This looks like an awesome tool for anyone dealing with K-12 readers (I’ve even added it to our Education subject guide, woo). :)
(Source: infodocket.com)
17th May 2013
So, so very true. Especially this one:
I’m sorry to bother you. Goodness, no, you are not bothering us. We are at the desks in public areas so that we can be of help to you. We might be working on a project, but that is just to stay busy until the next patron comes along and needs our help.
We have a sign behind our reference desk that says “Please bother the librarian.” I noticed and loved it when I was here to interview and now I really want to make it bigger or move it closer to where I sit or something because I want to emphasize it even more. Yes, please! Bother me! That’s why I’m sitting out here, after all. :)
Notes: 4
BBC: Seven million Brits have ‘never used the internet’
This figure doesn’t seem to come from the report, so I don’t know if it includes the 7 million that aren’t online, but either way, it’s a fairly large number. I’m guessing there are many more than that in the U.S., which is a problem when you consider how much government information is now only online.
(Source: twitter.com)
This week I’ll be asking you, the readers of the Library Journal Tumblr, a little bit about yourselves.
It’s just 8 questions, none of them required, which means you can answer as much or as little as you like. 7 are multiple choice. Super easy!
I’d love to hear from you. Take the survey now!
Reblogged From libraryjournal
I already posted some comments from the first 24 hours, so the observations below are further comments and ruminations as I enter this strange new world of apps and internet connectivity sans laptop. :)
I got my case, stylus, and screen protector on Saturday.
The stylus has been great (and can double as a pen!), though I do manage to click in ways I don’t intend because my coordination is sometimes lacking and I don’t always remember that I can make a webpage bigger rather than trying to click on the tiny links. ;)
The case does help with holding it, yay, and I got one that automatically puts it to sleep when I close the cover, so that helps the battery life.
It took me several tries (and two screen protectors) to get the screen protector on and smoothed out properly, but I appreciate the anti-glare look of the one I chose.
I used my tablet in a meeting, and it was nice. If I’m going to take a lot of notes I’ll probably need a bluetooth keyboard, but for situations where I’m mostly listening, this is great. I was able to pull up a webpage to look at something we were discussing, and I also passed a bit of time with Candy Crush (and finally defeated level 65 after two and a half weeks of trying!!).
I read most of a book on my tablet and I am totally sold on the general convenience of ereading. (Case in point: I couldn’t fall asleep Wednesday night, so I switched to the Night view—white text on black background—and finished my book without having to turn on the lights. Awesome.) I just wish that all of the books I currently have checked out from the library were available in ebook form!
I still haven’t tried doing anything with ebooks via a library (the book I read was public domain so I got it straight from Google). When I do, that will be a post of its own.
The tablet is fantastic for those times when you want to look something up quickly without bothering to turn on your computer (i.e. the weather, when you’re picking out clothes for the next day/the weekend). It’s also great when your computer is otherwise occupied by someone or something else.
It still occasionally locks up/crashes. These instances seem to occur when it’s updating in the background and I’m trying to do something else and I guess it gets the wires crossed or something. Can be annoying, but so far it hasn’t been a terrible inconvenience.
I installed Advanced Task Killer, and it has been fascinating to see what apps will start up without any action on my part (and it’s fun to kill them when they do :-) ).
The lack of arrow keys and the tab key is throwing me off, especially when inputting text. I haven’t gotten the hang of using my finger/the stylus to put the cursor where I want it.
There are three main reasons I want to encourage noobrarians not to fall into the trap of trying to Do All the Things. First of all, you’re new! People are thrilled that you can sit at the reference desk unattended without drooling or falling asleep and that you know where to send people when they need to fax something. For the first few months, the very best thing you can be doing for your library is learn how to do your job really well. Don’t try to give yourself extra work. Once you’ve learned how to do what’s actually assigned to you, then you can branch out. You can be a tremendous librarian without putting so much stress on yourself. You don’t have to be a rockstar. A much better use of your energy is trying to be the kind of librarian you’d want to work with. Put your energy into that, my friends. And try to be the kind of librarian your patrons want. Maybe that means working on your business reference skills instead of getting on an ALA committee before your 30th birthday [Editor’s note: or even before your 40th]. So be it!
I love this post so very much. As a n00brarian for the second time over (I just started my academic library job in January), I have been trying very hard to remember that right now, the best investment of my time and energy is just in Figuring Out What I’m Supposed To Be Doing. It takes time to learn the job and the workplace culture, *especially* in environments like academia and government.
And remember, “just” doing your job is almost always more than enough to make you seem awesome to your patrons and your coworkers.
Info-binging / Indexed
Fortunately, librarians are the original oversharers, and they’ve produced a body of literature—from blogs posts to articles to books—to help you with your decision. This is especially useful since librarians come in different stripes—public, academic, school, special—with some significant differences among them. Librarians also conduct a lot of their professional lives online, so blogs, Twitter, and e-mail lists are all great places to soak up information.
I don’t know about “original oversharers”… seems like we may have picked that up from our patrons’ tendency to ramble on about things sometimes. ;-)
But it’s definitely true that there is more and more focus on people, even as we also dabble in all things technological.
(Source: twitter.com)
The Journal of the Dermatology Nurses’ Association and the Maternity and Infant Care Database from MIDIRS are freely accessible during the month of May in celebration of Nurses’ Week (which Ovid is turning into Nurses’ Month for the purpose of this promotion).
Access requires signup for each resource; click the links above or access the links via the Promotions tab on the Ovid site.
I decided months ago that I wanted to get a tablet (not an ereader, a tablet), and settled on the Nexus 7 as the best choice for my wants/needs. I finally actually purchased the thing, and it arrived yesterday.
Comments from the first 24 hours:
- It has crashed several times already. I think I know why it did for several of the occasions, but in one or two other instances it just locked up and I’m not sure why.
- I don’t yet have the case I ordered, and I haven’t yet figured out a way to hold the thing without making my hands/wrists complain about it. I’m hoping/expecting the case will help, as will my increased familiarity with it as I use it more. (I also got a stylus, which might help. I’m so old-school, haha.)
- A few apps I might have installed don’t work with my version of Android (having decided to get it via ebay, it seems the Android version on mine is 4.1 rather than 4.2, as required by some apps—didn’t think to check that in advance! I will have to get that updated. Update: my tablet updated itself automatically, apparently, so the problem is presumably that the apps haven’t been updated to be compatible with the most recent Android version. Whew, it’s not a problem on my end!).
- I haven’t yet delved into downloading ebooks, except for a few straight from the Google interface. I figured I should start with the easy stuff—like Facebook and the games I play there ;)—and sit down with the library stuff once I have a better handle on using the device itself. (Especially since I’m still accidentally hitting all sorts of things…)
- The enter/go button on the on-screen keyboard is where I would expect the backspace to be, so I managed to flub my very first tweet from my Nexus. Ah, well, c’est la vie. :)
- Using the on-screen keyboard is giving me a whole new perspective on my passwords. Namely, using numbers for letters doesn’t seem nearly so clever, especially when you have to switch between the letters and the numbers in rapid succession. The idea of using passphrases instead of passwords with specific character requirements (a capital, a lowercase, a certain kind of symbol…) seems wise in this context. I wonder if sites that have specific requirements will begin to change as more people interact using mobile devices of all types?
- I’m looking forward to taking this to meetings—I might finally be able to do paper-free meetings! (From my end, at least.)
- Web browsing on this smaller screen is going to be enlightening, though I haven’t done much of it yet—I’ve been too absorbed in figuring out what apps to install. (I’m especially going to focus on using my library’s resources on this screen to get a better idea of what the students are having to deal with; there may be changes I can make so the process is smoother/easier for them on smaller screens.)
- Apps: THERE ARE SO MANY APPS!! And, surprise surprise, most of the top free ones are games. Considering I installed several games pretty early on (*cough*CandyCrush*cough*), I have no standing to comment on that. :)
- On the subject of apps, it greatly amuses me that I can browse for apps on a computer, choose what to download from there, and the apps get installed on my tablet. It’s like magic. :D (Also, that makes it easy to be messing around with apps without actually having my tablet out where people can see it. But my intent is to use this to aid my work, so they’re going to have to get used to seeing me with it at work…)
- I’m going to be giving Evernote a try for my note-taking needs… maybe I’ll finally see what the fuss is about?
Overall, I’m very excited to finally have a tablet! And can I just say I love my mailman—he managed to get the package into my mailbox so I didn’t have to go to the post office to pick it up. <3
I’ll be posting again about my tablet once I have a chance to experiment with library ebooks—I already know I’ll have comments on that subject. I might also have thoughts on web browsing and library resources once I devote some time to that, but we’ll see.
The vast majority (94%) of parents of minor children (children under 18) feel libraries are very important for their children, not only because they foster a love of reading, but also because they provide information, resources, and a safe place.
Our new report out today portrays the special bond that parents, especially mothers, share with libraries.
I don’t have kids but my sister does, and I know they use the library a lot—their public library had a “1,000 books before kindergarten” program and my niece (at age three!) was the first to finish. :) The reward was, naturally, a book. (No, she’s not reading on her own yet, but that will come.)
Recently I’ve been getting some requests for what I have called The Improbable Source. An improbable source is some source students hope to find that is exactly on the topic of their research essay, especially when that topic is somewhat obscure. The example I used then that still stands out as the top of this category is “scholarly books and articles on email as a form of civic friendship.” You can double check the philosophical literature if you like, or you can take my word for it that nobody has ever published a scholarly book or article on this topic. When I first identified the existence of the improbable source, I suggested that the problem “is that they want sources that already do their work for them.” To some extent, that’s true. Almost always, the improbable source students desire is one that already supports the exact thesis they hope to argue. If they found the source, then they’d have to change their thesis. However, I now think the problem is larger than that. It’s not just about a hunt for improbable sources, but also about a hunt for unlikely conversations.
Excellent post on a phenomenon I have already encountered on several occasions in this my first semester at an academic library. I liked it so much I printed it out to have a visual reminder of this idea as I prepare future instruction sessions.
What this tool can do for you:
- Help you better understand how to determine the “fairness” of a use under the U.S. Copyright Code.
- Collect, organize & archive the information you might need to support a fair use evaluation.
- Provide you with a time-stamped, PDF document for your records [example], which could prove valuable, should you ever be asked by a copyright holder to provide your fair use evaluation and the data you used to support it. [why is this important?]
- Provide access to educational materials, external copyright resources, and contact information for copyright help at local & national levels.
Looks nifty! I don’t have a reason to use it now, but it’s a great tool to remember.
The host site, Copyright Advisory Network from the ALA Office of Information Technology Policy has more great tools and information about copyright and the use of copyrighted material.
(Source: twitter.com)
(Source: librarylinknj)
Welcome to the BEN portal, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Pathway for biological sciences education. The BEN Portal provides access to education resources from BEN Collaborators and is managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Over 18,827 reviewed resources covering 77 biological sciences topics are available. BEN resources can help you engage student interest, shorten lesson preparation time, provide concept updates, and develop curricula that are in line with national standards for content, use of animals and humans, and student safety.
Materials can be browsed by subject, resource type, and audience (potential audiences covered include pretty much every age level you can think of). Not everything is free, but the majority seems to be.
This seems like an interesting resource, especially if you’re teaching science topics.
(Source: crln.acrl.org)
