Librarian X

Hi!

So what have I been doing since Internet Librarian a month ago? Anna rightly called me out for not blogging much this fall.

Well, we did another episode of Adventures in Library Instruction a couple of weeks ago, but you knew that.

I’ve been writing a lot for the last month. I wrote an article about LibX and Zotero for College and Research Libraries News, which I’ll link here once it’s up. It’s also sort of a tie-in for a webcast I’ll be doing for them early next year.

I also did an article for Georgia Library Quarterly, which I’ll post here after it goes to print. It’s for a column called “My Own Private Library,” about librarians’ personal libraries. I wrote about free audio books and fiction podcasts.

I’m trying to finish an article on DRM before I go out of town for the holidays, and I hope that’s it for this year. (If I mention it in public maybe I’ll shame myself into finishing it.)

Coming up next year, I’m doing a presentation on LibGuides and Zotero for the staff of GALILEO, a Georgia virtual library initiative. I’m also been asked to give an online Zotero workshop for librarians and staff of a New Jersey library system, and there’s that ACRL webcast in March. In April, I’m giving a podcasting presentation at Computers in Libraries.

Plus, you know, doing my actual job too. In some ways my first fall back at GSU Library has blasted by like a jet-powered monkey-navigated rocket car across the alkali flats, and in some ways this has seemed like the endless semester. Lots of changes, and I’m looking forward to my new role as a subject liaison. I’m really enjoying learning my way around collection development and I’m looking forward to working on outreach next semester and getting to know the Comm department.

My review of the book Information Literacy: Search Strategies, Tools & Resources for High School Students and College Freshmen by Zorana Ercegovac is up at The Tech Static blog.

In my review, I mentioned some technology errors that I ran across in the book, but due to Tech Static’s length requirements I didn’t expand on them.  Here are a few examples of what I meant:

• The author refers to Internet Explorer as “Microsoft Explorer” (p. 98).
• Netscape Navigator (discontinued in 2007) is cited as an example of a current browser (p. 98).  The book was written in 2008.
• This is a little unclear, but in the discussion of top-level domain names (p. 86) the author implies that .org domains are only run by non-profits and .com domains by companies (of course, anyone can buy either a .org or .com domain).
• URL typos appear from time to time: “.nrt” for “.net”, a slash instead of a dot, and so on.
• LII.org is referred to as an invisible web search tool (p. 94).  In fact everything on LII is available on the open web and indexable by Google.

As I said in my review, none of these break the usefulness of the book, and there’s nothing in my nitpicky list that would trip up a savvy student or instructor (though I would have liked to see more clarity in the discussion of TLDs).  It’s a good textbook or sourcebook if you work with upper-level high school students or new undergrads.

My review of the new book Cloud Computing by Michael Miller is up at the Tech Static.  If you haven’t checked out TS yet, it’s a new blog focusing on technology book reviews for librarians, edited by Rachel Singer Gordon of The Nextgen Librarian’s Survival Guide fame.  Useful for collection development or if you’re just interested in technology books.

Review – Cloud Computing

My article “Open Source Software in Museums” has been accepted for publication by Library Student Journal.  Woot!

I’ve just submitted a paper on open-source software in museums to Library Student Journal.  Eek, my first submission ever.  I think it’s good enough for publication — wish me luck.  If LSJ doesn’t go for it, I’ll probably rewrite it after classes are done and submit it to a library journal: a lot of the ideas are equally applicable to libraries, but I originally wrote it for a museum informatics course.