Tag: ALA

Bigwig Social Software Showcase

Post author By griffey
Post date June 7, 2007
No Comments on Bigwig Social Software Showcase

This would be the Super Secret Project #2 that I’ve been alluding to for a few weeks now. Full press release and information available on LITABlog, and much, much more to come on the official Showcase site.

Why do this? Well, the guiding hands of BIGWIG (Michelle Boule, Karen Coombs, and myself) had grown increasingly frustrated at the formal requirements for “official” ALA presentation, especially as they relate to technology. A paper-based, formally structured, face-to-face conference is just not the right answer for the majority of librarians anymore. I have taken part in multiple virtual conferences (HigherEdBlogcon and Five Weeks to a Social Library), and I prefer them for actual content to the sorts of things that ALA puts on. That isn’t to say that F2F isn’t valuable…its just a different measure of value. Witness that we included F2F as something that enhances the content of the presentations, but I would argue no more than having open communication channels virtually. It’s all about conversation…that’s the heart of the social web.

Combine the above with the ridiculous timeline needed for presentation topics…12-18 months out for a technology presentation? I can list at least 4 things that have happened in the last month that would be interesting. Trying to predict what might be interesting in technology in 12 months is a losing game, and it does nothing to actually serve either librarians or our patrons. We gave our presenters a deadline of a week before the conference to give us their content….a week. It is possible to be timely and flexible with this stuff, if its done well.

Join us in the experiment! Follow the conversations on the wiki, join us at ALA to meet what we think are the cream of the crop of current library technology people. We’ve got movers & shakers, we’ve got OCLC award winners, we’ve got radical metadata pirates and the guy who made LibraryThing. Why wouldn’t you want to come along for the ride?

Tags ALA, bigwigshowcase07, con2007, conference, Digital Culture, library, library2.0

Library Issues

Library Salary Database

So the ALA has launched a Librarian Salary Database, which collects (according to the email press release):

The Library Salary Database includes aggregated data from 10,631 actual salaries for six librarian positions in 1053 public and academic libraries.

The site itself, however, says:

The Library Salary Database has current aggregated salary data for 68 library positions from more than 35,000 individual salaries of actual employees in academic and public libraries in the United States.

~~So which is it? 6 positions, or 68? I’m certainly not paying to find out!~~ Jenifer kindly clarifies in the comments…

As unclear as the actual sources may be, no one disputes that the data they are aggregating is collected from their own constituents. Who else is reporting this, if not ALA members. So the ALA is collecting the info, and then selling it back to us. For an annual rate of $150!!!!!

This is yet another of the absolutely insane things that come out of ALA. I might understand charging outside interests for the information, but this should be free for members. Then again, I think that the ALA should be operating in a far more open and free manner than it has for years (some of you might remember my Master’s Paper, which, flawed as I admit portions are, spoke strongly against the locking up of ALA content)

I’ve not talked at length about my individual issues with the organization yet, but if I could be a LITA member without being an ALA member, you can bet I’d go there. ALA as a whole is overgrown and needs a good weeding.

Now that I think about it, sets of facts really aren’t copyrightable. Anyone out there with the ability to scrape this database and produce a free version? I’ll pony up the $30 for a months access if it frees the data behind the scenes.

Tags ALA, copyright, library, library2.0, LITA

Library Issues

Seattle, ALA MidWinter 2007

Post author By griffey
Post date January 20, 2007
No Comments on Seattle, ALA MidWinter 2007

I’m in the pacific Northwest, at the ALA Midwinter meeting! Had a good conference so far, but yesterday the jet lag got to me. It’s only two hours, but it’s the two hours that made me wake up at 5am, and wouldn’t let me go back to sleep.

Took some great shots of the city yesterday, and of Pike St. Market (you know, the famous one where they throw the fish around). Here’s a few of my favorites:

Tags ALA, alamidwinter, alamidwinter2007, conference, cons2007, library, LITA

Library Issues

Librarians go Bowling

Last night we finally got a bit of a break from the insane pace of Immersion when most of us took the opportunity to head to Milky Way Bowling and try our hand at a little candlepin bowling. Free drinks, free food, and a bit of physical activity, and we were almost ready for today.

Today = re-writing our pre-Immersion assignment with all the tools and tricks we’ve learned over the last 3 days. What was a 4 page document is probably going to be 10 or more by the time I’m done with the damn thing, and working thru all the new concepts and strategies is almost overwhelming. It’s going to take months to digest all the stuff we’ve done.

The best part of the experience? By far it’s meeting people like those in the pics above…I’ve learned a lot in 4 days, but I think I’ll be learning from these guys for the rest of my career.

Tags acrlimmersion, acrlimmersion2006, ALA, conference, cons2006, library

Digital Culture

Learning Styles

A great deal of today was spent trying to wrap our heads around Kolb’s Learning Styles inventory, developing lessons that incorporated as many of the styles as possible, and examining our own preferences in instructional design with Kolb as a lense. Rewarding, but difficult stuff to work through.

We also had the pleasure of having Randy discuss our primary instructional tool: ourselves. We looked at voice, body, and attitude as it relates to the instructional arena. Again, incredibly rewarding stuff, and things that definitely aren’t taught during the MLS. I’m learning about 2-3 things every day that will directly influence my instruction at UTC…which, I suppose, is the point, after all.

Tonight = mock instruction, with the real thing tomorrow.

Tags acrlimmersion, acrlimmersion2006, ALA, conference, cons2006, instruction, library

Digital Culture

Headin’ to Boston

This morning I head out for ACRL Immersion, at Simmons College in Boston, MA. The next week will be a whirlwind of instruction, along with trying to keep up with the ongoing website redesign and, you know, breathe.

I’m going to do what I can to blog some of the action. The schedule is absolutely insane…7:30 am – 9 or 10pm every night. So what time I have may be reserved for sleeping, but I’ll do my best. 🙂

Tags ALA, conference, cons2006, library

Digital Culture Library Issues

Google @ ALA

Here’s Google’s video relating their experience at ALA 2006. Included are shots of the booth in the exhibit hall, a little video of the party they held at Muriel’s, and snippets of interviews they did with librarians at the party. You can see the swanky glowing drinks that I talked about earlier.

I was interviewed, but evidently didn’t make it into the video…but they did put up a picture of myself and Charles at the booth:

The most amusing thing to me about the picture? Google put these up as a Picasa Web Album, but I’m linking to it from my flickr account. Why? Picasa doesn’t give you easy linkability…I could copy image location and paste in the URL, but that’s not a friendly user experience. Flickr EXPECTS you’re going to hotlink their images, and gives you the URL to do so.

Picasa also doesn’t give you an easy way to browse to a specific picture…this was pic 166 of over 200, and when I went back to find it, I couldn’t be bothered to click next picture 165 times. There must be a jump to picture option for usability, guys. What else…oh yeah…no multiple sizes to pick from, so the resolution you get is just what’s there. I love Picasa as a local picture manipulation solution, but Google is a long way from flickr for online experience.

Tags ALA, ala2006, google, library, photo, video

Library Issues

Next Step Blogging, take two

Post author By griffey
Post date July 16, 2006
No Comments on Next Step Blogging, take two

A very nice writeup of my ALA presentation from Karen Schneider via LITABlog…it was just a ton of fun to do, and Karen is entirely too mum about her involvement in the process. She was the instigator that got Steven, Karen C., and myself together to do the thing in the first place. Thanks, Karen! I hope to get the chance for a repeat performance next year.

Go take a look!

Tags academia, ALA, ala2006, blog, conference, cons2006, library

Digital Culture

Google Cubes

Another pic I’ve been meaning to get to…these are little promo items from the Google Bash at this year’s American Library Association Annual meeting in New Orleans. They were at the bar, and when you ordered a drink the bartender would pop one in along with the booze and ice. When you do that, they light up:

They have a couple of electrodes on the back that need to be bridged with some conductive item before they light up. Clever, and they gave the party a decidedly sci-fi aura, with everyone walking around with different colored glowing drinks.

Tags ALA, ala2006, cons2006, cool, google

Library Issues Personal

So much stuff

I’ve just returned after a complete whirlwind of a week. I spent 5 days in New Orleans at ALA, then drove to Columbus, OH for the Origins game fair, the second largest gaming convention in the country. So much stuff to talk about, but I’m completely exhausted. So instead of writing, you all get: My Week In Pictures!

Tags ALA, ala2006, blog, bloggerbash2006, conference, cons2006, Friends, geek, library, LITA