Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Flickr is a great resource for your library, offering a great place to post photos from your collection, as well as photos of activities your library hosts. One library has even posted their library signage on Flickr - http://flickr.com/search/?q=mcgoogansign

Jessica Merritt has written a post on the CollegeDegrees blog about why libraries should consider using Flickr and other social networking sites:

How to: Make Flickr Work for Your Library - 50+ Resources
http://www.collegedegrees.com/blog/2008/06/24/how-to-make-flickr-work-for-your-library-50-resources/

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

ebrary results from the 2008 Global Student E-Book Survey
http://www.ebrary.com/corp/collateral/en/Survey/ebrary_student_survey_2008.pdf


A news article about the survey's findings at The Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3115

It would be very interesting to conduct the same survey with only medical college/academic health center libraries, to identify use by health professional students - I think it is higher than "other major" college students.

Monday, June 16, 2008

An inspiring news story: It Takes a Librarian to Raise a Village of Teens , from The Globe and Mail -http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080614.LIBRARY14/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/


Read this article, if you are looking for more reasons to make your library over into a center for your community.
"Book a librarian to help". That is such a great slogan - we need to use it to remind our customers that librarians will show up at their elbows to work through whatever barriers to gain access to the information needed. Another slogan: "Barista of Information", one I came up with a few months ago. Still no t-shirts with either slogan on them, though.

"Book a librarian to help" is also the title of this news story from Pembrokeshire in the UK http://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/news/latest/display.var.2339480.0.book_a_librarian_to_help.php , where two librarians were asked to step in as wedding witnesses. See, librarians DO eliminate barriers between you and what you need!
Fundraising information resources gathered and maintained by Tammy Flippen at Springfield/Green County library in Missouri: http://thelibrary.org/infolink/nonprofit/ . The news article where I first learned of this great resource:

Librarian can help charities get needed money: http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080615/COLUMNISTS08/806150354
Another news item dealing with economic topics and libraries:
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The Sacramento Public Library has created a page for their customers, dealing with saving money, finding work, dealing with mortgages: MoneySmart @ your library. http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showlist.html?sid=6730&list=CNL5

I saw this site mentioned in this news story: Library Web Page Offers Economic Advice
http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/370454 .

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Twitter Ideas for Libraries (from The Wired Campus, in The Chronicle of Higher Education) http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3073/twitter-ideas-for-libraries

This article links to College @ Home's article: Twitter for Librarians - the ultimate guide
http://www.collegeathome.com/blog/2008/05/27/twitter-for-librarians-the-ultimate-guide/

If you are considering just how the new Web 2.0 tools can fit into your library, you will want to check out the great links to resources in the College @ Home's article!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

OCLC announces new Web 2.0 features added to WorldCat:
http://www.oclc.org/emailcontent/articles/worldcat/updatesoffers.htm .
They have added user reviews and rating features, and cover art to user-created lists. Users can write reviews in their preferred language.

If your library has been discussing the addition of Web 2.0 features to your catalog, this may give your committee additional reasons to add the features to your own OPAC.