http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20121019/BLOG5201/121009908
Books You Have Always Meant to Read is a program at the Everett Public Library in Washington state. What a great way to get people re-discovering books! I like this idea especially because I have a looooong list myself of books that I have been meaning to read. Maybe I'll finally get to them after I finish library school??
Friday, October 19, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Cool Librarian Writes a Cool Book
If you're like me and you like "knowing stuff," this may be just the book for you! NPR Librarian (which may be the coolest librarian job ever) Kee Malesky has written a new book: Learn Something New Every Day: 365 Facts to Fulfill Your Life. Here she talks to NPR about it:
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/13/162797436/a-years-worth-of-facts-from-an-npr-librarian
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/13/162797436/a-years-worth-of-facts-from-an-npr-librarian
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Here's to Medical Librarians!
So I am not officially a medical librarian, but I work part-time at a medical library and thus have many colleagues that are medical librarians. Take it from someone on the inside, medical librarians are awesome! Whether you are a patient, medical student or medical professional, they are your best guide through the dense and abundant world of medical literature. Here's an article that think medical librarians rock too: http://journals.lww.com/tnpj/Citation/publishahead/Celebrating_medical_librarians.99925.aspx
(hopefully you can view it, if not, here's the location information:
(hopefully you can view it, if not, here's the location information:
Nurse Practitioner:
August 31, 2012 - Volume Publish Ahead of Print - Issue - ppg
doi: 10.1097/01.NPR.0000419301.77137.1a)
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Back in the Saddle
I initially started this blog for a class, but I've decided to give it a go at keeping it going! I hope this will be a good way for me to reflect upon the career that I am about to enter and plan to use the blog to post articles, news clippings and other things relevant to library students and librarians alike.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Articles on Libraries and Technology
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ARTICLE
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Collaborative Filtering for Digital Libraries
ARTICLE about whether or not collaborate filtering can improve the effectiveness of digital libraries.
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DSpace at Hampshire College: The Making of a Library: the academic library in transition
ARTICLE about turning a library into a campus hub and innovation center.
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ALA TechSource - Journal Article
ARTICLE about content management systems for libraries.
Books on Libraries and Technology
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Libraries, community, and technology - Andy Barnett - Google Books
BOOK "A number of people, including politicians, techies, and even librarians themselves, are convinced that if libraries are not obsolete now, it is only a matter of time until they are, thanks to the Internet. Many, though, are optimistic about the future of libraries and their continuing role in shaping a community's cultural life. Libraries have changed, but the important things about them have not.This book is a collection of 15 essays written by the author. All of the essays consider the relationships between libraries, the communities they serve, and the technology that has become such a significant part of them. Among the topics explored are the public library and its social mission, librarians and their core values, the concept of the killer application as it pertains to librarianship, balancing competing claims on resources, why the author became a librarian, why libraries should not be re-engineered, re-imagined or otherwise changed, how technology is being used to help libraries stay local, digitizing on a budget for public libraries, why the Internet will not replace public libraries, e-books, the end of cataloging, how library technology strikes back, new competencies for library trustees, and how librarians weed books, deciding which ones should be kept and which are just taking up space."
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The accidental technology trainer: a guide for libraries - Stephanie K. Gerding - Google Books
BOOK on essential technology training skills for librarians.
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Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries: International ... - Google Books
BOOK
Videos on Libraries and Technology (from my Diigo Site)
- VIDEO "Jogging the Web is a one-hour class showcasing the free website Jog the Web. Jog the Web allows the teacher or librarian to customize Jogs for specific subject matter. It allows students to access these websites from a central screen without having to type long urls. By utilizing cloud computing, all students may access the Jog from home or school. Jog the Web is an excellent tool for librarians who need a better way to orient new students. This is especially helpful for teachers or librarians who do not have access to Promethium or Smart Boards. It allows students to navigate quickly to the websites that need to be discussed without having to repeat instructions. Jog the Web also helps the teacher or librarian maintain on-task behavior. By glancing around the computer room, the teacher can immediately tell who is on the correct website and who has wandered away. Kim has already created a Jog for her school and taught all 700 of her students how to use it. Currently she has had over 3,452 views. You may view her Jog at the following url: http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/oFHIf0c05uxi/Sites for FHS#1 This is a presentation from the 2011 MSU Libraries Emerging Technologies Summit. For more information about the Summit, please visit http://library.msstate.edu/emergingtech."
- VIDEO "CUNY's dean of Libraries and Information Resources says because of technology "now libraries are really wherever you happen to be.""
- VIDEO "Have you visited your local library lately? I bet it's a lot different from the ones you grew up with."
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Farewell to a Legend
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| Image from The Berenstain Bears.com |
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Google's Digitization Project
Google recently announced that it would be scaling back its massive digitization effort of books at academic libraries. As mentioned in my previous post, academic texts have yet to reach the scope of personal reading books in terms of their availability in electronic format. While Google's work digitizing more than 20 millions books will certainly help bring academic texts up to speed, I have to wonder, was the effort worth it? When you think about how many times individual library books are used by the average student, you have to wonder if the trouble of scanning some of the rarest books (used by a random doctoral student every, say, 3 years) was worth the time and effort of the project. I wonder how much research Google did into the libraries before it started pulling books off of the shelves. Are the selected texts the ones that are most frequently taken out of the library or were they just randomly selected books? Some university libraries are now left with many texts un-scanned and without the manpower or money to complete the project.
In the grand scheme of things, I can see the benefit of having more information widely available to a greater number of people, but I worry that students who formerly came to their university library for books, might now not see as much validity if they can get the texts they need online. In that regard, as efforts such as Google's continue, I think there will be increased pressure on libraries to become more social spaces that offer more than just books. Most already offer a wide variety of programs, but marketing of those programs will need to be more prevalent as technological strides are made.
***It will also be interesting to see how things turn out with the lawsuits against both Google and the university libraries. Clearly everyone is not thrilled about this project. Stay tuned....
In the grand scheme of things, I can see the benefit of having more information widely available to a greater number of people, but I worry that students who formerly came to their university library for books, might now not see as much validity if they can get the texts they need online. In that regard, as efforts such as Google's continue, I think there will be increased pressure on libraries to become more social spaces that offer more than just books. Most already offer a wide variety of programs, but marketing of those programs will need to be more prevalent as technological strides are made.
***It will also be interesting to see how things turn out with the lawsuits against both Google and the university libraries. Clearly everyone is not thrilled about this project. Stay tuned....
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Academic Books and Dinosaurs
= 
?????Pauline Dewan's recent article "Are books becoming extinct in academic libraries?" looks at the rise of e-books and its impact on academic libraries. Reading the article made me think back to my own college days. Spending hundreds of dollars on really heavy textbooks, only to barely read 50 pages in each, then return them to the bookstore for about 1/6 of the price I paid for them. ::sigh:: My college self would have loved the opportunity to purchase electronic academic textbooks to be read on my lightweight e-reader. While many college students today probably feel similarly, they shouldn't go canceling their Barnes and Noble rewards card just yet. Academic textbooks have yet to reach the level of personal reading books in terms of their scope via electronic text. What's more certain types of books like children's and art books work better in tangible form. So it seems that, while academic books are definitely headed towards more electronic formatting, print books at least in some respect are here to stay........................................for now. :-)
What do you think? Are academic print books destined for extinction or do we still need them?
Reference
Dewan, P. (2012). Are books becoming extinct in academic libraries? New Library World, 113(1-2), 27-37. doi: 10.1108/03074801211199022 Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Why Kids Today Still Need Librarians
A recent article in the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology looks at teens today and their relationship to virtual environments and information literacy. The article focuses on how today's digital natives (those born after 1989) are more likely to use cellphones, text messaging, social networking and other information and communication technologies (ICT) as their primary mode of communication. While many born before 1989 are just as "plugged in," these natives live in a digital world. They use the internet to do everything from online shopping and downloading music to locating news and health information. Despite their tech savvy, however, research has shown that these young people are more likely to be information illiterate. That is, when they enter higher education, they lack basic skills of information seeking, retrieval and evaluation. (Beheshti, 2012)
For a library school student preparing to enter a dubious job market, this comes as good news.
The skills that I am currently gaining in knowing what information to search for, as well as how to judge the relevance and appropriateness of said information will come in handy when these "digital natives" reach college. While many argue that the information available on the WWW will eventually render libraries and librarians obsolete, this article and related research seem to suggest otherwise. While there is a seemingly endless amount of information now at our fingertips, it's not useful if one doesn't know what to do with it or how to process it.
Librarians to the rescue!
Reference
Beheshti, J. (2012). Teens, virtual environments and information literacy. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 38(3), 54-57. doi: 10.1002/bult.2012.1720380313
Welcome to my Blog!
I am a first semester library science student and while I created this specific blog for a course assignment, I hope to continue to use it during my studies and, hopefully, my professional career. I plan to share links, articles of interest and general musings on library school and the interesting field of information science. Enjoy!
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