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LLN
Commons September / October 2007 Articles
October Peer Panel
The theme this
month is “Trading Places.” We have been covering some fairly serious
topics of late, so we thought it would be good to have a little fun. We
thus asked our intrepid panel to Imagine
that you have just been recruited to run a library of a different type
(e.g., you are moving from an academic to a public library or vice
versa). Please share your thoughts on what you will do differently, as
well as what will remain the same. In other words, what do you think
works in any venue, and what needs to change as venue changes? In
answering these questions, think in terms of areas such as:
- Planning
- Staffing and organization
- Marketing and communication
- Development
- All other areas of leadership and management
Jamie LaRue Speaks: October 25, 2007: The wisdom of crowds
October 15, 2007: Shall library funding be increased?
October 6, 2007: Who endorses the library?
Leader's Digest:
October 31, 2007
October 23, 2007
October 16, 2007
October 3, 2007
September 24, 2007
September 17, 2007
September Peer Panel Addendum
September Peer Panel
While recently blogging around, we came across an interesting recap of
an ALA/LITA session entitled “The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries
Innovate?” This panel, moderated by Andrew Pace, featured Karen
Schneider (FSU), Stephen Abram (SirsiDynix), and our own Joe Janes
(UW). The blog was essentially a write-up of the discussion, and
well done (by Julie Bauder, a student in the MLIS program at Wayne
State). One paragraph in particular jumped out at us:
“Throughout the debate,
Karen and Stephen emphasized two overarching theories for why libraries
have trouble innovating. For Karen, the problem is that libraries
don’t have the resources to be able to support failure, and if
you can’t accept the possibility of failure you can’t
innovate: innovation is risky and uncertain. For Stephen, the
problem is within the culture of librarianship, which he says is a
culture of victimization. Libraries share disaster stories and
commiserate over low salaries and other challenges, and then they come
to believe that these disaster stories are the reality of all of
librarianship and don’t even try to change it.”
Thus, we asked the Peer Panel the following questions:
- Do you agree with either (or both) of these theories?
- If so, what can be done to foster much-needed innovation in libraries?
- If
not, what are some good examples of library innovation (yours or
somebody else’s) and what can librarians learn from it?
Holt's
Perspectives:
September 5, 2007: Social Networking, Web 2.0 and Library 2.0
It is human nature to nod knowingly when a
colleague refers to something that we should be familiar with—but are not.
We are told that even library leaders occasionally find themselves so nodding.
At ALA Washington this past June, we noticed a lot of this sort of nodding when
the terms “Web 2.0” and “Library 2.0” were bandied
about. So we are happy to announce that Glen Holt has come to our rescue
with an entertaining discussion of these things we should know about—and what
their implications are for the library of the 21st century.
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