Monthly Archives: December 2009

Time Off for Reflection, Regrouping and Prioritizing

December 18, 2009
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Time Off for Reflection, Regrouping and Prioritizing

I am taking the next two weeks off. Your regularly scheduled blog posts will resume on January 4th 2010. Why? The short version – It’s the holidays, things are slow and it’s always good to take a break. The long version – I need time to regroup and realign my priorities.  Lately I’ve been scrambling like mad to keep up, I feel like I’m letting everyone around me down, including me. There are emails I haven’t returned, emails I haven’t written. I feel disconnected from my friends on Twitter and Facebook. Work takes up a large part of my personal time. I’m beginning to feel a little dazed and confused, like I’ll never be caught up. This is a red flag for me, time to take two steps back and regroup. I was already considering it when I downloaded What Matters Now from Seth’s blog. As I read through it this week so many passages struck a chord, professionally and personally. It confirmed what I was already thinking, I need to pause and regroup. I am publicly declaring my holiday for two reason, the first so regular readers will know I haven’t disappeared, I haven’t run out of things to

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What Makes a Library a Library?

December 14, 2009
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Last week Sarah Houghton-Jan posted about a staffless library in Washington and asked the  question “What makes a library a library?” Buffy Hamilton took the question to the masses and recorded them for this great video. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Buzz it up Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend

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Voting is Open for the 2009 Edublog Awards – Go Vote!

December 11, 2009
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Voting ends Wednesday December 18th. Yes even you library people. You’ll find some great new blogs to read and trust me there are names in there you’ll recognize! The Edublog Award Categories…. Best individual blog Best individual tweeter Best group blog Best new blog Best class blog Best student blog Best resource sharing blog Most influential blog post Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion Best teacher blog Best librarian / library blog Best educational tech support blog Best elearning / corporate education blog Best educational use of audio Best educational use of video / visual Best educational wiki Best educational use of a social networking service Best educational use of a virtual world Lifetime achievement Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Buzz it up Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend

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Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group to Implement Embargo on eBooks

December 10, 2009
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Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group to Implement Embargo on eBooks

What a disappointment for those who wake up Christmas morning to find that Santa left an eReader in their stockings! Publisher Simon & Schuster has announced it will delay the ebook publishing of 35 titles* coming up next year. Publisher Hachette plans to implement a similar embargo for new titles. I have to agree with the Eric Garland quote in the WSJ “In the Internet age you don’t enjoy the same degree of control,” said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, LLC, an online media measurement company in Beverly Hills, Calif. “You can’t create artificial scarcity by withholding content in one form and making it available later.” This is a step in the wrong direction. I understand the book publishing industry’s desire to control ebooks is based on fear of piracy and lost money.  This attempt to tighten control wont help, in fact it may drive piracy to develop sooner and spread faster. They need to take a closer look at what happened to the music industry and acknowledge they will not be able to control ebooks the way they hope. The sooner they do that the sooner they can start working with ebooks in a successful way. On a personal

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Teaching Tech to the Public – Follow up from Internet Librarian

December 8, 2009
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This Those of you who were in my Web 2.0 for patrons presentation might remember a woman in the audience mentioning the classes she teaches at her library. I promised to get with her and share the follow up. I emailed her and found out that Liz Hubert is a Adult Services Librarian at the Barrington Area Library in Illinois This is the information Liz shared with me. We do not currently have a wiki or a blog for our patrons, the program is entirely face to face and people can take (or choose not to take!) what they wish. Very shortly, we’re going to be putting videos of all of our classes on our webpage. Those will be linked with handouts so that people can watch the class and follow a written description at the same time. I choose classes to teach based on the popularity of the service or website, how often I have questions about it at the desk, and how useful I think it will be to our patrons. I take a very basic approach to all of these classes. Unless I’ve noted otherwise, in each session (usually an hour) I help students set up accounts and show them

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photo by Beth Tribe

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