The Other Librarian

I’ve had a tongue-in-cheek post-in-waiting for a while now that would look at traits I notice in online cultures as a way of understanding whether or not a particular service is for you or your library.    It had been percolating, percolating, percolating. . . and then I read Greg Schwartz’s post on Managing His Own Social [...]

I love the idea of recommendation services like LibraryThing, Bibliophil and Books iRead. The main reason I like these services is because of their potential to identify items for me that I may never encounter on my own. You have to accept that I am a) a busy parent with little time [...]

We are launched in beta with a new website over the holiday on January 17, 2008 and I would really appreciate your feedback. Your information will be really valuable to me because we are already looking at a review of the website just as fast as we launch it. [...]

Libraries pride themselves on their ability to provide access for all.   We do not care how much money you have, what you look like or what you choose to have for breakfast — you can access information for free, most times.
In comes the Internet and the world of information becomes even more free.   [...]

 
Designing an organization is not something that managers should take on without a good deal of thought. Unfortunately, the coverage of organizational design in library management courses is often simplified to a toying around with two organizational dichotomies: flat or hierarchical; centralized or decentralized. The impression you get from such a surface [...]

Now that Microsoft has released a Surface based computer, I thought it was time that I thought about how people would actually use the thing. Sure the examples of moving pictures around and finger painting are kind of neat, but how does it get people to information?
Some of the things that immediately [...]

UPDATE:
Thanks to all of you who tried the survey, so far.    I realized that I forgot “students” in the demographic information — apologies for that!    If you want to take the survey later, I will have a link to the survey on the right-hand column of the blog, in relative perpetuity (under contact [...]

This is a great ad by the Calgary Public Library.

Can you top that? Great job Calgary!

Probably three nights ago, I was reading to my three-year-old son like I always do before he goes to bed. This time, I read a non-fiction book called Amazing Creations . Basically, this is a primer that writes descriptions of some famous world landmarks like the Pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt [...]

A story:
I walked down Coburg Rd, which turns into Spring Garden Rd in Halifax NS. If you have lived in this town for any amount of time, you know that walking down Coburg Rd on the day after Labour Day means you are going to meet Shinerama folks — new college kids on [...]