I’m not sure how I missed this for the whole time it’s been up, but the Crime in the Library blog is the sort of thing that RSS readers were made for. My only wish is that they had categories on their posts so that I could subscribe to only the “exposure” feed, for example. [thanks richard]
Category: blogz
“Am I really that much of a techie or are my coworkers techno-dinosaurs?”
Another techie librarian hits the blogosphere. The Rock and Roll Librarian shares some podcasting tips among other things.
my two posts from PLA yesterday
Today I went into the wilds of Filene’s Basement with my sister to get my boyfriend a suit, so no PLA for me, even though I heard that Jenny and Michael’s talk was excellent (and agree with Sarah and Suzi, what a nice bunch of people). My two posts from yesterday are linked here:
- The Joy of Censorship by Joe Raiola – I enjoyed this talk a lot though I wwas worried I’d have trouble transcribing parts of it to the PLA blog because of all the swearing, but the PLAblog admins were pretty nice about it all, including the image!
- Productive Aging – Are Public libraries Productive Partners? – it was really great to hear Mary Catherine Bateson issue a call to arms to take advantage of the boomers retiring and having lots of free time while they are still healthy and involved to get them to help their communities and help their country.
I tried pretty hard to go to sessions which wouldn’t be on the standard techie paths, and also tried to do write-ups quickly and efficiently. I liked getting to use the press room and I liked feeling that I was sharing some of my skills and abilities (quickly tossing up a well-linked and well written blog post for an event that someone else couldn’t go to) with other librarians. Sarah did a little PLA blogging, but also did write-ups of a few more sessions on her own website. I posted my final post on the PLABlog, even though I swore I was going to do a write-up on how terrible the bathrooms were
Elsewhere in the library conference world this weekend, Meredith lets us know that she didn’t suck in her talk in Computers in Libraries. Look at that talk about wikis, it does not suck.
library 2.0, bang for buck
As I’ve said before, I don’t have much of a desire to become a library 2.0 pundit. I don’t have a strong opinion on the loose idea and I like the players on both sides of the argument. What I care about is the libraries I work with and how technology and the “outside world” affects them and how I can help them deal with that. Michael Golrick is a library administrator in Bridgeport, Connecticut which has its share of have-not patrons and he has a thoughtful post on how the Library 2.0 idea trickles down to patrons like his (and, by extension, like mine).
Michael is also running for Council, don’t forget, and has written the most amazing beginner’s guide to the American Library Association. Meredith Farkas has split out all the individual posts into one set, and I’m reprinting that list here:
ALA 101 Introduction
Part 1: Overview
Part 2: Divisions
Part 3: Round Tables
Part 4: Offices
Part 5: Committees
Part 6: Buildings and Conferences
Part 7: Governance (this means ALA Council)
plinkit: scalable solutions to library tech rollouts
One of the problems that library consortiums have frequently solved is technology centralization. While I am not denying that consortiums have caused other problems, having one central go-to technology platform, software set, team of trainers and help desk has made many non-tech savvy librarians able to provide a higher level of service to their customers. For tech savvy librarians, this has sometimes come with a downside of lack of control of their own technology, or dumbed down interfaces to robust tools. We’ve been looking for a happy medium solution.
Two newish projects have been getting talked about lately in the states of Iowa and Oregon. Oregon is using Plinkit, a web authoring tool that is built on an open source CMS called Plone. This tool allows libraries to create nice looking professional websites with some standard modules (calendar, lists of links, links to electronic resources) and some standards compliance. Here is a list of libraries using it. Iowa got money from the Gates Foundation and is using it to provide web hosting for libraries along with an email hosting service (please don’t let it be an Exchange server) and a helpdesk person available by email and phone (and I bet chat by the end of the grant period) for all state libraries. One of the best things the Vermont Department of Libraries has done is to make sure every library in Vermont has a fixed and memorable email address that either forwards or links to an easy to use webmail interface. They have had this for years and it’s done a lot to help libraries stay connected and feel like part of the larger library system, even when they’re up a mountain serving 600 people. I’m not usually one to jump on the “technology builds community” bandwagon, because I think there are certain irreplacable virtues to face to face interactions. However when done properly and effectively, technology can help support communities that are already built, and help them put their best face forward.