Collaborative workspace in the digital library?

I’ve spent most of the last two days in an online conference that didn’t really work for me. The whys and wherefores and ponderings I’ve had about online conferences may become fodder for another post, but not this one. This one is about the good thing that came out of attending a conference that didn’t [...]

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A day in the life …

Wow, today is a completely crazy day to do a Day-in-the-life post. It’s the end of July, and that means three important things:

My new Unit Head has been here long enough to settle in
Most folks are recovered from ALA
The start of semester is suddenly looming large in folks’ heads.

This morning, my day looked like 4 [...]

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Do libraries make people feel like this?

After months of trying to find a new phone that would meet my needs and not overwhelm me with more than I need,  I finally upgraded my phone, my life, my plan, to an LG Xenon. I waited with baited breathe for the UPS man, and after taking the package from his hands, and ripping [...]

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What am I doing this summer?

There’s a meme gaining steam around teh interwebs and since it matches what’s been on my mind, I thought I’d chime in. What exactly does a librarian do in t he summer time? Well, this academic librarian has a few things on her plate!

Working on focus. I’ve gotten much better at limiting the continuous [...]

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Who shapes culture for the future?

One of last year’s LOEX sessions ended with a Q&A that centered on librarians judging their directors harshly and how directors aren’t being very transparent or inspiring of the line librarians reporting to them. That conversation has stayed with me, and I’ve spent a lot of energy and time over the last year pondering  the [...]

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I’m a Shover & Maker!

And I’m really proud to be part of the amazing community of change-makers at Library Society of the World. Check out my Shover & Maker post.
Do you feel like you make a positive difference in your library, to your users, or to your library community? You can be a Shover & Maker too! All [...]

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Excuses, excuses…

It’s been such a long time! I expect that unless you read this through a feedreader or other alerting system, you’ve long given up on me! I’m so sorry! The transition from old job to new job took more mental energy than I expected, and I expect I will continue to blog here less, for [...]

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The good, the bad, the ugly: the Life archive and copyright.

There are *so* many posts I’ve written in my head in the shower the last month, and you can tell that very few of them have made it to the page. For that, I’m sorry. Let’s blame it on transition issues, and I promise to get everything back in gear after the new year.
I had [...]

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officially Annoyed

There are so many things, dear readers, that I have been wanting to find the time to talk with you about. But those will have to wait. Because this week a peer-reviewed journal of librarianship published an entire issue by an anonymous hack blogger with a following. That’s right folks — not a magazine, and [...]

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New Post, new post! Calling Learning Commons Librarians!

Hello readers! After a long transition, I am finally in place at my new position, Learning Commons Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Undergraduate Library! (wow, that’s a mouthful!). My apartment is full of boxes, my week is full of scheduled meetings, my mind is full of exciting possibilities, and my heart, my [...]

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Communication management.

I was just reading a post at Jenica’s and there was a line there that got me thinking
It doesn’t matter how much technology you throw at communication patterns, because until people learn to communicate effectively, the technology just facilitates ineffective communication.
It struck me, because I almost never see technology as the flaw in communication patterns.
And [...]

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Googleplex. Horror movie.

I took a brief break this afternoon from coming up with creative reasons to do things other than pack my kitchen cabinets and fretting about not having an apartment in C-U yet to check in with my online peeps, my twitterati and FriendFeed folks.
I found myself a bit surprised to see how enthusiastically this savvy [...]

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My organizing principle?

Or just my thought for the day?
That they know how to learn online does not mean they know how to learn
Discuss.

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Revisiting that tenure and public libraries post

Wow! LISNews picked up one of my blog posts (albeit my least favorite one), so hello new visitors!
I think I will take this opportunity to say a little bit about what I have learned or added into my thinking from the wonderful folks who commented on the public libraries and tenure post

There are far more [...]

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google inspired thoughts for the day

There is a difference between search and research.
Information is ready reference. Google is the internet’s Reference Desk. A library is greater than it’s Reference Desk.

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would tenure pressures in public libraries make good changes?

This started out as a response to a comment in the comments (thanks for the inspiration Laura!) but went so far off track from the original post that I decided it deserved it’s own post.
Laura and I were discussing cataloging of genre fiction series, especially burdensome to public libraries. While I am a librarian, when [...]

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It’s all in the details

I’m traveling today, not for pleasure, and have become newly assured that I am not cut out for North Country living. Also, newly assured that user-centered, service-oriented is a must for libraries. Because if we don;t do it, we’re gonna leave folks feeling like I do today. And if today is enough to make me [...]

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Usability wishlist

Thinking like a user, not a librarian:

I wish that library catalogs would link together fiction series. This is part of a larger wish for better fiction subject headings, but I want this more.
Closely followed by: public libraries (as least PL systems!) buy entire series instead of random titles within series
Publishers publish order of series in [...]

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Is this short enough?

random thought: does attention span scale to size of screen?
I was just teased for the length of an email I sent. I do tend to send long emails, as I generally think they are less irritating than several short ones. (I do also worry that some points will get lost in longer emails, but for [...]

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October in Monterey!

Is one of the most beautiful things I can imagine! But for an instruction librarian, an impossible dream. Unless.. unless… Unless Internet Librarian accepts both a pre-conference workshop and a conference session from you. In which case, you better show up!
And this, this is my burden.
I will be putting together a pre-conference entitled “Dance Dance [...]

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long time gone

Hello readers!
Sorry to have been away for so long! I took some time for myself after the conference and have had a most lovely explosion of chaos break out that will probably keep me blog-quiet through midsummer.
But never fear, there is still hope!I have a post buzzing around back of my head about customer service [...]

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Whew! Conference over! What’s next?

Well, SUNYLA 2008 at Potsdam has been put to rest, and so have I! I no longer have the ability to just keep functioning on 5 hours of sleep a night over time. Two nights of recovery sleep and one science fiction romance later, I am feeling like a human again!

The conference was [...]

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SUNYLA: We’re all in this together – Consortial vending

So, I’m now trying to live blog and not kill myself with trying to blog post-conference. I’m at SUNYLA, being hosted on my home campus.
Julia Gammon Someone from OHIOLink is discussing Cooperative Collective Development (this is the second part of this morning’s resource sharing pre-conference).
Focusing on using a consortial vendor. in this case YBP.

force consortial [...]

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Facilitation::Leadership

Thought for the day:
Facilitators lead groups by providing tools and methods to help group members work productively together
Facilitators do not determine a group’s vision and purpose; that is the leader’s role
Leaders seek to inspire action and commitment so that a vision will be realized, or at least progress will be made
(from Fran Rees, The Facilitator [...]

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Pecha Kucha, not so mucha

I may be getting myself in trouble with my twitterstream here, or possibly get my acceptance to speak at Internet Librarian revoked, but I will out myself anyway:  I am not a fan of pecha kucha.
For those who have not yet been exposed to this little wave taking over library land, it’s a presentation, or [...]

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