http://acrlog.org Blogging by and for academic and research librarians Thu, 15 May 2008 14:00:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm the RSS reader type who subscribes to a little bit of everything and then doesn't really pay attention to which is which when skimming through the feeds (let's just say "detail oriented" doesn't go on my resume). Yet somehow in the melee of my reader, the Digital Reference blog ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/15/the-education-vs-indoctrination-debate/ A few weeks ago I questioned the value of a semester-long course on trend technologies along the lines of web 2.0 applications. I appreciated the comments to this post. ACRLog readers shared the value they received from LIS technology courses. More than a few people acknowledged the importance of technology ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/12/what-matters-in-an-academic-librarianship-course/ Well, I can now add “conference attendance” to my professional resume: I just got back from attending the LOEX Conference in Oak Brook, IL. Not that this is my first conference; I did attend the 2006 ALA Annual in New Orleans and the Louisiana Library Association Conference while in grad ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/08/the-art-of-questioning/ Great news from ACRL (via LJ's Academic Newswire)! The members-only preview of forthcoming articles in CR&L will now be available to everyone, not just members. This means you can not only read them yourself, you can blog about them, link to them, send them to people who you think may ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/07/the-song-of-the-open-access-road/ I had the great honor recently to be invited to speak to a class at my alma mater (the LEEP Program at the University of Illinois). The Instruction class, taught by Melissa Wong, was finishing up their work and had myself and Chad Kahl of Illinois State University dialed ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/07/the-chronicles-of-academia/ Dan Overfield, Business Librarian at Villanova University, told us about a pilot project in which 3 librarians traded their office phones for BlackBerry mobile devices. ACRLog - How did this pilot project come about? Overfield – The primary reason was that we employ a satellite research office model where subject librarians, ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/06/blackberry-in-the-liberry/ Most academic librarians go through their careers performing a host of jobs and filling a multitude of functions. From selection to reference to instruction and more we are true workplace multi-taskers. But amidst all these different activities have you ever stopped to ask yourself what's at the center of it ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/04/whats-your-signature-statement/ Americans are mobile by nature, and American academics are even more so. Simply to change jobs most of us would need to relocate to another city, if not another state. This mobility has been on my mind recently because this year, for the first time, I became significantly involved in ... http://acrlog.org/2008/05/01/the-lure-of-the-local-library-association/ A funny and ultimately disheartening? article in the Washington Post portrays librarians as the last defenders of truth in a decadent culture consumed with trivia and superficialities, even going so far as to describe librarians as "trench warriors for truth." Here's a dramatic excerpt from a chat reference service: "We're ... http://acrlog.org/2008/04/30/truth-information-and-knowledge-u-r-boring-me/ I recently gave a keynote talk at a meeting of a statewide library directors group. I called the talk "The Search for Tomorrow’s Library Leaders in A 'Dissin’ the Director' Landscape" and part of the talk referred back to some previous ACRLog posts on leadership and library directors. I mentioned ... http://acrlog.org/2008/04/24/sorry-but-you-cant-have-it-all/