LibWorm: Teaching

Students! parents! teachers!

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0100

Share the experience of reading 30 minutes a day for 30 days, and you could be chosen to win one of two top prizes: a starring role in a Maryland reading video or an Amazon Kindle.For more information, click here or stop by the HHS Library Media Center to pick up your reading calendar today. (Source: Huntingtown High School Library Media Center)

Celebrate black history month

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0100

February is Black History Month. Test your knowledge of Civil Rights heroes by taking this interactive quiz.To learn more about the contributions of African Americans in history, try these great websites:African VoicesThis Smithsonian online exhibit celebrates Africa's diversity and long history.African American WorldSponsored by PBS, this website features a large collection of classroom resources for teachers and students.Black HistoryHere you can find an interactive timeline, biographies, and a collection of video clips. (Source: Huntingtown High School Library Media Center)

Celebrate black history month!

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0100

A happy hello...

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100

I am very excited to be joining the faculty of Huntingtown High School as a library media specialist. While I am new to HHS, I feel right at home working in this community. My teaching career started in 1993 at Plum Point Middle School. I taught seventh and eighth grade social studies there for nine years before taking a leave of absence for another rewarding job, motherhood!During my time at Plum Point, I grew to love technology and all the ways it can enhance classroom learning. My students benefited from informational technologies to develop award-winning history fair projects. I loved guiding students through the research process, and decided to obtain a post-Master’s degree in a school library media program while staying at home with my two children.I am looking forward to continuing my professional journey here at Huntingtown High. It would be my pleasure to help you with any research question, large or small. Please stop by to say hello!Proud to be a Hurricane,Rachael Younkers (Source: Huntingtown High School Library Media Center)

A fond farewell...

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Friday, 11.20.09 will be my last day here at Huntingtown High School. I will be taking on a new job which will allow me to explore Open Source Online Learning Management Systems that will let us provide classes for both students and teachers online throughout the state of Maryland. Every school in which I have worked has a special place in my heart, and HHS will be no different. I have learned so much from the HHS staff and students, and for that I thank you! I wish each and every one of you happiness and success in your future endeavors. Don't be afraid to embrace change and sieze opportunities that come your way. Remember that "keywords unlock information," and be a lifetime learner! My email address is the same, so if you need any help, feel free to email me at: voelkerc@calvernet.k12.md.us or follow me on twitter: voelkerc Proud to be a Hurricane,~Ms. Voelker (Source: Huntingtown High School Library Media Center)

Part time reference librarin, springfield technical community college (stcc)

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:25:02 +0100

Assist students and faculty in locating, using and evaluating information. Instruct students in the use of the online catalog (C/W MARS), databases and the internet. Teach classes in the use of library resources. Promote information literacy. Design library handouts and displays. Contribute to web pages and the library blog. Assist in reference department projects. (Source: MBLC Job Listings)

Directory of open access journals - recently added titles

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:48:40 +0100

International Journal of u- and e- Service, Science and Technology B Sides Telos : Revista de Estudios Interdisciplinarios en Ciencias Sociales Azerbaijan Focus : Journal of International Affairs BANTAO Journal e-International Journal of Educational Research Revista Latinoamericana en Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud Journal of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Majlesi Journal of Electrical Engineering Diálogos DISEGNARECON Electronic Communications of the EASST 452º F : Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada Diabetic Foot & Ankle Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine Journal of Craniovertebral Junction and Spine Signos Filosóficos Trypillian Civilization Journal AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom Journal of Mid-Life Health Journal of Social Inclusion Buletinul Institutului Politehnic din Ias,i. Sect,ia IV, Automatica( s,i Calculatoare Comunicações Geológicas Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College Nursing Research and Practice Pharma Science Monitor : An International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog)

Meet the library staff

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Your blogger thought it might be of interest to run an occasional post featuring one of our library staff as a way of helping you to get to know us, and feel more comfortable in asking us for help. Library staff fill a myriad of roles. This wide ranging focus calls for a variety of roles and postions. Many library staff are what we here call "library assistants" and are civil service staff. They carry out any number of vital tasks, from running our circulation desk to handling the ordering of books and much more. Some library staff are "librarians," meaning that, in addition to a bachelor's degree, they have a Masters in Library or Information Science. These folks work with you at the reference desk, teach classes about library resources, catalog, organize and administer the library. Nowadays we have several staff who are "professionals," and they do things like run our interlibrary loan service or engage in the IT side of library operations. Think of it as a diverse staff to serve our diverse public :-)Some of our staff are relatively new to the profession, some have been here for many years. All of us are committed in our various capacities to organizing and making accessible our information resources in the way most useful and contemporary to you, our patrons. This emphasis on service and committment to continually improving and upgrading our resources goes back many years. In the photo here are several Drake staff of the 1950s looking at a new microfilm machine, a high tech device in its day! Soon we will have an occasional post featuring one of our dedicated staff members. (Source: Drake Memorial Library)

Information literacy and web 2.0 a paradox

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:25:54 +0100

Day 1: ALIA Access Conference (Brisbane) Information literacy with Christine Bruce: Shift of focus from libraries to a much more global scale How do we make it relevant? How can we bring transformative power of information use to peoples lives? (Pat Breivik) Empowering! Experts on information literacy: Dr Lana W Jackman www.infolit.org – paradox don’t assume that all learners have access. What about the digital divide? Patricia Senn Breivik – peoples need for abilities that empower them Diljiit Singh – no paradox we need information literacy and web 2.0 to be effective in this world Lin Ching Chen (Jean Chen) – how can we harness Web 2.0. We have a responsibility. Shelia Webber (Uni of Sheffield) – Web 2.0 information literacy skills important. Andrew Whitworth - knowledge never static; text is dynamic in Web 2.0 Sharon Weiner (Purdue Uni) – not a paradox. Need Web 2.0 to teach and learn about information literacy. David Loertscher (SLIS) - power of Web 2.0 to build collective knowledge. Tools and power. Mandy Lupton – Web 2.0 making it possible to learn through the process of content creation. Work collaboratively through using/creating info Mary M Somerville - Web 2.0 makes it possible to work with and transform understanding of different cultures Dr Hilary Hughes – novel info sources & learning opportunities; provocation to explore, experiment, evaluate and evolve with developing technologies Ross Todd – focus on user and content creation Clarence Maybee – a future with a different understanding of knowledge and making Susie Andretta – transliteracy across different platforms; transliteracy – transport abilities across different media; what a librarians doing; how do we create the spaces/places that allow people to develop transliteracy skills Annemaree Lloyd – Web2. ...

Electronic resources librarian (st. olaf college, nortthfield, minnesota)

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:20:01 +0100

Electronic Resources Librarian (St. Olaf College, Nortthfield, Minnesota) St. Olaf is seeking a library professional who recognizes St. Olaf's unique place in higher education as a college of the church, an exemplary national liberal arts college, and a leader in global education. The Electronic Resources Librarian provides leadership to the Libraries in the rapidly developing realm of electronic collections and manages the Libraries' electronic resources including e-journals, research and reference databases, e-books, online sound and multimedia databases, and archival electronic document collections. The Electronic Resources Librarian also provides reference services to students and faculty. ...

Improvements made to babson over the summer

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:30:28 +0100

Over the summer Babson staff were busy adding some improvements to the library facility. We have rearranged furniture to create comfortable spaces and have purchased plants that you’ll see throughout the building. We have also had an upgrade to the wireless infrastructure which should improve access throughout Babson. The Main Floor of Babson has a new addition of the Technology Solutions Center. This redesigned ITS help desk is intended to assist all students, faculty, and staff and is conveniently located directly across from the Information Desk. The Second Floor continues to be our “group study” floor. We have purchased additional comfortable seatings and rearranged tables to create study areas. You’ll notice our “Collaboration Station” allows for up to 4 students to share a laptop image on a large wall screen. On one end of the second floor we have established a “teaching area” to be used for classes and larger study groups who wish to visit the library. A long table seats up to 24 people. Markers for the white board in this area can be checked out at the Information Desk. The Academic Success Center “Locus” is also located on the second floor. Students can meet with their content tutors here or confer in any area of the building. The Third Floor continues to be the “quiet floor”. We have added a few areas of comfortable seating but continue to provide mostly tables and study carrels for students who want a quiet and structured space. We’ve purchased new lights for the study carrell rooms for more effective illumination. Please mute your cell phones and take calls downstairs so that all can enjoy the one really quiet study space on campus. We are open 106.5 hours a week to assist students and faculty. ...

Playing hard to get: purchasing and reading e-books

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:10:53 +0100

Last week I sat in on the Springer LibraryZone Virtual eBook webinar and it was a very interesting discussion. Many libraries (especially academic) are investigating and collecting e-books in lieu of some printed text. How much they are collecting and the nature by which they to the selection process seems to vary according each library, their type, size, consortia involvement, usage data, etc. The reasons why and how much they bought all varied but the frustrations, questions, and concerns the faced were very similar and seemed on the minds of every librarian regardless of their library, type, size, consortia involvement, etc. So what were these concerns? DRM- Digital rights restrictions. It seems that every publisher has different rules and while some things can be put on electronic reserve others cannot. While some things can be shared through ILL or on Blackboard others cannot. This is not only a particular frustration among librarians but also patrons who aren’t as savvy with copyright issues. The patrons get frustrated with DRM restrictions for library materials and they are even more frustrated with the restrictions for e-books they buy themselves. Their view is, “I bought, don’t tell me how I am allowed to use it.” I am not saying this is always the right or wrong thought process, but it is their thoughts and to a certain extent librarians. Access – How do people find your e-books was a common question among the librarians. The e-books publishers don’t always have decent MARC records (if they have any) that can be easily added to the catalog. So the cataloger must work to add them into the catalog, yet more and more patrons really don’t use the catalog these days. They would rather randomly search the library’s website or Google. ...

The war and the cliches: the sofa syntax of people-friendly tony

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:29:41 +0100

The doggedly demotic tone of Blair's A Journey becomes strained only in the passages about Iraq. Needless to sayThe papers today were full of judgments and revelations culled from Tony Blair's political memoir, A Journey. But what about its style? Sources close to Tony Blair say that he is proud of his prose. The leak suggests that he wants us to notice how, as well as what, he writes. "Le style est l'homme même," declared the Comte de Buffon. Is Tony Blair's style his true self? It is not the Oxford-educated public-schoolboy, or the dapper Inner Temple barrister. But it is the man he made himself into: people-friendly Tony, ready with a language that anyone can get.Blair confesses that most political memoirs "are, I have found, rather easy to put down". This one will be different. In his acknowledgements the author mentions that he "wrote out each word on hundreds of notepads".This is handmade prose. Some slabs that might as well have been cut and pasted from policy documents, but most is new-minted and his own. It is chatty, surprisingly direct, and unafraid of cliche. He strains at leashes, finds issues a minefield, and avoids comfort zones (though not in his diction).Speeches do or don't go down a storm. Measures only scratch surfaces. Dealing with a legal problem, his mentor Derry Irving "was like the proverbial dog with a bone". Recalling John Major's pained grace in defeat, "I paid fulsome tribute to him the next day (though I'm not sure that didn't rub salt in the wound)". Blair's happiness with a verbal commonplace blinds him to the misuse of "fulsome" (= excessively flattering). Sometimes his unmisgiving readiness with a cliche is painful.Gathering to a judgment on Princess Diana, he comes up with: "She captured the essence of an era and held it in the palm of her hand."But mostly it is cheerily fluent.It is a distinct anti-literary style. ...

#jobs : systems librarian, university of la verne (california) -- wilson library

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:44:00 +0100

#3041 – Systems Librarian, University of La Verne -- Wilson Library The University of La Verne invites applicants for a Systems Librarian (Assistant Professor), a non-tenure track 12-month faculty appointment. Reporting directly to the University Librarian, the Systems Librarian will use a high level of technical, instructional, and interpersonal skills. The responsibilities of this position include administering and providing technical support for all aspects of library technology including the Innovative Interfaces Millennium integrated library system, hardware and software installations and maintenance, library wireless, opac, proxy server, online resources and services such as LINK+, ILLIAD, ERM, OCLC, link resolver, research databases, e-journals, e-books, etc.; assisting the University Librarian with technology planning and project implementation; serving as primary liaison with the university’s Office of Information Technology to coordinate all library systems’ installation, upgrade and maintenance; supervise one full-time staff member (Electronic Services Technician); serving as liaison to database and online service providers; providing technology training to library staff; providing research consultation services to library users in a multi-disciplinary environment using multiple formats (in-person, e-mail, phone, and chat); developing, promoting, and delivering effective library research skills/information literacy instructional sessions, seminars and workshops for both on-campus and off-campus programs; developing the library collection by selecting materials for acquisition in all formats; serving as liaison with selected academic departments; maintaining a program of professional development. ...

Reference librarian for the sciences | vassar college

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:38:00 +0100

US - NY - Poughkeepise, NY, ALA-accredited MLS, or equivalent experience. Undergraduate degree in the sciences; experience teaching in an academic setting and demonstrated knowledge of traditional and electronic reference (gener (Source: SLA Career Center Search Results [])

Historic mercury launch pad reimagined as classroom

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:08:00 +0100

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network. The launch pad used by the first United States astronauts to enter orbit around Earth may soon be revived as an engineering classroom for a new generation of rocket builders, where laid-off space shuttle technicians are the teachers. (Source: Environmental News Bits)

Good grief...third grade by colleen o'shaughnessy mckenna

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:20:01 +0100

This year, third grader Marsha Cassano, has vowed to have a neat desk at all times, and will never get in trouble. She has even signed a contract with her parents to show that she was very serious about these resolutions. Marsha has also stated that she is going to be nicer to her nemesis, Roger Friday, and not argue with him at all. Unfortunately, on the first day of school, there is Roger, back to teasing her, and Marsha responds by accidentally slamming her desk on Roger's fingers. This is NOT the way she intended the first day to go, especially with the new student teacher, Miss Murtland, being in class. Things then go from bad to worse when Marsha is assigned to Roger as a book buddy. At first, things are okay, but then something happens where Roger is suspended from school, and it isn't really even his fault. Will Marsha confess? Will Roger come back to school? Read this story to find out! This is a good story that deals with some tough life lessons, lying and atoning for those lies. It is also about giving someone a chance. Recommended for grades 3-5. (Source: Children's Books from Wright Memorial Public Library)

From the archive, 1 september 1930: obituary: dr wa spooner

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:02:35 +0100

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 1 September 1930The death occurred at Oxford on Friday evening of Dr. William Archibald Spooner, who was for twenty-one years Warden of New College, Oxford.Dr Spooner was born on July 22. 1844, and was the son of a Staffordshire County Court judge. He was educated at Oswestry and New College, of which he became a scholar in 1862 and a Fellow in 1867. Ordained a deacon in 1872 and a priest in 1875, he became chaplain to Archbishop Tait in 1878 and was examining chaplain to the Bishop of Peterborough from 1809 to 1916. He became Warden of his college in 1903 and held that office till he retired in 1924. A lecturer and teacher of ability, he devoted himself to the college and its members.He published little, and the outside world knew him only from the scholarship of the well-known edition of Tacitus' "Histories" and his memoirs of Butler and William of Wykeham.But to a series of generations of his countrymen Dr. Spooner was known not for his administrative abilities nor his scholarship but for the "Spoonerism." A "Spoonerism" is defined as "a ludicrous form of metathesis or the transposing of initial letters to form a laughable combination."In 1879 it was a favourite Oxford anecdote that Spooner from the pulpit gave out the first line of a well-known hymn as "Kinkering Kongs their titles take."The anecdote is well enough authenticated, but according to most people who knew Spooner well that was the only "Spoonerism" he ever made – the essence of a "Spoonerism" being, of course, lack of intent, – though later when, thanks to indefatigable undergraduate and alas! graduates and dignified Fellows of colleges, the legends had become legion, he often used deliberately to "indulge in metathesis," to live up to his reputation. ...

Director, online and remote services (georgia perimeter college, alpharetta, georgia)

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:20:01 +0100

Director, Online and Remote Services (Georgia Perimeter College, Alpharetta, Georgia) Library Director for remote location and distance learning: Georgia Perimeter College, with four campus locations in the Atlanta Metropolitan area, seeks a Library Director to fulfill two roles: 1. Manage a new branch location at a teaching center; and 2. Manage Distance Library services college-wide. This position can provide an opportunity to develop innovative models to serve distance and non traditional students, both online and at a remote location. Apply online at http://careers.gpc.edu position 281, labeled Dir LRC - Instructor View listing (Source: Latest ALA Job Listings)

Censorship at the school board level will make forgetters ...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:00:30 +0100

Yolen (2005) argued, "Censorship-in the classroom, in the library, at the school board level-will make forgetters of us all." Teachers can see censo (Source: pligg - all)

My legal hero: atticus finch

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:59:08 +0100

The Alabama single father's principles have inspired thousands – and somehow become a point of national controversy in the USIt's almost a cliche to say that Atticus Finch is one's legal hero, like saying you like good chocolate or high thread count sheets. Still, I am one of many thousands of people who probably would not have gone to law school were it not for the fictional hero of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a book that turned 50 in July. I'm not alone on this. Civil rights lawyer Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center says Atticus Finch is the reason he became a lawyer, and the name Atticus has soared up the rankings for popular baby names in the past few years, no doubt because of the straitlaced attorney's status among law graduates.While a handful of grumpy critics have recently taken against Finch for his failure to be more like Thurgood Marshall in the face of his famous defeat at trial, most of us still believe him to be everything a truly great attorney should be: a defender of the voiceless and downtrodden, a protester against mob rule, and the patron saint of hopeless legal causes. The Alabama single father who famously defended a black man, Tom Robinson, who was falsely accused of raping a white woman in the Jim Crow American south, has stood the test of time despite the fact that Atticus is almost too eloquent, ethical, honest and forbearing.As a high-school student encountering Finch for the first time, I was shattered by his quiet moral certainty, his commitment to non-violence, and his electrifying gift for cross-examination. He represented the rule of sanity over hysteria, principle over passion, and tolerance over fear. Oddly enough, as I've grown older, I've also come to admire his skills as a parent, a professional, a member of his community, and even – anachronistic as it may sound – his dedication to work-life balance as the single parent of two children. ...

Why demon heads of children's fiction are role models for trainee teachers

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:00:10 +0100

Roald Dahl's Miss Trunchbull or Gillian Cross's Demon Headmaster demonstrate the exercise of power, study findsThey may be sadistic figures who hate children, but a study suggests that the savage portrayal of headteachers in children's literature possesses a grain of truth and may even be helpful when it comes to training teachers who aspire to lead schools.Characters like Miss Agatha Trunchbull, from Roald Dahl's Matilda, or the Demon Headmaster, from the sequence by Gillian Cross, can teach children to think about power and how it can be used for malign purposes, Professor Pat Thomson, director of the centre for research in schools and communities at Nottingham University school of education, has found.The study of 19 fictional headteachers found that nine are portrayed as evil or authoritarian, a further six are remote figures of power, and just one - JK Rowling's Professor Albus Dumbledore - is a positive role model.The study traces the origins of school stories to 19th century British fiction which – in stories aimed at boys – focused on the muscular discipline and militarism required for empire building.The books in the study were published between 1975 and 2009, and included Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events as well as Matilda and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.Many of the books show power can be used corruptly, according to Prof Thomson.Sometimes this can have a contemporary, political twist: in The Inflatable School by Peter Wynne-Willson, the "evil, messianic" Mr Stemple plans to turn his school into an academy sponsored by a business with whom his family has a profitable relationship.Miss Trunchbull is one of only two female heads in the books studied and is described, as "formidable and repulsive". ...

50th anniversary of first grade and reading

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of my starting first grade at the Reagan County Elementary School in Big Lake, Texas. Having been to kindergarten (it was not required at the time), I knew my alphabet but I was not really reading yet. I was soon. So I am going to declare this as the 50th anniversary of my learning to read, a skill and pleasure that I appreciate more and more as I age.I remember the excitement of that first day. One of the first formalities was getting desk assignments. For first graders, our school had two student desks with shelves dividing the space under the desk. If my memory is true, I shared a desk first with Caron Johnson. We were given jumbo size crayons, big pencils, and paper with lines to help us learn to write our letters. I remember also that my cousin Hub was added to the class later in the day. Pete, Mike, and I probably walked home together after school, as we would many days. It was only four short blocks (two east and two south) and hard to get lost in Big Lake.I wish there were some pictures of that first day. Of course, there were no digital cameras then and my immediate family did not even owned a Brownie Instamatic at the time. I bet many families had no cameras back then, which made school pictures truly valuable. I wish that I knew where my first grade class picture was. My sister found my 3rd grade class picture* among some of her things a few years back. Many of these same students were in both classes. So imagine them two years younger.I remember we were soon assigned into reading groups and started reading the famous Dick and Jane books. "See Dick. See Jane. See Spot. See Spot run." I liked the books a lot. They were really easy to read. Actually, everything was easy. We wrote our letters, started addition and subtraction, and drew many pictures. The only thing hard for me was staying still during nap time. ...

At a recent event i attended someone told me "bobby jindal is a fucking douchebag"

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Apparently these UNO students affected by the Governor's budget cuts agree A student demonstration at the University of New Orleans turned rowdy today when protesters scuffled with campus police, who arrested two of them and led them away in handcuffs in a police cruiser. One of the students was sprayed by police with mace. At least no one was tazed. Longtime readers will note that I am no fan of attention-whoring protest events. But, in this case, I will at least give the students credit for storming offices and injuring ankles and stuff. They could have just painted themselves blue, recited some poetry and called it a day. This, I think, at least shows some commitment. Plus UNO Chancellor Tim Ryan is kind of a tool anyway. I hope they broke some of his shit.In all seriousness, though, these kids should head of to Baton Rouge where they could perhaps find their way into the Governor's office. After all, it's Jindal's budget cuts that are bringing all this trauma about in the first place.UNO students and personnel are irate because about $14.5 million in state money already has been sliced from the school's budget since January 2009 and because more cuts may combine academic departments and eliminate majors in fields such as management, marketing, English, science, mathematics and social studies. There would be a sharp reduction in the number of part-time teachers, faculty teaching loads would increase, and class sizes would be larger.Participants in the Rising Tide 5 Politics Panel pulled no punches with Jindal. Jacques Morial and Clancy Dubos repeatedly referred to the Governor as a "hypocrite". Even Jeff Crouere confessed himself "disappointed" and said he suspects the Governor's ambitions and priorities lie outside of the state. ...

Recent information literacy articles

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Kraemer, E., Lombardo, S.V. and Lepowski, F. (2010) "The Librarian, the Machine, or a Little of Both: A Comparative Study of Three Information Literacy Pedagogies at Oakland University. " College and Research Libraries, 68 (4), 330-42. (They divided up a class, so that different sets of students got live teaching, online tutorials, or a blend; and administered pre and post tests.) http://crl.acrl.org/content/68/4/330.abstractAlso thanks to Yazdan Mansourian who, a while ago, drew my attention to the articles in the latest Journal of Academic Librarianship, 36 (4) (contents page at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00991333)- Lim, A. "The Readability of Information Literacy Content on Academic Library Web Sites." Pages 296-303 (there is a call for more attention to readability to meet needs of diverse learners)- Green, R. "Information Illiteracy: Examining our Assumptions." Pages 313-319 ("Findings from a qualitative study of the doctoral literature review process portray learners as competent, rather than information illiterate, even though they may not have received information literacy interventions.")- Su, S-F. and Kuo, J. "Design and Development of Web-based Information Literacy Tutorials." Pages 320-328Photo by Sheila Webber: People silhouetted against the sky on the top of the Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales, August 2010. (Source: Information Literacy Weblog)

Integrating the hospital library with patient care, teaching and research: model and web 2.0 tools to create a social and collaborative community of clinical research in a hospital setting.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Integrating the hospital library with patient care, teaching and research: model and Web 2.0 tools to create a social and collaborative community of clinical research in a hospital setting.

Health Info Libr J. 2010 Sep 1;27(3):217-26

Authors: San JosÃ© Montano B, Garcia Carretero R, Varela Entrecanales M, Pozuelo PM

Background: Research in hospital settings faces several difficulties. Information technologies and certain Web 2.0 tools may provide new models to tackle these problems, allowing for a collaborative approach and bridging the gap between clinical practice, teaching and research. Objectives: We aim to gather a community of researchers involved in the development of a network of learning and investigation resources in a hospital setting. Methods: A multi-disciplinary work group analysed the needs of the research community. We studied the opportunities provided by Web 2.0 tools and finally we defined the spaces that would be developed, describing their elements, members and different access levels. Model description: WIKINVESTIGACION is a collaborative web space with the aim of integrating the management of all the hospital's teaching and research resources. It is composed of five spaces, with different access privileges. The spaces are: Research Group Space 'wiki for each individual research group', Learning Resources Centre devoted to the Library, News Space, Forum and Repositories. Conclusions: The Internet, and most notably the Web 2. ...

California's digital textbook initiative

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:54:28 +0100

California's Free Digital Textbook Initiative provides students, teachers and parents access to free digital high school textbooks that meet California's academic content standards. Textbooks are free to view or download. Search SCCL's catalog, browse the full list of eBooks or go direct to Digital Textbook Initiative's website to access any of the 30 textbooks available. (Source: Santa Clara County Library - The Latest SCCoop)

Children’s literature comprehensive database trial

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:12:26 +0100

Starting 9/1/10 and ending 10/2/10, WKU Libraries will have a trial subscription to Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database: CLCD is an ever growing online database with over 400,000 reviews, MARC records and related information about children’s literature. CLCD contains reviews supplied by over 38 quality review media including: The ALAN Review BookList KIRKUS National Science Teachers Association VOYA You can access CLCD at their homepage or through their search engine. (Source: Western Kentucky University Libraries Blog)

Instruction/reference librarian (franklin college, franklin, indiana)

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:20:01 +0100

Instruction/Reference Librarian (Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana) Franklin College is seeking a full-time instruction/reference librarian to start January 2011. This is a faculty position with an administrative contract. The successful applicant will be energetic, self-motivated, and have a love of teaching. For a complete job description, see our online posting: www.franklincollege.edu/about-fc/employment-opportunities Review of applications will begin September 2010 and will continue until the position is filled. The anticipated start date is January 3, 2011. Franklin College is an Equal Opportunity Employer. ...

Science resources for teachers

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:02:03 +0100

Read the full post from the Library of Congress. Keeping with the back to school theme I thought it might be helpful if I outlined some of our K-12 science material that was specifically created for teachers, students, and parents. (Source: Environmental News Bits)

Stephen wall obituary

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:51:31 +0100

Literary historian, academic and longstanding editor of Essays in CriticismThe achievements of Stephen Wall, who has died after a lung infection aged 79, were exceptional for their humane generosity. As a literary historian and a critic of the Victorian novel, pre-eminently of Trollope and Dickens; as a reviewer – at once welcoming and discriminating – of new fiction and of theatre; as a director not only of Shakespeare but of Henry Purcell, informed by a love of enduring music; and as the author of a novel rewardingly patient in its nocturnal rhythms and chequered crosscurrents, he exercised an influence always benign and never sentimental. Likewise, as editor for 40 years of the quarterly journal Essays in Criticism, he was gently exacting, attentive to the very wording in a manner that contributors never forgot; and he was an inspiring teacher of English at Oxford University."Of joy in widest commonalty spread" – Wordsworth spoke to Wall as no other poet did, while there was added something for which this poet was not notable: a vivid sense of humour, together with a laconic wit, a sidelong glance endearingly free of anything furtive, a gift for offering advice in a way that made it a pleasure to take it and a mischievous delight that was the opposite of mischief-making. In his happy possession of these qualities, Wall was always keen to acknowledge how much he owed to the character of his friends FW Bateson, founder of Essays in Criticism, and Ian Hamilton, poet, wit, and founder of the Review. And, lifelong and supreme, to the love and the loving kindness of Yvonne, his wife of more than 50 years, and his daughters, Alisoun and Cassandra.Not every obituary should be a tribute, but this one should. For it is necessary to speak here of that which Wall himself judged it his responsibility not to invite attention to: his having been struck down by polio 54 years ago and lived since then from a wheelchair. ...

Applications available for state farm good neighbor service-learning grants

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:43:01 +0100

State Farm is teaming up with Youth Service America (YSA) to offer grants of up to $1,000 to youth-led service-learning initiatives in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Eligible programs will engage youth in service-learning, an effective teaching and learning strategy that promotes student learning, academic achievement, workplace readiness, and healthy communities. State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grants encourage semester-long projects (following YSA’s Semester of Service framework) that launch on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, January 17, 2011, and culminate on Global Youth Service Day, April 15-17, 2011. Eligible candidates include teachers, service-learning coordinators, and students in a public school, or staff and youth in a community-based organization working with a public school. YSA will host two application webinars, September 7 and October 7, for applicants to learn more about developing a successful project. Webinar registration information and application materials are available at the YSA Web site. (Source: PLA Blog)

The secret of 'the secret' | mark vernon

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:00:08 +0100

Can you really improve your life, and perhaps the world too, by your own inner effort?The Power – Rhonda Byrne's sequel to the self-help megaseller The Secret – has shot straight to the top of the hardback book charts. According to Nielsen BookScan, The Secret sits comfortably alongside too, at number two. Worse still, The Power sold more than the following five bestsellers added together. Whence, you might ask, the power of The Power?It's puzzled me ever since The Secret was released. This small tome of esoteric promise used to be stacked by the philosophy shelves. I saw it every time I stole my way to that part of a bookshop, to check that one of my books was at least in stock. Who is this Rhonda Byrne? I'd missed the reviews of her work in, say, the Saturday Guardian. What is "the secret"? And would it include the secret to publishing success?In case you've not read it, I can answer at least one of those questions. The secret of The Secret, which it turns out is also the power of The Power, is called the law of attraction. "Like with like together strike", ancient wisdom tells us. Hence, if your thoughts are of health or insight or wealth then before you know it, you will receive health or insight or wealth. Conversely, to think you are ill or ill-fated is simply not to be thinking right: you are well, and will know it.The Secret is, therefore, a form of mental hygiene. It matters what you're thinking because thoughts are things. So to change your thoughts is to change things as they are in the world. The book is selling an empowering optimism: if you align yourself to the benign flux of life, then your life can only go well. Byrne lists testimonies, historic and contemporary, alongside quotes, ancient and modern, by way of inspiration and evidence. ...

Reading agency defends libraries' impact on literacy

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:45:04 +0100

As government cuts threaten libraries, the Reading Agency comes to their defence with a success story – the Summer Reading ChallengeWith the government looking in every direction to wield its cost-cutting axe, the Reading Agency last week put out a plea that libraries should "not be a soft target for cuts". The declaration came in response to statistics released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport last week showing that nearly two-thirds of Britons didn't visit a library last year. That triggered fears that the figures were a prelude to mass library closures.The Reading Agency hit back, saying "where libraries offer a more dynamic, interactive reading service, the public respond with alacrity". One of its textbook examples was the Summer Reading Challenge (SRC), its literary initiative that encourages thousands of children to become avid readers every year.Since its creation 12 years ago, the SRC has become an annual part of the long holidays for more than 750,000 children aged four to 11. Every year there's a theme: this year it's outer space, so children are encountering foil aliens, Plasticine planets and more. The libraries then display relevant books, distribute reading rewards such as stickers, certificates, folders and charts, and encourage children to read six or more books during the holidays.On a warm summer afternoon in Wherwell, a small village in Hampshire, a bus covered in pictures of fairies and monsters has pulled up outside the local primary school. It's attracting scores of children, who chat excitedly as they await their turn. But this is no ice-cream van drawing the crowds: it's a library bus, and one of almost 4,000 libraries around the UK running projects encouraging children to read over the holidays as part of the reading challenge.Among those standing in line at Hampshire's library bus this year are the Collis family – Deborah and her children Natasha, seven, and Isabella, five. ...

Head of collections and resource sharing, assistant professor (oregon state university libraries, corvallis, oregon)

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:20:02 +0100

Head of Collections and Resource Sharing, Assistant Professor (Oregon State University Libraries, Corvallis, Oregon) Oregon State University Libraries seeks an innovative, collaborative, and service-oriented librarian to assist in the shaping of a new department focused on user-centered collection services and programs. Responsible for the overall management of the Collections and Resource Sharing Department’s programs and services, the Head of the CRSD leads a staff and faculty committed to fulfilling the learning, teaching and research needs of the OSU community. The Department Head directs the expenditure of the Libraries’ approximately $5 million materials budget, supervises 7.0 faculty FTE and has oversight for a department with approximately 20. ...

The debate, again, on teaching lawyering skills in law school

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

The National Law Journal site published an article yesterday on one of my favorite topics: practical legal education. The article focuses on the article Preaching What They Don't Practice: Why Law Faculties' Preoccupation with Impractical Scholarship and Devaluation of Practical... (Source: Law Librarian Blog)

Ratios, librarian to student

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

A librarian should never teach a class of twenty-five students to do research. It is much more rewarding to teach them individually, one hour each, twenty-five separate times at the reference desk. (Source: A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette)

Digested read: spoilt rotten: the toxic cult of sentimentality by theodore dalrymple | john crace

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:29:02 +0100

Gibson, £14.99If there is a country in the entire world in which childhood is a more wretched experience then I do not know it. Though I seldom travel by public carriage, I see this at bus stops everywhere, with youths swearing and chewing gum. This poison all stems from a romantic, socialist view of education (which doesn't really exist other than as a stereotype in rightwing newspapers), where teachers are told to mark wrong answers as correct in order not to discourage the educationally subnormal.We see this indulgent attitude everywhere, especially in the use of language, with so-called experts such as Steven Pinker – or Steven Pinko as I wittily chose to call him in my lacerating review of his book – believing that there is no such thing as the Queen's English and that immigrants should be encouraged to talk in any patois. It's this kind of sentimental relativism that is destroying the fabric of our society, turning our nation's children into semi-literate morons who leave school equipped to do nothing but stab or impregnate each other and unable to write in long, syntactically tortured sentences, interspersed with irrelevant references to Plato and Locke and the occasional fragmentia of italicised Latin, suppresio veri, suggestio falsi, to make me look clever.After writing a drearily familiar chapter on the Family Impact Statement – a subject that has been done to death by dozens of columnists before and to which I have nothing new to contribute – I walked into a branch of WH Smith in a deprived area of the home counties and was outraged to find the only books on sale to the unfortunates of this cultural blackspot were volumes on My Battle with Cancer and My Parents Abused Me. ...

Bbc dimensions

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:12:40 +0100

Dimensions takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are. Plug in your zip code (postcode in Brit-speak) or location to start. Default appears to be area covered by the 2011 Pakistan floods, but you can choose from many different categories, including environmental disasters. Not only a great tool for teachers, but for anybody who has trouble comprehending the scope of really large events. It’s an excellent example of using pictures to make abstract data meaning meaningful. (Source: Environmental News Bits)

#jobs posting> systems & emerging technologies librarian

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:45:00 +0100

SYSTEMS AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES LIBRARIAN Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is seeking a dynamic, student-centered librarian to work in a team- oriented library environment. Responsibilities include: provide leadership, vision, and expertise related to library systems and technologies that increase and enhance access to academic resources at UW - La Crosse; identify, evaluate, implement, and teach the use of new technologies that facilitate information access and that contribute to the development of library-related learning materials; participate in reference, information literacy instruction, collection development, collegial governance, and library committees as well as campus and professional activities. The library recognizes and values diversity in its faculty, staff, and students. We seek a colleague who shares the library's commitment to diversity and who will be a dedicated librarian and mentor for students with diverse backgrounds, preparation, and career goals. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS ALA accredited MLS; experience with integrated library systems and web development applications; ability to manage EZProxy and server technology and to develop and manage tools for extracting evaluative statistics; demonstrated knowledge of desktop, laptop, and handheld computing devices and their related technologies; demonstrated ability to work collegially and communicate effectively. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Professional academic library experience. ENVIRONMENT UW-La Crosse is known for its highly ranked academic programs. La Crosse is famous for its exceptional natural beauty. The city (metropolitan population 100,000) is located on the east bank of the Mississippi River below towering bluffs. Abundant water and woodlands provide year-round recreation sites for skiing, hunting, camping, and other outdoor activities. ...

Letter: sir frank kermode

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:31:13 +0100

Ursula Owen writes: Frank Kermode (obituary, 19 August) loved sport. Frank and I watched hours of it on TV: golf, snooker, tennis, cricket, football. He was immensely fit himself. He walked very fast. He played squash until he was 80. His friend Wynne Godley wrote: "How did I know that Frank wanted to beat me so desperately, seeing that he never revealed his feelings? Because his stride became maddeningly jaunty if he won more than two points in succession; because of his firm insistence, so gentle sounding, on the replay of dubious points; because of the way he ruthlessly and unerringly killed the loose ball."Frank patiently tried to teach me to play the game, but I knew, from his polite exasperation when he pointed out that I was using tennis instead of squash strokes, that he was longing for a real competitor. He bounded up the steep, rocky hill opposite my house in Languedoc until he was well into his 80s. And he meticulously did his exercises every morning. He saw himself as clumsy and inept when he was the most graceful of men, with the heart of an athlete.Frank Kermodeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books)

Welcome from arnold hirshon, university librarian

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:57:01 +0100

Every new academic year brings a level of excitement as students and faculty return to campus. Everyone anticipates the accomplishment of the new year and our community rededicates itself to continuing intellectual growth through research, teaching and learning. This is a particularly special year for me because I just arrived in mid-August. I return to academe after an eleven year hiatus. For the first twenty-five years of my professional life I worked in five different academic institutions (two in the Midwest, two in the Southeast, and one in the Mid-Atlantic). Most recently, over the past decade I worked in and with academic libraries in my work as the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization in New England and as a national and international consultant. I return to university life with a new sense of vigor and enthusiasm. During this academic year the Kelvin Smith Library will develop a new strategic plan and consider important changes to our services both in our buildings and on the network. For our strategic planning process to be successful, I seek very wide active and personal engagement of all of our stakeholders. Please communicate with me in whatever way you are most comfortable: in person on the street or in the office, or electronically via email, online chat, Twitter, or Facebook. (All of my contact information is below.) I know that everyone on the staff of the Kelvin Smith Library would also welcome your involvement and communications as we build upon the strong foundation of the past to build an even greater Library for the future. I wish you a highly successful academic year, and I look forward to seeing and speaking with many of you personally soon. Arnold Hirshon, Associate Provost and University Librarian Office: Kelvin Smith Library 212G Phone: (216) 368-0688 Email: arnold.hirshon@case.edu Skype: ahirshon Twitter: ahirshon Facebook: Arnold Hirshon Blog: http://blog.case.edu/arnold.hirshon (Source: KSL News Blog)

Reference librarian for special collections

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:20:04 +0100

State: New Jersey library.princeton.edu/hr/positions/JobRefLibrnSpColl2008.html Position Summary: The Special Collections Reference Librarian is responsible for reference services in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department in Firestone Library and works closely with the Assistant University Archivist for Public Services at the Mudd Manuscript Library to coordinate public services for all of Special Collections. This person supervises the work of three support staff and coordinates the delivery of public services with many professionals and support staff who play part-time public service roles in the Department. The position reports to the Associate University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections. We seek a generalist with the ability and talent to provide reference services for the myriad subject areas the Department covers. The main reading room in Firestone serves more than 2,500 patrons annually from within and without the University community. Our patrons consult more than 12,000 books, manuscripts, graphic materials, maps, and other items that span many languages and five millennia of recorded history. The Department's public services staff at Firestone also handle approximately 2,500 reference inquiries annually from around the world, provide paper, microfilm, digital, and photographic copies for approximately 16,000 items annually, and gather materials for and host more than 100 classes for approximately 1,500 students during the academic year. The successful candidate must be committed to and be an advocate for public services in the Department, as well as in the wider library system. The ideal candidate will enjoy working with researchers, take up the challenge of problem solving, have a welcoming personality and qualities that will help patrons researching primary sources. The position may work occasional evening or weekend hours. ...

Science and engineering librarian

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:20:04 +0100

State: International The University of Texas at Arlington Job Title Librarian Posting number 10-07-21-01-0100 Job status Open Information: http://utdirect.utexas.edu/pnjobs/index.WBX?comp=1 Check "Professional/Non-faculty" ___ Basic Information Date available 09/01/2010 Position duration Funding expected to continue Position open to all applicants Monthly salary $3333 negotiable depending on qualifications. Hours per week 40.00 Standard from 900AM to 600PM Location Arlington, TX Hiring department Library http://library.uta.edu General notes This is an entry level Science and Engineering Librarian position. Reference desk duty includes one week night, Sunday rotations and occasional holidays. Some instruction includes nights and weekends. Instructions about additional materials to be submitted by all applicants will be provided once you apply. Finalist(s) will be required to give a formal presentation on a library-related topic. Required Application Materials A Resume is required in order to apply. A Letter of Interest is required in order to apply. A List of 3 References is required in order to apply. Additional Information Purpose of position The Science/Engineering Librarian serves as liaison to assigned departments within the Colleges of Science and Engineering; contribute to and supports the Library's mission to foster and promote quality learning, teaching, and research. Essential functions Serves as subject liaison to assigned academic units for promotion and outreach of library services and resources for Science and Engineering disciplines, cultivates partnerships and relationships with faculty, staff and students. Provides general reference while maintaining a service desk area, also provides complex and/or consultative reference and research assistance in assigned subject areas including virtual reference. ...

Teacher vacancy

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:20:04 +0100

State: Michigan Saginaw Township Community Schools HUMAN RESOURCES and LABOR RELATIONS MEMORANDUM TO:Universities Job Placement Services FROM:Linda Conlay Secretary, Human Resources DATE:August 12, 2010 RE:Teacher Vacancy Saginaw Township Community Schools has an opening for a Library Media Specialist. For details and to apply online: www.stcs.org. Please include in your university placement bulletin and contact any possible applicants registered with your office. Deadline for application: August 22, 2010 If you have any questions, please call the Office of Human Resources at 989-399-8019. Submitted on 2010-08-12 (Source: SLIS Careers Feed)

Library media specialist

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:20:04 +0100

State: Michigan Library Media Specialist JobID: 4452 Position Type: Email To A Friend Print Version Closing Date: 07/04/2010 Instructional - High School Date Posted: 6/25/2010 Location: Heritage High School SAGINAW TOWNSHIP COMMUNITY SCHOOLS Equal Opportunity Employer VACANCY 2010-2011 Library Media Specialist Shared time between White Pine Middle School and Heritage High School. Requirements: Valid Michigan Secondary Teaching Certificate with appropriate certification (ND). Pursuant to Public Act 68 of 1993 and Public Act 83 of 1995, selected new employees shall submit to fingerprints and a criminal background check at the employee's expense. It is the policy of the Board of Education that the District will not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on sex, age, race, color, national origin, religion, height, weight, marital status, handicap or disability. The District shall comply with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination including, but not limited to, Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d. et seq.; and 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e, et seq.; The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1210, et seq.; The Handicappers’ Civil Rights Act, MCL §§ 37.1101, et seq.; and The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, MCL §§ 37.2101, et seq.; Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29U.S.C. §§ 621, et seq. Inquiries or complaints by applicants or employees related to discrimination should be directed to: Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations Saginaw Township Community Schools 3465 N. Center Road, P.O. Box 6278 Saginaw, MI 48608 TELEPHONE: 989-797-1800 www.stcs.org FAX: 989-797-1801 ________________________________________ Note: Positions open unexpectedly and fill quickly. If you want to apply for positions that are not listed as open, please establish a pre-employment file by completing the online application. ...

Head of collections and resource sharing

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:20:04 +0100

State: Oregon Oregon State University Libraries seeks an innovative, collaborative, and service-oriented librarian to assist in the shaping of a new department focused on user-centered collection services and programs. Responsible for the overall management of the Collections and Resource Sharing Department’s programs and services, the Head of the CRSD leads a staff and faculty committed to fulfilling the learning, teaching and research needs of the OSU community. The Department Head directs the expenditure of the Libraries’ approximately $5 million materials budget, supervises 7.0 faculty FTE and has oversight for a department with approximately 20.0 classified FTE across the 4 units which comprise the Department: Collection Development, Acquisitions, Interlibrary Loan, and Access Services (Circulation and Collection Maintenance). The Department Head leads a variety of initiatives related to collaborative and user-driven collection building, resource sharing, document delivery, and access services. She/he monitors trends in collection development, acquisitions, resource sharing, access services, and collection maintenance. Additionally, the Department Head tracks issues surrounding scholarly communication and works with other OSU librarians to communicate these issues within the Library and to campus faculty. In consultation with the AUL for Collections and Content Management and CRSD unit heads, the Department Head develops policy pertaining to collection development, acquisitions, access services, and resource sharing. The Department Head determines strategic direction for the Department, establishes departmental goals, and encourages and tracks goal progress. The Department Head is a member of the Libraries’ management team and contributes to the overall planning and management of the Libraries. Salary is commensurate with education and experience. To review posting and apply, go to http://oregonstate.edu/jobs . Apply to posting # 0006131. ...

Closing the blog

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

My friends, all good things must come to an end.This will be the final post on the YA Know @ BCL blog. We have enjoyed sharing events and books with you over the past few years, but as the whirlwind of technology moves on, we are shifting our focus to other venues!Teens: Follow us on Facebook! We update our wall 3-4 times a week with new book releases, hot programs, author news, etc. Our location is the "Beaverton City Library Teen Divison" page.Teachers/Parents: Follow us at Teendom, Tweendom! We update this blog on a weekly basis with good homework resources, college prep and scholarships, book news, etc. Add us to your RSS feed or request periodic reminders to check the blog. (Source: YA KNOW @ BCL)

Neh awards new digital humanities start-up grants

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

The NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants program has made 28 new awards. Here's an excerpt from the press release: American University — Washington, DC The Map of Jazz Musicians: an online interactive tool for navigating jazz history's interpersonal network Fernando Benadon, Project Director Outright: $49,777 To support: The development of an online tool to map connections and collaborations among American jazz musicians. Bank Street College of Education — New York, NY Civil Rights Movement Remix (CRM-Remix) Bernadette Anand, Project Director Outright: $25,000 To support: A series of workshops to plan the development of location-based smartphone applications about the African-American Civil Rights Movement based around sites in Harlem, NY. Boston University — Boston, MA Evolutionary Subject Tagging in the Humanities Jack Ammerman, Project Director Outright: $13,767 To support: A two-day meeting of humanities scholars, librarians, and computational analysis experts to consider how to improve existing cataloging software that attempts to better classify interdisciplinary humanities research. Brown University — Providence, RI A Journal-Driven Bibliography of Digital Humanities Julia Flanders, Project Director Outright: $49,659 To support: Development of a project led by the staff of Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) to create, manage, export, and publish high quality bibliographical data across the digital humanities research domain. ...

Message to parents of new college students is "let go"

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

At this time of year, more and more colleges across the country are attempting to teach anxious mothers and fathers a lesson not contained in any traditional curriculum: Let go. Facing a generation of text-messaging parents who are often intensely involved in their offspring's lives and academic careers, many schools are launching or expanding orientation events to inform parents about all sorts of details. More important, campus officials say, is explicit advice aimed at easing the pain of separation for the older generation and discouraging intrusive habits. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian)

Neh awards new digital humanities start-up grants

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:01:59 +0100

Bentleywg: what teachers make

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:54:49 +0100

What teachers make. Taylor Mali on what teachers make http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU&NR=1. "Taylor Mali, slam poet, gives his mind on what teachers make." (Post a new comment). About. Contact · Advertise · Jobs · Site News ... (Source: Google Blog Search: Bentleyblog blogurl:http://bentleywg.livejournal.com/)

Links for 2010-08-26 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:40:02 +0100

EAHIL-European Association for Health Information and Libraries August Issue of Journal of EAHIL is out! See: http://bit.ly/9BEL07 for the PDF. #li Opening Ceremony EAHIL2009 (part 2) Check out this SlideShare webinar : Opening Ceremony EAHIL2009 (part 2) http://slidesha.re/9xJ4ji What is Second Life? Medicine in Second Life, http://bit.ly/bk9KFW #education #simulation #training #teaching #roleplay #visualization Netvibes @digicmb use the url http://ow.ly/2v0JV then http://www.netvibes.com/?reset=1 and let me know :) ! – netvibes (netvibes) http://twitter.com/netvibes/statuses/22161693995 Netvibes - Dashboard Everything @digicmb use the url http://ow.ly/2v0JV then http://www.netvibes.com/?reset=1 and let me know :) ! – netvibes (netvibes) http://twitter.com/netvibes/statuses/22161693995 Twitter Goes to College - US News and World Report Twitter Goes to College - US News and World Report http://bit.ly/acYyW5 RT @librarianbyday Twitter as communication with students (Source: DigiCMB)

Crazy age: thoughts on being old by jane miller | book review

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 11:21:52 +0100

In a perceptive, amusing book about growing old, Jane Miller argues that there's more to ageing than frailty and lonelinessSince everyone now knows that there are more old people around than ever before, it's not surprising that there's been a spate of books about age. Crazy Age by Jane Miller (born in 1932) is the latest and definitely one of the best. It is a highly literate and amusing exploration of the glooms and possibilities of the condition, how it feels, what it offers or really lacks – as opposed to what younger people might think it does.A teacher herself, Jane Miller has written extensively about women and education and the relation between the two, but there's no trace here of a stolid academic style: her writing is so fluid and amusing that you mostly forget that old age is supposed to be such a gloom. Not that she funks the downside of it – there's a long account of a close friend descending, not too miserably, into Alzheimer's disease; but many more accounts of those facing old age with considerable zest.What makes it so readable is not just that she writes tellingly about the experiences of herself and those she knows, but that she draws on characters in books – by Muriel Spark or Edith Wharton, Turgenev or Pushkin (she's a Russian translator, among other things); we're as likely to read about Ivan Illich or Updike's Rabbit as of her own two new knees or her father's death. She has her critique of Simone de Beauvoir, "who has written a book about it 700 pages long saying we shouldn't think about it too much", and cites Philip Roth's distaste for the view that "a healthy old age is somehow morally superior, as if frailty is always your own fault". ...

Taxonomy of collaboration

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Back to school means back to library instruction, and while gearing up for the busy fall season I’ve found myself mulling over a few instruction issues. Outreach to faculty is something I think about often, especially outreach to those who either don’t know about or don’t seem interested in library instruction. Most of these faculty we just don’t see in the library because they don’t bring their classes in. But many of our institutions have one or more courses that require library instruction, often the freshman seminar or introductory Composition course. While some faculty are eager to collaborate with librarians on research and library instruction for their classes, others, unfortunately, are not. I’ve encountered a wide range of faculty attitudes towards the required library session: Enthusiastic Partners: These faculty members sincerely appreciate research and library instruction, and definitely seem to enjoy collaborating with librarians. They discuss their assignments and student learning goals with us before the session, and actively work with us during the session. These sessions usually seem most successful — the importance of library research clearly resonates with students more when their professors reinforce what librarians teach. Quiet but Satisfied: Faculty members in this category do find value in library instruction (at least I think they do). However, they often don’t discuss their course with librarians before the research session, and generally don’t participate in the session itself. Some of these faculty might think that they aren’t as familiar with the research resources as librarians are, and feel hesitant to add their voices to the session. Others are probably satisfied with the content and activities of the library session and see no need to discuss any changes. ...

The masque of africa: glimpses of african belief by vs naipaul

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:06:08 +0100

VS Naipaul is often blinkered but he still sees things in Africa that others miss, says Aminatta FornaIn 2001, when the Swedish Academy awarded Sir Vidia Naipaul the Nobel prize in literature, it described him as the heir to Joseph Conrad: "The annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings… the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished." There are plenty who would have begged to disagree, for Naipaul has regularly attracted criticism, from Edward Said among others, for his dismissive remarks on the cultures of his native Trinidad, on Islam, Pakistan and more.The Masque of Africa is his latest – quite likely last – full-length work of non-fiction. It is a quest through the continent for the spirit of African belief, the belief systems that preceded the arrival of Christianity and Islam – which is very much in keeping with the legacy of Joseph Conrad, who is referenced several times in the book. Already this feels cliched and tiresome; one yearns for the day when an author from outside can approach Africa without invoking the "heart of darkness" mythology. In 1975, Chinua Achebe published an essay attacking Conrad's best-known work as racist and already the novelist Robert Harris has described The Masque of Africa as "toxic".Naipaul's journey across the continent takes him from Uganda, where he lived for a short while in the 1960s, to Nigeria, then to Gabon via the Ivory Coast and Ghana, and finally to South Africa. Along the way, he meets and talks to people about their beliefs. His sources are virtually all African rather than aid workers and expats (you'd be surprised how rare this is).Naipaul discourses with teachers, writers, academics, pharmacists, kings, queens and chiefs, businessmen, friends of friends. That there exists an African intellectual class does not escape him. ...

Librarian, shady hill school

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:19:59 +0100

Part-Time Library Assistant Shady Hill School For close to ten decades, Shady Hill, a school of 515 students (PS-8) and seventy-five full- and part-time teachers, has been a leader in progressive elementary education. The year-long central subject study, which emphasizes strong content, the use of primary sources, acquisition of essential skills, and self-discovery, forms the core of our curriculum. The schoolÃ¢ÂÂs program allows children to explore their worlds and test their powers; we seek to develop independent, joyful and curious learners who respect their own accomplishments and those of others. We strive to be a community whose values are strong and which is unafraid to engage students in important questions. As a diverse school, we believe that a varied and inclusive community is an educational and moral imperative that empowers us all. Therefore, we especially welcome applications from candidates who will contribute to the diversity of the community. The Shady Hill Library is an essential resource for our students, faculty, and apprentice teachers. Librarians provide weekly instruction, as well as reference, readersÃ¢ÂÂ advisory and curricular support for the entire school community. Our fully automated facilities include a collection of 25,000 books and audio-visual materials, and a lab containing seventeen Mac computers. Specific Responsibilities: Ã¢ÂÂ¢ Oversee all circulation desk duties Ã¢ÂÂ¢ Manage volunteers Ã¢ÂÂ¢ Assist with general collection maintenance and processing of new books Ã¢ÂÂ¢ Assist librarian with some Lower School classes Position open September 1, 2010. Please send a cover letter and resume to: Jennifer Polshek, Library Director, Shady Hill School, 178 Coolidge Hill, Cambridge, MA 02138. Fax: 617-520-9387. No phone calls, please. (Source: MBLC Job Listings)

A life in drawing: posy simmonds

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:36 +0100

'A graphic novel is like a film. There are close-ups and long-shots. You choose the location and the props. You do the make-up and the lighting and you get the characters to act.'A couple of months ago Posy Simmonds found herself ensconced in a French hotel suite for 48 hours being interviewed, almost continuously, by TV and radio stations. She was talking about the film version of her graphic novel Tamara Drewe, which was then about to premiere at Cannes and is now about to open in London. Her French is very good, but she still brushed up on her vocabulary to anticipate a few likely questions. "I thought they'd ask what was my favourite scene and so I prepared two answers: the attempt to get the goats to mate – 'couplement des chèvres' – which in fact didn't make the final cut, and the 'lulling the spouse' scene – 'endormir l'épouse' – which did.""Lulling the spouse" was a tactic devised by the detective novelist and inveterate philanderer Nicholas Hardiman, who, along with his long suffering wife Beth, runs the rural writers' colony at the heart of Tamara Drewe. "Behind it is the idea that to avoid suspicion, you must first arouse it," Simmonds laughs. "So you tell the spouse, rather unconvincingly, that, unexpectedly, you're going to be very late this evening and you'll be at mutual friend X's house. And then you actually are at X's house when the anxious spouse rings up, which rather puts them off checking up on you again for a while."No wonder Simmonds's astute facility in anatomising the foibles of her characters has led Tamara Drewe to be described as The Archers on Viagra. It's a neat line, but in fact her story's literary antecedent is grander than Ambridge. And as her career has progressed her work has become progressively richer and more serious, if no less entertaining, than even the most convincingly sophisticated soap opera. ...

Your presence is requested at suvanto by maile chapman

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:25 +0100

Lucy Ellmann is drawn into a vividly realised first novel set in a women's sanatorium in FinlandWe've jogged up and down Everest, navigated the Arctic, and had a pretty good look at the moon – but women remain uncharted territory. What are they and what do they want? Freud didn't know; nobody knows. But a few intrepid explorers have ventured forth, studying women by isolating them. While Lucile Hadzihalilovic's 2004 film Innocence examined the society of little girls in an imaginary boarding school, Maile Chapman's first novel focuses on more aged and woebegotten gals, the lonely nurses and patients of a sanatorium in Finland, around 1920. In both, the single-sex set-up results in something surprising, and wholly original.This book should be bottled and sold at the chemist's, the perfect antidote to austerity and job loss – reading it feels like a rest cure. There is comfort to be found in all this order, hygiene, quiet routine and companionship, the resigned acceptance of the female body, and the constant, watchful presence of attendants who bring food and treat unnameable ailments. The food itself is a little dubious (a plethora of prunes characterises Christmas, while rutabaga is mentioned more than once); the ailments, at least at first, don't seem severe.Some of the women are here merely because they hate their husbands, or their husbands hate them. But the novel is elegantly suspended in a torpor of the present moment, not so much in the dramas that preceded it, and we are invited to relax with these women, artificially removed from convention and connection. This safe zone is ruled by the exacting requirements of the hospital, the landscape, the recreational activities of saunas, snowy walks in the woods, reluctant dance lessons after dinner, moisturising, knitting, and in particular the smell of everything. ...

Of beasts and beings by ian holding | book review

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:18 +0100

Diana Evans enjoys the bleak atmospherics of a post-apocalyptic tale in the African bushIn his first novel, Unfeeling, Ian Holding was cagey about where his account of a white farming community being slaughtered by black militants was set, though the imprint of Robert Mugabe was obvious enough. His second novel is also, we presume, set in modern Zimbabwe, but this time the picture is even hazier, the edges blurred and details deliberately withheld, so that the story itself is precarious, despite the vividness of its telling.An unnamed character, while scavenging for food amid a post-apocalyptic wasteland of charred bodies, bombed pit latrines and shelled shacks, is captured by soldiers and taken on a journey, destination unknown. Sold to an old man and strung up, he fears he is about to be eaten, until he is stolen by two young men with other plans. At the back of a deserted shopping centre he meets the rest of his new captors' party: another man and a pregnant woman. He is attached to a wheelbarrow, in which the pregnant woman is deposited, her legs splayed around supplies of maize cobs, water and tins of beans, and the aimless journey continues, across barren roads, sudden glades, valleys of bush and horrifying human remains.Although there is no clear point to their wandering, a sense of urgency and tension is evoked by the menacing desolation that infuses all around them, described in impressively exacting detail, and the ongoing question of whether or not the woman will survive to give birth to her child. These sections of the novel are written in a heightened present-tense narrative that strains to contain its subject, yet has the strange effect, when combined with the anonymity of the characters and the absence of background information on their plight, of keeping pathos just beyond our reach. There is virtually no dialogue. Some scenes cry out for dramatisation but remain trapped behind a gauze of inflated language. ...

The 2010 north central region – sustainable agriculture research and education program (ncr-sare) youth & youth educator grant call for proposals is now available

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:45:30 +0100

These grants are a part of the Farmer Rancher Grant Program. Their purpose is to provide opportunities for youth in the North Central Region to learn more about Sustainable Agriculture. Sustainable agriculture is good for the environment, profitable, and socially responsible. A total of approximately $34,000 is available for this program. There are two options: 1. YOUTH GRANTS. These grants are for on-farm research, demonstration, or education projects by youth ages 8-18. Research and demonstration projects are for hands-on efforts to explore Sustainable Agriculture issues and practices. Education projects can involve teaching others about Sustainable Agriculture or attending a Sustainable Agriculture conference, workshop, or camp. $400 maximum. 2. YOUTH EDUCATOR GRANTS. These are grants for educators to provide programming on sustainable agriculture for youth. $2,000 maximum. Interested applicants can find the call for proposals online as well as useful information for completing a proposal at http://www.sare.org/NCRSARE/cfp.htm. Proposals are due by 4:30 pm, Friday, January 14, 2011 at the NCR-SARE office in Jefferson City, MO. Potential applicants with questions can contact Joan Benjamin, Associate Regional Coordinator and Farmer Rancher Grant Program Coordinator, at benjaminj@lincolnu.edu or 573-681-5545 or 800-529-1342 or contact Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, Illinois SARE Coordinator, cvnghgrn@illinois.edu, 217-968-5512. For information about Illinois SARE funded projects, http://web.extension.illinois.edu/smallfarm/sare/ A hard copy or an emailed copy of the call for proposals is also available by contacting Joan Benjamin. We make slight revisions to our calls for proposals each year, which means it is crucial to use the most recent call for proposals. ...

Illinois state university offers teacher innovation grants

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:44:18 +0100

The Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology (CeMaST) at Illinois State University will be offering Teacher Innovation Grants to support Illinois teachers involved in STEM teaching, learning, and research in a variety of ways. Here are some details about the grant: Goal: To support K-12 Illinois teachers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to develop innovative projects for the classroom. Overview: CeMaST Teacher Innovations Grants support Illinois teachers involved in STEM teaching, learning and research in a variety of ways. Grants can be used to support new or ongoing teaching projects or to match funds (up to $500) of grants already received for innovative STEM projects. Successful applicants (individuals or teams) can receive up to $500 per person and have the option of receiving help from the Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology (CeMaST) in writing their next external grant. Application deadlines are October 1, 2010 for the Fall and February 1, 2011 for the Spring. Eligibility: All current Illinois K-12 teachers who are teaching in the STEM fields. Amount of Grants: Grants will be awarded up to $500. The number and amount of grants are subject to availability of funds. For more information and instructions on how to apply, please visit our website: http://cemast.illinoisstate.edu/projects/teacher_innovation.shtml (Source: Environmental News Bits)

What will happen in the “blur”

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:15:43 +0100

In Mexico there is an area known as the ”blur”– the rare area where the water from caves underground mingle with water from the ocean. A recent post by Jon Becker, “Who are the Thought Leaders in Educational Leadership?” reminds me of that rarified space where two entities mingle and create something new. In his post, Jon challenged education leaders and scholars at the university level to connect with the social network of educators around the country. Partly why I haven’t been able to quit thinking about his post was that I consider myself a pretty well-informed high school educator–I purchase professional books for our library all the time, attend ASCD occasionally, read incessantly and widely, and yet I didn’t know ONE name on his list of influential education leaders. I think it stunned me because in “Twitterland” I find many of us working together or in separate strands loosely joined to change what education looks like. We talk, share resources, read each other’s blogs, read articles when links are shared on Twitter, do our own research in our own spaces and bring that back to the collective forum. It stunned me because I realized after reading his post how much ’we’ are leaders in education–grass-roots, collaborative, networked leaders. And if we aren’t familiar with their work–and I warrant many of us are not, then there’s a disconnect. ...

Article note: on when eric is useful, with some follow-up

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:11:00 +0100

Citation for the article:Corby, Kate, "When is ERIC Useful? A Background and Current Overview of the Education Resources Information Center." The Reference Librarian 50.2 (2009): 137-149. Read via Interlibrary Loan. This article updates and supplements the previous article I read on the topic, which discussed alternatives to ERIC. I still teach EBSCO's Education Research Complete as the primary database for education research, but I do mention ERIC mostly as a supplement and for its thesaurus. Let me mention another small update note after I wrote the note for the other article: We finally acquired Web of Science for the library. It's amazing what the threat of losing or not getting accreditation (or reaffirmation, which is the new term) does for money to suddenly appear for library development and enhancement. I am being perfectly honest and blunt in this case: were it not for that, we would not have been able to purchase WoS. Now my job is promoting more use of WoS for the education faculty as well and discovering all it can do for us in terms of education research. I like having options, but I digress. In the other article, I do discuss some tips for teaching research in education that are very applicable and relevant, so those of you who do instruction may want to go and look at the other link.Getting back to Corby's article, we get an overview of ERIC and its current condition. The article starts by providing an overview of ERIC's development history and design. ERIC was created to bring education research, which was being done all over the nation, under one roof. This is where the clearinghouses structure came in at first. ERIC also developed the Document Reproduction Service (EDRS), which served to provide those microfiche sets that some libraries still have (we still have our set, but I am not sure for how long since there is some pressure to weed it out. ...

It's a book!

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:31:00 +0100

In the interest of full disclosure on a Friday afternoon I will preface the remainder of this post with; I love Lane Smith's books. Some of my favorite titles are John, Paul, George, and Ben, Madam President, and Big Plans. That list does not include his work with Jon Scieszka such as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Math Curse, and best of all, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. So it is not all that unusual It's a Book was recently added to the library's juvenile collection.MacMillan Children's Books has a YouTube channel. Here's It's a Book:It's a Book is a comical and accurate view of the books verses media debate narrated by a mouse, a jackass, and a monkey. A technology focused jackass consistently questions the monkey reading a book about its various "functions." The patient response to every question asked is, "No, it's a book." Illustrations are crisp, clean, and colorful; a double page spread detailing hours passing as jackass becomes fully involved reading monkey's book is classic. Mouse has the final word in this argument, and therein lie the questions this book seems to be gathering.Reviews have been mixed for It's a Book; while School Library Journal listed it as a starred review (Gr. 3-5) in their August 2010 issue, others have disagreed. I've added it to the collection of titles to be used during a Mock Caldecott session after Labor Day. I am deeply curious how a group of pre-service teachers will view the book, illustrations, use of the word jackass (as opposed to donkey), and how or if it would fit into a classroom.Other issues aside, wouldn't the video make a great ice-breaker for a library instruction session? (Source: Library Cloud)

We not me, us not them

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:12:59 +0100

by Dave Tyckoson When I talk to people about the California Library Association, I am usually asked two questions: What's in it for me? What are they doing for us? This type of thinking is natural - when you join an organization you expect to get something in return. The California Library Association (CLA) is no exception - and membership can be expensive, especially for those of us fortunate to be making a good salary. However, CLA is not a me/they organization, it is an us/we organization. We get out of CLA what we put into CLA. It is the collective value of all of us as representatives of all different kinds of libraries that gives CLA its organizational strength. And it is participation by librarians of all types that is essential to that success. CLA is the one library organization in the state that represents all California libraries. It is the voice of libraries throughout the state -- public, academic, school, and special. The more libraries and types of libraries included in CLA, the better CLA can represent them - to the public, to the legislature, and to the media. In order for CLA to be successful, it needs to embrace all of the libraries and librarians in the state - including you. You get out of CLA what you put into CLA. And CLA provides a number of opportunities for you to get involved: Participate in CLA Snapshot Day. On October 4, libraries throughout the state will collect statistical data, stories, and images that demonstrate how they serve their communities. CLA staff will use that data to calculate the monetary value of those libraries. The more that participate, the better the data. Attend the CLA annual conference. The 2010 conference is a joint meeting with the California School Librarians Association, providing an excellent opportunity to share and learn from our colleagues in the K-12 environment. Come to Sacramento in November! Learn something new from the programs and exhibits at the conference. ...

The other side of wayne disher

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:01:55 +0100

by Wayne Disher While libraries have always been a huge part of my life, and they truly define my philosophy and outlook, they are only a part of the total package of who I am. I thought I'd take a brief moment to sort of "fill in the gaps" and give you all an even better picture of what makes Wayne Disher the guy he is...and I'll try not to bore you. Okay, tidbit number one. I LOVE DOGS!!! I have had dogs in my life since I was 4 years old, and I still have dogs today. Well not the same dogs, but you know what I mean. I don't dress my dogs up in silly costumes, but I do carry on fairly lengthy one-sided conversations with them. As of yet,they have not talked back--but I keep hoping! I always adopt my animals from the Humane Society. I'm the President of the Board of Directors of the local Humane Society, and animal welfare is another top priority of mine. Now, before I anger the cat constituents out there, can I also say I love cats? It's true. My current dogs just don't share my love to have cats in the house right now. In addition to my public Library Director job, I am an educator. I am a part- time Faculty member of the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Sciences. I teach both Library Management and Library Collection Development classes. I used to meet students in classrooms, now I meet them "virtually". At first I didn't like the format, but now when I'm online with students from California to Dubai I start thinking it's a pretty cool way to share information and to learn--maybe our organization can take advantage of this too. In the process of all this teaching, I've been lucky enough to have had two books published. They are both from a series called "A Crash Course in....", and they are meant for new librarians --particularly in small and rural settings--who need to learn information about a library topic and they need to learn it quickly. ...

Of amplified authors and unilibraries

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:15:00 +0100

The Bookseller’s FuturEBook blog has an interesting look by Chris Meade at how today’s authors have more power to promote themselves and build relationships with fans than ever before, leading to a new viability for self-publishing. The Amplified Author of 2010 (term coined for authors engaged in the social web) can sit at her desk and speak directly to her readership through a blog, can expand that circle of readers gradually by using Twitter and other social networks, can find an active readership interested in offering criticism and ideas, can publish work through print on demand and put it on the global bookshelf of the web, can set out her stall of publications and services on a website where she can also offer to run workshops, teach, write reviews, perform; she can take her work to publishers and broadcasters able to give detailed evidence of who her readership is and what they think of her work. Once she makes it into print, she can use her own energies and laptop to promote her masterpiece. Of course, we have already heard much of this sort of thing, especially in the wake of established authors such as J.A. Konrath or Seth Godin deciding to go it alone and move away from traditional publishing. But the FutureEBook piece explains that thinktank if:book (The Institute for the Future of the Book) is creating “a new kind of hub for writing in the community". They call this hub a “Unilibrary”. It is to be located in Hornsey Library in London and is planned to to include a “co-working space” with a voluntary social network, aimed at helping local creative types get together and create. ...

Iphone for kids: too many mediocre apps, not enough good ones

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:15:00 +0100

The iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad make great educational platforms for youngsters; we’ve run many stories on their potential in that respect. But Danial Donahoo from Wired’s “GeekDad” blog wonders if there may now be too much of a mediocre thing. The iPhone app development model, Donahoo notes, has led to a kind of “gold rush” mentality, in which everyone develops obvious apps as quickly as possible hoping to be the first (or fifth, or twenty-fifth) to market and “strike it rich.” Consequently, there are a lot of apps for kids that are not well thought through, not developmentally appropriate, or simply way too generic! And, in my professional life and personal life having reviewed and played a lot of these games I think it is time to ask developers to start focusing on quality, rather than quantity. He points to a screenshot of “News & Noteworthy” education apps, 19 out of 20 of which teach ABCs. Do we, he asks, really need that many alphabet apps? Donahoo lists some examples of potentially great educational apps that are sorely missing—digital building blocks, for example, or gyroscope/accelerometer-aided physics applications. Where is the application that uses computer programming concepts and ideas I haven’t thought of yet because I am not smart enough, and creates something that becomes essential to all children’s learning and development and can only exist on the iPad? A major basis behind the TeleRead idea is the use of mobile reading devices in education. But iPhones and iPads (and in fact mini-tablets and tablets in general) have a lot more potential for learning than just as reading devices, and Donahoo is right that a lot of this potential is being sadly neglected. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home)

Updating lis768 list of context books for student reports

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:59:46 +0100

This morning I’m updating one of my favorite assignments for LIS768 Participatory Service and Emerging Technologies. Two years ago, I asked for further suggestions to share with my class. Today. I’ll do the same: what would you add? Please share in the comments below. I’ll be including the post URL in the course site. Original post from 2008: http://tametheweb.com/2008/09/10/lis768-reading-list/ Current list included in syllabus: Assignment – Context Book Report – 10 points Students will read a book selected from the list provided below or suggest another title for Michael’s approval, and write a 200-300 word reflection posted to your blog relating the topic and focus of the book to libraries, technology and participatory service. OPTIONAL: Instead of writing your report, create a media presentation such as a podcast, YouTube video, Animoto show, etc. Let your creativity flow! Selections from the Online Reading List Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail Beck, John C. & Mitchell Wade. Got game Bernoff, Josh. Groundswell Breakenridge, Deidre. PR 2.0 Carr, Nicholas. The Big Switch: rewiring the World, from Edison to Google Collins, Jim. Good to Great Doctorow, Cory Content Doctorow, Cory Little Brother Frankel, Alex. Punching In Fried, Jason & David Heinemeier Hannsen. Rework Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to teach Us about Learning & Literacy Gilmore, James & B. Joseph Pine II. Authenticity Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers Godin, Seth. Small is the New Big Godin, Seth. Tribes Godin, Seth. Linchpin Heath, Chip & Dan. Switch Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers & Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad is Good for You Keen, Andrew The Cult of the Amateur Kelley, Tom with Jonathan Littman. ...

Job announcement: tenure track asst. prof. of creative writing

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:17:08 +0100

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing: Position Description. Reporting to the Chair of the Department of Writing and Linguistics, the Assistant Professor of Creative Writing position requires teaching, service, and research responsibilities and a terminal degree. The successful candidate will teach 3 courses per semester with primary assignment in multi-genre and single-genre Creative Writing courses. The position is a 9-month, tenure-track appointment, and the salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience. Required Qualifications: M.F.A. or Ph.D. ...

Digital services librarian at manhattanville college

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:02:30 +0100

The Manhattanville College Library is recruiting a Digital Services Librarian. Here's an excerpt from the ad: The Library seeks a dynamic, student oriented, Digital Services Librarian to provide leadership, vision, and expertise related to systems and technologies that increase and enhance access to digital resources. This position will focus on ensuring consistent and integrated access to electronic resources in a technologically intensive learning environment. S/he will have responsibility for the Library's website including helping to develop a new mobile website. S/he will participate in the planning, development, implementation and maintenance of the Library's core digital initiatives, and will identify, evaluate, implement, and teach the use of new technologies that facilitate information access and that contribute to the development of library-related learning materials; participate in reference, information literacy instruction, collection development, and library committees as well as campus and professional activities. (Source: DigitalKoans)

Digital services librarian at manhattanville college

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:02:19 +0100

Communitybuilders – building and sustaining on-line communities by steve dale

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:16:52 +0100

Where is my chocolate cake? Do you have all the nice and fresh ingredients that would be needed to make a delicious one? You do? Now, do you also have the talent to make a mouthwatering one? You do? Excellent! Then you are ready to build and sustain an online community, because that’s what it takes, folks… It’s all about making delightful chocolate cakes! Oh, oh, don’t worry; this blog is not going to turn itself into a food blog all of a sudden (Although it wouldn’t be that bad either!). It’s just that I thought I would take this opportunity to pick up on a superb analogy that my good friend, Steve Dale, put together earlier on in a blog post talking about online communities under the heading “Building and Nurturing On-Line Communities — Batteries Not Included“. And it was just *so* yummy that I couldn’t let it go by just like that! In that blog post Steve actually gets to share plenty of insights on what it is like building and sustaining healthy online communities (of practice) by making a successful connection between building a community and making a delicious cake. You need to have all of the fresh ingredients to make it work! And that includes having perhaps one of the most important of those ingredients: your online community facilitator! Here is an interesting quote from his blog entry along these lines trying to portrait what would be the main skills and attributes from those successful facilitators: “[...] It’s more about personality; enthusiasm; willingness to share; being sensitive to the community environment; and energy….lots and lots of energy. Not the sort of things you can learn or teach using a pedagogical approach“. ...

Undergraduate services librarian (university of iowa, iowa city, iowa)

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:15:01 +0100

Undergraduate Services Librarian (University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa) Reporting to the Head, Reference and Library Instruction Department (RLI), the Undergraduate Services Librarian is responsible for the design and implementation of innovative library services and instruction programs aimed at undergraduate students and for coordinating all aspects of first-year experience and general undergraduate education/library outreach. ...

Information literacy librarian (asnuntuck community college, enfield, connecticut)

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:15:01 +0100

Information Literacy Librarian (Asnuntuck Community College, Enfield, Connecticut) Academic Year 2010-2011 Appointment (Temporary, Full-Time – 35 hours per week) ANTICIPATED STARTING DATE: October 2010 MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: ALA-accredited Masters Degree in Library Science (or MLIS), with one to four years of related experience including up to two years of experience in leading or supervising others, or a combination of education, training, and experience which would lead to the competencies required. Demonstrated strong competencies in information literacy instruction and reference service. ...

Associate dean, public services (#273b) (university of southern california, los angeles, california)

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:15:01 +0100

Associate Dean, Public Services (#273B) (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California) The University of Southern California (USC) Libraries seek an innovative, service oriented, and experienced information professional to lead and manage the public service operations of USC Libraries. The Associate Dean reports to the Dean, serves as a member of the Dean’s Cabinet, and ensures the overall effectiveness of the extensive public service operations of 14 physically separate branch libraries as well as the interlibrary loan and document delivery service. ...

Cfp - association of teachers of technical writing (attw) conference 2011

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:24:37 +0100

All, As the 2011 conference chair, I am pleased to share with you the call for proposals for the 14th annual conference of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Like previous ATTW conferences, the 2011 conference will be held on the Wednesday immediately preceding the start of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in Atlanta, GA. That date is Wednesday, April 6th. The theme for the 2011 conference is Networks of Technical Communication. The CFP is available at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jswarts/ATTW_2011.html . I hope you find the theme as compelling as I do and that you will consider submitting a proposal by October 8, 2010. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at jswarts [at] ncsu [dot] edu. Sincerely, Jason Swarts (Source: Kairosnews - A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy)

In for a penny, in for a pound… my promotion “case for support”

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:55:39 +0100

JUst before going away on holiday, I popped up a questionnaire asking for a little help working out what sort of impact – if any – I had on folk that could weave in to my promotion case for support… Thanks to all who took the time out to reply (it was very humbling:-) Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s a draft of the Case for Support, which I need to submit tomorrow. Whilst I haven’t been able to add direct quotes from the questionnaire responses – the word limit is set at 1500 words – your responses did inform what I wrote: some of the words are very heavily loaded and more densely packed, on occasion summarising whole responses… Tony Hirst – Case for promotion to Senior Lecturer My case for promotion is based around excellence in teaching and scholarship, with a strong theme of digital scholarship and community engagement. Teaching & contributions to the teaching system I have chaired three courses (production and presentation), and authored on four others, pushing the elearning agenda through technology and design innovation with a view to reuse. In 2000, I developed two units for T396 delivered via a novel electronic study guide, providing a unified browser-based interface to online, offline and CD-ROM content, and a mobile website for course alerts. This work identified issues relating to authoring content specifically for browser based delivery on desktop and mobile devices that have informed my work ever since. A major feature of my approach to the production of teaching materials relates to supporting reuse in other contexts. Whilst writing online material for the T184 robotics course, I commissioned several interactive browser-based activities that have been reused on courses such as TXR174, as well as for outreach. Using T184 software, I developed a range of activities for schools and OU regional Aim Higher/Widening Participation initiatives. ...

On the zukunftwerkstatt kultur und wissensvermittlung – future workshop in germany

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:12:12 +0100

From Michael: Christoph Deeg of the Zukunftwerkstatt in Germany agreed to do a guest post for me outlining the origins and philosophies of this group. I spent an incredible day with the group in Berlin – and learned so much from them. I was honored to be asked to participate as a founding member last March and am pleased Christoph agreed to write for TTW – in English! The Zukunftwerkstatt Kultur- und Wissensvermittlung e.V. is a non-profit-organisation that brings people together who are active in public institutions or private enterprises dealing with future possibilities of mediating of cultural and scientific topics. It is the aim of our organisation to develop and realize concepts that will make knowledge society come true. We are open to people and their ideas and consider ourselves mediators between institutions, enterprises, people and products, while not pursuing any financial interests. We are guided by the desire to find and support people of vision who believe – as we do – that cooperation at all levels will unfold new and exciting possibilities for all participants and hence for all customers or users. Dividing lines between learning and playing, between education and entertainment are breaking down. New virtual worlds and leisure time options are evolving. Interaction, multi-optional, individual and global communication systems are gaining ground. Negotiation and utilization of knowledge in the fields of science and culture will become essential. If we acknowledge the overall scheme of things, a new means in communication will emerge with new networks and unique possibilities of cooperation: Users will gain global access to cultural and scientific subject matter. Enterprises and institutions, if cooperating closely, will gain access to millions of interested, creative and openminded users and customers. ...

Listen up: text-to-speech now available (free) direct from ebsco for ebscohost public and school library databases

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:44:34 +0100

From the Announcement: EBSCO Publishing has added text-to-speech (read aloud) support to EBSCOhost databases, including its major school and public library databases, by embedding Texthelp Systems’ SpeechStream toolbar—a valuable benefit provided at no additional cost to the user. Users will be able to take advantage of this new feature with any full-text articles available in HTML. Text-to-speech support, already featured in EBSCO’s English Language Learner Reference Center, allows users to read along while a human-sounding voice speaks the text on the screen. The support toolbar provides significant assistance to those for whom text-to-speech capabilities are highly valued such as English Language Learners, users with low vision, slight physical and/or learning disabilities, as well as eBook and PDA users. [Clip] Utilizing the text-to-speech feature via the EBSCOhost platform provides many advantages. Users have the ability to read-aloud by selected text, sentence, paragraph, or continuous reading with dual color synchronous highlighting (highlighting of the passage being read with a second color highlighting the specific word being read aloud at that moment). User control of read-aloud personalizes the learning experience for each user. Users can control reading speed as well as select between three different high-quality voices—American, British, or Australian. These options also enable teachers and professionals to incorporate the features as a tool for teaching English and reading. Source: EBSCO Publishing (Source: ResourceShelf)

Yahoo! answers in the wild

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:48:55 +0100

Yesterday, I got a chance to meet informally with the students who will be in my 3-credit course I’m teaching here in the library at Baruch College (“Information Research for the Social Sciences and the Humanities”). When I was asking the students to tell me about kinds of research they have done that takes place outside of the classroom, a couple of the students mentioned using Yahoo! Answers to get advice about what cell phone or laptop to buy. Although they also mentioned using things like reviews on CNET, they preferred the personal commentary from question answerers to the more polished articles on tech and gadget sites. When my class starts next Monday, I hope to probe more deeply into this issue and find out more about how they assess the credibility of those providing answers in Q&A sites. Not only will it be interesting to me as a reference librarian but also as an instructor trying to teach a semester-long course on how to find, evaluate, and use information to answer questions. (Source: Digital Reference)

Book review: going beyond google: the invisible web in learning and teaching jane devine and francine egger-sider. london: facet publishing, 2009. 156pp, {pound}44.95. isbn 9781856046589

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:59:52 +0100

(Source: Journal of Librarianship and Information Science current issue)

Jane miller: 'i'm not sure i really will die'

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:00:44 +0100

In an extract from her new book Crazy Age, the 77-year-old author takes a stark – and very personal – look at the realities of growing old in the 21st centuryA statistic from nowhere, or nowhere I remember, but it has the ring of truth: if most of us can look forward to living for about 10 years longer than our parents, we can also expect to spend the equivalent of eight of those years in hospital or doctors' waiting-rooms. When, at nearly 80, Gore Vidal was asked to explain why he had left Italy for California, he spoke of his future as "the hospital years".My local hospital is ugly on the outside and beautiful within, though both the outside and the inside seem differently determined to masquerade as something that is not a hospital. Its modern facade was meant to fit into the shops it sits among, and tucked into it are a post office, a cafe, a mobile phone shop and another shop that sells the unhealthiest snacks and fizzy drinks known to the western world. Desperate smokers – patients on crutches, in wheelchairs and dressing-gowns, nurses, doctors, visitors – cough and cluster outside.Inside, however, there are constant and changing exhibitions of sculpture, pictures and mobiles. The building itself is curiously ship-like, constructed to seem open to the sky. There are wards from which you might gaze out across the roofs of London with a telescope to one eye, and walkways like gangplanks, and a chapel suspended in space, a kind of crow's nest from which to survey the turbulence below.In this surprising building, I have now been in receipt of two new knees and weeks of physiotherapy in a hot pool and a gym. Twice a year I have my eyes tested for glaucoma and for mysterious "drusen" growths at the sides of my eyes, which must be stopped from putting pressure on the optic nerve. ...

Seton hall has no plan to cancel gay marriage course

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

It appears Seton Hall University will offer a controversial course on gay marriage over the objections of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, according to the professor scheduled to teach the class. The undergraduate seminar course — called "The Politics of Gay Marriage" — is to begin Tuesday with about two dozen students. The showdown between the university’s academic and religious sides drew national attention from gay rights, education and Catholic groups. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian)

Why can't johnny research practice law? is johnny thinking like "chad," the lrw instructor, instead of thinking like a law librarian?

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Michael Murray is the co-author of the legal research textbook I refuse to identify since he once said that librarians shouldn't teach legal research because librarians research differently than lawyers according to David Walker's recent LLB post. "This book obviously... (Source: Law Librarian Blog)

Finding a voice for east salinas & teen salinas speaks (tss)

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:16:00 +0100

They started out as a group of teens who liked poetry. They wanted and used the Cesar Chavez Public Library as a place to meet, write, explore, and perform, but little did they know that from their own words and voices they would inspire and create a city wide movement to build a brighter future for its youth. The group Teen Salinas Speaks (TSS) has created a whirlwind of publicity and gained a devoted following, and from their free poetry workshops to Operation Oprah film campaign, have gathered an entire community to not only explore the power of their words and voices, but combat and face violation and gang activity head on. In 2009 Salinas saw 29 gang related homicides, coming 4th in the entire state of California for highest per capita murder rate. TSS Member Mya Perez said, "I first joined because it was a way to express myself without getting judged for it, a place where I can perfect my poetry, but now that we have expanded I continue to go because I wanna help rid off gang violence before I see another friend in a coffin..." The members of TSS recognize that combating gang violence and offering realistic alternatives is no easy journey, and the road ahead will be long, paved with plenty of bumps along the way. They hold weekly meetings and broadcast a weekly radio show called, "The Peace Hour," with PK McCary where they address and discuss issues affecting teens. From injustice to racism the teens tackle each and every piece of life that changes and influences how we see and interact with those around us hoping to raise awareness and create an open dialogue in the community. With the series of nine podcasts, they've begun to soothe the fears and uncertainties of our teens simply by recognizing they exist, and talking them through. ...

Economics of scholarly production: supplemental materials

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:28:10 +0100

At the Spring CNI Taskforce meeting last April, Karen Wetzel (Standards Program Manager at NISO) announced a new piece of work related to “supplemental materials” in journal articles. In the scientific literature, it is not uncommon for articles to be accompanied by a secondary set of figures, data, documentation of experimental protocols that aren’t considered part of the core content. Karen reported that thought-leaders from a variety of sectors had expressed concerns about the expense that publishers incur in managing this material, as well as the additional work that it creates for editorial staff and authors. Libraries were included in a long list of potential stakeholders, as potential curators of this supplemental material. A central concern is that scholarly citation and reuse of this kind of supporting material is limited by the absence of identifiers, bibliographic metadata etc. This is especially true for disciplines that lack official data centers that might provide DOI registration etc. to support discovery, preservation and even re-discovery services. As Sasha Schwarzman of the American Geophysical Union observes, this has important consequences for the longevity of the scholarly record: while the main article is going to enjoy eternal life with many reincarnations along the way, supporting material is likely to rot and die, with very little possibility of resuscitation [Alexander (Sasha) Schwarzman. Supporting Material. 2 November 2009] There are some equally important operational and economic considerations. From an editorial perspective, there is concern that the “core” of an article may be buried in supplemental material, which is not always subject to rigorous peer review. From a publisher perspective, there is a reluctance to assume the costs of managing, marking up etc this content. From the researcher/author perspective, there is concern about how contributions are credited (e.g. ...

Cr2 blog » blog archive » liswire: chadron state college looking ...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:00:25 +0100

The information literacy course is designed to highlight resources like EBSCO Discovery Service but also to teach students to be critical about the i (Source: pligg - all)

#62 - transcendent tri-brarian!

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Who you are: Marie Slim: Teacher Librarian/Geek/Mother/Wife/Change Agent/DreamerWhat you do: High School Teacher Librarian (Tri-brarian)Where you do it: Fullerton Joint Union High School District, Fullerton, CA: Fullerton Union High School, Sunny Hills High School and Troy High School (this is a new gig this year - last year I had just one high school)LTC: Does your library offer any (Source: Librarian Trading Cards)

Chapters needed from practicing librarians

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Chapters Needed from Practicing LibrariansCo-Editor/ Editor: Carol Smallwood, MLSWriting and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook, American LibraryAssociation, 2010 http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2646Librarians as Community Partners: An Outreach Handbook, American LibraryAssociation, 2010 http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2774Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians, McFarland,2008 http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3575-3Others by ALA, Peter Lang, Linworth, McFarland, Libraries Unlimited1. Preserving Local Writers, Genealogy, Photographs, Newspapers and Related MaterialsBook Publisher: Scarecrow PressChapters sought for an anthology by librarians who are not archivists who've worked with local historical societies in preserving local history, newspaper preservation, managing manuscript/book collections of local authors, local photography collections, kept student oral and written interviews of community members, and have done/are doing related activities. Tips needed on overcoming liability and invasion of privacy issues, what to save, ways to preserve local material for current and future generations. Librarians are often the lastchance that important aspects of local culture have of being conserved.No previously published, simultaneously submitted material; 3,000-3,500 words. Concise, how-to chapters, using bullets, headings, sidebars. Compensation: a complimentary book, discount on additional copies.Please e-mail 1-2 topics described separately in 2-3 sentences by September 30, 2010 with a 75-90 word bio. You will be contacted which of your topics will fit. Kindly place, PRESERVING/Your Name, on the subject line to: smallwood@tm.net2. Tips for Librarians Running Libraries Alone Book Publisher: Scarecrow PressChapters sought from special, school, public, academic librarians, LIS professors about managing a library alone.No previously published, simultaneously submitted material; 3,000-3,500 words. ...

Cfp: sequential art, graphic novels, and comics in education

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

CFP: Sequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics in EducationSequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics in EducationEdited by Robert G. Weiner and Carrye Syma, Texas Tech University Library (Publisher: McFarland)In recent years the use of graphic novels, comics, and sequential art in education has exploded. This is due not only to the boom in superhero movies that are based on comic book characters, but also to the wide literary range that graphic novels now have. There are now literally hundreds of college and university courses all over the world that are using graphic novels in their curriculum. The days when comics were just seen as children’s trash, with no redeeming literary or educational value, are hopefully behind us.Contrary to the idea that comics “dumb” down material, it takes both sides of the brain to read and interpret sequential art stories: the right side to interpret the pictures and the left side to understand the narrative text. Our goal with this collection is to provide the educator and scholar with a collection of essays that show how graphic novels and comics are being used in the classroom today, as well as some historical pieces that detail how the educational fields often have and have had a “rocky” relationship with the use of comics in educational settings. We want both theoretical and practical essays showing how sequential art can be and is being used to teach and illustrate concepts and ideas. We are especially keen on pieces related to higher education, military and government uses of comics to educate, but all aspects of comics and education are under consideration. In addition, we would like to have educators from a wide spectrum of the educational fields from K-12, to undergraduate and graduate educational levels. Those using sequential art in adult education and pre-school are encouraged. Some possible questions/ideas that could be addressed include:The Military’s use of comics to teach. ...

Event: mcn 2010

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

As received in email...Registration for MCN 2010 is now open! http://www.mcn.edu/mcn-2010-conference-registration From museums to libraries,From conservation to future technologies, From building communities to museum ethics, From case studies to the great debates of our age:MCN 2010 is what YOU make it!Help us keep Austin weird at Halloween: MCN 2010, October 27-30th (fun, costumes and instruments strongly encouraged)!I/O: The Museum Inside-Out/Outside-In opens with a huge range of workshops to raise the bar on your professional skills, followed by three action-packed days of programmed sessions and a parallel ThatCamp Un-conference to cater to every interest and specialist topic. Learn, teach and share while playing the MCN 2010 ARG, crawling Austin's pubs, jamming to jazz during our silent auction, and touring Austin's great museums and amazing bat caves. Check out the full program on our Conference Wiki http://mcn2010.pbworks.com/Conference-Program!Registration fees:MCN Members: Earlybird: $450.00 | Regular: $500.00Non-Members: Earlybird: $550.00 | Regular: $600.00 Student / Emerging Professional Members: Earlybird: $200.00 | Regular: $250.00Daily: (members and non-members) Earlybird: $250.00 | Regular: $250.00 Guest Registration: Earlybird: $105.00 | Regular: $105.00 Half-Day Workshop Fee: $100.00Earlybird Registration Deadline: Friday, September 24, 2010. Register Today! http://www.mcn.edu/mcn-2010-conference-registrationFollow us @mcn2010 (twitter)This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. (Source: Digitization 101)

Event: mcn 2010

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Canadian clinical legal education conference

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:41:19 +0100

We all have our grievances about law school, as remote as it may or may not have been for us personally. Maybe what’s needed is greater academic discourse about the pedagogue of legal education. The University of Western Ontario Law School is hosting Canadian Clinical Legal Education Conference on October 22-23, 2010. The program features a sitting Supreme Court Justice, legal academics, and legal administrators. Law societies should also be interested because John Campion, President of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) will also be speaking. Speaker bios can be found here, and a draft agenda can be seen here. The conference is sponsored by the Law Foundations of Ontario and BC, as well as several law schools across Canada. What will probably feature prominently during the conference is the 2007 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching report called Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law [pdf summary]. The report notes that legal education is fundamental to a flourishing democracy, and provides 5 key observations: Law School Provides Rapid Socialization into the Standards of Legal Thinking Law Schools Rely Heavily on One Way of Teaching to Accomplish the Socialization Process The Case-Dialogue Method of Teaching Has Valuable Strengths but Also Unintended Consequences Assessment of Student Learning Remains Underdeveloped Legal Education Approaches Improvement Incrementally, Not Comprehensively The two major limitations identified under 3) above is that legal education rarely prepares students for professional practice, and fail to develop legal ethics and social skills. Canada may have an advantage over our American counterparts through our articling process, which is not part of the typical classroom education but still considered a necessary component for preparation for the practice of law. However, some educators are attempting to introduce more practical skills in the law school itself. ...

Without a net: librarians bridging the digital divide by jessamyn c. west

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:03:17 +0100

"Teaching novice computer users, including seniors and individuals with disabilities such as low vision or motor skills, how to do what they want and need to do online is a formidable challenge for library staff. Part inspirational, part practical Without a the Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide is a summary of techniques, approaches, and skills that will help librarians meet this challenge. Jessamyn C. West's experience as a librarian is deeply immersed in technology culture, yet living in rural America makes her uniquely qualified to write this book. Taking a big-picture approach to the subject, she demystifies and simplifies tech training for the busy librarian, providing an easy-to-use handbook full of techniques that can be used with all of a library's many populations. As an added bonus, she also examines the players in the library technology arena to offer firsthand reports on what works, what doesn't, and what's next" - to be published March 30, 2011 (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog)

New and improved – or not?

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:21:06 +0100

One of the lovely surprises awaiting those who have been away from the reference desk for a while is the numerous spanking new database interfaces that have sprouted up. There seem to be more than usual this year, and while some are improvements, others, frankly, need a good spanking. One that has us particularly flummoxed is the new JSTOR interface that defaults to searching material your library doesn’t have and offers new layers of confusion. (”Is this article available at my library in another database?” “Sorry, we can’t tell you that, but we can provide a handy link through our publisher sales service to purchase articles.”) As an aside, do publishers seriously expect people to purchase articles for $12, $25, or $35 a pop? Really? They have not met my patrons. But I digress. I was coasting along in blissful ignorance until I got this guest post from our occasional correspondent from Bowling Green State University, Amy Fry. I have a feeling JSTOR will be getting a lot of feedback on their “improvements.” Here are some thoughts to start the conversation. —- What Were They Thinking? Amy Fry Electronic Resources Coordinator Bowling Green State University Today is the first day of the new semester at BGSU, and also the first school day of the new JSTOR interface. What were they thinking? JSTOR began life as a journal archive, but librarians have long treated it as an all-full-text, all-scholarly database for journal literature. While its search interface lagged, with limited options to weed out unwanted items or zero in on the most relevant results, its content was stellar, and librarians felt confident promoting it to students as a reliable place to find full-text scholarly sources. As a result, JSTOR has a strong brand not only with librarians, but with faculty and students at all kinds of institutions. Those days appear to be over, at least for now. ...

Best websites for learning

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:04:43 +0100

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced the 2010 Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning. The Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning were named so because they foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. The Web sites honored include: Animoto; Classroom 2.0; Curriki; diigo; edublogs; facebook; goodreads; Google reader; mindmeister; Ning; OurStory; Partnership for 21st Century Skills; Poll Everywhere; PrimaryAccess; RezED; Second Life; Simply Box; Skype; S.O.S. for Information Literacy; Teacher Tube; twitter; VoiceThread; Wikispaces; Wordle; and Zoho. All sites are free, web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. You can find Madison Public Library on both facebook and twitter. (Source: What's New)

Science: scitable launches mobile version, free resource from nature education (part of nature publishing group)

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:25:33 +0100

From MobileBeat/VentureBeat: Nature Education — the educational arm of Nature Publishing Group — launched a mobile version of its open-access science library Scitabletoday [Monday] — bringing its extensive library of science articles and social networking features to any student, teacher, or researcher with a mobile device. Mobile users are automatically directed to the appropriate mobile site for their device when they visit Scitable.com. [Clip] The site has gone on to reach 500,000 science students across 165 countries, reports Vikram Savkar, senior vice-president and publishing director at Nature Publishing Group. But despite its success, he wanted a versatile mobile version of Scitable to better reach students in developing countries who don’t have easy access to computers or broadband internet. “With the launch of our mobile site, any student with a cell phone, even a very basic device, has access to a simplified version of the site that includes a wealth of quality, citable information, ” Savkar said. Scitable and Scitable Mobile also has access to full text content including articles by researchers, journalists, and educators as well as topic overviews (aka spotlights) and other materials. A glossary of genetic related terms is also available on the mobile site. The primary concentration of Scitable is on, “genetics, the study of evolution, variation, and the rich complexity of living organisms.” Of note that a day after the launch there is no mention (or we are just missing it) of the new mobile site on the Scitable primary web site or “about” page. Perhaps they are trying to build buzz with a few articles, tweets, and blog posts? We didn’t even find a news release listed. Again, to access the mobile site simply go to the main URL at: http://scitable.com and you’ll be redirected to the proper mobile version for your Blackberry, Android, or iPhone. Source: VentureBeat, Scitable. ...

#twitter in the #college #classroom

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:37:00 +0100

Here are two articles from the ERIC database. Title: Teaching with Twitter: Not for the Faint of Heart Author(s):Young, Jeffrey R. Source: Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, v75 n7 p9-12 Mar 2010. 4 pp. Abstract: Asking 250 students to post questions on Twitter during a class doesn't risk life or limb. But it can cause ego damage if students get disorderly online. Opening up a Twitter-powered channel in class--which professors at other universities are experimenting with as well--alters classroom power dynamics and signals to students that they're in control. Fans of the approach applaud technology that promises to change professors' role from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side." Those phrases are familiar to education reformers, who have long argued that education must be more interactive to hold the interest of today's students. The unanswered question, though, is whether that theory can work in practice. That uncertainty actually excites daredevil professors attempting this teaching trick. Many colleagues are watching such experiments with a mix of curiosity and disbelief to see how the professors land. The experiments went pretty well (no real disasters), but setting up a back channel is not for every professor, or every course. Students seem to love the chance to make their voices heard in class without having to actually speak. Instructors in the classroom, however, really have to teach toward their personalities because some say this would make them uncomfortable. ...