Professional reading; "FIfty fabulous fables: beginning readers theatre"

News December 28, 2007 (mp3 file: 3.84 MB, 4:05 min.)
Professional reading; "Intergenerational Programming"

At the top of the ‘cast today: reading.

It’s funny how many people think that we librarians spend most of our time at work reading. Perhaps it’s because we do seem to spend a lot of time reading outside of work and they make the wrong assumption about when we read. And because we have little or no time to read at work, and prefer to read at least mostly for pleasure during non-work hours an important part of our reading can get lost in the shuffle—professional reading.

In an age when we never seem to have enough time to keep up with what we already know we have to do it’s difficult to find time to read about what we need to be thinking about doing tomorrow (or later today??) but it’s important that we take at least some time to keep current with what’s happening in the profession. In the new issue of “Public Libraries,” for example there are articles about promoting arts education in libraries (the summer library program theme for 2009 is about the arts…); an Idaho library that uses a 5x8 foot trailer pulled behind their eleven year old Subaru wagon as a bookmobile; part 3 of a series about youth, public libraries and the Internet, describing who visits the library and what they do there; and columns about reader’s advisory for teens (be careful not to try to push your own tastes on teens); and how to encourage participation by readers in your library’s blog.

OK, time is at a premium, there’s not doubt about it, but with the use of tools easily available we can do professional reading more efficiently, keep up with what’s going on and what’s ahead, we can serve our customers better.

Many of you can’t afford print subscriptions of professional journals (and a number of you borrow our copies) but the web offers great resources: blogs and wikis of librarians that you can subscribe to and have delivered to your desktop in an aggregator, and EBSCOhost. The Professional Development Collection database includes American Libraries, Library Journal, Library Trends, Library Technology Reports….and EBSCOhost enables you to set up alerts, so you’ll get an e-mail when articles about particular subjects—that you specify--are added to the database. So you don’t have to remember to go out and search periodically—so to speak. I receive regular alerts on Library 2.0 from EBSCOhost, for example; a colleague gets alerts on reader’s advisory.

We can’t create more time for you, but we can make good use of those tools to help make effective and efficient use of the time we do have. --Karen

Book reviewed by Marcia:
Fifty fabulous fables: beginning readers theatre, by Suzanne I. Barchers. Teacher Ideas Press, c1997.

News & Views December 21, 2007

News December 21, 2007 (mp3 file; 5:14 min.)




Book Reviewed by Marcia on Today's Podcast:

Library 2.0: A Guide to Participatory Library Service by Michael E. Casey and Laura C. Savastinuk, Information Today, Inc., 2007.

"A Day in the Life...;" Post-holiday display ideas for youth areas; "Intergenerational Programming"

News December 14, 2007 (mp3 file: 4.8 MB, 5:08 min.)
"A Day in the Life...;" Post-holiday display ideas for youth areas; "Intergenerational Programming"

This morning as I was showing some examples to the participants in our Computerside Chat on flickr and photo sharing I thought it might be fun for us to take a page—so to speak-- from Allen County’s “Day in the Life of Allen County, Indiana” book—or, website, actually—and do our own “Day in the Life of SW Iowa Libraries.” I often hear librarians say that people don’t know all that librarians do, and this would be a chance for us to show them. We could all take photos during our day and post them on flickr, where they could all be gathered in the photo pool for a group I’ve created there. It would be good PR for libraries, and give us a chance to work with flickr and see what’s possible.

We also took a look at some third-party tools that you can use with your photos on flickr—there are more of them all the time. You can create items like monthly calendars, posters, collages, magazine covers (wouldn’t that be great for an annual report cover) and trading cards (wouldn’t that be fun for the kids or teens to do, or the library to do; have kids gather all the trading cards you create….) There are so many more possibilities, but “A Day in the Life…” would be good start. I’ll let you know when a date is decided, sometime after the holidays, but get your cameras and your happy smiles ready! --Karen

Links from today's podcast:

• Flickr
• Flagrant Disregard's Flickr Toys
  
• A Day in Allen County, Indiana 2007
  
• SWILSA Youth Services webpage

Book reviewed by Marcia:
Intergenerational programming: a how-to-do-it manual for librarians, by Rhea Joyce Rubin, Neal-Schumann, c1993.

Business as Usual, in Different Ways; Teen Library Events; "Promoting Reading with Reading Programs"

News December 7, 2007 (mp3 file: 6.14 MB, 6:33 min.)
Business as Usual, in Different Ways; Teen Library Events; "Promoting Reading with Reading Programs"

This morning our colleague Ken Davenport forwarded a link to a post on the “Musings on Information and Librarianship” blog: “Today’s digital information landscape.” The author, Eric Lease Morgan, says, “The main point of this lecture is to bring home a single idea, namely, the what of library and information science has not changed so much as the how.” He provides examples, in a powerpoint presentation—something you might like to check out—but his point is pretty simple. We are still developing collections, helping people find books and information, and providing programming. We are adding new formats to those collections, using new tools to select materials and let our customers know what we’re doing for them….the HOW we do it is changing—but then, it always has changed as new things came forward. I think that it seems like it’s new and different because it’s changing so fast. New tools and ideas are appearing at a rate that could be alarming if we forget why we are looking at these tools. How will we use them? Will this mean better service? Which can we use more effectively in OUR particular community? We’ve always been able to open new vistas for people, and if we look at it that way then it’s less daunting. Still a challenge to learn it, to figure out how to adapt and use it, but oh, what it can mean for providing our services in ever better ways, that reach more people, help more people! Change can be a little scary, but it can also be very exciting if we are willing to reach out and grab a new tool or two—don’t worry about doing everything at once—and put them to good use for our customers.

Speaking of new ways to do things: a webinar about SW and SE LSAs' downloadable audiobooks consortium, BASIL, is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 10. This consortium will make audiobooks available for member libraries’ patrons to download onto their computers and mp3 players. As consortium members, the cost to libraries will be a fraction of what it would be if a library were to off the service on its own. All SW libraries should have received an e-mail with information about joining us for the webinar. If you need me to send that to you again, let me know.

And I hope you’ve marked your calendar for the first Iowa Small Libraries Online Conference, or ISLOC, as we’re calling it, on January 16, 2008. It will ALL be online, in Wimba Live Classrooms, so you won’t have to travel.

Links from Today's podcast:

• “Musings on Information and Librarianship” blog: “Today’s digital information landscape.
• BASIL FAQs
• ALA Website
• SWILSA Youth Services
• YALSA Wiki
• Tune In @ your library Wiki

Book Reviewed by Marcia:
Promoting reading with reading programs, by Robin Works. Neacl-Schuman, c1992.