You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2007.
I’ve been pretty quite lately as I get ready to change to a liaison model of librarianship and try to finish projects before the needed vacation.
It’s hard to believe, but today marks my 1st birthday, that is in Second Life. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been there a whole year! I feel I’ve still got so much to learn. I’m still trying to figure out the role of libraries and education in Second Life. I think there still lots of growth to happen and I’m excited that I can still be a part of it. Let’s see what happens in the next year!
While on the topic of Second Life, I thought I’d also note that today is the last day of our virtual reference pilot project there. It’s been an interesting project, successful I think and will likely continue. I’ll be preparing a report over the next week or so. I’ll be presenting on it in a couple of places, so watch out for it if you’re interested (or you can contact me if you can’t see it).
Well, I’ve found a bunch of interesting tidbits. So here they are:
- There was a tremor near-ish my hometown in Nova Scotia. I have relatives in the area of the tremor too. Most unusual for this area. Not big but strange to hear about!
- They’ve found a golden mask for a Thracian king! Most exciting - they’re quite a rare find.
- Work is being done on Open Library. Here’s the site description: “Imagine a library that collected all the world’s information about all the world’s books and made it available for everyone to view and update. We’re building that library.” Kudos! Something we should have been working on for some time now. This is a site to watch!
- Meredith Farkas has a great post on risk-taking. It’s something I think I need to try to do a little more. I’ve done more than I thought I might have but there’s still room for improvement. It’s good to get out of our comfort zone and grow as individuals.
Finally! For far too long Canadians have been paying for books at a high price. The strength of the loonie is finally going to change that and we can expect to see book prices lower. I’m not sure if CLA has been advocating for this change but it seems the Canadian Booksellers Association has been pushing to reduce book prices. More can be found in this news piece.
Merriam-Webster is adding new words to their dictionary, including ginormous, sudoku and speed dating. It always amazes me what gets added to a dictionary and sometimes feel that many should be in a slang dictionary instead. That aside, I was pleased to find “gray literature” - defined, at least by the news article, as hard-to-get written material was being added in. Perhaps we’ll be able to help students find it now that it’s officially recognized. The only thing I might change is that gray literature should also include online material as well. Here’s an article on the topic.
There’s a great article in the new issue of Educause which shares the result of a recent survey of librarian and faculty views of libraries (quick, now go read it). Most of the results are not surprising and it suggests that librarians and faculty still don’t always see eye-to-eye. I found it unsurprising that faculty are using the library less frequently but that’s not to say they’re not using our resources. While faculty see the library becoming less relevant they do not want library funds to be directed elsewhere and still see the library serving a preservation need. Libraries provide essential resources and this role will unlikely change, it is the manner in which we offer these resources and even our services that will change. Unsurprisingly, both faculty and librarians see electronic resources become an increasingly dominant format.
One thing that I tend to disagree with is that the article suggests that librarians generally see their role remaining unchanged. This may be what the survey suggested but many of the librarians I know, myself included, do not feel this is the case. A session I attended at CNI on the future of academic libraries also suggested the need for libraries and librarians to start reconsidering their positions and roles and I think many of his predictions, although they may be hard to take, may not be far off the mark.
I do agree with the idea that libraries need to take a leadership role in a number of areas, including preservation and collections (the future of the e-book and the move to online journals).
Surveys such as this are essential in reminding librarians that faculty may not have the same opinions on important issues. Libraries are a’changin’ and we as librarians will need to change too.
I’ve been suspicous of the supposed link between games and violence. Here’s a news piece suggesting that although teens play violent games, they are not becoming violent. It also notes that games are not all solitary and that many play in groups.
