Now for some happier news…I have a minor announcement. Minor in the grand scheme of things and major to me, that is. Last month I accepted a job at the Valparaiso University School of Law Library. My official title will be Faculty Services and Outreach Librarian and this basically means that I’ll be able to concentrate ...
Do you want an iPod Nano, specifically an iPod Nano 8G sent out by Westlaw as part of their recent WestlawNext promotion? Because I sure as Hell don’t. I’ve waited a week and I can’t a definitive answer on whether or not my initial plan to auction off the iPod and donate the proceeds to charity ...
Ye Olde Blogge here has gotten some pretty heavy traffic lately. Some of what I have been writing is provoking strong feelings and people are leaving comments. That’s awesome. If I didn’t want comments, I wouldn’t leave my blog open to them. However, this is my space on the Internet, I pay the bills, and ...
My Westlaw/iPod experience has reminded me of yet another Something I Didn’t Learn In Library School – Librarian Ethics. Sure, we covered the basics, like “don’t give out patron information” and…um…actually, that’s the only one I really remember talking about. There must have been others (something about whether or not you can let a teenager have ...
Ten days ago or so I received an email from someone at Westlaw. It said, “Just wanted to send you a quick note… We’ll be revealing the new Westlaw on Feb. 1 at LegalTech New York… I’d like to get you some information about it… What’s the best address to FedEx you something?“ I sent ...
In Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 philosophies, there is a concept called “Radical Trust.” The idea behind Radical Trust is pretty simple: trust your patrons. Trust them to leave comments on your blogs. Trust them to edit wikis. Trust them to add tags to your Flickr photos or OPACs. Yes, ...
One of my favorite movies is Thirteen Days, which is the behind-the-scenes story of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the perspective of Kenny O’Donnell, a longtime Kennedy Family friend. As the movie depicts, the United States wasn’t quite sure how to react to threat of nuclear weapons in Cuba. A committee of the National Security ...
I like Seth Godin. His book Tribes (which I admittedly haven’t read yet) was quite the talk of SLA 2009. I also like his blog, which generally always gives me something to think about and wonder how I can apply to libraries. So when I saw that Mr. Godin – who is not a ...
…and yet, I still don’t have an office with a window. One of the things I wanted to play around with this year (and one of my predictions for 2010 Big Thing) are geolocation based applications. There was one slight problem: I live pretty much smack in the middle of nowhere…at least as far as developers ...
Happy New Year, y’all! I love New Years. LOVE IT. After Halloween, Talk Like a Pirate Day and my birthday, it’s my favorite holiday. I think like the fact that it’s a clear deliniation in time and an opportunity to make a fresh start. I can look back over the past year and see what went ...