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

ALAO 2013: Conference Registration

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.

Lodging is available at the Marriott Courtyard Canton, 4375 Metro Circle NW · North Canton, Ohio 44720 USA. For more information on lodging, please visit the conference website or the hotel website.

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

Discover More Corps

I was not familiar with Discover More Corps until recently and caution this post includes shameless self-promotion.

"The ProQuest Discover More Corps is a new social network where you can connect with a global community of current and future librarians, have access to our popular Quantum2 professional development series, and explore a different complimentary resource each month." -- About Discover More Corps

The site came to my attention after receiving an email from Elizabeth McGough, MLIS, their Social Media Marketing Manager, inviting me to co-present a professional development webinar on the topic of Pinterest and Instagram. Several emails and conference calls later, I'm excited to be part of one of the upcoming October webinars presenting with Danielle Salomon, UCLA Powell Library.

Monday, October 14, 2013, 12:00pm EST/ 11:00 Central 
Using Pinterest and Instagram to Connect with Customers 

Danielle Salomon, Teaching and Learning Services Librarian and Social Media Manager at UCLA, will discuss how UCLA's Powell Library uses Instagram to connect with undergraduates and engage in teaching and learning. Topics covered include: why an academic library might have more success using Instagram instead of Facebook or Twitter; the user demographics of Instagram; tips for posting; and examples of teaching and learning opportunities.

Diane Schrecker, Curriculum Librarian and Instructional Resource Center Manager at Ashland University, will present an overview of Pinterest, the popular online ‘pinboard.’ Topics explored will include how to: integrate existing library information resources to the Pinterest platform, develop original content using Pinstamatic, utilize web tools for creating audio and video content, cultivate boards that may be easily refreshed throughout the year, and present ideas for supporting education course work from a librarian and adjunct instructor’s perspective.

Learn More, here.
Register for the free webinar.

ALAO 2013: Pre-conference

ALAO Pre-conference: Social Media Spark
Tips and Tech Tools to Ignite Your Community

Stark State College, North Canton, Ohio - October 24, 2013

Many experts will tell you how to succeed at social media, but very few will lay out a clear path to failure. Learn what the most common points of failure are for libraries, and why libraries often are not getting what they want out of this new medium. Find out if your library is on its way to a social shipwreck and how you might be able to change course.

Preconference speaker: Laura Solomon, MCIW, MLS

Laura Solomon is the Library Services Manager for the Ohio Public Library Information Network and the former Web Applications Manager for the Cleveland Public Library. She is a 2010 Library Journal Mover & Shaker. Her book Doing Social Media So It Matters: A Librarian’s Guide was published in late 2010 and The Librarian’s Nitty-Gritty Guide to Social Media was published in 2013.

About the workshop: This is an interactive workshop and participants will need to bring a laptop.

How many times have you heard about an interesting, new tech tool and made a note to experiment with it later, but simply never found the time? This fun, interactive workshop will open with a rapid-fire demonstration of tech tools and apps. We will then rotate between different workshop tables to learn from table facilitators. At the end of the day we will gather together as a whole group to share some of our tips, creations, and applications!

Preconference website: http://goo.gl/VWT5Wl
Preconference registration: http://goo.gl/XTZaeL

Register early; space is limited and the deadline is October 14, 2013.
Cost: $25 and includes boxed lunch.

Weekly Reader

Practices of Communities
"I've been around long enough that I remember the first e-mail I ever sent (mistakenly putting the entire message in the subject line because I had no idea how it worked; the person I was trying to reply to kindly called me on the phone and talked me through it). I remember the first time I joined a professional Listserv and how amazing it was to be in conversation with several hundred professionals around the world who were interested in the same things as me." -- Barbara Fister, Library Babel Fish, 8/15/13

Get Used to Sharing Digital Content Says U. of Texas at Austin President
"Professors at the University of Texas at Austin should get comfortable with the idea of using online course materials created by their colleagues at other institutions, according to William C. Powers Jr., the university president." -- Steve Kolowich, Wired Campus, 8/15/13

How England's Studio Schools Can Help Colleges Across the Pond
"In a TED Talk posted in September 2011, Geoff Mulgan spoke about the concept of the “studio school” and its success in some high schools that have adopted the model in England. The idea of the studio school is that rather than structuring school around subjects and classes and making grades the primary goal, we should structure school in terms of projects, with teams of students working together to see each one through to the end."-- Courtney Buell, edCetera, 8/15/13

Make Your Own Comic Strips: Using Bitstrips for Projects or Assignments
"You might have noticed that one by one, your Facebook friends have been turned into comic strip characters. The culprit: the free and extremely addictive application Bitstrips, which allows you to quickly create comic strips without needing to know how to draw." --Adeline Kon, ProfHacker, 8/15/13

More with IFTTT & Blogs

After successfully using IFTTT to tweet new IRC News & Information blog posts, I decided to create a new recipe to do the same with the general Library News Blog and IRC Twitter account. I quickly learned that once a blog channel has been selected, in my case Blogger, a second trigger can not be developed for a different Blogger blog. It presumes a second trigger with Blogger should be created with the blog channel already selected. However, a second blog can easily be set up using RSS feeds.

I first tried to copy Twitter post text used with the blog and found IFTTT uses a slightly different vocabulary with RSS (entry vs post). I used the same basic format of introductory narrative, title, content, URL, and hashtag for Library blog posts.

From the AU Library News Blog: Looking @ The New AU Home Page Ashland University recently updated the home page.  If you are having troub...
— IRC - AU Library (@IRCaulibrary) September 2, 2013

From the AU Library News Blog: AU Library Hours: Fall 2013 The library fall 2013 hours schedule begins Tuesday, September 3rd.  A comple...
— IRC - AU Library (@IRCaulibrary) September 3, 2013

After viewing the results, I have had to revise the layout removing content from the recipe in order for the URL to publish. The next library blog post is not yet authored (or scheduled), so results of the latest 'tweaking' will have to wait.

Working with IFTTT & Blogs

The IFTTT - aka If This Then That - app has been patiently residing on my iPhone with other web resources, many which have been ignored for an extended period of time. Waffling about actual need for the service,  I have been following conversations in the twitter-sphere (yes, lurking) regarding ease of use and the variety of channels available. After being invited to participate in a faculty college session on social media resources being used personally and professionally, I was surprised by the number of attendees who did not know the IRC had a blog, twitter account, or Pinterest site. I decided it was time to explore ways to make these accounts work together.

I signed up for an account (free) and determined the simplest way to begin was having IRC blog posts automatically Tweet to the IRC account when published. Blogger, the platform used for the IRC blog, is one of the available channels. After providing login credentials for the IRC blog and twitter accounts, I created a recipe; new posts published to the IRC News and information blog are tweeted to @IRCaulibrary.  After determining what text and post information (title, content, URL) should accompany the tweet, I also decided to include the hashtag #IRCblog. The first entry posted with new juvenile books:

From the IRC News Blog: Juvenile Books: Fiction http://t.co/mqFw8hBKGh The following new books have been added to the juvenile circula...
— IRC - AU Library (@IRCaulibrary) August 29, 2013

With post title and content ingredients in place, the hashtag did not display. I adjusted the recipe and removed the content component leaving text, post title, URL, and hashtag in place for the second juvenile books blog post.

From the IRC News Blog: Juvenile Books: Fiction http://t.co/M4jogdbC8S #IRCblog
— IRC - AU Library (@IRCaulibrary) August 29, 2013

The hashtag was visible, but without accompanying post information it lacked interest; I missed the narrative. I made a 'final' recipe adjustment and moved the hashtag directly after the text and returned the content element. The next blog post tweeted picture books added to the collection.

From the IRC News Blog #IRCblog Juvenile Books: Picture Books The following new books have been added to the ju... http://t.co/mRAKaFPE25
— IRC - AU Library (@IRCaulibrary) August 29, 2013

This is the current IFTTT recipe for published IRC blog posts to automatically tweet.  I've watched it display on the library digital sign for a few days now and like the updated content it presents. That said there's no telling when I may change my mind again.

I am a {social} librarian: infographic

A fun librarian infographic from "Elsevier's Library Connect Newsletter (@library_connect) and Joe Murphy (@libraryfuture)." Read more about it here and download your own copy here.