Librarian X

I’m teaching two online continuing education classes for Simmons College’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Coming up in November, I’m co-teaching “They’re Googling You: Online Identity for LIS Professionals” with my friend Beth Gallaway. We’ll talk about social networking tools, privacy, self-promotion and blogging tools to help get your name out and represent yourself online in the best possible way, and over the course of the month-long class you’ll set up your own personal website.

In March 2011, I’m teaching (solo) “Zotero: Using and Supporting the Research Power Tool,” which will include the basics of how to use Zotero, its sync and group features, and supporting and teaching Zotero in a library environment. The final project will be creating a practical application for Zotero in your library. Course readings will include pre-publication chapters of my upcoming Zotero book for ACRL Publications.

Register for either one on the Simmons site. I’ll mention them again as the dates get closer.

This morning I attended two terrific webinars sponsored by the Georgia Library Association and Georgia Public Libraries: The Social Library by Cliff Landis, and Library on the Radio by Charlie Bennett and Ameet Doshi. If you weren’t in the chat room with us, check out the archive.

Both presentations are really worth seeing. Cliff did an amazingly concise job of presenting his take on social media for library outreach, and Charlie and Ameet talked about the genesis of their library radio show “Lost in the Stacks” (on which I made a guest appearance earlier this summer). Cliff is the first hour of the archived presentation and Charlie and Ameet start at 1 hour 15 minutes.

Since I’m seemingly on a roll with the Youtube posts, let me share this great quick-and-awesome Zotero demo from Eric Sizemore:

This is more or less how I start my Zotero workshops — I’ve found that it pays to show the finished product at the beginning to get their attention — but I think Eric does a better job than I do!

The Library Society of the World’s own Abigail Goben produced this video of LSW members singing Jonathan Coulton‘s Code Monkey. It features me on plastic Rock Band guitar. Enjoy.

Today (Friday May 28) at noon Eastern time, I’ll be on the Georgia Tech library radio show “Lost in the Stacks.” Host Charlie Bennett interviewed me about — you guessed it — Adventures in Library Instruction and Zotero!

My friends and GSU Library colleagues Sarah Steiner and Christian Sager will be appearing on the show live — my segment had to be taped since I have a conflict during the broadcast time.

You can listen to the live stream at WREK.org, or on 91.1FM if you’re in Atlanta and still own a radio. It’ll be archived temporarily at WREK’s Friday Shows page under “Lost in the Stacks.”

Atlanta’s weather turned stunningly beautiful last week after a long ugly winter, so I took the opportunity to eat lunch outside today with a colleague in Woodruff Park downtown near GSU.

We sat down next to this outdoor “reading room” — a cart of library books in the middle of the outdoor plaza. They had call number labels on them, so we  guessed that they were withdrawn books from nearby Fulton County Public Library. There was no evidence of a mobile circulation desk so apparently they were free for the taking!

What a cool idea.

This is the “handout” for my March 23 webcast “Superpower your Browser: Open Source Research Tools” for ACRL. I’ve included printable URLs.

My article about LibX and Zotero is available in the February 2010 issue of C&RL News and online at http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/2/70.full

“LibX and Zotero: Firefox extensions for librarians and library patrons” by Jacob Glenn. Zotero in particular has introduced many new features since this was written, but it’s a good introduction to both programs. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jkglenn/firefox/

LibX

LibX project home page, including edition builder and documentation: http://libx.org

My LibX guide: http://research.library.gsu.edu/libx

Creative Commons licensed. You may copy and alter it for your library as long as you credit me.

Great LibX guides from

Eastern Kentucky U: http://libguides.eku.edu/libx

and Murdoch U: http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/mylibrary/LibX/

Zotero

Zotero home page, including documentation, forums, and more: http://www.zotero.org

My Zotero guide: http://research.library.gsu.edu/zotero

Creative Commons licensed. You may copy and alter it for your library as long as you credit me.

“7 Things You Need to Know about Zotero: A white paper from Teaching and Learning with Technology at Penn State” (pdf link): http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/zotero_hot_team.pdf

Zotero guide from the U of Michigan: http://guides.lib.umich.edu/zotero

Other browser tools for researchers

In no particular order.

• Top Twenty Firefox Add-ons that Make Firefox the Researcher’s Browser of Choice: http://resipsablog.com/2008/08/23/become-an-efficient-researcher-top-twenty-firefox-add-ons-that-make-firefox-the-researchers-browser-of-choice/
• How to customise your browser for effective online research: http://helpmeinvestigate.com/ColinMeek/posts/41-how-to-customise-your-browser-for-effective-online-research
• 50+ Useful Firefox Extensions for College Students: http://www.collegedegrees.com/blog/2008/05/21/50-useful-firefox-extensions-for-college-students/
• Academic Power Research: Add-ons for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/academic
• 100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians: http://oedb.org/library/features/100_firefox_addons_for_librarians

Audio Books by Playful Librarian via Flickr

I wrote a short article about free audio books for Georgia Library Quarterly‘s Winter 2010 issue. It’s for a regular column called “My own private library,” in which librarians write about the books in their home libraries.

GLQ isn’t online yet, but they’ve given me permission to post the article here:

(continue reading…)

I’m emerging from holiday break just long enough to link to my picture on the Geeky Tattoos blog, whose author calls me a “hardcore librarian.” Word.

Zotero just announced a new free storage feature for attachments. I blogged about it over on the library’s site, so I won’t repeat it here.

The first 100 megs of storage is free. I’ve got a fair-sized library, and I’m only using half that. I probably won’t need to upgrade to paid storage until well into next year, but you can get a gigabyte for twenty bucks a year. That strikes me as quite reasonable. I’d pay twenty dollars for another gig in my Dropbox in a heartbeat.