On Monday and Tuesday evening this week, after a long day at work I hopped on the train to meet and dine with my fellow librarians in Philadelphia. The Special Libraries Association annual conference was in the area and I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to meet with a whole new set of […]
I just want to thank Brian Fulton and my graduate school classmate Sheli McHugh for inviting me to speak to their Spring workshop yesterday. After driving up the northeast extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike under weather conditions mimicking the end of the first Ghostbusters movie (lots of lightning, some wind, and a little rain for […]
One of the blog posts I’ve been anticipating for awhile has finally come to pass. Oleg Kagan released the results of his ALA non-voter election survey this week; the purpose of this exercise was to investigate as to why there is a low turnout in ALA elections. It’s a long post but I enjoyed Oleg’s […]
The always excellent In the Library With the Lead Pipe blog had a new post today from Leigh Anne Vrabel by the title, “A Short Distance Correctly: 13 Ways of (Not) Writing (Contrarian) Librarianship”. There was one particular passage that caught my attention. At present, there is no room in our professional discourse for creative […]
Last year, many New Jersey school districts sought to close their budget gaps by laying off school librarians. It was heartbreaking to hear about the layoffs as those school librarians were let go as a way to reduce “administrative overhead”. It’s one of my hindsight regrets of last year that I did not try to […]
Mike Rowe, host of the wonderful television show Dirty Jobs and the other unknowing half of my secret bromance, testified in front of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Wednesday this week. He was testifying about the importance of skilled and vocational education in the United States. Salient quote: In high schools, […]
In the last twenty four hours, I’ve been asked to save two different libraries. The first was the Brooklyn Public Library from a blog post by Rita Meade (if you are not reading her blog, you should be). It has the familiar budget-pocalypse to it that reminds me of the fight in New Jersey last […]
From the NY Post: Shakespeare’s plays, Einstein’s theories — and porn queen Jenna Jameson’s steamy online sexcapades. New Yorkers can take their pick at the city’s public libraries, thanks to a policy that gives adults the most uncensored access to extreme, hard-core Internet smut this side of the old Times Square. The electronic smut falls […]
So, even though there has been no budget cuts to state level New Jersey library funding, earlier this month the New Jersey State Librarian Norma Blake informed the New Jersey library community that the award winning and role model online reference service QandANJ will be ending June 30th this year. This was announced on possibly […]
The graphic to the right was passed around the online library world during the recent National Library Week. My reaction to the infographic was a bit different than others; specifically, I was a bit perturbed. While it is pleasant to look at and certainly has good design to it, it’s the data represented that made […]
