rare-books and manuscripts room at Princeton) narrates The Archivist. The central conflict begins when an attractive grad student and poet named Roberta Spire comes to Matt and says, “I want . . . to read the Emily Hale letters.” Unfortunately this is impossible since the love letters by Emily Hale to T.S. Eliot are unavailable to the public until 2020 at the bequest of Hale. And thus begins a beautiful battle of wills between the librarian, Matt and the poet, Roberta. Matt’s initial response is an unqualified “No”, but he is intrigued because grey-green eyed Roberta reminds him of his dead wife Judith. The novel then splits into point and counterpoint chapters, one thread describing Matt’s memories of Judith’s slow decent into obsession and depression and the other his interactions with the passionate and persistent Roberta, the only person able to get him to admit his wife’s suicide. Over-arching all of this are Matt’s insightful biographical observations of T.S. Eliot’s relationship with Emily Hale.
This is a psychologically intense story revealing the background of the solitary Matthias, Judith and her paranoid obsession with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Matt’s alcoholic father and overly religious mother, Judith’s activist parents who were killed when she was an infant, Judith’s emotionally distant aunt and uncle who raised her. But the psychological depth does not just reside with our librarian and his wife. On Roberta’s side, we learn of her passionate curiosity about Eliot’s conversion, and the reasons for her own parents’ self-protective conversion from Judaism to Christianity. Of course this triangle of Matt, his wife Judith and Roberta explores and echoes the historical triangle between T.S. Eliot, his wife Vivienne and Emily Hale.
Matthias Lane certainly falls under several of the librarian stereotypes, but I did find him to be a psychologically realistic character. He fits the librarian stereotypes on the surface, but Cooley is an astute enough observer of humanity to show the complexities that simmer just beneath Matthias’s stereotypical skin. He is the male counter-part to the Crone/Old Maid. Rather he is an Old Widower, an elderly white male, essentially emphasizing his sexless-ness. Yet there is certainly subtle flirtation and a sexual tension between he and Roberta as she pushes to get access to the Hale letters and he rebuffs her attempts (a sort of reversal of the male/female courtship pattern). He is the gatekeeper (one of several in the novel) to the letters and in this he is the stereotypical Enforcer. But again Cooley undermines this stereotype and shows Mathias’s psychological complexity as we learn that he has indeed read the letters and isn’t above breaking the rules of the Mason Room, as we find in the unexpected resolution. Matthias is certainly a Representative of Civilization and Culture appreciating good food, wine, jazz and of course literature, and he is indeed an Intellectual (contrary to our lecture’s contention that male librarians aren’t accorded the same kind of intelligence) making unforgettable observations such as, “existence is infinitely cross-referenced.”
As to why Cooley chose a librarian, an archivist for this particular character’s persona, it is readily apparent that this was an organic choice grown out of Cooley’s passion and interest in the relationship of T.S. Eliot and Emily Hale. An archivist must be a solitary creature or at least not feel threatened by working alone, and “aloneness” is one of the Viet motifs that Cooley explores. Matthias’s occupation is not simply ornamentation for an interesting character, it defines him . . . and the novel. There are many examples throughout the novel that Cooley has experienced the library as a working environment, specifically Matt’s conversations with his supervisor Edith. Her complaints about the board and the onerous responsibility of overseeing grad-students gives one the sense that Cooley has sat in on or overheard these kinds of conversations before.
Overall this is an impressive first novel, and a surprisingly good read despite some of the more grueling descriptions of Judith’s depression and life in the mental ward.

I think I'm ready to use the librarian's curse now. . .

2008-03-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from: Kickback suspects out on bail in Sacramento library case
By Christina Jewett - cjewett@sacbee.com

"Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Marv Stern said the case stems from Dennis Nilsson, 61, and James Mayle, 63, deciding to steer maintenance work to the firm owned by Mayle's wife, Janie Rankins-Mayle, 59. Nilsson was the library's maintenance director, and Mayle was the library's security director.

Stern said Nilsson steered subcontractors who once worked for the library to work for Janie Rankins-Mayle and her company, Hagginwood Services Inc.

Rankins-Mayle took the subcontractors' invoices, transposed information to her own letterhead and "she would inflate the billing," Stern said. "Nilsson would sign off on the bills."

Stern said Hagginwood completed $1.3 million in work for the library and his office did not determine how much of the bills were padded.

He said the Mayle couple wrote checks to Nilsson totaling more than $90,000 and aligning with the payment Nilsson approved for the maintenance work."

WTF.

I'm angry that this sort of thing is so commonplace! So many people steal from us (I'm not going to use the term public because "public" doesn't mean anything) because we don't feel responsible to each other. I'm sure that the director, Gold had her reasons for not stopping this when she was first alerted, and I'm sure that Nilsson and the Mayles believed that "they were due." And on top of everything else I'm sure it was just all too easy to steal from a bureaucracy that they felt was "cheating them." I write about things I couldn't possibly know with such confidence because I see this attitude everywhere. People complain about their jobs, about how little they get paid, how they work so hard and it is never recognized, how bosses are so unreasonable and ask the impossible, how people don't understand what they do, and little by little these negative thoughts make it that much easier to take from the vaguely seen "public." That's us! We are resentfully stealing from ourselves because we believe we deserve it! I guess we do.

I've seen the future, and it's in Delft.

2008-03-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

Please view this slide show.

Then read this.

Then go here.

Oh my God, I want to work there.

Why can't I get a list of Opposing Viewpoints Subject Headings?

2008-03-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

It started as a curiosity, now it is a persistent question, will it go further? This is the correspondence between me and Gale Group Database's ContentQA person.

From: Thomas, Brian
Sent: Mon 2/25/2008 11:59 AM
To: 'Gale ContentQA'
Subject: Question about Opposing Viewpoints subject headings

Hi,

I'm working with an English teacher who is going to assign an argumentative essay to her AP students. I would like to give her a list of topics that are in the Opposing Viewpoints database, but I don't want to be limited to the popular topics that are listed on the front page. Is there a way to get the complete list of subject headings and subdivisions?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello!
I'm sorry; I don't have a complete list off hand, but I've sent a note to the database manager to see if she is able to provide one.

I'll get back with you as soon as possible.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi!
I'm sorry for the delay. I received a note from the Content Manager who suggested that you may want to take a look at the title list:
http://gale.cengage.com/tlist/ovrc_rt.xls
Since there are tens of thousands of topics and subtopics in OVRC; a complete list would mean printing off thousands of pages. So, the Product Manager suggested that you may want to search the publication guide after all. Just key in a topic and you'll see all the related topics and subtopics---there are a lot.
Please note that there are more than 2.7 million articles in OVRC.
I apologize that we don't have anything more concrete.

Have a wonderful week!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Jodi,

Thanks for getting back to me; I didn't think it was delayed at all! I actually have looked at the title list which is some help, but I was looking for a little more granularity. I realize that the database is enormous, but there must be a manageable list of topics that the people who catalog the articles under topics have to deal with. If a list of topics, subtopics, and sub-subtopics is too long, can I at least get a list of the most generalized topics? Also, I don't need a printed list, I would be happy with a .txt file; even if it is tens of thousands of topics, it should still be manageable. Can you tell me if they are the same as the Library of Congress subject headings or maybe the Sears List of Subject Headings?

Thanks Jodi, I know this may be an unusual request, but I am particularly interested not only for this project, but I am also taking Library and Information Science classes at SJSU and we are learning about databases. The OVRC is an excellent model to study!

Thanks again!

Brian

PS- if it is easier, I can contact the content manager directly via email.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Jodi,

I'm forwarding this to you, because I sent it last week and I'm not sure if you received it. I am most interested in getting a response to this email, even if it is just to answer my questions.

Thank you,

Brian Thomas
Library Media Specialist
Saint Mary's College High School
bthomas@stmchs.org

Anybody have any experience getting the subject headings of databases? They always seem buried or nonexistent which seems strange to me because I find them to be the most useful part of a database!

Seamless movement in electronic databases: The Problem, my Experience, and a Solution

2008-02-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

The Problem
This is a quote in one of my text books, Information Seeking in Electronic Environments by Gary Marchionini: “Systems that support descriptive and semantic indexing should allow users to select from many documents and to move into, around, and back out of those documents in seamless ways. The current systems require users to execute a discrete set of actions using different input-output mechanisms at each step. Queries are typically specified according to a query language or form screen, and a list of titles or other surrogates is then displayed on a different screen or window. Different menus or commands are then used for browsing through the retrieved list and selecting an item for display. This results in yet another screen or window with possibly another set of commands or menus to browse through the item and return to a previous step. In electronic environments, representations for collections and specific objects should be represented and controlled in common and compatible ways.” (143)

My Experience
I underlined this whole section in my book because it is a feeling of frustration that I have had myself, and I think it is a frustration of most users of databases, or in a broader sense, information seekers in electronic environments. It is also the reason that companies like Apple who have spent a lot of time thinking about “seamless solutions” do very well with consumers. Further I think it is the main reason high school students prefer going directly to Google for their searches than to our OPACs or our databases. People who want to find information want to stay focused on that information problem. They feel frustration when they encounter the new information problem of learning the database interface and even more absurd, finding that the interface changes as they switch databases in their search. Believe me I’m not trying to take the tenacity that you must have out of searching for information, I just want students to spend more time reading the source than reading another help file about finding that source. I ran across this gem: by Calvin Mooer: “An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him to not have it" (American Documentation, 11(3), p.ii.). For most high school students not having the information is far less painful than learning the database interface.

One Solution
Standardization is the only solution to get proprietary databases to play-nicely together. Enter one solution: OpenURL link servers. I noticed in going through the LOTSS tutorials that the King Library uses SFX, allowing user searches to resolve in copies held by the library even if they are in a different database than the one being searched. The endorsement of ANSI/NISO of Herbert Van de Sompel and Patrick Hochstenbach’s OpenURL framework is what has led many to adopt this as a solution. SFX was certainly the first and most popular, but now, “Many other companies . . . market link server systems, including Openly Informatics (1Cate — acquired by OCLC in 2006; rebranded as WorldCat Link Manager in 2007), Swets (SwetsWise Linker), Serials Solutions 360 Link(formerly known as Article Linker), Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (WebBridge), EBSCO (LinkSource), Ovid (LinkSolver), SirsiDynix (Resolver), Fretwell-Downing (OL2), TDNet (TOUR), Bowker (Ulrichs Resource Linker) and Infor (Vlink).” (OpenURL. (2008, February 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:57, February 24, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenURL&oldid=192475711).
I would like to read a consumer’s comparison of these different companies services to find out what the costs and features of each these is. I’m also curious when the King Library adopted SFX and what the process was like.

An aspect of my OPAC to check:

2008-02-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

"A topic which has seldom been addressed in the literature is examined by Gregory Wool. Because librarians have relinquished their control over the traditional catalog’s filing rules by meekly accepting the limitations imposed by programmers and designers of OPACs, the result has been an accidental (or, unintended) deregulation of standard arrangements of subject headings in the indexes. Wool illustrates in particular how the Library of Congress Filing Rules, which arranges entries differently according to the punctuation that is present (e.g., commas for inverted headings, parentheses for qualified headings, etc.), takes advantage of the highly developed syntax and semantic features of the LCSH and result in logical groups that can benefit the searcher. These structured but perceivably helpful collocations are lost, however, in most online catalogs that simply arrange LCSH strings in a word-by-word fashion, causing Wool to wonder if LC and the library community as a whole have virtually abandoned their faith in a precoordinated controlled vocabulary. "

from The LCSH Century

I need to look into this more. . .

2008-02-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

The Semantic Web-- (more to come)

SPARQL : I need to learn this.

OWL: I need to learn this. Are there any connections between The Library of Congress Subject Headings and OWL?

And I thought I was tough. . .

2008-02-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

Looking at the history of libraries, I ran across this Monk's curse:

"For him that stealeth, or borrow and returneth not this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, cry aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony til he sing his dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of hell consume him forever."

I guess there is nothing like eternal damnation to make sure books are turned in on time.

The Librarian 1947

2008-01-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

One of my assignments for libr 200 Information and Society asks the question of how the librarian has been portrayed in the media. I figured I'd get a head start and link to this video The Librarian 1947. I'm sure I'll find others. My favorite line is "Working with the public means working with all types of people." and you see a room full of white middle class patrons. The sexism is also a bit much "I didn't mind the research on them doctor, but the pronunciation had me stumped for bit." ugghh!

OMG You have got to see this!

2008-01-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

Ok so my friend Chris told me about this, and after I watched it I thought it would be the perfect post to follow up the last one. Take a look. . .

Just thinking of the immediate, not to mention the long-term, possibilities is exciting! I just hope that we get game designers who are interested in creating real pieces of art and not just another Doom 1st person shooter.

My opinion of Second Life and a request for "Google History"

2008-01-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

I have played around a little bit with Second Life, making an avatar and some exploration. My opinion so far is that operating in 3d environments is the inevitable future of the internet but I'm afraid that Second Life is going to be the Betamax of these 3d environments. The user interface is too complicated to attract large numbers of people. And as much as 2nd life doesn't want to be compared to games like World of Warcraft, until the interface is as beautiful, easy, and bug-free as these types of games, people will always wonder why in the hell they would want to do anything- learning or otherwise there. I'm sure that Google is preparing for the 3d environments that are on the way. Learn Sketch-Up and be ahead of the curve. I can't wait until we see a mashup of Google Earth and 3d environments created in Sketch-Up with historical simulations so that you could actually watch historical events occur. Just as now Google Earth is a realistic model of the earth, "Google History" would be a realistic model of global history. You will be able to rewind and fast forward through history. Most of the data required for this kind of simulation tool already exists, Google just needs to hurry up and create it already. Sorry, I'm impatient to see the future.

Good Examples of Fair Use in Video

2008-01-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

This site has examples of Fair Use of copyrighted material for video. This would be good for explaining to students what is and is not acceptable in their mashups.

Acceptable Use Categories:
Satire and Parody
Negative or Critical Commentary
Positive Commentary
Quoting in Order to Start a Discussion
Illustration or Example
Incidental Use
Personal Reportage/ Diaries
Archiving of Vulnerable or Revealing Materials
Pastiche or Collage

Students Today Video

2008-01-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

I found this through the BAISL Ning (Thanks Chad!)

The tone of the video is similar to others that I have seen on youtube. It has a certain desperate pathos yet slick marketing feeling that strikes me as being a little insincere.

Here is Michael Wesch's blog that describes the collaborative process of making the video-- a good example of integrating web 2.0 into the classroom. I was curious enough to see the original google doc that I emailed Wesch to ask him for it. Let's see if he replies.

Here is an interesting critique of the video.

Screencasting

2008-01-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

I'm reading up on screencasting because I think it is a wonderful way for librarians to communicate how to use databases, do smart web searches, or just to use software that the library offers. The wikipedia article on screencasting is informative, but while reading it, I ran across this gem of a screencast showing the evolution of a wikipedia article. I will definitely be showing this as an introduction to wikipedia.

Just playing around with google gadgets

2007-12-28T10:11:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm done with the 23 Things, I'm going to go back and play a bit.

Go ahead and doodle a bit and then save it. Don't worry, I draw stick figures.

#23 (Week 9) I am a slow watermole, but the trip is always worth it!

2007-12-27T23:15:00.000-08:00

"Find an example or attribution that shows this program has been modified from it's original."

Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers. Content and style for School Library Learning 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0 have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

#22 (Week 9) ebooks and audiobooks

2007-12-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

I'm still a purist when it comes to books. I love the feel of the printed page; but I do enjoy being able to listen to a good book on my mp3 player or read a book on my phone when I don't have my favorite paperback with me. I've never read a book-length work online, but I have been to Project Gutenberg before and I have used it for research. I discovered LibriVox through the 23 Things and was excited about listening and even recording some of my favorite books. And even though I haven't taken the time to do that yet, I still hope to. I think it would be a great project for students-- one way to know for certain that they read the book!

A site I found interesting was Gutenberg's top 100 ebooks downloaded.

A google gadget for finding free ebooks

"Justfreebooks is a search engine that allows the user to search the pages of more than 450 sites of free ebooks, including gutenberg.org, wikibooks.org and archive.org. With Justfreebooks, one can find public domain texts, open ebooks, free audio books, ad-supported ebooks and more."

#21 (Week 9) podcasts

2007-12-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

I already subscribe to a few librarian podcasts with iTunes so that part was easy:
Book Lust with Nancy Pearl
California Library Association Podcasts
iTunes:Meet the Author
Library Geeks
The Washington Post Book World Podcast

I did have a problem though when I tried to click the Yahoo: What is a podcast tutorial. It only takes you to the Yahoo audio search page.

I also read the Wikipedia entry on podcast which led me to the Podcasting Legal Guide.

Just this semester, two of our teachers assigned podcasts to students who used library computers to mix the audio. We have GarageBand on five Macs, but given my librarian sensibilities, I think the free and dual-platformed Audacity is a better choice for libraries.

#20 (Week 9) YouTube

2007-12-27T15:54:00.000-08:00

I've already done quite a bit of YouTube posting, first here, then the beginning of YouTube here, so I wanted something special for this final YouTube posting.

Views: 69,500,227 The most viewed video on YouTube as of this posting.

#19 (Week 8) Library Thing

2007-12-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

I simply love Library Thing. I first heard of it from the librarian from whom I inherited my current position. I bought a lifetime membership in October 2006 and have since cataloged most of my library. I included the author cloud with all of the authors represented in my library (this took a little modification of the html because the site would only generate 30 authors). I'm looking into upgrading our OPAC, so I emailed Library Thing. The rep was very friendly and gave me some good leads. So this discovery exercise was just visiting an old friend.

#18 (Week 8) A review of online word processors typed in Zoho writer and published to this blog.

2007-12-27T14:05:00.001-08:00

Online Word Processors

AjaxWrite: It doesn't seem to have all of the features that Zoho has, but I like the clean and simple interface
Adobe Buzzword: This app is very slick. I like the interface better than Zoho, but it crashed while I was using it so it doesn't seem to have matured yet. Also doesn't have all the features that Zoho Writer has.
Docly:crowded GUI, has all the features of Zoho Writer but I got an error message when I tried inserting a photo. Docly's signature feature seems to be that it "automatically assigns copyrights (both All Rights Reserved and Creative Commons) licenses to all published Docly Documents"
FlyWord :I couldn't get this one to load! It asked if I wanted to download Flyword to my computer. I didn't bother. I also ran across grammar errors on the site: "On Windows, FlyWord don't need Java anymore."- never a good sign.
Google Docs:I love these apps! Google seems to get it all right. The interface is clean and simple but it has all of the features that Zoho Writer has. Given that gmail works so well, I'll probably use Google docs as my default online writing app.
iNetWord: Basically the same as Zoho Writer. I was annoyed that I was required to give a phone number to register.
LaTexLab - web based LaTeX editor: Still under construction. I got this alert: " This tool is in the development stage. The following options are not available:File sharing across users"
Nevrocode Docs: Like FlyWord, Nevrocode is a desktop and web app, so you have to download the program before you use it. This is a model that works, but I prefer the apps that are completely online.
PDSText - free online Unicode text editor for Indian languages:Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, and English. It has basic features.
Rallypoint: There are a few companies with the name Rallypoint. As near as I can tell the online word app is www.rallypointhq.com, but the server was down when I tried to go there.
ThinkFree Office ThinkFree is similar to Zoho writer and Google Docs.
ZCubes describes itself as web 3.0 so that you can"express without limits." The demos look great, but I couldn't use the text editor without downloading a plugin for firefox. Looks like there are a lot of great ideas here but too overwhelming to the new user. I think it is one to watch.
Zoho Writer: Zoho is the app recommended by School Library Learning 2.0 and the one I've compared to all of these others. I think it is a solid choice for collaborative documents, but I think that Google Docs is better for its clean look and seemless use with gmail and google calendars.

This was a very short survey of online word processors. I did not look at the other apps that came with most of these like spreadsheets and presentation apps.

#17 (Week 7) I added the Pac Man google gadget in the sandbox;)

2007-12-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

I also had to add a recommended reading page on the California 2.0 Curriculum Connections wiki. Before, "recommended reading" went to one web site, CNN's business web 2.0 page, so there was no way to add to the recommended reading list. I also added Walter Crawford. I know I have been pushing him, but I really feel like he is a solid-headed voice in a lot of hype.

I didn't have any new curriculum ideas to add, but I did a little clean up of font sizes for consistency.

And I found the PBwikiTips to be helpful.

#16 (WEEK 7) "the simplest online database that could possibly work"

2007-12-26T15:26:00.000-08:00

I started this Discovery Exercise on two fronts: first looking at the Wikipedia entry on wikis and second looking at each of the library wikis. It seems to me no understanding of the wiki would be complete without a look at its creator, Ward Cunningham. It was also interesting to take a look at the very first wiki. I learned of Wikipedia years before I learned about wikis, so it was strange to learn that an interface that I was used to using in Wikipedia could be used in other ways. Incidentally for you wordsmiths, here is "wiki"'s etymology.

The library wikis were interesting, but few of them seemed to have a robust community. When there aren't many people using a wiki everyday and it is open to public posts I think you can get a lot of spamming, see my earlier post.

On the plus side, I've suggested that the Position Statements Committee in the BAISL association do its work on a wiki. I think wiki's are particularly strong for committee writing. If you are thinking about starting a wiki yourself this is a good comparison of wiki hosting sites out there.

Finally in the random but interesting category I found this site on kamishibai through a library wiki.

Digital Immigrants Digital Natives Bridging the teacher-student tech divide Conference

2007-12-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

Well I'm in Monterey, California at the Digital Immigrants Digital Natives Conference. I learned about Audacity and more about Wordpress. I'm looking to host my blog on my own server. I wasn't that impressed with Mark Prensky, but Will Richardson was interesting. Prensky's keynote seemed to be fear based. Your students are bored and will continue to be bored until you use web 2.0 tools was the gist. I was reminded of Walt Crawford's warning to librarians.

Librarians Rock

2007-09-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

#15 (WEEK 6) What I think about Library 2.0

2007-08-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

Still thinking. . . .

After thinking, I agree with Walt Crawford:

"My own suggestions for librarians and other library
people reading this and thinking about Library 2.0:
Relax. Take a deep breath.
If you’re an ALA Midwinter person, enjoy San
Antonio. As you’re touring exhibits and participating
in discussion and interest groups, pay attention to
new service possibilities that rely on “Web 2.0”
tools—and think about how such tools might be used
to create your own new services.
When you get back and have a few minutes free,
take a look at Ann Arbor District Library, St. Joseph
County Public Library, Metropolitan Library System
(Illinois), Kansas City Public Library, and some of the
many other innovative public and academic libraries.
See if what they’re doing makes sense in your envi-
ronment—or if they bring other possibilities to mind.
You’ll hear about these and other ideas at your
state conference and during ALA Annual; I can pretty
well bet on that.
Some of the tools and concepts can be used with
little or no monetary investment and expertise.
Some of them won’t work out for you; some will.
If you’re not already doing so, read some of the
blogs and articles by librarians who are doing these
things—some mentioned here, some not.
Don’t worry about doing it all—you can’t.
Do keep an open mind to ideas and tools that
started outside the library field—if you haven’t al-
ready been doing so.
Consider the benefits of change, but don’t assume
that all change is inherently good.
Do all this, and you’ll probably build better li-
braries and enjoy your work more in the process.
Finally, don’t worry too much about “Library
2.0”: it’s just a name.
The name does matter
I’m biased. I care about semantics, and would think
that every librarian should have a respect for lan-
guage. I believe names do matter. I’m a touch over
thirty. I’ve been involved in change throughout my
five-decade career, and I resent being told that no
change has occurred. I’m not a revolutionary and I
believe that “evolution” has worked remarkably well.
For me, “Library 2.0” is a rallying cry that carries
too much baggage. I don’t believe the term adds value
to the concepts and tools—and I believe it’s possible
that “Library 2.0” gets in the way of Library 2.0. You
may disagree."

Great combination of school and gaming!

2007-07-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a video project that a student did for a Canterbury Tales unit using World of Warcraft.

I found it on geevee.com, a site dedicated to gaming videos.

#14 Week 6

2007-07-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “School Library Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?
Yes the results were different.
Blog posts: School Library Learning 2.0

tags:(congratulations Mimi!)

from blog directory:
http://www.degreetutor.com/library/librarians-online/michael-hart

2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?

I found the blog directory search to be the most useful.

3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.

Yep doin' it now. I decided to just post the questions straight into the blog. If anyone is reading tell me what you think of this format.

4. Now that we’ve worked with tags in Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Technorati, what are your thoughts about tagging? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages?

I think tagging is a great idea. It is the very beginning of cataloging the content of the internet, but it is only the most rudimentary step of cataloging. The more we are able to make meaningful connections between pieces of data the more we will be creating knowledge online.

OPTIONAL: If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts with Technorati tags so they can become part of Technorati tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “SJLibrary2.0.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist.

NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window. There's a lot to explore.

Discovery Resources:

1. Technorati Tour – videocast of new features & new look
2. Technorati Discover & Popular features

done and done.

#13 Week 6 Delicious sites

2007-06-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

I was already familiar with del.icio.us, but I found Netvibes doing this assignment and now it is my new start-up page. I added a guest book, the network badge for delicious, and a better template. My blog never looked better! In terms of delicious as a search tool, I think I'll tell students to search google book search first, then delicious, then a regular google search in the order of reliable sources. You may not get as many hits using delicious but you certainly get quality.

#12 Week 5 Rollyo

2007-06-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

I can see this as a good way to narrow searches for research projects. I created a search engine of the websites of libraries from competing schools.

Here's a sample search box:

I don't like the sponsored links in the search results.

#11 Week 5

2007-06-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

Since I have already looked at Technorati and Bloglines I explored Findory. Rather than clicking on one of the stories I went directly for the search bar and typed in "librarianship" (what can I say, I'm impatient). After just a little digging I came across The Library Instruction Wiki which should be very useful. In fact next week I'll be introducing a small summer school class to the library so I may be able to find some useful handouts and lessons.

Above is a picture of an entry for the ALA conference in the Library Instruction Wiki. As near as I can figure it had been spammed by someone who wanted to sell ringtones. So I made my first ever edit to a Wiki; I deleted the spam. But since this was my first edit and I was not 100% sure that it was spam I also started a discussion about the page noting what I deleted and asking for an explanation if it was not spam. If you have seen this kind of thing before please let me know. Here is a picture of the page after the edit:

Just as a side note, in order to make this entry and place the photos where I wanted them I had to cut and paste the html for the photo in the correct place since the only web options are to post the photos at the top. This is easy but if there are users who are intimidated by html then it is a limitation.

I've created a project blog.

2007-06-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see more possibilities for blogging now. I just started a project blog to record the process of cleaning up and organizing the library I have just "inherited." I also used Slide.com for a slide show of the "before" pictures of the library (Very cool! Thanks learning 2.0 team!). We have an independent study program that is now evaluated from an essay, but a project blog would be much more ideal for this. I also think reading journals are now obsolete. Students blogging and the teacher reading with an rss feed would be so much simpler.

The beginning of YouTube

2007-06-14T23:04:00.000-07:00

#10 Week 4

2007-06-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

I know some students who would enjoy doing the real thing.

These are fun to play with, but I need some convincing that they have educational uses.

#9 Week 4

2007-06-12T20:05:00.001-07:00

I couldn't blog my feelings any better. OHH! Bonus! Check out all the videos you can watch after this one is over. BTW I found this on Technorati. I am starting to feel information fatigue from information overload . . . and I'm an internet person. Here's another blogger feeling it much worse than I am that I found on BlogPulse.

#8 Week 4

2007-06-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm using Google Reader. I already have way too many websites. I think I'm going to have unsubscribe from del.ico.us; I can't keep up with the updates. RSS feeds are supposed to save time, but for me it has just made it more tempting for me to spend time reading websites.

#7 Week 3 Technology Post

2007-06-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

I know that the goal for this post is just to riff on new apps or electronics that will help librarians, and in that vain I'm looking at buying an iRecord and a TIVO as a means of bringing educational tv into the classroom, but I'm really interested in taking a more generalized view of the library and technology.

This is an interesting paper by Robin Murray: Library Systems: Synthesise, Specialise, Mobilise

I agree with a lot of what he says, but I don't think that our role as librarians is just to know our local client's needs: "Applying local knowledge of the user population to the service - understanding holistic user profiles and requirements allows the service to be tailored to specific user groups and individuals. The library has greater access to specific profiling information than is available to generic network service providers." I think we also contribute to the network, internet, world knowledge, whatever you want to call it, the information that we have locally that no one else has. The easiest example, and it is just the tip of the iceburg, is writing a detailed Wikipedia entry for your elementary school, high school, or college.

#6 Week 3 Playing with Flickr Fun

2007-06-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm starting to like Flickr a lot more. I'll admit that before doing this exercise, I really only thought of it as a place to store photos and a way to let out of state family see those photos. But after checking fd's flickr toys and 1001 uploading app, I've seen some of the possibilities. One of the features of 1001 is that it will stream pictures that people are posting at the moment they are posting. This may not be interesting to everyone, but I find it fastinating, like having my finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist.

Curriculum Connection:
Idea 1: Collaborate with English teachers to create movie posters of the books they are reading. Students have to first identify passages that give physical discriptions of main characters. Then they pick an important scene and reconstruct that scene as a digital photo. (I can see them having a lot of fun working together in costumes, wigs, etc. for this) then create the movie poster of the book. The best posters could even be put up in the library!

The chipmunk is my daughter. Yep, she's a star.

Maker Faire Flickr Portrait #5 (week 3)

2007-06-02T22:13:00.001-07:00

Maker Faire Flickr Portrait, originally uploaded by andrewjthomas.

So this is my brother and I at Maker Faire. I'm the one holding the pink flamingo; yes I'm that much of a dork. I went because I wanted to pick up the Ybox, but I haven't put it together yet. If you haven't been, the Maker Faire is like a Lalapalooza for DIY'rs. Searching flickr for Maker Faire will give you an idea of the zany inventiveness of the place. So this is my response to #5 on the 23 Things, but I'm also using it as a way to brush up on my html. It's been about 12 years but I can still make a link at least.

Really Enjoying the Luminary Lectures at the Library of Congress

2007-06-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

There are some fantastic speakers at the Library of Congress Luminary Lectures. Reading a blog I came across this gem on copyright and fair use:

Farytale Use

wat3rm0le's burrow

Beware books. . .

My definition of leadership

My first real screencast. . .

Review of Maxwell's Leadership 101

I'm reading Chemers' An Integrative Theory of Leadership. . .

Library of Congress and Open Source Software

Fascinating Documentary on Netscape

Tonight

A couple of sites worth remembering

Latest Study on Information Consumption

Experience & Education by John Dewey

I want an invite "super-bad", but this guy deserves one more

Reading Plan for LIBR 250

Older me vs. younger me

Dublin Core Metadata for this blog

Evaluating Integrated Library Systems

List of Free Blog Hosting Sites

Holy Sh$%! The spell checker and translator alone are worth using.

I'm definitely doing this once I get Koha up and running

Wolfram Alpha

Monitoring myself. . .

Eugene The Librarian

Google Faces Antitrust Investigations

For the catharsis . . .

Daddy

"You, with colorful dreams!"

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Why does Ebsco charge school libraries more than they charge banks?

Platypus otherwise known as watermole

My comparison of free wikis (work in progress)

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

Testing Pixelpipe

So I should be able to update my status and write blog posts to multiple sites from my phone with this app.

Tiger GirlSky@Catherine's birthday

Tiger Girl

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Library Service Class

Giving red blood cells for the blood drive

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Notes on Ch. 12-15 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

Notes on Ch. 7-11 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

Notes on Ch. 1-6 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 6-10

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 4-5

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 1-3

Notes on "Extremem Makeover" by David V. Loertscher

Notes on "Finding Time" by Mary Alice Anderson

Notes on "Morphing from Teacher to Cybriarian" by Ted Nellen

Setting students up with an iGoogle page

Saying the book is dead is like sooo last page . . .

Bibliography on the web & reading patterns

Good sites to show faculty

G1 is a reference librarian's phone

Review of Pete Scott's Library Blog

Browsing Librarian Blogs and came across. . .

Two questions from my Reference and Information Services class

iPhone nympholepsy

"A ton of data is worth more than an ounce of algorithm"

Library War

Musings about user interface and teens

#$@*&^%$!!!

Reference Librarian's Moonlighting Dream

Being a good information intermediary

Google search tips . . .

I'd like to tax you for my personal information infrastructure

The Archivist by Martha Cooley

I think I'm ready to use the librarian's curse now. . .

I've seen the future, and it's in Delft.

Why can't I get a list of Opposing Viewpoints Subject Headings?

Seamless movement in electronic databases: The Problem, my Experience, and a Solution

An aspect of my OPAC to check:

I need to look into this more. . .

And I thought I was tough. . .

The Librarian 1947

OMG You have got to see this!

My opinion of Second Life and a request for "Google History"

Good Examples of Fair Use in Video

Students Today Video

Screencasting

Tiger Girl
Sky@Catherine's birthday