On the eve of SXSW, a group of librarians and I attended a maker meetup hosted by the Austin Mini Maker Faire at the Thinkery, an Austin children’s museum. Adults of all ages engaged in crafts, water exhibits, shadow art, and oversized Lite Brite–like designs before listening to a brief address by Dale Dougherty, founder … Continue reading Maker Meetup at SXSW
Librarians from all over the country have landed in Austin, Texas, for SXSW Interactive, a five-day conference of tech professionals and venture capitalists, startups and entrepreneurs, gamers and makers, and everything in between. For the past few years, a group of library, archives, and museum professionals have coordinated to present sessions, advocate for libraries, and … Continue reading SXSW Day One
Steve Leggett, program coordinator of the National Film Preservation Board at the Library of Congress (LC), laughs as he retells this Hollywood urban legend. Nevertheless the story contains truth. Scores of films were destroyed during cinema’s early years by studios that viewed silents as obsolete. These silent classics were not seen as works of art … Continue reading Saving Our Celluloid Past
Academic libraries have a big hairy problem: Over the past decade or so, their budgets have shifted from buying materials to leasing them. Journals are the main budget killers, with some subscriptions—so vital to the scholarly life—costing $30,000 annually per title. Even the wealthiest university libraries can’t buy everything. In truth, they buy less and … Continue reading Sharing Ebooks on the Razor’s Edge
As I often say, this is a time of experimentation. (If you know something’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.) But it’s not enough to try and fail, or even try and succeed. Either way, we have to report out to our colleagues. A little over a year ago, Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries teamed … Continue reading Acquisition Dashboard from Impelsys: Results of an Experiment
In 2011, I was elected as president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the global voice of the library and information profession. With my term having ended at the World Information and Library Congress this past August, I wanted to share some thoughts on why libraries remain as relevant as ever … Continue reading Changes and Connections
During the ALA Washington Office Update on Saturday morning, Patrice McDermott, executive director of Open the Government, introduced Spencer Ackerman, national security editor for the Guardian US, who discussed details of how the newspaper acquired information and documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden and came to the decision to publish them. Before Ackerman took the podium, McDermott shared her … Continue reading Putting NSA Under the Microscope
“We are in the business of making resources available, and we shouldn’t forget that,” said Emily Gore, director for content of the Digital Public Library of America. Gore was one of five panelists speaking to an estimated 200 attendees at LITA’s popular event reporting on changes and advances in technology. Each panelist and the moderator … Continue reading Top Tech Trends 2014
Anyone standing outside on the second day of the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting here in Philadelphia was dusted with snow, but the scene inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center was sizzling. Many of us began gathering right at 9 a.m. Saturday morning for a chance to begin trying demonstration models of Google Glass with a tap … Continue reading OK, Glass
Valerie Hill’s students can make a polished puppet show in minutes with an iPad app. When they’re finished, they say “Now what?” In the past, students might have spent an entire day making the actual puppets and performing the show. During her presentation at “Information Literacy and Gamification Using Minecraft,” Hill, a librarian for the … Continue reading An Original Minecraft Game in Six Weeks
Hanging out took on a completely new meaning Friday afternoon in the Networking Uncommons at the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. Board members and colleagues belonging to the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) took advantage of a block of unscheduled time between more formal events to gather around a table and share stories. Those … Continue reading Hanging Out with the Tech Crowd
My first ALA Midwinter began the same way my first Annual began: in a dimly lit conference room for an unconference. Unconference is a participant-guided experience that aims to reinvent the informal, unstructured conversations that colleagues have at conferences. Instead of being talked at, the attendees decide on topics to discuss, and talk with one … Continue reading Unconference: Take Two
