New Library Blog: CEBuzz!
There’s a new library blog that might be of interest to Library Garden readers: CEBuzz. CEBuzz is a group blog brought to you by ALA’s Continuing Library Education Network and Exchange Round Table, aka, CLENE. (I’ve been active in CLENE for years and am currently coordinating the new blog.)
The mission of CEBuzz is to provide a thought-provoking resource for those interested in and responsible for Continuing Education (CE) and staff development in libraries. To that end, the the blog will:
- Provide coverage of trends in learning theory and practice
- Provide links to online learning resources
- Provide coverage of “hot topics” in CE and staff development
- Announce learning events of interest
I think we’ve put together a great team of authors, who’ve already generated some wonderful posts. So if you’re interested in continuing education and/or staff development check us out. Or just pop our feed into your reader: http://feeds.feedburner.com/CeBuzz.
Oh, and if you’re an ALA member and interested in joining CLENE for a mere $20 (and getting a free preferred professional membership in the American Management Association thrown in) you can add us to your membership right online.
Slam the Boards!
Today is Slam the Boards day – many librarians will spend some time today on “answer boards,” like Yahoo! Answers, Can’tFindOnGoogle, AnswerBag, and others, answering questions and making it known that the answer has been provided by a librarian!
This has even been picked up by Library Journal, where you can read more about the origination and background of Slam the Boards!
There is a wiki here where you can officially list yourself as a participant and get more information. You can, of course, participate without signing up anywhere. Just go to a public answer board and sign up there (some require that you create an account and log in, etc.) and start answering questions!
There are a lot of good tips on the wiki about how best to participate, remote library resources, and some comments/suggestions from Jessamyn West on this (and a caution with which I agree.)
There has also been discussion and some debate over on the Yahoo! Answers blog. There are some detractors from this idea but I think that if we think of it as just adding our voices and being where the information needs are we can contribute while doing a little self-promotion and marketing. We’re not out to beat or better the answer boards, but (in my opinion) to add ourselves as an option where people may not have thought of libraries before.
Be sure to let everyone know that the question was answered by a librarian at the end of your answer and remind them to think of their library as a resource. There are some suggested signatures and tag lines on the wiki such as The Library is a resource, not a building. Librarians are where you are – online! (I really like that one). You could put your library link, a link to find a local public library, or a link to a library’s virtual or IM reference service.
The point is not to put those answer sites out of business, or annoy them, or take them over, or to do anything negative, but to be where the people and questions are and to let people know that librarians are “answer boards” all day, everyday. I think putting the idea of libraries into peoples’ heads at times when they might not automatically think of them on their own is a very interesting idea.
Even if you only have time to answer just one question and mention that you are a library person that will be one more for today!
If you can’t do it today, do it another day. Many librarians already do spend time on these sites answering questions, like on AskMetaFilter. And, there are many library services/sites already doing it – here in the Garden State, we have the wonderful Q&A NJ (which, by the way, rocked the MTV Video Awards last night with their awesome commercial)!
There is also a space on the wiki to discuss this event after today. If this event is successful, it may be repeated. Hey, maybe you’ll form your own plan to do this as an “event,” for a day, a week, a month, or maybe you’ll just enjoy it and find you want to be a regular answer board person.
Get slammin’!
2007 Summer Reading Program… in Review
This time of year is always a happy and sad time for me. I’m sad because the summer is so close to ending, and I have an annual tradition of regretting not doing more outside. But then again, I am happy because the frantic pace of our Summer Reading Program is over… and that means I can actually take a moment to relax a little, perhaps breathe a bit as well.
All in all, it was a great summer for me. This was the first time that I had full reign of our teens’ Summer Reading Program. I packed it with programs, volunteers, last-second planning, fix-ups, movies and an occasional-running-with-scissors moment… if you know what I mean.
But how did it all go? What worked and what didn’t? Let’s review it in a hot/not fashion.
Hot– The average number of books read by teens who signed up for the Summer Reading Program was 18!
Not– Actual number of participants in the Reading Program was down.
Hot– The “You Never Know What You Can Do With Duct Tape” program. We made wallets, cell phone holders, a couple flowers and even attempted sandals. It was probably my most attended program on a week to week basis. By the way, if you try the sandals, make sure you don’t accidentally expose the duct tape adhesive to the hair on your toes… Yowwww!
Not– The whole “YNK” theme. Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed silly. People may have used the theme but few actually used it as “YNK” (and not without having to clarify what YNK stood for).
Hot– The End of Summer lock-in. It was the first after hours party we had at our library. The teens ate about 8-feet worth of subs, partied heartily and every single one of them was actually picked up on time!
Not– The one single teen at the party who decided to push the boundaries and threw her piece of cake into the face of another person.
Hot– The Shoprite Deli. Originally, the store lost our sub order for the party. So, Dan, the Deli-guy, made good by not just making 10 subs but only charged us half-price because of the mix up.
Not– Shoprite in general. I’m sorry, it’s a Marrazzo’s thing.
Hot– My teen-volunteer coordinator’s ability to have all but 5 of our teens complete the required number of hours and set a record for most volunteers sign-up and completed.
Not– The teen volunteers constantly referring to me as “Hey Mister!”
Hot– The song “Hey Delilah” by the Plain White Ts being constantly played.
Not– Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” being constantly overplayed.
And finally….
Hot– Our brand new Teen furniture finally came in!
Not– Gaylord messed up the color of the furniture and has yet to fix it. But they did offer to let us keep the furniture they sent us in lieu of having to send the right ones.
So, how do I rank the summer on a whole? I’ll go with an 8/10. Better than average but let’s leave some room for improvement.
Quechup spam/scam alert–pass it on
If you get any invites from Quechup, delete them immediately.
If you haven’t already heard ( see here, here, here, or just google quechup) Quechup is, well, rotten.
Although apparently a legit social networking site, if you join they prompt you with one of those, “hey, want to know which of your friends are already on Quechup?” pitches, and ask for your permission to search your online address book (if you have one.) That’s where it all goes south…
Quechup then searches your address book and…wait for it… SENDS AN INVITE IN YOUR NAME TO EVERY EMAIL IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
Hey marketing geniuses at Quechup, can I ask you a question? In what universe would this tactic be successful and not, oh, say, be the ruin of your company? I’m guessing it’s a universe where people say ‘goodbye’ when they enter the room, and ‘hello’ when they leave it. (Hello Quechup!!)
Happy Blog Day 2007!
Today is the 3rd Annual Blog Day and I thought I would play along by listing my 5 “new and/or interesting” blogs. I won’t be giving much of a description for each blog I list due to a time crunch (aka packing for a vacation at Disney) and I will not be blogging again until mid-September at the earliest. I am leaving my laptop behind and unplugging for the entire vacation. Without further ado, my five “Blog Day Blogs”:
Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit — I love everything about cupcakes, especially experimenting with new recipes. I also love to read about them and Cupcake Bakeshop gives me lots of visuals to see the process. I actually follow more than one cupcake blog and I have to say that I read and adore Cupcakes Take the Cake equally as well. So many cupcakes, so little time.
Sandusky History — I received an email earlier this week from Dorene Paul, Reference Assistance at Sandusky Library in Ohio, that led me to a wonderful local history blog that is “inspired by the collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center and Follett House Museum”. The photos are fascinating, the accompanying stories are engaging. This is local history done right!
Trashionista — Great for keeping up with chick-lit on both sides of the pond. They have a great tagline too: “We read books like they’re going out of fashion”.
MomsRising Blogs -MomsRising is a grassroots, online effort that has a goal of “bringing millions of people who all share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America” and they have several bloggers helping to move their cause forward.
The Gadget Blog — There are lots of gadget blogs that I check and read regularly, some well-known and others that are not. Keeping up with the world of gadgets is important to my job, even if my budget can rarely afford the newest and the coolest.
See everyone again in a few weeks — enjoy the Labor Day weekend!
Nicole Engard to headline 8th Season of Tech Talks at PPL!
This talk is free and open to everyone — registration not required.
If you live within driving distance, consider joining us we kick off the 8th season of Tuesday Technology Talks at Princeton Public Library with Nicole Engard.
Full details can be found on the newly migrated Tech Talk blog.
How addicted are you?
Found via TTW — I couldn’t resist taking the quiz and am surprised at my score!
Mingle2 – Dating Site
Magical Mystery Tour Wiki Link
As requested, here’s the link to the Wiki that supports the Magical Mystery Tour: http://librarygarden.pbwiki.com
My Flickr set from the day is available here.
My 15 minutes was focused on getting across the concept of RSS. I did a powerpoint (also up on slideshare.) All of my supporting information is up on the wiki here: librarygarden.pbwiki.com/Pete’s+Favorites.
We’re doing a repeat performance next Thursday (and then Barbequing at Chateau Bromber’) so if anyone has any recommendations or feedback to improve my RSS presentation I’m all ears. Grilling tips are also appreciated.
History is Made!
Today the bloggers of Library Garden had an historic first — we all finally got together in real life. This photo captures the first time that the entire blog team was assembled in one place at the same time since we began blogging about 18 months ago. We have had 3 or 4 of us together in a room before now, but never all six. In fact, this the first time that Amy and Marie have met face-to-face.
The occasion? A little something we call The Magical Mystery Tour, which will be repeating again next week in South Jersey and later this fall in the Highlands. Full links and details to follow… it was a great day. Thanks to everyone from CJRLC who joined us this morning for some Web 2.0 fun.
Mashups and Other New or Improved Collaborative Social Software Tools
Following up on two articles–both available at robertlackie.com/ under the “Selected Online Materials” page–published in late 2006 on Web 2.0 and social networking sites of interest to librarians and teachers, a colleague of mine at Rider University and I (Robert D. Terrio and Robert J. Lackie) just published another article in MultiMedia & Internet@Schools magazine continuing the discussion of practical free tools and technologies that teacher-librarians are currently using.
This article, “Mashups and Other New or Improved Collaborative Social Software Tools,” has just become available in HTML full text within the EBSCO Academic Search Premier database and soon in PDF within Wilson databases as well as at the MMISchools.com site. The goal of our article was…
…to continue the discussions of practical Web 2.0 tools and social networking sites that have been brought up in this magazine and at recent school librarian conferences and to highlight other collaborative tools and exciting developments in free Web 2.0 social software, items we will categorize as “Useful Collaborative Tools” and “Practical Mashups.”
We see that librarians and other educators are continuing to learn about and integrate Web 2.0 technologies and collaborative tools in practical and worthwhile ways, and we think it’s very exciting to be a part of it! We hope that you will take the time to read the article, check out the sites, explore the references, and share these and your opinions with all of us.
Additionally, if integrating Web 2.0 into the classroom or library is new to you, read, watch, listen to, and play with many of the interesting resources listed at the Web 2.0 info site of Kathy Schrock, one of my favorite authors and presenters, and continue to come back and visit us at the Library Garden for more discussions, communication, sharing, and creating of valuable content to and ideas for librarians and other educators!
Technorati Tags: collaboration, communication, Library Garden, mashups, social software, web 2.0
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