6 Terms that Instantly Reveal You as a Librarian. Few professions are as steeped in tradition and esoteric knowledge as librarianship. We have our own dialect packed with specialized jargon that only others in our vocation would understand. To decipher all of this we even have our own dictionary! And although we do our best to avoid most of these terms in casual conversation, there are times that we just can’t help but use them, and they unequivocally identify us as librarians. What terms and phrase have earned you confused looks? 1) Ephemera 1: Items that are disposable or “short-lived” and usually collected by libraries for their graphic qualities or cultural significance such as menus, tickets, bookmarks, pamphlets, etc. 2: All that paper you’ve been meaning to clean out of your desk!
2) Primary Sources 3) Monograph 1: A book. 4) Provenance 1: One of the battle droids in Star Wars that never made it out of the Battle of Utapau. 2: A protocol used to search remote databases, usually to retrieve cataloging records. 6) Shh! Clutter, physical and mental - or, organizing for the differently organized - Personal Knowledge Management for Academia & Librarians. I’m finally going to read all the books I have stacked up on de-cluttering and getting organized, and then I’m going to share the accumulated wisdom with you. That is, I’m going to read them if I can find them. One of the basic themes of this blog is managing mental clutter to become more productive in academia.
However, the world of things can also impinge on our ability to produce new knowledge. Can you find the receipt from the hotel that you need for your expense report? If you have consistent problems with organizing things, you may have wondered if it’s because you don’t know how to organize (lack of knowledge), you are bored by organizing (lack of willpower), or you just weren’t meant to organize things in the ways commonly done here and now (lack of ordinary brain wiring). Can alternative ways of understanding help, since human intelligence has not? As Mary reported in May I Have Your Attention? Of the latest wave, my main source right now is a website, Ariane Benefit’s AgilZen.
Open Letters: An Open Letter to the Look That Slowly Forms On Your Face When I Tell You I Am a Librarian. Dear Look That Slowly Forms On Your Face When I Tell You I Am a Librarian: The raised eyebrows and intake of breath fool no one. As a librarian, I am well aware that most people do not find my job an interesting topic of conversation at a neighborhood barbecue, music festival or, to use a more keenly relevant example, the cocktail party we both attended last Friday night. I believe that those four minutes we spent together, both holding a glass of shiraz in one hand and crumpled up napkins in the other, created a camaraderie that allow me to offer a few delicate suggestions.
While at no time did your lips actually curl downward into a grimace, the frozen, dare I say stricken, look you chose to accompany my declaration of career halted our conversation before it even began. It’s true that reactions to my occupation tend to fall into two camps. Members of the other camp (this means you) pause just a bit too long. It’s what happens next that, to me, is unforgivable. All the best, Becca. Learning about CILIP and ALA governance. I’ve always been interested in knowing more about the governance of professional organisations such as Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and American Library Association (ALA).
I like to know how decisions are made and the structure of the organisation so that I can work out where I best fit and how I can help move things forward. I’ve been involved in the following ways so far to help me begin to get my head around this: Organised and chaired the first CILIP Election Hustings in November 2010 (on behalf of CILIP West Midlands)Attended CILIP AGM 2011Been involved in committee work for CILIP (West Midlands branch and CDG West Midlands) and ALA (NMRT-ASCLA liaison and NMRT Online Discussion Forum)ALA Emerging Leaders program (where the training included information about ALA and its structure, and we had opportunities to talk to ALA leaders)Attended ALA Council meeting CILIP governance CILIP logo Decision making for CILIP happens at Council.
Useful links: I’m breaking up with eBooks (and you can too) I want to break up with eBooks. Don’t get me wrong, eBooks is dead sexy and great arm candy at parties, as well as a magnet for attention and memorable experiences. But man…eBooks makes for a crap boyfriend. This relationship is as dysfunctional as it gets. And I’m too old and jaded to put up with dysfunction. I need a smoldering hot boyfriend who is a wildcat in the bedroom but kisses gently, is unfailingly honest and kind, and sends me cute messages during the day.
And that ain’t eBooks. eBooks is to libraries what that awful boyfriend (or girlfriend) was to you. eBooks ignores you eBooks totally ignores everything you say. eBooks drew you in with wine and roses, but now makes you fetch him beer and Cheetos Remember how tantalizing eBooks seemed several years ago? Now, eBooks’ idea of a date is ordering a cheese pizza from the cardboard pizza joint down the street. I feel that we in libraries are actually doing a disservice by offering what’s “barely good enough.” I’m out. Is Belbroughton phone box the world’s smallest library? They say the best things come in small packages. And that is certainly true for the Belbroughton Book Exchange near Stourbridge.
They say the best things come in small packages. And that is certainly true for the Belbroughton Book Exchange near Stourbridge. Despite being one of the smallest libraries in the world, set up in an old red telephone box, it is a honey pot for the village’s avid readers. The library is kept stocked up as villagers borrow books and replace them with their own used volumes. “It’s self-perpetuating,” said Ruth Perry, of High Street, Belbroughton, who runs the exchange with the help of a group of neighbours and fellow members of the village history society. When members of the history group found out the phone kiosk in High Street on the corner of Pinchers Close was going to be removed by BT last year, they set about finding a way of saving it for the village. “BT painted it and even put the gold crowns back on, because they had worn off.
Undaimonia: The Chicago blog post - Part 1. 14 July 2012, 2000 CST I’m in America. I’m standing on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower – a floor also known as the Skydeck. Below us – me and five other British librarians – stretches Chicago, Illinois: to the north and west, the sun sets over suburbs while, in the foreground, glass and metal skyscrapers are lit with glittering points of shimmering orange and red. The city blocks stretch out geometrically like a chess board: standing at the right angle, they appear as straight lines and perfect rectangles but move ever so slightly and it all falls out of alignment paradoxically becoming a sight which is more comforting, more beautiful.
Because at the wrong angle, the huge towers below us fall into the oh-so-familiar image of an American city skyline: technically, an entirely new sight but one that seems so familiar after a lifetime spent watching television and movies imported from the USA. But not for me. 29 March 2012, 1715 BST 14 July 2012, 1200 BST Or maybe that’s just me. Run up to the Olympics « Kate from UK. We’re one day away from the official start of the London 2012 games, and London (if not the UK) is being engulfed in Olympic atmosphere.
At the SLA conference in Chicago last week lots of people asked me about my reaction to London staging the Olympics. In true British style I replied whingeing about the traffic chaos I’d have to endure! There’s been a lot in the UK media this week telling us all to rejoice in the Olympics being here, but for those of us in London we’re still all grumbling about our journeys to work. Maybe, however, with the opening ceremony tomorrow we’re beginning to revel in the joys of being host city! I’ve started a daily count of sightings of volunteer ambassadors (10 yesterday) and security folk (1 yesterday and 1 this morning) I see around London. While today the torch relay is making it’s penultimate journey around boroughs in London, before heading for the Thames tomorrow.
Like this: Like Loading... Where next: Pecha Kucha for professional presentations - Do's and Don'ts. I've seen a lot of Pecha Kucha presentations recently and I'm developing opinions on what makes a good one work in a library/IT conference context. The format requires a powerpoint presentation that features 20 slides, each one a single picture, that automatically moves onto the next slide after 20 seconds. Here are my personal do's and don'ts: Do's: Use abstract pictures rather than diagrams. You shouldn't try and get into too much detail. Don'ts: Put text on your slides.
Conclusion: You're telling a story in 6 minutes or so, illustrated with pictures. PK's are refreshing to watch and will reward the time put into them. Undaimonia. Welcome To The Sue Hill Website. Library marketing toolkit, Information professional | SlideShare. » Blog LISNetwork. #UKLibChat. RICS London Bookshop (ricsldnbookshop) on Pinterest. Lambeth College Vauxhall Library Books On Display. 20 Ways Libraries Are Using Pinterest Right Now. The 10 Rights Of A Reader 3.97K Views 0 Likes What are your rights as a reader? First off, you have the right NOT to read. You also have the right to read out loud and the right to skip parts of the book. That's according to a fabulous book by Daniel Pennac. My 10 Favorite Learnist Boards Of The Year 2.66K Views 0 Likes I wanted to take a moment and share my favorite Learnist boards from the past year.
An In-Depth Report On Social Media’s Role In Education 2.40K Views 0 Likes Students, teachers, and parents have all gotten onto the social media train. Edudemic Is Giving Away 30 Free Citelighter Pro Accounts! 576 Views 0 Likes We think Citelighter is a great tool for both students and teachers, and what better way to try it out than for free? Get involved – it’s the way forward | LISNetwork. BookBytes - BookBytes. Library Wanderer: Really cool AND a librarian (also known as #cpd23: library roots/routes) I begin this post with a question: what's NOT to love about the library roots/routes project? Its title is a play on words!
It's a way of finding out random bits of information about people you vaguely know without feeling like a stalker! Its title is a play on words! (I'm not being facetious, I really do like the wordplay). The demarcation's a superficial one, right? Having a big long list of stories to read is at best interesting and at worst reassuring. So this means that it strikes me as just another bit of echo-chambery navel-gazing, maybe symptomatic of this obsession we all seem to have with Being Reflective and maybe a teensy smidgeon self-congratulatory, though very much accidentally so. Laying my cards on the table, I think this sort of thing is a little bit of a distraction, and there's a point at which that distraction becomes a little bit harmful. I'm not for a single second denigrating projects like these per se. Now I might be ENTIRELY wrong about this. Library Camps: what do you need | Growing a library. The Wolfenden Report. Twinset & Purls. Kangarooth.
Organising Chaos. Future Ready Begins Today Group News. Connector Josh Bycel raised $50,000 in three weeks to fund a medical clinic at a refugee camp in Darfur. We all know people like them, people who seem to know everyone. They're always able to help -- or if they can't, they know someone who can. You meet them for the first time and in 15 minutes, you're talking with them like you're childhood friends. They're successful, smart and funny, with a likable touch of self-deprecation. Who are they? "I like people and am genuinely curious," says Banikarim, 42. Related: 12 Tips for Trading Places in 2012 As Gladwell writes, "sprinkled among every walk of life . . . are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. Traits such as energy, insatiable curiosity and a willingness to take chances seem to be the common thread among connectors -- as well as an insistence that connecting is not the same as networking.
Related: Top Workplace Trend for 2012 "I'm a comedy writer. That means thinking long-term. Linked data: not just theory. Beyond books: what it takes to be a 21st century librarian. Librarians provide training to show people how to search for information and evaluate what they find. Photograph: Science photo library If we stopped the next person walking by on the street and asked them what our jobs as librarians involve, we'd be willing to bet that their first answer would be stamping books.
This is because many people's experience of librarians is of the frontline, customer service staff. Have you ever considered how the books get on to the shelves and ready for you to borrow? Behind the scenes there are teams of librarians working to make this happen. There are librarians who select the books for purchase, librarians who process the orders and librarians who create the bibliographic records that make it possible for you to find the book in the library catalogue and then on the shelves.
Books are only one aspect of what libraries and librarians are about. Kate Smyth, project officer for children and young people, Oldham library and information service. On the possession of ideas by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Bethan's information professional blog. Librarian's Weekly. Lesley Robinson: Home. New Information Certification. Google. 5 Lonely Google Applications For Competitive Intelligence. While going through my news screening dashboard last week, I stumbled on the recent findings by Mineria , which conducted a study on how Google search applications are being used by information users.
A presentation of the methodology that was used and results can be found on Slideshare. (Please see: “ Google Tools for Competitive Intelligence “) In short, it was discovered that the five most important tools for competitive intelligence are: Google Search Google Alert Google News Google Reader Google Maps On the other side of the coin, the five least important tools are: Google Squared Google News Timeline Google Public Data Explorer Google Real Time Google Moderator Why has these tools been left out of the practitioner’s toolbox? Here is a quick overview of the tools along with practical examples in which they could be used in a competitive intelligence context. (Please Note: I invite you to click on the titles in the “Want To Know More?” Google Squared is available at www.google.com/squared.
Google Maps. Screen reader users: click here for plain HTML +You Search Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Documents Calendar More Translate Books Shopping Blogger Reader Finance Photos Videos Even more Account Options Sign in Get directions My places Satellite Traffic Weather Terrain English Exit Report a problem Map data ©2012 Google - 100 mi 100 km Dive underwater into the Great Barrier Reef with Street View . United Kingdom Not your current location? Put your business on Google Maps Report a problem - Maps Labs - Help Google Maps - ©2012 Google - Terms of Use - Privacy To see all the details that are visible on the screen, use the Print link next to the map. 23 Things for Professional Development. ‘An absolute prerequisite’: The importance of user privacy and trust in maintaining academic freedom at the library. Become Enchanted! | Future Ready 365. Librarian's list of 60 challenges to do at the age of 60.
Library Camp.