Categories
Library Issues

My CiL wrapup, in 140 characters or less

At CiL there was:

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and this:

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some of this:

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a side of this:

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with just a dash of this:

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Translation: It’s all about the friends. And Twitter.

Categories
Digital Culture

Year Zero .2

The Year Zero experience is getting far more interesting.

Members of the resistance had a meeting in LA, which culminated in an appearance by Reznor. Unfortunately, it was discovered and broken up by SWAT.

Report here.

Video here.

Categories
Digital Culture

Disconnect




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Originally uploaded by griffey.

Does anyone else see the disconnect between having a physical message board at Computers in Libraries?

People still leave notes? Really?

Categories
Library Issues

Library of the Future

Darien Library

Three Principles

  • Covenant with our patrons
  • Stay ahead of expectations
  • First of the new libraries, not te last of the old

Two Goals

  • Design and Build an absolutely fantastic new library (NB: ummm…thats a goal?)
  • Use technology wherever it will make us more efficient and effective, and however it will meet our patron’s demands

One Rule

  • Tolerate Uncertainty

Continuing Vision

  • Eternal Values
  • New Technology

The library technology center is in the basement! The concept of a street-level greenway that continues into the building is really clever and forward thinking.

“We’re just a cute little public library in Southwestern CT”

Lots of spaces for collaborative work, together and with the staff.

OODA Loop

  • Observe
  • Orient
  • Decide
  • Act

Technology Layers in the Library

  • Infrastructure
  • Administrative
  • Staff
  • Patron Indirect
  • Patron Direct
  • P2P

No Tech services, no Circ office…90% of the books are shelf-ready. They don’t care where a material comes from: the ups truck or a patron return, it’s the same workflow.

No cataloging

Outsource EVERYTHING related to Technical Services

What would a library be if it needed no booktrucks? A booktruck is full of things that aren’t in the hands of a patron.

  • Active item back on shelf in 20 minutes
  • Time from ordering a book to first Circ is 18 hours

NB: Holy. Shit.

No more defensive positions. Think of reference as a concierge desk.

Categories
Digital Culture

Future of OPAC

Tim Spalding, Librarything:

“The library is the most fun you can have with your pants on.”
“You are not better for being a mall…you can’t leave a mall”

Fun-ability

  • Focus on the OPAC, the website and the opac are not seperate things.
  • Allow inbound links
  • Link outwards: Why wouldn’t you link to commercial service?
  • Link Around: ubiquitous hyperlinks..everything is a first level entity. Everything is massively linked, and this is where serendipity comes in.
  • Dress up your OPAC (syndetics): someone needs to create a free database of covers
  • Get your Data out there: including RSS, but people don’t want YOUR content, peope want THEIR content. How do you tell people what you are reading from your OPAC? OMGWTF: LibraryThing sharing data with OPAC, including tags and recommendations.
Categories
Digital Culture

Podcasting with a Purpose

Rachael Clemens, Cal State Fullerton

Focused on NURS 505, a nursing class with 40% of the students as distance ed

Modules developed:
Welcome
What is peer review
and 10 others that I couldnt’ get because she swapped the slide too fast. 🙁

Created PPT? Huh? *shudder*

Tools used: audacity, quicktime pro, sound recorder, digital recorder, Camtasia,digital camcorder, mediasite

Categories
Digital Culture

RSS Feed issue

I was alerted that my RSS feeds are currently very ugly, given that there are no line breaks or links.

This is a known issue with the version of Podpress that strips the formatting…I’ve implemented a hopeful fix, and would love for someone to let me know if it’s helping.

🙂

Categories
Digital Culture

Dog and Pony Show: Aka Blogs and Wikis with Michelle and Meredith

An overview of their Five Weeks program (that, btw, was phenomenally good and wonderful and made of win and awesome)

Meredith showing examples of blogs used in class situations, as a CMS instead of WebCT or Blackboard.

“The best way blogs can be used is in reflective learning” – Meredith

They set their presentation up on a wiki! Cool! Visit it here….http://michellemeredith.pbwiki.com

Language learning is the killer app for blogging and education.

Blogs v. Wiki: FIGHT!
Timeline vs no timeline
Ownership of posts v. collaborative knowledge

After Mer goes through the goodness of blogs/wikis, Michelle takes over to talk specifically about 5 weeks.

Great examples of the participants in 5 weeks struggling with the new technology, and working out their thoughts inside the system on their blogs. Great reflective learning.

Michelle says “Fabulous!” a lot

The peer learning was the most valuable part of the program to the users, but the content is now there, and available for anyone to re-use.

Categories
Digital Culture

Virginia Tech

I’m following the events and news from this event online, trying to find the Long Tail of the news. Some of the things I’ve uncovered:

A horrifying video from a student on campus during the events. No direct violence, but disturbing due to reality.

Another video, this one from an injured student describing the shooter.

The wikipedia page on the event is here.

And there’s a report online that Jack Thompson has already claimed on Fox News that this is because of video games.

Fuck you, Jack. Fuck you.

Categories
Digital Culture

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