I’m really looking forward to visiting Macalester, which is where I earned my undergraduate degree. Sad, though, that my most favorite professors have all already retired or moved on to other Universities.
Anyway, I will surely be posting more about the conference before, during and after the fact. Next Wednesday March 10, SLIS is hosting a dry-run of our workshop at noon in the U of I Main Library Computer Lab 3092, with cookies!
Clive Thompson from Wired Magazine — one of my favorite techno-journalists — writes that tools like Twitter can help us develop a “sixth sense” about the people in our networks. All those seemingly mundane facts like “having homemade bagel & lox for breakfast!” and “reading Vonnegut during flight delay…” can add up to give us a picture of what’s happening in the lives of those around us. As librarians, we can use Twitter to help our communities develop a sixth sense about who we are and what we offer, and we can also use it to develop our own sixth sense that will help us tune into the wants and needs of our communities, too. For instance, if you see a lot of chatter in your network about the recent PBS documentary Copyright Criminals, you can schedule a showing at your library and then send a tweet about the event to all your Twitter followers!
The Iowa City Public Library put on a fantastic Technology Petting Zoo today! ICPL’s Emerging Technology Committee offered an inservice session to expose library staff to new gadgets, including the Sony eReader, Overdrive eAudio, iTouch, the CanoScan Scanner, and eeePC. I presented on Flip Video, which I’ve used with ICPL teens in Teen Tech Zone to help them produce their own YouTube videos. You can check out my Flip Video presentation notes by clicking here, or you can click here to download the pdf.
Milton Wolf from the LITA Imagineering Interest Group introduced the speakers for this event, which ended up being primarily a publicity stop for Tor Books authors. I was disappointed that we didn’t talk more about technology, metaphor and imagination — as the program guide had suggested — but what’s a girl to do?
Robert Charles Wilson began with a brief but eloquent talk about his new book, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22-nd Century America. Set in America after apocalyptic problems such as environmental meltdown and a plague of infertility, this is a story about political reform and restoration ~ especially the restoration of a Free Public Library System. Wilson argued that information and knowledge will always “want to be free.” Julian Comstock sounds like an absolutely fantastic novel and I wish Wilson were more comfortable as a public speaker, because I have the feeling I could have listened to him talk about what’s on his mind forever (or at least a few hours).
Lori Bell, Director of Innovation at Alliance Library System in East Peoria, IL, came to this session to demonstrate her library’s amazing Second Life virtual library project, “Info Island Archipelago.” Second Life libraries are great meeting places for people who want to use avatars to meet from a distance. Virtual libraries don’t even have to look like buildings — they can look however we want them to look. They don’t have to be constrained by walls, and the weather can be perfect every day. And, just like the Info Island Archipelago, your reference librarian can be. . . Yoda.
In May, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee filed suit against the Knox County and Metro Nashville school district for blocking lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer websites. Two weeks later, on June 3rd, the school districts announced that they would stop filtering the websites of gay-friendly advocacy groups such as the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). You can read the full article about the decision here.
A lot of schools and libraries filter their Internet to block explicit sexual or violent content. In fact, post Children’s Online Protection Act (COPA) / and Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) legislation, many public libraries are required to use Internet filtering software if they want to receive funding from the federal E-Rate program.
Earlier this month, someone from the Pelham, NY, public library tattled to the high school principal after an eleventh grader was at the library researching gun conceal & carry laws. The student was called into the assistant principal’s office and interviewed by the police. After talking to the student, police Detective Kevin Campion assured everyone that there was nothing to be worried about and that the student had not broken any laws.
Many public libraries make a commitment to their communities–including teens!–that they will protect everyone’s privacy. You may have heard of a little thing we like to call Intellectual Freedom. The U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right to access any and all information without fear of persecution (excepting obscenity, libel and fighting words), and librarians have really taken that to heart.
This paper was a labor of love; it was written for my Literacy and Learning course with James Elmborg this semester. In trying to understand why public libraries haven’t paid as much attention to “information literacy” as school and college libraries, I ended up writing about how public libraries can devote themselves to the “continuous process of forming whole human beings—their knowledge and aptitudes, as well as the critical faculty and the ability to act” (IFLA ), and about why I think it’s important for them to do just that. I also talk about Paolo Freire; John Dewey; Web 2.0; New Literacy Studies; and information literacy programs at public libraries in the province of Mpumalanga, South Africa.
Click here to see the full text of the paper, or click here to download the pdf.
Hi guys, I'm a public librarian in Iowa City, IA, who gets excited about social media, technology and civil liberties. By day I teach teens how to make multi-media projects and Facebook pages, and by night I fight for intellectual freedom in my Banana Suit! Well, just kidding about the Banana Suit. ...Or am I?
@angimur and I will talk about Second Life & Twitter in the U of I Main Library 3092 at noon. Dry run for #LibraryTech conference next week! 1 hour ago
Just found out that "LibTech" is a kind of snow board. Damn, guess I'll have to figure out a different hashtag. . . 1 hour ago
What I've learned from Tony Bechler's book: professors are like rappers. 15 hours ago
Btw that wasn't meant to be cryptic. Distress caused by banging head against wall, doing homework. 17 hours ago
Elevator music at Starbucks = strangely comforting. 17 hours ago
Rachel
