currently cataloging
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My colleague Jaron turned me on to Columbia’s idea crowdsourcing tool: What to Fix (WTF) Columbia. Name jokes aside, It’s a novel implementation of a product offered by a company called IdeaScale. (People in the tech world will immediately recognize it as similar to feature request software like Dropbox’s Votebox.) Basically, the Columbia community can vote ideas generated by their members up or down, like Reddit. Some participants just raise issues, others offer solutions.
Columbia doesn’t appear to have a “campaign” (tag) for libraries, but a quick search shows that this hasn’t stopped patrons from submitting library-centric suggestions under other tags. I don’t think it would make much sense for a library-only implementation, but as a total quality management-esque push across a university I think library participation is great!
Why do I think this is so brilliant?
- It’s public.
- It encourages consensus based on merit.
- It holds us accountable to our user communities.
- It’s the suggestion box for the 21st century.
It would be fascinating to know if this particular effort will be a success.
Love this! Time to upgrade our suggestion board…
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“I don’t use Wikipedia for research,” said no college student ever.
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Trying to find an app? There's a librarian for that. If you’re not recommending apps to your kids, you’re missing out on a wonderful conversation. Whether it’s controlling your desktop from your phone, racing fast cars, listening to music, or studying for the SATs, teens can do a lot with the right program. And we as librarians have the power to promote those programs.This is great, I mean, I would love to do something like this and get that “COOL I NEEDED THIS IN MY LIFE LIKE YESTERDAY” reaction from my students.
But how useful is it, ultimately? Especially for productivity apps, from personal experience, usage dips after the initial “wow look I’m so disciplined and productive” feeling wears off. I’m not sure if there’s much point to pointing out new “toys” that get abandoned after the user gets tired of fiddling around with them.
I wonder if students should be recommending apps to us instead of the other way round. What do they use the most often? If they’re using social media apps most of the time, which ones should the library be more active on?
insert reminder that not every teen has a smart phone here.
insert reminder that not every library has wifi that can support lots of people downloading apps here.
insert coffee in my face, because I am v. tired and v. cranky.
Excellent points.
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Trying to find an app? There's a librarian for that. If you’re not recommending apps to your kids, you’re missing out on a wonderful conversation. Whether it’s controlling your desktop from your phone, racing fast cars, listening to music, or studying for the SATs, teens can do a lot with the right program. And we as librarians have the power to promote those programs.
This is great, I mean, I would love to do something like this and get that “COOL I NEEDED THIS IN MY LIFE LIKE YESTERDAY” reaction from my students.
But how useful is it, ultimately? Especially for productivity apps, from personal experience, usage dips after the initial “wow look I’m so disciplined and productive” feeling wears off. I’m not sure if there’s much point to pointing out new “toys” that get abandoned after the user gets tired of fiddling around with them.
I wonder if students should be recommending apps to us instead of the other way round. What do they use the most often? If they’re using social media apps most of the time, which ones should the library be more active on?
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Just finished my first infolit class for the postgraduates’ academic year.
Mostly positive feedback! :)
Now, on to more citation counting. :( -
“What makes a good cataloguer? The main thing is to have a sense of humour. You will have to apply rules which you find quite silly, and you cannot really take them all seriously. On a scale of the world’s problems, cataloguing would not feature at all. However, you must pretend to take them seriously, and pretend, while you are doing it, that cataloguing is the most important thing in the world. You must regard every decision, as well as every full stop and comma, as being of vital importance.” — J.H. Bowman, Essential Cataloguing (via thecommonlibrarian)(via catalogme)
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Thing about traveling alone - no one else to take pictures of you being emo while waiting for a cab.
Taken outside the Indiana State Library.
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This is the nerdiest academic publishing t-shirt you have ever seen.
I know some nerds on twitter that need this.
Would this shirt be work appropriate?
YESSSSSSSSSS
I need this.
So, so awesome.
WANT. NOW.
Update: Found it here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/charlizeart/works/1280530-metadata?p=t-shirt
OH MY GODS I HAVE TO HAVE THIS SO MUCH THAT I CANNOT USE MY SHIFT KEY PROPERLY. (Psst, thanks for the link!)
GRABBY HANDS
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thestarsgowaltzingout:emilytea10:invisiblecashews:
Actually, the photographs are spaced ten years apart, not sixteen.
1912 to 1922.
The young, homeless (but no less dapper) wanderer shown in the first survived the sinking of the Titanic and swam to the shores of West Egg. There he built a life and a large, empty house, in an effort to win the heart of the wealthy, upper class woman he’d fallen in love with a decade earlier and had been separated from against his will.
He shed his earlier identity, and changed his name to reflect his new station. Jack was now known as Jay Gatsby, the eccentric millionaire who threw parties every night in the hopes that one day his love would show up and spin with him as they had long ago in the dance hall of the lower decks.
holy shit
And then, at the beginning of Inception, he starts out washed up on a shore.
still no oscar
Leo’s entire film career of unrelated projects has better continuity than glee.
(via queerthelibrary)
