ALA Demo Hell I usually avoid the orchestrated demos many vendors offer at ALA – you know the ones I mean. There is a small seating area and there’s an infomercial-type presenter – or even worse an annoying robot or Elvis impersonator. My preference is to have a rep take me through a one-on-demo where [...]

Good Example of Having Presence In a previous post I wrote about the important of having presence if you want to be a leader in or beyond your library, and if you want to be perceived as a leader by others. If you are called upon to deliver a spur-of-the-moment, extemporaneous explanation of why your [...]

What About That Other Academic Librarianship Journal If you asked most academic librarians to name “the” scholarly journal for academic librarians I believe you’d get one of three responses: College & Research Libraries; Journal of Academic Librarianship; and portal: Libraries and the Academy. Those are probably the top three, but does that show our American [...]

More on Dan Ariely I’ve been to more than a few ACRL President’s Programs. These programs take place at the ALA Annual Conference. Many of them I really do not remember. But one that I remember well is the 2008 program at which Dan Ariely was the speaker. Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor [...]

No, Everyone Really DOES Like to Search I admit to, at one time, having had a slight problem with Roy Tennant’s statement from 2001 that “Only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find”. Admittedly it is a cleverly stated and catchy phrase. It’s no surprise it caught on with any librarian giving a [...]