Library Stuff

Ken Jennings has a blog. I’ll take “What’s new in my aggregator for $200 Alex”.

Tons and tons and tons and tons of incredible looking publications about communities that I’m going to wrap my brain around during the upcoming months. (link via Full Circle – another blog you should be reading!)

The ACRL blog has a post by Steven Bell, with a great quote:

“Perhaps Tony Schwartz nailed it when he said “writing is a social interaction”. In other words, authoring, even if you are writing solo, involves others. Less experienced writers may be intimidated about asking for help, but the presenters’ message was that your colleagues are often glad to provide help – and help can come in many forms.”

Ooh ooh! I love this. And, it’s exaclyt why Christie Hill and I asked fellow librarians to fill out our survey for our book and why we sought advice on the book planning, getting together the survey, and over all LBC methodologies. Nothing should be written in isolation. Who learns from doing that?

If you don’t keep up with what is happening at Library Thing (I do – I’m uttlerly fascinated with how many people link to/use/write about it), then you may not have been this piece from the WSJ today (well, maybe you serendipitously came across it).

If you didn’t, go read it (Do not pass go, etc). It’s an amazing explanation about the service and the reccomendation aspect, which to this day still blows my mind. Libraries should be bouncing around the room to use a tool like this. I love this quote from Tim Spalding (to whom I still owe a beer):

“[G]enerating picks based on an entire collection is far more revealing than focusing on purchases. “The stuff that you own is just a very powerful expression of your self,” Mr. Spalding says. “These catalogs represent a lifetime of collecting.”

Talk about creating a niche. Congrats Tim.

Over at the Library Student Journal, a project of the School of Informatics at the University of Buffalo, they are blogging about the apparent decision to merge the school with the School of Education. Elu Guinnee writes:

“We’re trying to stay positive, and in reality the department has far too much going for it to be held down by even a major step backward, but the decision is nonetheless very demoralizing. Overnight we have gone from innovative to marginalized; from a sense that we are poised to be one of the top LIS school in North America, to a sense that we have been abandoned to mediocrity by the administration.”

“And all from the unilateral decision of a single man. The decision was made with absolutely no student or faculty consultation. Why was the decision made? To save money? Because in Tripathi’s world all LIS is education? Who knows. We’re not being told why. It is a shock.”

At a time when libraries are still considered important to the democratic urges of this country, the shutting down of a library school, (no word yet what exactly will happen to the school – will it be a merger or a hostile takeover?) is not good. While I don’t know the whole story, I do know that the school has produced a heck of a lot of quality librarians. This is terrible news on an otherwise very good news and PR week for our profession.