What I Learned Today…

Web 2.0 and programming tips from a library technology enthusiast, What I Learned Today… covers blogs, rss, wikis and more as they relate to libraries.

Category Archives: Learning

Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0 Conversation

February 22nd, 2006

I just attended A SirsiDynix Institute Conversation: The 2.0 Meme – Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, and aside from the fact that our library doesn’t cater to teens and a lot of conversation focused on them, it was a great presentation.

The thing that stuck with me the most was the Librarian 2.0 discussion. The speakers felt that the 2.0 Librarian had to be a “flexible professional” and needed to have training integrated into their daily schedules. Librarians are busy busy people who are dealing with patrons all day long and they need to have a break – a fun break where they also learn something. One speaker (sorry I lost track of who was talking) had a great suggestion. Give your staff the go ahead to play! Let them play with a different 2.0 technology each day so that they can learn – don’t force the issue with admin mandated sessions – if you have a “flexible professional” they will use that time to learn about the technologies they’re hearing about.

I love this idea! I also agree with Michael Stevens who said that it’s the library school’s responsibility to mold future librarians into “flexible professionals”, people who will want to learn and will go with the flow – wouldn’t that be great??!!

No more cursive writing?

January 6th, 2006

I was just reading that some schools are no longer teaching cursive – I don’t have kids – is that true??

Since I was able to read I’ve been typing. My mother gave me her old manual typewriter when I was 7 and I would write all of my letters to my best friend in red ink (yes red ink – it made it fun). For this reason my handwriting has never been that great – but once I started college and no longer had to write anything – my handwriting has begun to look a lot like scribble … but can they really stop teaching kids cursive??

Reverse That

December 18th, 2005

There have been several discussions on librarian blogs lately talking about librarians as coders (LibrarianInBlack, Library Web Chic, Science Library Pad, Information Wants to Be Free and See Also)… I’d like to suggest that the reverse is true as well – coders as librarians.

Back in November I commented on a post over at LibrarianInBlack regarding Gorman’s comment that “Any idiot can create a webpage.” Nowadays that’s true (with free wysiwyg packages popping up all over the place) … but there’s a word missing here – several words – great, usable, organized, accessible, etc.

I feel that if all web programmers/designers were also librarians then we’d never have trouble finding information on the web again. Everything would be organized in a logical order … do a search for Jenkins Law Library in Yahoo! and you find that our library page is categorized under Government??? How do you figure?

When I had this discussion with my colleague at work, she mentioned that when she was in college for computer science they did require classes along these lines – and I was very happy to hear that … maybe one day librarians will be coders and coders will be librarians – and information will be accessible and easy to find for everyone :) What an optimistic thought!

Wiki World Presentation

December 17th, 2005

Meredith from Information Wants To Be Free will be giving a free online presentation for OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) and everyone at our library is invited to attend in our multi-purpose room. I don’t know who plans on coming, but I think it’s great that our administration is opening it up to everyone to learn about wikis … especially since libraries can’t afford to send everyone to conferences like Internet Librarian or Computers in Libraries to hear about the great uses for wikis and blogs and the like.

Online Presentations

December 11th, 2005

I just found this great site to view video presentations from a bunch of different types of organizations. Mediasite.com is

[A] growing library of expert presentations and lectures … It’s a search tool that brings together public presentations and lectures created with Sonic Foundry’s Mediasite system. You have free, on-demand access to a steadily growing database of online technical content created by hundreds of experts.

I did a search for “library” and got 59 results – pretty nifty.

LearnOutLoud

November 25th, 2005

I just learned about this site called LearnOutLoud. They offer video & audio lessons, lectures, and speeches on various topics. Pretty neat idea … where was this when I was in school? In addition to their catalog of audiobooks and the like, they now have a collection of free downloads.

Library Instruction Wiki

November 17th, 2005

Librarians with Class pointed out a pretty nifty wiki called Library Instruction Wiki which is

a collaboratively developed resource for librarians involved with or interested in instruction … designed to help librarians learn from one another. Use the wiki to find handouts, tutorials, suggested reading, and more!

Under Library Instruction Resources you can find class websites, handouts and much more. This looks like it's going to be a great new tool.