This is my third CIRI blog post and my second containing a focus on LIS developments in/from/about Asia.
My new book Transforming Young Adult Services was announced and promoted in the Summer 2013 ALA/Neal-Schumann catalog. And there it caught the attention of the National Library for Children and Youth in South Korea.
(Photo courtesy of Janet Boyd)
GoogleDrive. Gmail. iCloud. Dropbox. Box. Our daily lives are spent in the cloud. In the LIS world, our infrastructure and systems are headed there too be it Worldshare (OCLC), Alma (Ex Libris), Sierra (Innovative Interfaces), Intota (Serials Solutions) or an open source platform such as Kuali. And like any self-respecting disruptive technology, roles and responsibilities are changing just as fast. While libraries and other information organizations make the change, the talent needed to implement, prototype, test, migrate, assure, support, patch, and develop these systems must change too. Want a job in the future?
Futurism and Technological Forecasting
This summer I’ve been researching technology trends, and I’ve discovered some fascinating organizations, publications, and researchers who are involved in this area. Futurism is not about predicting the future, but making informed decisions today that may influence future developments.
Meeting the challenge of creating a fun, effective Storytelling class in an online distance learning environment. Beth Wrenn-Estes, Lecturer
Dr. Joni Richards Bodart developed the original syllabus for the Storytelling Class (LIBR 281) and then she and an amazing graduate student Annie Woodall built the first course site. I continued to work with Annie to tweak the course site for another semester and began teaching the course spring semester of 2010.
In January 2013 I posted a blog entry here at the CIRI blog about Guide on the Side, which is free, open-source software developed by librarians at the University of Arizona. As I explained then, the Guide on the Side tool allows LIS professionals to develop online tutorials that guide the users in a step-by-step manner through a process such as searching a database. Unlike screencasts that show a user a process without providing the opportunity for hands-on engagement, the Guide on the Side interface provides the opportunity for users to read step-by-step instructions in a box on the side of a live browser window, and then try out these instructions as they move from screen to screen.
In Fall 2013, the SJSU School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) will be offering its first open online course, the Hyperlinked Library MOOC. It is adapted from an existing online graduate course offered to SJSU students enrolled in the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program, and is intended to serve as a professional development opportunity for librarians, library staff, and professionals who work in libraries and other types of information centers. The SLIS MOOC will be free and will not be offered for academic credit.
Last year Dr. Van Ta Part (Health Science) and I received a grant from the College of Applied Sciences and Arts to study how to prepare public librarians for consumer health information service. We analyzed reference transactions, surveyed public librarians and interviewed health care professionals. The study is almost complete, and I would like to use this blog post to share some details about it.
An International Alliance has been funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to address the challenge of trust in a digital and networked society. The project, Trust and Digital Records in an Increasingly Networked Society, also known as the InterPARES Trust, began on April 2, 2013, and will be conducted over the next five years. This effort is supported by a number of international partners, including San Jose State University’s College of Applied Sciences and Arts.
On this foggy morning I find myself on a ferry en route to Seattle for the annual ALISE conference and thinking about ‘connections’. It’s a powerful word – my research interests are focused on how we connect with different individuals and groups in the context of decision making. My recently completed doctoral study explored the connections between those in the public library community (librarians, patrons, and trustees) and the people making decisions about public library funding.
One morning last April as I ate my Cheerios and paged through the recent issue of American Libraries, I came across an article written by SJSU SLIS instructor Meredith Farkas. Knowing that she always writes thought-provoking pieces, I paused to read it before I got to my work for the day. The article, “Incorporating Active Learning into Online Instruction” was about a tool developed by the librarians at the University of Arizona called Guide on the Side. Since my own work centers upon teaching and learning in library and information centers, I knew this was a tool about which I had to know.