Blog Profile / librarian.net
| URL : | http://www.librarian.net | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Education / Library & Research | |
| Posts on Regator: | 590 | |
| Posts / Week: | 2.2 | |
| Archived Since: | March 4, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
Link roundup, things you might like
When nerds collide – some advice on managing groups of volunteers for one-off library projects I failed to communicate the “why” of this project to the volunteers. Before turning my volunteers loose, I needed to explain the general workflow of the library. By saying, “here is a list of books to pull” or “adjust the [...]
What is going on with New York’s public libraries?
I know people are probably pretty up on the general level of change, upheaval and consternation that are happening surrounding NYPLs big changes, most notably the changes at the Central Library but also the closure and sale of the Mid-Manhattan branch. You may not know about the closure and sale of some of the Brooklyn [...]
“Who are your guys?” some radical librarian resources
I listen a lot to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast about comedy. He interviews pretty much everyone you’ve ever heard of in the comedy world (and some people you may not have heard of) and one of the things he always asks people are “Who are your guys?” like who did you come up with in [...]
National Library Week starts now
Happy National Library Week. This is the week that encompasses a few more days worth celebrating including National Library Workers Day on Tuesday, National Bookmobile Day on Wednesday and Support Teen Literature Day on Thursday. Oxford University Press is giving away free access to the OED for folks in North and South America through Saturday. [...]
Barbara Gittings, that lady in the “hug a homosexual” booth
Just a photo that came across my stream, taken for Life magazine but not published there. This is from ALA, in 1971. I saw the photo and wanted to know more about it. As a former member of SRRT and someone who knew about early GLBT activities within ALA (and in the current political climate) [...]
On government and libraries – two important things
1. Supreme Court KIRTSAENG v WILEY decision came down, supporting first sale doctrine even for copyrighted works made abroad. This is good news for Team Library. 2. Now that we’ve gotten a nice little bump from the We the People petition to increase the public’s access to the results of publicly funded science research, let’s [...]
LACMA launches new collection site with 20k public domain images
The Los Angeles County Museum of art said on their Tumblr on Friday “Dear Tumblr-verse, Merry Christmas: we just gave you 20,000 high-resolution images, for free. Now we have just one question: what are you going to do with them?” This announcement is a next step in LACMA’s ongoing experiment to open up more of [...]
some show and tell
Just having one of those days where I am in favor of a picture-based approach to what I’ve been interested in. Press release | official website Run your OPAC on a min computer that costs under $50. Local Tools has software for tool lending libraries Prefab Library, the library website service
Another victory for public and open access
If you paid for it, you should be able to read it. For publicly financed science research, the Obama administration agrees. I’m aware that this decision wasn’t just because of this We The People petition (which I signed) but it’s nice to think that the petition has an effect. Read the entire memorandum here (pdf) [...]
I got a Kindle
I am aware that I am dreadfully behind the times, but the Kindle I wanted finally hit a price point that I felt was worth it and I got one: a Kindle Keyboard 3G/Wifi model. It’s nice. I’ve been tinkering with it. Here are some initial impressions. 1. Now that the Kindle Fire and other [...]
Original “comics are bad for you” research declared shoddy. Thank your librarian.
Behavioral problems among teenagers and preteens can be blamed on the violence, sex and gore portrayed in the media marketed to them – that was the topic of televised public hearings held by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 to address the scourge of comic books. The hearings, which resulted in the [...]
Should it be okay to sue librarians for saying your books are bad?
Learned about this story two days ago and by the time I could put something together it has zipped around the internet already. Long story short: blogging academic librarian (and librarian.net favorite Dale Askey) makes negative probably-factual statements about a publisher. Publisher sues librarian and his current employer (who was not his employer at the [...]
storytime: hunting a time capsule at NYPL and elsewhere
Thomas Lannon occasionally posts on NYPLs blog. He is the assistant curator of their manuscripts and archives department. He also figures into this Fast Company story about a time capsule created by a group called the Modern Historic Records Association. The time capsule was never found, not exactly, but this story, an early example of [...]
interview with Michael Barera, Ford Presidential Library’s new Wikipedian in Residence
White campaign tab with “WIN” in bold, red letters accompanied by a small red fish. I had read with interest the articles that came out recently about the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library getting a Wikipedian in Residence. For more info, see this a short article about the library’s exhibits coordinator Bettina Cousineau talking about [...]
on public domain and “public domain”
There has been a lot of great writing about copyright and access to our cultural and intellectual history in the weeks since Aaron Swartz’s death. I have been retreading some of my old favorite haunts to see if there was stuff I didn’t know about the status of access to online information especially in the [...]
On leadership and remembering Aaron
Most people have heard the news that on Saturday, the two-year anniversary of his arrest, 26 year old Aaron Swartz killed himself. I didn’t know Aaron well though I was lucky to have crossed paths with him a few times, we were on the same team during the MIT Mystery Hunt and we were both [...]
on casual research and a 2012 wrap-up
My year-end 2012 was pretty mellow. I’ve been doing the same technology instruction and teaching at the vocational high school and the occasional local library fill-in shift. I’ve gotten more active in VLA and in the new Rural Librarians Unite group. I had a very busy April-June speaking season which I enjoyed and didn’t do [...]
a different sort of wormhole
“Knowledge of the wormhole record will allow biologists to trace the recent biogeographic history of species, including invasives of economic importance, and historians to evaluate the place of origin and movement of a woodblock, book, document or art print.” Read more about the wormhole record over at Quigley’s Cabinet (some images on that page may [...]
2012 in libraries
I tracked the libraries that I visited this year. I have also done this in 2011, 2010 and 2009. I went to thirty-five different libraries in eleven states for fifty-four visits total. I’m sure I have forgotten some. Here’s the short annotated list of what I was doing in libraries last year. Foursquare really helped [...]
2012 reading list, a year end summary
I’ve waited til the new year to write this list up. I’ve spent the first few days of the new year finishing up a few books that were lingering on the nightstand. Here’s the complete list, you’ll notice that I only finished some of the books in this photo which was my “to read” pile [...]