Jump

At a meeting the other day the inevitable discussion of libraries and change dominated the lunch break. It quickly focused in on technology, and in particular technology’s effect on the catalogue and the reference interview. This discussion often leaves me wary. I wonder if perhaps this focus on technological change has not let us off [...]

Rethinking thinking

Does your public library have a thinking pattern that is so tried and true, so formulaic, that it has moved beyond a successful method for solving problems into being a problem itself? Does every perceived problem get its own drawn out royal commission?
Occasionally when I muse on the future of libraries, I’m not enthusiastic: [...]

Anchors and community development

Before librarianship there was 20 years of playing around in community development. 20 questioned filled years of trying to figure out what community meant, what development meant, and what it meant to be part of it. 20 years of questions that I carry to work with me every day.
Sometimes the questions fade into the [...]

Slainte

Whether taken with a stiff drink or straight up on its own, this brief slide presentation, The Art of Business: Top 10 Basic Business Principles, from the Hyper Passionate Entrepreneurs, can console/embolden those of us who want to push the boundaries of librarianship or well, actually, ahem, at times just kick over the stacks.
Believe [...]

The ability to see far

That’s what a friend said was the greatest advantage to living on the prairies; developing the ability to see far. At the time I grimaced at his best kick at the can to rationalize living surrounded by wheat and blowing wind, not to mention that geography’s amazing ability to maintain a minus forty temperature.
I’m no [...]

What a relief

I had been worried that I was becoming a useless fence-sitter, but I’m not - and that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Some of you may have noticed that I’m cautiously supportive of web 2.0 initiatives, as well as most things that are being sold to me as innovative (I can get uncomfortable with [...]

Innovation, toh-may-tohs, and change

As a profession we talk a lot about innovation. It may be regarding new teen areas and manga collections, or implementing web 2.0 tools that open up the catalogue or provide open communication with the director. Wherever you look, we’re all about innovation, innovation, innovation. And along with innovation we talk about barriers and late [...]

Inspiration in Brooklyn

I just found through LIS News a link to the article “They’re community centers, says chief who bans hushing at libraries”. Brooklyn Public Library Executive Director Dionne Mack-Harvin views libraries as busy community centers where people “can find a place for themselves” and “talk to each other, not sit in silence”. But more than just [...]

Today’s Old News

I have been trying not to write this post. I had even pulled back from reading other posts on the topic. But it’s been sort of like pretending I’m above Brad and Angelina gossip, but picking the longest line in the grocery store so I have more time to read the magazine that I would [...]

Facebook in your marketing toolbox?

Back at the end of June, Jane Dysart, of Dysart & Jones Associates, put up a blog post that has now spent a month nagging at me (that’s a long nag life time for a blog post).
The post, In The Power of Facebook: CIL 2008 Group, celebrates the speed with which people signed up on [...]

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