Weekly Reader

'Librarians vs Search Engines' in UC Berkley Report
"New Chancellor Nicholas Dirks should spend more money on the library at the University of California, Berkeley, as its books, services and space will be more important than ever over the next two decades.So, at least, says a report this week from a faculty committee tasked by the previous chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, with figuring out the library's place on the university campus of the future." -- Steven E.F. Brown, Bay Area Biz Talk, 10/18/13

Learning from Experience: Why Personal Narratives Can Be Scholarly
"Pedagogical scholarship has been criticized for its focus on experience. A faculty member has an issue with students (say they aren't doing the reading), implements a solution (some sort of quizzing mechanism), and decides it works because the quiz scores are high. Thanks to the scholarship of teaching movement, these kinds of reports are pretty much gone from the literature. The goal has been to replace them with research—various forms of systematic inquiry." --  Maryellen Weimer, Teaching Professor Blog, 10/16/13

Flipping the Library: Tips from Three Pros
"Through the use of innovative technologies and online resources, school libraries can now be available to students wherever—and whenever—they need them. “Flipped” or blended learning offers students the power of personalized instruction, through a mix of virtual and face-to-face interactions, at a student’s own pace. Embracing this concept is a must for student engagement and the future of the profession, say school librarians Joyce Valenza, Brenda Boyer, and Michelle Luhtala." -- Sarah Bayliss, The Digital Shift | SLJ, 10/21/13

Open Access Week 2013 Starts Today [10/21]
"Here at Prof Hacker we've published many posts about open access, “the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need.” -- George Williams, ProfHacker, 10/21/13

Open Access Week 2013: The Time for Reform is Now
"Today kicks off the sixth annual global Open Access Week. Open Access Week is at once a celebration and a call to action. Universities, libraries, organizations, and companies are hosting events all around the world to promote the ideals of open access: free, online availability of and unfettered access to scholarly works." -- Adi Kamdar, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 10/21/13

26 Tips for Overcoming Bloggers Block
"Have you struggled getting that blog idea written? While most of us aren’t immune to writer’s block, there are ways to work through the block until the words flow again. In this article, we’ll discuss 26 Tips, an A-Z guide for bloggers to overcome writer’s block and generate new ideas." -- Debbie Hemley, Social Media Examiner, 10/22/13

Turning a Page Inside a Rural One-Room Library
"There's one state highway running through Myrtle, Mo. It's a sleepy town in the Ozarks, population about 300. There's no bank or restaurant here, but enormous oak and persimmon trees loom over a small stone building right next to the road. Half of it is a post office; the other half, a one-room public library." -- Jennifer Davidson, NPR Arts & Life, 10/21/13

ALAO 2013: Conference App re-visited

Have you downloaded the ALAO 2013 conference app? It's free and filled with useful - and timely - information.  Learn more about our Keynote speaker Nancy Fried Foster, review the conference schedule, read more about the sessions, and follow ALAO and the conference hashtag #ALAO2013. New to the conference app is a video page featuring ALAO Interest Groups.

Interested? Here's how it works ...

1. Download YappBox to your mobile device (phone or tablet), it's a free app from the iTunes Store and Google Play.
2. Install the ALAO Conference app by visiting this page, http://my.yapp.us/3CCFY9 via your device.
3. OR - use the "Add a Yapp" function in YappBox and enter the code: 3CCFY9
4. OR - follow this link to send the link to your mobile device.
5. OR - Scan the QR Code

Once loaded on your device, updates will be automatically offered each time the app is accessed.

Weekly Reader

The Surprising Identity of Each Social Network
"Facebook boasts the largest and richest demographic, Twitter has a surprisingly young user network, and 68 percent of Instagram's users are women. Each social media platform has cultivated a unique identity thanks to the demographics of the people who participate in the network. Some platforms are preferred by young adults, who are most active in the evening, others by high-income professionals, who are posting throughout the workday." -- Nick Bolognia, Social Media Today, 10/15/13

Digital Badges in the Classroom
"The open badge movement has stemmed from the independent learning and massive open online course (MOOC) frameworks of empowering and motivating learners to complete noncredit academic work, either from a distance or at a self designated pace." -- Alan Reid and Denise Paster, Inside Higher Ed Career Advice, 10/11/13

A Refreshingly Simple Guide To Twitter for Teachers
"Teachers are on Twitter every minute of every day. There are daily hashtag chats where educators from around the globe collaborate, share interesting tidbits, and make lifelong connections never before possible. There are people with tens of thousands of followers who are viewed as thought and opinion leaders. It’s a minute-by-minute pulse of the education world. It’s exhausting. It’s overwhelming. It’s hard to imagine where to start." -- Jeff Dunn, Edudemic, 9/18/13

How to Archive Your Favorite Tweets
"We recently heard the great news that once again we can start using If This, Then That (IFTTT) to archive the tweets that we favorite. The problem is, how do you archive those tweets that were favorited during the period that IFTTT wasn’t working, or if you’re like me, you never started using IFTTT to begin with?"-- Skallerup Bessette, Prof Hacker, The Chronicle, 9/10/13.

Fostering the Reciprocity of Learning
"In the July 10, 2013 post, I shared some ideas about learning with students precipitated by an article that made an interesting distinction between “doing for” students and “learning with” students. The post generated some good responses and prompted Aron Reppmann, a philosophy professor at Trinity Christian College in Illinois, to send me an email. “I think you have your finger on something that’s often missed in debates about professors’ posture toward students: namely that to say that we learn with and from our students is not necessarily to say that we are always learning in the same way as our students.” -- Maryellen Weimer, Teaching Professor Blog, 9/4/13

ALAO 2013: Registration Deadline

Registration Deadline:

October 14, 2013

39th Annual Academic Library Association of Ohio Conference 

University Center, Kent State University at Stark - North Canton, OH

October 25, 2013

Nancy Fried Foster, Senior Anthropologist at Ithaca S+R. Research, will present the conference keynote address "Changing Libraries by Design" focusing on collaborative library design incorporating information that is generated in the participatory design process. Dr. Foster's research interests include participatory design of library technologies and spaces. For almost ten years, Dr. Foster directed anthropological research at the University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries.

The schedule-at-a-glance and preliminary program information, including session abstracts and posters, are available on the ALAO 2013 Conference web site.

Conference Registration information is available @ http://goo.gl/ePDUmS