Keeping Up with Connect: What’s Going On

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.orgThere's so much happening on ALA Connect, you may feel a bit overwhelmed trying to find your way. But with a few easy features, you can quickly put your finger on the pulse of ALA Connect.From the ALA Connect homepage you can browse upcoming events, view most recently created member communities, follow comments recently made, and more. Let's take a closer look.

September 15, 2009

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org

There’s so much happening on ALA Connect, you may feel a bit overwhelmed trying to find your way. But with a few easy features, you can quickly put your finger on the pulse of ALA Connect.

From the ALA Connect homepage you can browse upcoming events, view most recently created member communities, follow comments recently made, and more. Let’s take a closer look.

The Connect Calendar lets you browse upcoming events from all groups–those events that are made public, that is. Click the More link for a full view of upcoming events, deadlines, and more. Check out, for example, this discussion of The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter on ALA’s Second Life island.

Back on the homepage, we can also view recently created member communities. Of course, you can browse all member communities to connect with others on topics of interest to you. But this section allows you to hone in on what’s happening now. Did you know, for instance, that you could use Connect to touch base with alumni from your MLS program? Or to learn more about gaming in libraries?

For more on finding groups and communities–those you belong to and those you don’t–be sure to check out the What’s New with My Groups and What’s New with Other Groups screencasts.

The Recent Comments section gives you a sense of the current conversations on Connect. What are people saying right now? You may see recent discussion about ALA Council, for example, or tips for teaching government information to kids. Start from the top to follow the whole discussion.

Back at the homepage, you can view popular Connect content–that is, public pages that people are viewing most.

Follow popular tags to browse to content, too! Tags are user-defined keywords describing posts, documents, and events. That means tags help you find content as organized by users, rather than by ALA structures. This tag cloud will show you the most commonly used tags, meaning the topics and themes being most discussed. The bigger the font size, the more often the term has been used as a tag. Click on Gaming, for example, to check out relevant posts and events.

The right sidebar of the ALA Connect homepage is your gateway to keeping current with the pulse of ALA Connect. Check in often to check out the conversations.

For more information about ALA Connect, visit the Help community, always available at the top of the screen, or use the Contact Us form if you have questions.

Music: Cherry Rag by Tom Joad and Gerry Dempsey, available at www.archive.org.

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.orgALA has over two thousand divisions, committees, task forces and round tables, and Connect offers an additional 500 member created communities- and this number is growing every day. So how does one find new groups that might interest them? This is Finding New Groups in ALA Connect

ALA Connect for LIS Students

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.orgALA Connect offers the opportunity for users to create member communities- communities that any ALA member can participate in. This provides a great opportunity for LIS students and alumni to congregate in an unofficial sort of way, network and build those professional relationship!

Latest Library Links

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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

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Karen O’Grady writes: “I am the embedded librarian for the Hahn School of Nursing at the University of San Diego. I am surrounded by nursing faculty, staff, and students rather than by librarians. This has proven to be an incredible gamechanger for the way I see things. Every student in my school knows me by name. I am often stopped in the hallway to answer questions. Every correct answer I give increases my authority and builds trust. Through these casual mini-lessons, this foreign animal called ‘librarian’ slowly becomes an approachable, knowledgeable person.”

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On December 9, ALA announced a $25 million bequest by James W. Lewis, of Washington, D.C. The gift, the largest individual bequest in ALA’s history, will fund scholarships for aspiring librarians with demonstrated financial needs. Throughout Lewis’s career at Merrill Lynch, where he leads the Lewis Group as senior vice president and senior relationship manager, he has demonstrated his commitment to libraries and their communities by generously volunteering his time, including as a member of the Board of Visitors at the library of his alma mater, Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He also served as a Library Trustee Board member at District of Columbia Public Library for 10 years.”

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American Libraries column, Nov./Dec.

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Keeping Up with Connect: What’s Going On

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Finding New Groups that Might Interest You

ALA Connect for LIS Students