Community @ TTW

I will admit that I’ve put off this last post. Not because I didn’t want to write it, but because the idea of ending this class just didn’t quite seem right. What we’ve learned here will continue to grow and evolve; it won’t really end. I feel privileged to have taken this course with Michael Stephens, who [...]

Oral history, long considered an important aspect of the creation of collective memory, is an important way for people to connect with the past and one another.  New technology has made it easier than ever to record and collect these stories digitally.  This paper looks at the prospect of recording oral history in the library [...]

Below is a list of literature resources I will be using for my research paper. I will be utilizing other sources for much of the information, but believe these items are more prevalent to the areas on oral history, collective memory, and libraries. Barthel, Diane. Historic Preservation: Collective Memory and Historical Identity . Place unknown:…[Read more]

First, let me apologize for posting late. I took Comcast’s outage last night as a sign that I needed to “unplug” and take a night to work on my crocheting. This project taught me that meeting online can be just as difficult as meeting in person. Our group, Library Is Everywhere, struggled to find a good [...]

I wanted my social media policy to inspire and empower employees. It was important to make it known that they were encouraged to “be the face” of the library through social media, while at the same time protecting the privacy of those employees who may not wish to make their accounts public. I also wanted [...]

I saw this assignment of “brand monitoring” a library as a way to explore how the library chose to interact with its users. I wanted to see how the library not only informed, but engaged its users through the use of the library’s blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, and Flickr photostream. I decided not to include [...]

On a really hot day this past summer, my grandfather remarked that this summer was almost as hot as the summer of 1936. When I showed surprise that he specifically remembered a hot summer from his childhood, he began to tell me the most amazing story of his life on a farm in central Illinois [...]

When I first began reading and thinking about virtual communities, I wasn’t sure if I had really ever been a member of one. Of course I interact with people online, but these people are almost entirely my “real world” friends, family, and classmates. As I began to read more, though, I realized that I am [...]

The Evolving Hyperlinked Library is about building a bridge. This bridge is bringing together community members and connecting them to the wider world. The Unquiet Library at Creekview High School, Georgia brings a sense of community through activities and participatory learning. Students are no longer sitting quietly reading assignments, but are…[Read more]

“The possibility of surveillance, whether direct or through access to records of speech, research and exploration, undermines a democratic society.” – ALA Cory Doctorow is concerned about the future. Not concerned in the Fox News “run around screaming about everything bad that could theoretically happen” sort of way, but in the “civil liberties…[Read more]

You’re “out there” whether you want to be or not. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? But since there’s no way to avoid being “out there,” it seems the best thing to do is to put yourself out there before someone else does it for you. The “kill or be killed” of the 21 st Century, no? [...]

What is the Internet doing to our users? Is it making them stupider? Turning everyone into criminals who don’t even believe stealing is wrong? Teaching them to be sneaky or shallow? Or is it changing us all in a much more profound way? I think it’s easy to look at a single study or read one article and make assumptions about the [...]

I will admit that while I found all of these articles very interesting, I couldn’t initially find one common theme to neatly tie it all together. Then, while looking through my notes, it came to me. These articles all go back to the very basic idea of meeting the needs of the user, but at [...]

Portia here. Welcome to my blog for LIS 768 fall 2010. I enjoy visiting and talking about libraries, but most of all, I love thinking about where they are headed. The world is expanding and growing in ways I never thought possible. This is allowing libraries, librarians, and users to look redefine what (and even [...]