Archive for the ‘Advocacy & Promotion’ Category

Web 2.0 is on everyone’s lips. It isn’t really necessary anymore to explain it, there are a lot of more or less compact definitions.

This development redefines the position of libraries in the information society. Libraries are no longer just mediators of information literacy but also of media literacy. As a result they have to deal with technical innovations and their influences on the daily librarian affairs and they have to rise to the new challenges.

This is just why Infobib team used the World Book and Copyright Day as an opportunity to start an experiment - LibWorld.

The idea was to call bloggers from all over the world to give a review about the biblioblogosphere in their country and to post these guest articles in regular intervals at Infobib.

Libworld is a series of postings in which guest authors introduce the library and library related blogs of their particular country. It started on the World Book and Copyright Day on 23rd of April, 2007.

If you don’t see your home country in the list why not consider writing an article about your country’s biblioblogosphere.

“(Federal Judge Richard) Posner . . . speculates on how the Internet and other relatively new technologies will shape the future of plagiarism. He takes the counterintuitive position that plagiarism will become much harder to get away with. In fact, ’student plagiarism may be becoming less common as more colleges and universities adopt plagiarism-detection software,’ such as Turnitin (pronounced “turn it in”), an online service several thousand colleges use.”

Read the review of The Little Book of Plagiarism, by Richard A Posner at the New Atlantis.

Find many more reviews from the Critical Compendium - a daily dose of book reviews from around the world. Pretty neat! A good service addition from your library today?

Is it time for you, your team or your library organization to move beyond a Vision or Mission Statement to a compelling design of your future? The famous Goethe quote says it all: “Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it now. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Strategic intent is an approach that I am becoming all to familiar with within my organisation. It it believed that an organisation exhibits STRATEGIC INTENT when it relentlessly pursues a certain long-term strategic objective and concentrates its strategic actions on achieving that objective. Grand words indeed! In my organisation the dialogue around what is needed to ‘build capability’ for library services is positively embryonic - but developing nevertheless.

Great care is needed to evolve libraries using the lexicon of business. Fortunately there are many models and opportunities for us to ‘build capacity’ by learning and sharing through social networking.

Building the Ubiquitous Library in the 21st Century from the World Library and Information congress in August 2006 provides a “road map” for information professionals to utilize emerging technologies to “design, develop, integrate, enhance and implement ubiquitous library services and projects in the 21st century”.

Is todays library the new mall discusses how emerging technologies and the change in how we think about learning is driving library design that engage library users in more experiential learning environments.

Announcing the Computers in Libraries 2008 Conference.

Libraries are at the forefront of experimenting with and adopting new technology. New tools and processes have ignited creative content mashups, specialized and personalized services for community segments, and exciting new techniques for dealing with voluminous information flows. Now user generated content in conjunction with new tools is shaping the new information world. What new horizons will we find with the integration of “high tech and high touch”? What innovation and change will 2008 bring?

The conference theme Innovative Change: Integrating High Tech with High Touch, focuses on how libraries excel when technology advancements match the people capabilities. It highlights leading edge online initiatives and innovations in all types of information enterprises, tools and techniques for enhancing user-friendly digital information flows, information discovery and visualization methods for dealing with today’s information overload, building new communities and supporting online connections in engaging ways, and more.

Call for speakers is now open. Submit a proposal by August 24, 2007. You’ll find the Computers in Libraries 2008 group on FaceBook.

Thanks to Rhonda Gonzales @ the library, who writes about Blogs as Websites for libraries.

What she offers is an introduction to an OPAC which presents information with TAGS and comments - just like a blog - while still incorporating bibliographic data. This is taxonomy with a folksonomy ‘look and feel’. A most interesting development.

One of the most impressive is Plymouth State University’s Lamson Library. Take a look at their beta site: http://lamson.wpopac.com/library. If you do a catalog search, the results are posted to the site like blog postings complete with comments. You can also browse the catalog or the whole site by drilling down through categories, etc.

This site is built on a product called Scriblio (formerly WPopac) which describes itself as “Scriblio (formerly WPopac) - an award winning, free, open- source CMS and OPAC with faceted searching and browsing features based on WordPress“. Scriblio is not available for general use at the present, but learn more about it at About Scriblio.

[From:FIKSZ.3 NDRGRND]

Keith Stanger must be a great Library Guy!! But seriously, it is well worth visiting Keith’s ‘home port’ at Information Advocate: Your Guide to Navigating Information Clutter.

What I particularly like about Keith’s approach is the way he provides access to information sources with visual mapping. Visit any of the Resources:Suggested Indexes at Halle Library and you will see exactly what I mean.

Fantastic combination of information literacy with a mind-mapping approach to information services.

Library ELF, is a free third-party service to receive email notices for due, coming due, holds, and overdue materials. You can also consolidate all family library cards on one handy email notice. Have your Library barcode and pin number ready and sign up today!

Check the Library ELF website to see if your country or region is available for this service.

[From: Yarra Plenty Library Blog and Lansing Public Library Tools and Resources]