sometimes a blog by Dan Greene
Hodges Library no longer has a reference desk. We had a wake for it yesterday afternoon. Day to day reference questions have been moved upstairs to the Commons desk.
In fact Hodges no longer has a reference department. It’s been split into Integrated User Services, Research Services, and Research Collections. I understand and support the reasons for it but it is sad to see the end of an era.
Doug Raber, a friend and former advisor of mine at both Tennessee and Missouri, is leaving academia to be the public library director in Ferndale, Michigan. The local paper there has the story.
Best of luck Doug, dress warmly. 🙂
Those of you out there you read this blog, (all five of you) may wonder why postings here are infrequent. That’s because I dedicate most of my time to Annoyed Librarian.
That’s right I am the Annoyed Librarian! And so are Karen and Jason. I am Spartacus… err Annoyed Librarian!
Walt’s been in a sort of job limbo for a while. Well now he has a new gig, Director & Managing Editor, PALINET Leadership Network. It’s a job that seems made for you Walt, so again congrats!
From Penny Arcade (apologies for the odd size)
I’ve been working on putting a podcast up for The Commons at work. Which is a little harder than it sounds. First I had to figure out podcast RSS feeds. The University of Washington has a good site for that.
Then there was an issue with the .m4a file that GarageBand saves podcasts as. .m4a is not an official MIME media type, which means it’s probably not going to be in the Apache mime types. At least it wasn’t for the library web server. And it might not hurt to add .m4v as well.
AddType video/mp4 .m4v
AddType audio/mp4 .m4a
MPEG 4 has various (and mostly interchangeable) file extensions, although .mp4 is the only official extension. But Apple has popularized .m4a and .m4v into what appear to be defacto standards.
Just got back from the TLA Conference in Chattanooga. I had a good time, saw several people that I hadn’t seen in a few years. The presentations were good, Loriene Roy, ALA President-Elect was the keynote speaker. Sadly I didn’t get to hear her speak since the room was standing-room only by the time I got there. I attened sessions on IM reference, wikis, and library website redesign among other things. I also toured UT Chattanooga’s Lupton Library.
Gaming & Libraries: Intersection of Services
by Jenny Levine
Jenny’s blog is always a good read and the upcoming Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium sounds like a lot of fun. It’s a good time to be a librarian. 🙂
Saw over at Michael Casey’s blog that his and Laura Savastinuk’s book has a website.
Companion website to Library 2.0, the book – LibraryChange
Two of these aren’t published yet and at the moment my book budget is zero so I can only dream. But here’s the list.
Library 2.0: A Guide to Participatory Library Service
Michael E. Casey and Laura C. Savastinuk – not yet published, Information Today, Inc. (May 21, 2007)
Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change
Walt Crawford
Library 2.0 and Beyond: Innovative Technologies and Tomorrow’s User
Nancy Courtney (Editor) – not yet published, Libraries Unlimited (June 30, 2007)
Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online
Meredith G. Farkas