It’s probably no surprise to you that sometimes library staffers prefer to work with one age group over another. Children’s services staff members may love working with kids but may not be so crazy about working with teens or adults; young adult staffers may be wild about teenagers, but preschoolers and adults may be another … Continue reading The Whole Library Approach
The act of reading is evolving. Today’s readers can experience the same story as they toggle between audiobooks in the car, ebooks on the iPad, and paperbacks at home, and young people in particular are naturals in this transmedia world. Introducing these digital natives to literature as audiobooks can be as easy as maintaining a … Continue reading Sound Literature
When librarians first began offering chat reference, most envisioned it as a medium to answer quick and simple questions. Involved research questions were best answered in person. Somehow, our patrons didn’t get the memo on this, and many chat interactions are just as involved as face-to-face reference sessions. What complicates these chat-based interactions is that … Continue reading Need Help? Join.me Online
Technology, as always, was on display at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Consistent with the strong attendance figures, activity in the exhibit hall seemed especially brisk this year. As the largest exhibition of library-oriented technology and content products worldwide, ALA Annual offers librarians a unique opportunity to review the latest offerings from nearly every … Continue reading Enabling Access, Engagement, and Efficiency
Librarians are looking at the possibility of reviewing apps for developers and putting our expert imprimatur on their content and value, just as we already do for books and other formats. Regardless of what you think are the best ways to incorporate apps into services and programs for children, librarians agree that they are important … Continue reading Apps and Autism
Popular wisdom says if you want to learn how to use your latest piece of consumer technology, you find an 8-year-old to teach you. In “The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s,” (The New York Times, Jan. 9, 2010), Brad Stone looked at how children view technology differently than adults, and even how … Continue reading Bridging the Digital Divide
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As always, it was a pleasure to welcome friends and colleagues to Seattle for the Midwinter Meeting this past January. Two topics of conversation often arose, unexpectedly: our recent ballot measures on marriage equality and marijuana legalization. Of course, we’d been living with those issues all through the election, so the fact that anybody else … Continue reading As a Matter of Fact . . .
As physical collections shrink in response to the digital revolution, most libraries are looking for ways to keep the turnstile spinning. In central New York near Syracuse, Liverpool Public Library (LPL) found one answer this past spring in the call of the wild, namely, the growing geocaching craze. Geocaching is a cross between an outdoor … Continue reading Libraries “Cache” in on Geocaching Treasure Hunts
“You don’t even have to bring the author to your town anymore,” says Johannes Neuer, associate director of marketing for NYPL. “Google Hangouts are the perfect places to create brand engagement.” When Neuer talks about social media tools, libraries should listen. Hangouts is just one of many public-facing platforms NYPL has taken into the fold … Continue reading How Libraries Are Using Social Media
In medieval times, so the story goes, uncharted areas of maps were marked with the ominous notation “here be dragons.” While satellites have allowed precise mapping of the Earth, there are still plenty of non-geographic unknowns to be explored—like reasonably priced fiction ebooks with library-friendly terms. And thus was born Here be Fiction, a discovery platform … Continue reading Here Be Fiction
During the Save Ohio Libraries movement in 2009, some libraries in Ohio jumped into Twitter. Undoubtedly, they saw it as another avenue for getting the word out about the imminent and catastrophic budget cuts being proposed by Ohio’s governor. However, two major factors prevented them from really using Twitter as an effective rallying tool. The … Continue reading Understanding Social Capital
I didn’t know much about makerspaces prior to Annual. I assumed, well, they make things, right? My general notion was correct, but definitely not the whole story. So what is a makerspace? A makerspace, also known as a hackerspace or a hacklab, is an open community workspace to fuel creativity through projects usually involving computers, … Continue reading “Maker Monday” Mania at Maker Showcase
