Tag Archives: Professional development

METRO Universe

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Stephen Francoeur

Jason Kucsma, the Emerging Techologies Manager at the Metropolitan Library Council of New York, has recently created a portal web site of library news and commentary using Netvibes, a free service that allows you to create your own customized start page. The METRO Universe offers a quick way to dip into the river of news that streams by daily in great volume. The eight pages on the site feature:

News: RSS feeds of news items from METRO, ALA, Library Journal, etc.
Libraries: RSS feeds from blogs created by staff at local libraries (NYPL, BPL, Pratt Institute, Baruch, etc.)
Librarians: RSS feeds from personal blogs of local librarians
Groups: RSS feeds from blogs of local library organizations (ACRL/NY, LACUNY, etc.)
LIS Schools (RSS feeds from blogs of local library library schools)
Tech Scan (RSS feeds from library tech blogs and general tech blogs)
Also of Note (RSS feeds from notable personal blogs of librarians around the country)
Search (widgets with search boxes for various search engines)

I sometimes get asked how I keep up with all the feeds I subscribe to. The answer is that I don’t “keep up,” I take dips periodically. If I miss a really important blog post somewhere, I figure that it will eventually get mentioned again in Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, someone else’s blog post, or even an old-fashioned listserv message. I’ve pretty much given up on thinking of print LIS publiciations (especially the trade ones) as must reads; if there is an interesting article it will likely get mentioned online somewhere, probably repeatedly, in one of the channels that I monitor.

For an interesting discussion of the shifting habits of professionals to “keep up,” you might want to check out two recent blog posts from Roy Tennant on his Library Journal-sponsored blog. Read the comments, too, as they add useful clarifications and disagreements over Tennant’s idea.

Tennant, Roy. “‘The Flow’ Revisited: The Professional Angle.” Tennant: Digital Libraries, 30 June 2009. Web. 7 July 2009.

—. “‘The Flow’ Revisited: The Personal Angle.” Tennant: Digital Libraries, 3 July 2009. Web. 7 July 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Blog, Facebook, FriendFeed, Jason Kucsma, Library blogs, Library Journal, METRO, Netvibes, Portals, Professional development, Roy Tennant, RSS, Social information processing, Twitter | Comments Off

TED Talk Tuesdays

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Stephen Francoeur

Eric Frierson, a librarian at the University of Texas, Arlington, wrote recently about an interesting way to engage library staff about core issues:

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out an e-mail to the library inviting them to join me on something I called ‘TED Talk Tuesdays.’ If you haven’t been to ted.com, you should check it out. It features videos from leading thinkers in the technology, entertainment, design, business, science, and other fields – speakers are asked to give ‘the speech of their life’ in under 20 minutes.
…
So what is TED Talk Tuesday? It’s people in a room watching a TED Talk and spending the rest of the hour discussing how it impacts the library and each other at work. No discussion questions, no formal presentation, just watching a video and talking to each other.

Read the rest of his post here. Below are some of my favorite TED talks.

Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity

Ray Kurzweil Announces Singularity University

Tim Berners-Lee on the Next Web

Brewster Kahle Builds a Free Digital Library

There are many more videos to explore on this page, where they are organized by themes and topics.