Walt Crawford received his termination notice from OCLC. I was really hoping he’d be one of the people they kept and apparently so was he. He’s now 61 and looking for work. In the library profession this shouldn’t be impossible, but it’s always a pain in the ass. If you’ve got a need for someone with his background, experience or attitude, don’t wait, drop him a line.
Category: librarians
some end of the week short links
It’s been a busy week this week. I had eight people come to computer drop-in time on Tuesday which was a tech frenzy of PayPal and email and inserting graphics and Yahoo mail address books. I’ve had a few of these links hanging around for a while waiting to find time to write proper posts, but I figured I’ll drop them in here. I see a lot of blogging as playing hot potato with a bunch of web content. You find it, you pass it on, the next person passes it on. The more content you shift, the easier it is to quickly ascertain which things you need to save for longer perusal and which need to just get passed on for the next person. I’ve read and absorbed these and thought you might like them.
- The Hollywood Librarian movie is premiering at ALA in DC this Summer on June 22nd. Ann Seidl has a clip available on YouTube, and one of my signs is in it. [thanks jacqui]
- Big congrats to Amanda for the launch of the Endeca powered catalog at her place of work. Look how fancy!
- Casey posts some stats about Wikipedia from what Pew is telling us(pdf). You can ban it or block it but people are using it. So what do we do?
- One of the most favorited posts from MetaFilter this week is the Things Found In Books post
- T. Scott is one of the many folks who have been reflecting on the idea that younger librarians have some time period of “dues paying” they must go through before getting their ideas heard and possibly implemented. This was the main thing that kept me from seriously considering running for Council again. Good long post and some great comments as well.
- Don Wood’s Library 2.0 blog is consistently a good read. This is a slightly older post about a great partnership. MySpace is teaming up with the Illinois Library Association to promote online safety. What a good idea.
LibraryVideos and my library videos
I didn’t notice this site until they linked to one of my little videos but the Library Videos site by Nancy Dowd the Marketing Director of the New Jersey State Library looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Nancy looks like she likes her job. One of her other blogs is called The M Word and is about marketing libraries.
lolbrarians
Noted without any more comment than “this is awesome to my personal refined humor sensbilities.” I give you lolbrarians. If you have an LJ account, consider contributing. I have. If you’re wondering wtf, you can Google lolcats or perhaps lolbees and see if it becomes any clearer. If not, don’t worry it’s just a stupid joke. (rated SC for “some cussin'”)
libraries are not support systems for staff – Blyberg on “innovation”
We’re going through some growing pains at the Vermont Library Association requiring a lot of email, extended explanations and apologies, and a revisting of what is and is not “normal” for libraries and library associations to do and to know. I’ve been quoting John Blyberg quite a bit.
Some people also just don’t like to step out of their comfort zone. They don’t want to absorb new things. I was on a top technology trends panel at OLA last January when someone asked, “what if we don’t want to learn about all these new technologies?†(paraphrase). I don’t think I was in the mood for hand-holding because my answer was, “it’s your job.†Really. I don’t believe libraries are life support systems for staff. We need to work for our bread. That means that we have so stop bunting and try to knock it out of the park every single time. That takes passion, and too many people in every industry, including libraries, lack it.