Rochelle has just given a great example about why the digital divide and technology skills are so damned important. How do you choose one of the over sixty Medicare prescription drug plans? By typing in all of your prescription information into a complicated buggy jargon-filled web page of course.
my talk at UAZ SIRLS
I’m back from Tucson/Phoenix. I had a great time getting to spend the day with the students and faculty of the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science. I gave a variant of my digital divide talk The Information Poor & the Information Don’t Care Small Libraries and the Digital Divide (the notes look the same but all the talks are really really different). While I was in Arizona I also got to see the downtown branch of the Phoenix Public Library, the North Valley Regional Library (my first big suburban library!) and the Tucson Pima Public Library. I also did a quick walk around the University of Arizona library but got quickly distracted by the amazing art exhibit Reading Our Remains (waxed and sliced books, fascinating) and didn’t take a lot of other pictures.
hi – 11nov
Hi. I’m in Phoenix today, giving a talk tomorrow at University of Arizona’s SIRLS Graduate Student Symposium. Yesterday we did what I always do in new places, went to the library. We saw my friends’ suburban library the North Valley Regional Library and also the Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix. I have a bunch of observations, it was a lesson in compare and contrast, but I’ll just link to a photo I took in the Phoenix public library parking lot.
the Cita Dennis Hubbell Library in NOLA
The Cita Dennis Hubbell library is one of three public libraries to have reopened in the city of New Orleans since Katrina. A team of volunteers have set up a website for the library’s specific community, posting news and local information in an easy to use format. For a library system that has had to lay off 90% of their staff, this is no small accomplishment. [mefi projects]
15nov Buy, Hack, or Build: Optimizing your Systems for Your Users and Your Sanity
Sadly, I have a conference budget of zero and I’ll be returning from a five day trip, otherwise I’d be all over this NEASIS&T panel next week: Buy, Hack, or Build: Optimizing your Systems for Your Users and Your Sanity with a bunch of smarties including Casey Bisson, OPAC hacker, whose libdev blog has been added to my sidebar. Free books to attendees. [thanks rich]