Monthly Archives: June 2009

Kathryn Greenhill – Why learning about Emerging Technologies is part of every librarian’s Job

Posted on by
Reply

In the context of librarians and Web 2.0, Kathryn Greenhill’s name has popped up a number of times recently. My interest piqued, I decided to look into her work.

This particular presentation is very straightforward and concise, presenting solutions to the challenges the library and information profession faces in the digital age. Without being simplistic, Greenhill presents practical suggestions to issues such as finding time to investigate Web 2.0 technologies and why this is an imperative facet of our professional development obligations.

Entertaining, informative, and well worth setting aside 1/2 an hour to watch.

http://www.slideshare.net/sirexkat/why-learning-about-emerging-technologies-is-part-of-every-librarians-job

Future of Bibliographic Control

Posted on by
Reply

Research Information Network (www.rin.ac.uk) has just published a report about current UK cataloguing practices Creating catalogues: bibliographic records in a networked world. They point to a need to partner more effectively with other organisations in the ‘supply chain’ to make the bibliographic data in library catalogues more relevant to users in the age of Google. One interesting proposition was a union catalogue for all UK higher education institutions with enormous cost saving benefits and streamlined access for users.

Last year the Library of Congress published their own take on the subject of bibliographic control. I haven’t read it but here is the link-
On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

Where email is heading

Posted on by
Reply

Have you heard about Google Wave? The new “real-time communication platform”

See http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-guide/

If you think about it, email as we know it is based on the old model of postal communication in a real sense – you send something, someone replies – Google Wave will allow you to see what someone is writing in real time, it will be more like having a conversation than “mailing” something – impressive range of functionality including working on shared documents, dragging applications in, viewing versions.

Melbourne library’s cater to their users in style

Posted on by
Reply

On my recent trip to Melbourne I indulged my professional curiosity (admittedly in a very slack way) and checked out the libraries I stumbled across….

City Library in inner city Melbourne was a veritable rabbit warren filled with hovering computer hopefuls, the smell of stale sweat (I will never complain about our refrigerated air on level 2 again), and not one but two Wii stations. The decor was also very Melbourne cool and the place was packed!

Mornington Library was reminiscent of Kingston library but had a cafe with tables (spaced well apart for prams) encircling the little children’s area. I know this is probably not on every ones radar and doesn’t have much direct relevance to academic libraries, but for me it was like finding the Shangri-la of child/parent friendly library spaces and quite a nice example of looking after all sorts of users.