I just attended the SirsiDynix Institute on 25 Technologies in 50 Minutes and I have to say that Stephen Abram is a man after my own heart. Learning Learning Learning - make time for learning - that was the theme of this event!

Stephen suggests:

• going crazy with images and adding them to our library sites to give us personality (Flickr, Picassa)
• using social bookmarking sites to keep track of reference bookmarks (del.icio.us)
• recording story hours or events in the library and sharing them with the world (YouTube)
• bridging the digital divide by introducing our users to Google Office
• searching with a guide (ChaCha)
• communicating with our users where they are (Meebo,Trillian,MySpace,Facebook)

Most importantly spend 15 minutes a day playing and learning these new technologies. Stephen suggests setting up a blog - not sharing it with others - but using it as your learning tool. Through your blog you can learn how to use Flickr, tags, Technorati, and so much more. Thinking your too busy? Think about your work day - how much time to you spend checking personal email? Participating is chit chat with colleagues? Talking to family on the phone? Bet it adds up to more than 15 minutes - so why not spend 15 minutes - which is practically nothing - learning something new today? You don’t have to become perfect at it - you just have to get a feel for it.

He also mentioned the Learning 2.0 program at PLMC (Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County) which was inspired by an article Stephen wrote in Information Outlook titled 43 Things I (or you) might want to do this year. In this program the staff was encouraged to learn 23 things in 9 weeks - and it was successful! Putting the staff at this library ahead of the curve when it comes to web technologies.

Stephen ended by saying (I’m paraphrasing) We need to share, be supportive, and we need to learn! If you are too busy maybe you and a colleague can support each other and learn for 15 minutes every other day - taking turns. The thing I love about working in a library is that it’s like a family - and families support each other - so why not carry that mentality over to learning?

See all of the links discussed by Stephen on his blog and get learning!

I was just reading my latest Library Journal and came across an article in Feeback titled “ALA’s alternate to an MLS.”

In it Leslie Burger makes me very happy

I’ve asked Dan O’Connor (chair, ALA Education Committee) to focus his group’s attention on creating an action plan for reforming library education at the ALISE/ALA Education forum planned for Midwinter 2007 in Seattle. Rather than getting educators and practitioners together for a “shoot the breeze” session, we will focus the session on a discussion of Needham’s proposal or any other proposal that comes forward, with the end result being an action plan for changing library education.

[emphasis added by me]

Leslie has some interesting points to discuss at the meeting:

1) Does accreditation still matter? 2) Should we create a new way to educate library workers? 3) Should certification and continuing education credits be mandatory for library workers? 4) Should we offer an alternate route to librarianship similar to that being offered for those who want to teach in public schools? 5) What would a core curriculum for librarianship look like? Should it be a standard for accreditation?

My answers.

1. What does this mean anyway? Does it mean that the ALA approves of the curriculum that the school offers? I can’t imagine that’s all - because each school has such varied offerings.
2. YES! We need to require on the job training like they do for teachers (student teaching). The professors instructing us (most of the time) haven’t been in a library in a while and don’t know about the real changes that are going on - by making students work while they go to school we can hope that they’ll get more out of their education.
3. YES! The problems that most of of us have today is that there is such a varied education among the staff. Requiring continuing education would make it so that we’d all be closer to being on the same foot.
4. I’m not sure what alternate route is being offered (but I’m going to research it), but I think there should be some sort of work experience qualification. I’ve been in the library for 5+ years now and I’m taking classes that for the most part aren’t teaching me anything new - I already know these things - there should be some way for me to be a “librarian” without having to spend thousands of dollars learning what I already know.
5. If there were a standard that might make it so that students would come out with similar educations. I think technology related education needs to be required more than it is now. No one, in any of my classes has mentioned blogs - and wikis only came up when students referred to the Wikipedia - we need our future librarians to be trained in how to use these new technologies effectively.

I’ll be interested to see what comes out of this meeting - most of it won’t effect my current curriculum, but I hope it will effect the rules about continuing education once I have graduated.

I mentioned part one of this series from SolutionWatch a while back - and now there are 3 complete lists.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

I LOVE IT!! I want one - and will have to find one for myself.

Purchased at Salisbury Cathedral, for my office
Originally uploaded by mstephens7.

Here’s my morning routine - or maybe I should go backwards and explain my evening and weekend routine first. On evenings and weekends I catch up on my blog reading. If I have some time I will stumble a bit. Every time I read a post or find a link that I think would be helpful to someone at work I email it to my work email for the next morning. Every time I find something useful to a friend or family member I email it off to them.

When I come into work in the mornings I weed through these messages forwarding them along to the right people at work - if it’s something related to an ongoing project or something for our entire staff I post it on our Intranet. Sometimes this results in a blog post on our library blog - sometimes it’s a new Research Link - sometimes it’s just a reply email that says “thanks”. Either way I feel like I’ve helped the people around me find handy tools and resources to make their lives or jobs easier. I love that feeling!

Right now this is just something I do when I have time - but by getting my MLIS new doors will be open to me. I’ll have the chance to work in positions where I get to do 2 things I love - develop applications & web solutions and help others find and use new tools to make their jobs more productive!

This is just something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and wanted to share with you all. Why? Well I’ve been keeping a close eye on my number of subscribers and as the at number goes up I know I’m helping even more than just those I have contact with on a daily basis - I’m also helping others around the globe and that’s an amazing feeling.

Thanks for reading - I hope I can find a helpful resource for you today!

An interesting article in the Washington Post mentions a study by a local professor (local for me).

[Thomas] Dee says his research supports his point, that gender matters when it comes to learning. Specifically, as he describes it, having a teacher of the opposite sex hurts a student’s academic progress. … For example, with a female teacher, boys were more likely to be seen as disruptive. Girls were less likely to be considered inattentive or disorderly.

I find this interesting - mostly because it was not true for my education. I can remember more male teachers who made an impact on me and my education than female - in fact I can think of more female teachers who made no impact on me than male. The problem with studies like this is that they are based on generalizations - and can give people the wrong idea.

I’m so glad that Agnese Caruso at Slaw mentioned Innovate the other day.

Innovate: Journal of Online Education is a bi-monthly, peer-reviewed online journal focusing on the innovative, creative ways information technology is used in corporate, academic, and government settings to enhance the learning process. Articles are authored by leaders in information technology and education, including librarians, professors, program administrators, and software designers. You can search articles going back to October/November 2004. Innovate also hosts webcasts with the authors.

I’ve signed up! And I’ve also signed up for their portal which is where their free webcasts take place. I love finding free webcasts and webinars that I can share with our staff - we all get together in our multi-purpose room and watch together - free online education!

I have seen this announced in a few places so far (so you might already know about it) and wanted to share it with you all.

Meredith Farkas, Amanda Etches-Johnson, Dorothea Salo, Ellyssa Kroski, Karen Coombs, and Michelle Boule have planned a free online learning event to take place in Febrary and March of next year (I think - even though it says 2006 on the Call For Presenters).

We are pleased to present Five Weeks to a Social Library , the first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries. The course was developed to provide a free, comprehensive, and social online learning opportunity for librarians who do not otherwise have access to conferences or continuing education and who would benefit greatly from learning about social software. The course will take place in Drupal and on a MediaWiki installation, and will also involve a variety of other popular social software tools. The course will make use of synchronous components, with one or two weekly Webcasts and many IM chat sessions being made available to students each week. The course will culminate in each student developing a proposal for implementing a specific social software tool in their library.

Sounds like a great idea! If you’d like to present make sure you read the guidelines and get your submissions in by September 22.

I just found a list of learning resources on LifeHacker that I wanted to share with you all:

• Free audio and video from LearnOutLoud
• Get free e-textbooks from Textbook Revolution
• Find free courses with OpenCourseWare Finder
• Free classes from MIT
• Get free webcasts from Berkeley

There are more on their list at: Free educational resources roundup and under their learning tag.

There are also these resources that I use:

• Infopeople Webcast Archive
  Infopeople’s funding limits attendance at live webcasts to anyone in the California library community. If you are outside California please do not attend the live event. However, you are welcome to see the archived version the day following the webcast.
• LearningTimes Network - Online Library Community
  Requires registration.
• OPAL: Online Programming for All Libraries
• SirsiDynix Institute

Feel free to share any other great learning resources you might know about.

I just read about Stu.dicio.us on Solution Watch.

Claimed to be a social notetaking service, Stu.dicio.us allows students to publicly save organized notes, manage a class schedule, and keep up to date with tasks using a time sensitive to do list.

It sounded interesting so I went to take a look - the problem is that you can’t see what it’s all about unless you know the school and class/professor of the class. I just wanted a little demo before I signed my life away

Meredith Farkas has a great post over on TechEssence - Continuous Learning: Making it a Priority Without Breaking the Bank:

Our field is changing at an almost bewildering speed. Libraries all over the world are coming up with new technologies, new ways to adapt technologies for libraries, and new ways to provide services to patrons every day. The knowledge we came out of library school with is not enough to keep up with changing technologies and changing patron populations. We have to continue to learn, to grow, to expand our views of libraries and technologies. Learning should happen every day, every week, and every year that we are on the job. And it should be encouraged by administrators as an integral part of our work.

Emphasis added by me.

You know I agree with her - if you agree - an even if you don’t you should give her post a read.

You don’t have to have an MLS to be a librarian. The MLS doesn’t teach passion, empathy, user focused skills, or provide experience. Some library science schools don’t even teach you how to perform research well.

That from Library Stuff. It’s nice to read.

You all know I’m going for my MLS, but I’ve been working in the library for 5 years now. Mind you I haven’t been doing research - but all librarians are not research/reference librarians. I’ve looked through the courses I’m required to take and the courses I have the option of taking - and there are very few that will not be covering something I already know - and there are even fewer that I think will make a difference in the way I do my job. So, why get the MLS? Lifelong learning!!! And the hope that I’m wrong - and that the teachers will be molding their classes around their students (at least a bit) like Robin Neidorf (author of Teach Beyond Your Reach recommends).

I just attended an amazing webinar hosted by the SirsiDynix Institute on Library Conflict Management. The presenter was Pat Wagner of Pattern Research - amazing speaker - website could use some work (sorry Pat).

This was the first webinar I had attended with 400 people in it! We did some surveys at the beginning to see what we were there and most of the people were there to learn how to improve their library’s culture. Pat started by explaining the difference between healthy and unhealthy conflict and then went into the 3 part cure and the 10 symptoms of unhealthy conflict. They are:

1. Bitterness
   these people are stuck in the past and hold grudges. The cure is to leave your job and look for something else - but remember to leave your bitterness behind you
2. Stopped Learning
   You all know where I stand on this one - never stop learning!! This is the kind of person who exempts themselves from classes and has no new goals. The cure? Update their job description to include required education and make them accountable for their actions.
3. Stopped Contributing
   This goes hand in hand with #2 - This person only wants to do rote work and doesn’t seek out new tasks. How do you know if you’re this type of person? Can you write an entire resume out of what you have accomplished in your job over the last 3 to 5 years? The cure? Same as #2.
4. Emotional Chaos
   This person is going through some sort of personal crisis (family, drugs, grief, etc) and everyone finds themselves walking on eggshells around that person. The cure - leave or at least don’t let them supervise others. This person is going to take their personal lives out on others (I know I’ve seen and lived through it).
5. Values Violated
   This person has been asked to lie or witness a lie and asked not to say anything about it. This person may also feel that the libraries values have changed in a way they aren’t comfortable with. The cure? Change things, endure, or leave.
6. Health Issues
   This person has aches and pains, can’t seem to get over the common cold - and there is nothing medically wrong with them. These symptoms are caused by stress. The cure? Provide limits and stress management training.
7. Codependence
   This person is the rescuer, the mom figure, believes “this place will fall apart” without them. The cure? Flee, Flee, Flee - this is not a healthy environment for you - start over and change your role.
8. Loss of Respect
   This person has developed a “benign contempt” for the people they work with, they no longer respect their colleagues or supervisors. They will make complaints to strangers about their work environment. The cure? Find a new job - why work where you don’t respect those around you?
9. Career Inheritance
   This person got their job (or expects a promotion) due to longevity and spends their time waiting instead of working. The cure? Create a career plan for yourself with deadlines, if you’re not meeting those deadlines, it’s time to move on.
10. No Consequences
    No one in this work place is ever fired or disciplined, no one is praised or rewarded, there are no evaluations or accountability. The cure? Change all of those things! Promote responsibility in the work place.

WOW! What a great list! And a great presentation watch the archives for the podcast and materials if you weren’t able to attend, because like I said, Pat is a great speaker and she didn’t lose my attention even once!

Okay, last night I had one of those dreams that makes you wake up mad! I’m sure you’ve all had them - so you can understand how I started my morning in a bad mood only to read 2 lines on 2 different blogs that set me off!!

#1 - Chad of Library Voice included a quote from Business Week Online: “You’ve heard that MySpace is dangerous for your kids, but what about for your business?”

#2 - LibraryLaw had an interview with Beth Yoke about DOPA in which she says: “I would describe the atmosphere at the hearing as one of fear. So much of the talk was about how there are untold numbers of would-be murders out there just waiting to snare our children via chat rooms and other Internet sites.”

COME ON PEOPLE!!!

The problem is not the Internet and chat rooms and MySpace - the problem is ignorance - which breeds fear.

I thought of a great comparison this morning while I was ranting (in my head) on the train ride to work. In the 1970s there was an incident with a boy named James Dallas Egbert III - do you know what I’m talking about?? James disappeared in 1979 and a private investigator surmised that he had disappeared during a live action session of D&D - assumed dead. Was this true? NO! James was a depressed boy who had disappeared to try and kill himself - did he like D&D? Yes. Did the 2 have anything to do with each other? NO!

One other incident led to mass fear - and that was the suicide of “Bink” Pulling in 1982. Patricia Pulling (Bink’s mother) decided that her son had committed suicide because of a curse that was placed on him in a game of D&D. Pulling started a crusade (an insane crusade if I do say so myself) against game makers and players alike, spreading the word that D&D was the work of the devil and those who played these games worshiped Satan. (side note - The Pulling Report by Michael Stackpole is a fascinating read if you want more info on this topic)

What does this have to do with MySpace? Well, I grew up with my mother telling me that D&D was evil and that only Satan worshippers played D&D. I had no idea that it was a role-playing game - all I knew was that it was evil and not to be talked about. Imagine my surprise when I met my future husband at college and he started talking about playing D&D!!! Why did I grow up with this fear? Because (sorry mom) of my mother’s ignorance on the topic. The media didn’t care what the truth was - they cared about selling a story and it didn’t matter that the stories spread by the private investigator and Patricia Pulling were based solely in fear of the unknown.

This is why our government is trying to pass a silly law banning sites like MySpace in schools and libraries. This is why publications like Business Week are starting their article by mentioning the dangers of MySpace to our children.

The only danger out there is misinformation and lack of education (well the only danger related to this rant). When I was growing up child molesters would pluck kids off of school yards - it’s much harder for a kid to fight against a grown up when they are pulling you to their car than when they’re on the other side of a computer screen. Teach your children to not talk to strangers - use safe words (mine was “bubbles”), explain that these sites are fun, but we don’t share our personal information with people online - or people we don’t know. Sit with your kids while they’re on the computer and show them what’s appropriate and what’s not.

But it’s not just kids - education is required for about 12 years of our lives - but what about after that. What did you learn in grammar school that you still use today? Reading, writing, math - those don’t change (although there are some new rules related to commas since I was in school). But what did you use computers for? Did you use computers? Education should be a constant in our lives - we should always be learning - whether in an organized setting or just by reading a book about a topic you may not know that much about. This is why I work on the board of our township’s night school - I love helping people learn about things they didn’t know much about before.

Fear and ignorance lead to silly laws and crusades against things like games where kids (and adults as most of us geeks know) pretend to be elves and orcs and adventure through some far off land.

MySpace is not evil, it’s an unknown and we need to get out there and show people that there is just as much a chance that the “would-be murders” are living 3 doors down as there is that your child will bump into them on the Internet - banning things from children makes them want to use them more - educating them on the proper use of these things however might just turn out to be the right answer.

Technorati Tags: DOPA, MySpace

As you know I will start my Masters program with Drexel Online in just 2 months! I was interested in what this online learning experience was going to be like so I’m reading Teach Beyond Your Reach by Robin Neidorf. Since the book is geared toward teachers (not students) there are a few sections I’ve found myself skimming over (like the creating content chapters), but for the most part this has been a very educational experience in and of itself.

Robin has actually made me a little more nervous about taking classes online. Why? Because she explains how to be a great distance teacher - which is making me think of all of the things my teachers could do wrong to be bad distance teachers. I know it’s silly - but that’s me

Anyway, if you teach at a distance (online, teleconferencing, etc) I hope you read this book and get some great tips from it - I especially hope that my professors at Drexel have read it - we’ll see soon enough.

I’m reading “Teach Beyond Your Reach” by Robin Neidorf. A lot of the content is more than I need to know in my job, but it’s pretty darn interesting.

I just finished reading about learning styles. Robin points us to a quiz at learning-styles-online.com that let’s us determine what type of learner we are. I’m mostly a Logical, Solitary, Aural learner - what about you?

Here are my results:

These are the results of your inventory. The scores are out of 20 for each style. A score of 20 indicates you use that style often.

Style Scores

Visual 6
Social 9
Physical 9
Aural 12
Verbal 9
Solitary 11
Logical 13

Pretty darn interesting. Robin recommends you use this to find out the learning styles of your students before teaching a course - what a great idea!!

I am a board member for the Upper Darby Adult Evening Program. We’re a non-profit organization that offers night classes to Upper Darby and area residents. Upper Darby is in Delaware County, PA.

We’re in need of more classes/instructors and I’m emailing everyone I can think of. I figured I should probably post my request here too. If any of you know of any experts (friends or colleagues) in the area who’d like to teach a course once a week from Sept to Nov can you forward this message to them - or send them to this link: http://www.udaep.org/teach.php. It’s a paying gig - not much, but it’s money.

We’re looking for a photography (digital or otherwise) class, an art (drawing,painting,etc) class, a dance class, foreign language courses, a cooking class, even a course on how to find things at your public library - or anything else you can think of. This might even be a good job for a college Junior or Senior with an expertise in a subject area - and it will look great on their resume.

So this morning I got into work to find that I couldn’t open any of the files on our Intranet! Uh Oh!! The problem is that I get to work at 7:30am and the IT staff doesn’t arrive until 9am or later. So I twiddled my thumbs and read some blog posts. Turns out that one of the hard drives died - on our NEW server!! Anyway, when I left work the machine was still dead.

But the day wasn’t all bad. I spent the rest of the day in the Alliance Library System Online Innovation Institute Library 2.0 Extravaganza! Michael Stephens gave 4 great webinars on new technologies and how libraries can take advantage of them. I had to go in and out of the room, but we have 10 people from area libraries come and watch the webinar with us - so that was great!

I will put a link up to the presentations and podcasts once they’re available.

I sent about an hour yesterday reading through the class descriptions - and I want to take so many of the classes - I have no idea how to choose! I want to learn more about cataloging, so that I can make educated arguments regarding the choices that are out there. I’m also interested in taking some of the admin classes. Then there are the obvious choices like Database Management - but I’m worried it will end up being a review for me. I can’t wait to set up a meeting with an advisor so that I can start to make some decisions.

My plan is to take 3 classes a term - that will get me my degree in 1 year! It will be a crazy year. Some people have contacted me to let me know that they hope I don’t stop writing when I start school - I don’t plan on stopping - but I’m sure it will slow down!!

Thanks for all of your kind words! I’ll keep you all posted.

From OPAL-Online:

Thursday, June 15, 2006: Alliance Library System Online Innovation Institute Library 2.0 Extravaganza!

Speaker: Michael Stephens, Writer/Trainer/Teacher/Creator of the Tame the Web Blog

This special event is sponsored by the Alliance Online Innovation Institute.

Cost: Free for all Alliance Library System members; $25.00 for all other registrants. When you sign up you will be given the opportunity to select a payment option. Create an account to register online at the CLeO online registration service.

Please Note: Each of the four sessions in this one-day institute will last approximately one hour. The entire institute will be repeated on Friday, June 16, 2006. You may participate either in the OPAL room of the Alliance Innovation Institute or in the Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 through the virtual reality site Second Life.

9:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 8:30 a.m. Central, 7:30 a.m. Mountain, 6:30 a.m. Pacific and Second Life, and 1:30 p.m. GMT:
WEBLOGS & LIBRARIES: An in-depth look at the Biblioblogosphere — all things blogs, libraries and librarians. We’ll discuss best practices and lessons learned to make your library blog the most dynamic area of your web site!

11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 10:00 a.m. Central, 9:00 a.m. Mountain, 8:00 a.m. Pacific and Second Life, and 3:00 p.m. GMT:
INSTANT MESSAGING: DO YOU IM? How are libraries and librarians using Instant Messaging? This session explores a grass roots effort by many libraries to meet users where they interact online. We’ll explore best practices and implementation strategies.

12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 11:30 a.m. Central, 10:30 a.m. Mountain, 9:30 a.m. Pacific and Second Life, and 4:30 p.m. GMT:
SOCIAL SOFTWARE: A SURVEY OF WEB 2.0. Librarians are finding their users are interacting online is social spaces and sites: creating content, collaborating, and building communities? What are some of the thriving social sites? How can we participate in sites like MySpace and Facebook?

2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 1:00 p.m. Central, noon Mountain, 11:00 a.m. Pacific and Second Life, and 6:00 p.m. GMT:
CREATING STAFF BUY IN FOR NEW TECHNOLOGIES: No matter what Web 2.0 technology you start with, a key element is staff buy in. We’ll present Ten Tips for Staff Buy in and offer takeaways to get the ball rolling.

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact Lori Bell, Director of Innovation at the Alliance Library System.

Yep, I’m almost finished with my second read through of this book (The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide). I have terrible reading comprehension skills, so I like to reread books a couple of times.

Anyway, the first time I read through the book and the second time I read through with a pencil and highlighter - yep I’ve defiled my book by writing all over it - but that’s good because I have notes I want to share with you all.

I already talked about the need for continuing education requirements for librarians - but what about requiring computer classes? I attended the open house for Drexel’s MLS program and the first session I attended talked about the classes we were required to take as well as the possible electives. The professor kept repeating that while programming classes were available they weren’t required - I’d have rather heard her say - they might come in handy if you’re inclined to learn more about computer programming.

On page 160 of the book there is a great line:

…a few over-40 survey respondents point out that they have been using computers for years, and that, in some cases, the fact that they learned to use technology when it was less “user-friendly” gives them a deeper ability to go under the hood and to understand how and why things work as they do.

I agree 100% and this is why I think it should be required to take some type of computer programming or science class to get your MLS - computers and databases are central to our work today - wouldn’t it be easier to search a database if you understood how it was set up? I think that a level of understanding of database programming is invaluable in a librarian working in today’s library.

Further down the page in a quote by a survey respondent:

…some of the people putting information technology to its best uses are older librarians who know libraries.

Yes! Which is why continuing education - in more than just library science - is a must for all librarians. A librarian who has been in the field for 15-30 years and knows how to set up a database and how to search it must be a huge commodity - I would think.

Lastly, from the same page:

Regardless of age or year of graduation, we all have the same need for ongoing professional development and current awareness.

Do you belong to a book club or reading group? If so, I stumbled upon a very useful site for you. ReadingGroupGuides has over 1800 guides for your book club or reading group.

ReadingGroupGuides.com is the first website built especially for reading groups, providing them with all they need to make their book club experience better than ever.

From Blyberg.net:

We talked about the notion of “paying it forward” at some length during one of the sessions at Library Camp. One individual, Sean Robinson, has put together a wiki where willing parties can sign up, offering their expertise and services to other libraries. The caveat is that if you take advantage of another person's willingness to help, you, in turn, need to make yourself available to help someone else.

I think this is a great idea that may very well help a lot of people, though it does have some drawbacks. For instance, while I have volunteered my time and services on his wiki, I'm generally very busy and may not have time to help someone when they need help. There is also no assurance of the quality of information and help you'll receive. In addition, while Sean has started a wiki (which is a very nice gesture on his part, and I encourage other to participate), if a service like this grows, a fair amount of thought would need to be put in to developing a database and interface that would make accessing the right expertise fairly intuitive. Who knows, it might look like eHarmony for library geeks!

I’m registered & ready to help!

Well, I’m back at work. I had planned on doing all of this library related reading while I was home, but I was much busier than I had planned. So now I’m catching up on my reading. I just read an article by Rachel Singer Gordon in American Libraries (March 2006) titled “Next Generation Librarianship”.

I can’t share the article with you, but I can tell you that I can’t wait for my copy of Rachel’s book to arrive.

The article mentions some really interesting facts that I hadn’t thought of before. Like what? Well, like most people I was thinking of NextGen librarians as 20 somethings - but a NextGen librarian can also include people in their 40s or 50s - people who have decided to go back to school for their degree in library science. These people are coming into the workforce with more up to date knowledge about library systems and technology.

Which brings me to something I’ve been saying over and over - continuing education should be required for all librarians. If it were - would there be such a big distinction between the recent grads and the librarians who have been on the job for 20 years? If lawyers, teachers, insurance sales people, real estate agents, etc are required to continue their education in order to hold their title, why aren’t we?

If you can get your hands on a copy of this article, I recommend it. I’m sure I’ll have more to add once my book arrives.

A little while ago I posted about how I wasn’t sure how Second Life could be used by libraries - apparently OPAL and the Alliance Library System have come up with a way:

Alliance Library System and OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) are pleased to announce that selected OPAL programs will soon be offered in the online virtual reality game Second Life. Book discussions, training sessions, and other programs will be offered to current virtual residents. The goal of the project is to promote the real library and online library services to adults who might not otherwise use the library.

This from the Alliance Library System site.

What an interesting idea! I might just join back up for Second Life and see how this works out.

The first event is today:

Getting Along with IT staff for Librarians and Educators
Date: Friday, April 21, 2006 Time: 8:00AM - 9:00AM (60 minutes) Pacific time, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Central time 11:00-12:00 am Eastern time
Location: Juanita (217,241)

Keep up with this project at the Second Life Library 2.0 Blog.

Thanks Library TechBytes for pointing this out.