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Blog posts from January 2006

gina.persichini's picture
2006 24 Jan

User Centered Services

Michael Stephens over at Tame the Web has some very wise advice. He’s listed “5 Factors for User Centered Services,” which includes 5 questions to ask yourself while planning/considering a new service at the library.

The first of the 5 is a favorite of mine:

“Does it place a barrier between the user and the service?”

During the 2020 Vision Think Tank held in August, I recall a lot of discussion about breaking down barriers–barriers of all kinds. Something to keep in mind.

    gina.persichini's picture
    2006 23 Jan

    There’s a new blog in town… BSU

    The Albertsons Library at Boise State University has just unveiled their newest tool to provide service and information to university students–a blog. The blog, @ the library, aims to “showcase news and resources available in Albertsons Library to the Boise State Univesity campus and the greater Treasure Valley community.”

    The blog is a collaborative effort of library staff, with entried currently contributed by three members of the BSU Reference staff.

    Congratulations, BSU, on a wonderful new service!

    Anonymous's picture
    2006 17 Jan

    Audio from Joe Janes

    Many of you heard Joe Janes, iSchool professor from my alma mater the University of Washington, at the Think Tank talking about libraries and the issues surrounding future changes to library services. If you liked his talk, you can now hear Joe talk about Google in the first inaugural online radio show from the iSchool, called InfoSpeak.org.

    gina.persichini's picture
    2006 17 Jan

    User perception - one example

    A friend of mine was recently raving about her library service. She’s a customer of the Altanta-Fulton County library system in Georgia. She had this to say on her blog:

    “Have I raved about our local library system recently? I love the online system where I can request book holds. I have 9 books in my queue now, and most of them are books that I’m interested in but not enough to fork out $10-15 per book on. Getting the books pulled via holds saves me time and frustration, because I don’t have to try to keep a toddler in check while crawling through the stacks. The email notification of when books are available just makes it that much better.)”

    gina.persichini's picture
    2006 12 Jan

    Stephen Abram, Librarian 2.0, and the future of our profession

    Stephen Abram has brought togther a lot of the pieces in his article “Web 2.0 - Huh?! Library 2.0, Librarian 2,0.” You can find a PDF version online in his listing of Articles and Presentations. It is also in the December 2005 issues of Information Outlook.

    From the end of the article:

    It is essential that we start preparing to become Librarian 2.0 now. The Web 2.0 movement is laying the groundwork for exponential business growth and another major shift in the way our users live, work and play. We have the ability, insight and knowledge to influence the creation of this new dynamic–and guarantee the future of our profession.

    gina.persichini's picture
    2006 10 Jan

    New ‘Tech Tips’ Column in CIL

    This month’s Computers in Libraries has an article introducing a new regular column to be called “Tech Tips for Every Librarian.” The column is co-authored by Rachel Singer Gordon and Michael Stephens. Both are very conscious of the funding issues of small, rural libraries and approach implementing technology solutions with that in mind. They are mindful that there may be no available funds for technology solutions. Tips will address those issues.

    gina.persichini's picture
    2006 09 Jan

    A retrospective of 2006

    Yes, 2006.Karen Schneider posted a blog entry on the ALA TechSource blog last week that got me to thinking. Not only is it an interesting perspective of the near future for libraries, but she does it in a style that reads as if it
    already happened. It got me to thinking about a couple things as we consider our future.

    1. I’ve generally been taught that goals should be identified in the positive, as if they’ve already happened. The act of doing so, makes it seem more real. Possible.

    gina.persichini's picture
    2006 05 Jan

    LiLI Unlimited Catalog en Espanol

    Kudos to the Ada Community Library where I saw this just recently. They have not only linked their patrons to the LiLI Unlimited Catalog, they have linked to the Spanish language version of the catalog.