We Do That In Idaho
Resisting ResistanceDoodling & Other Subversive Ideas: InfoCamp2009
Do you remember that Bill Gates/Bono story about Doodling? There was a follow up story four years later on NPR about how doodling actually helps us retain memory: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101727048
The study found that those who doodled remembered more details than those who did not doodle.
As usual, I was wondering how that applies to librarianship. If, while doing bibliographic instruction, we ask the students to doodle while we speak with them, would they remember more? Also, out of curiousity, what would they doodle? Would their doodles provide us with clues about what students really think about the library?
I am going to InfoCamp in Seattle this year and you should too!
Looking forward to reconnecting with iSchool alumni, and meeting others. I’m hoping I can get together an impromptu or proposed session on Doodling in Libraries and how we can use other subversive ideas, ideas that may not make sense at first, to make the library a more favorable place to be.
What do you think? Are you going? What’s your subversive idea?
State Documents Are Priceless In Idaho
Danna at ICFL has been culling all the PDFs our state has put out from the agencies and loads them into ContentDM with her totally awesome staff! It’s called the IDOCS program, and it is great. IDOCS may not have gorgeous images, but it’s the most creative way of using ContentDM that I have ever seen!
I’ve been working with Danna and Rich at ICFL and Steve Walker at ISHS to develop a way to archive all of the state documents permanently, or whatever the record retention schedule calls for. Lots of very promising work!
The most important thing I do in Idaho
The most important thing that I do is I don’t harbor resentments. I say what I think, I don’t get hostile, I deal with problems as I see them, and I make decisions that will effect changes. I don’t dwell. If I see injustice I call it. If I see something unfair, I call it, and report it. When I see that things are inadequate I fix them, and I fix the system.
On that note, I can always get better, and I strive to always get better. Today I learned from a bunch of colleagues about The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook which I intend to read cover to cover.
I wish for all of us to effect change with great care and promise. Please read on.
I can see the Library of Congress Photograph Collection In Idaho!
Remember when computers were going to change everything? Well, amazingly, they have! Thanks to alert friend and reader, Whitney, I now know where the Library of Congress beta Flickr account is! And now so do you! Of course this goes way above and beyond our flickr collection at ISHS, but hey, we’re doing great! You can keep up with great things at Flickr by reading their blog!
Historic photograph preservation is an amazing process, and much simpler than it actually sounds. I’m happy that the future will be full of historical photographs clogging the servers!
We Blog In Idaho
First thing this morning I read Gina’s post about the bridge between digital natives and digital immigrants. Then I read the new OCLC report on information sharing that it is no longer very interesting to differentiate between the two, as in the divide has been officially bridged. Then I followed Gina’s link and read David Lee King’s post about having no time to blog…
Well, 3.5 hours after getting to work this morning, after having all of these windows open on my desktop and amidst the cacophony of interruptions, I finally am writing a blog post. -Sigh-
But this is important! I am glad you are reading! I am glad, and I hope you’ll say something to let me know you stopped by. Because community includes this online world. It simply does. And for a long time, through many difficult times in my life I used the internet as a way to hide, so for me it is so clear that the internet and email is community. So I don’t ever want to ignore my digital users, because I am one. Is that the issue we need to explore?
The Pew Internet study that came out yesterday has been analyzed by Information Week saying that, “the study asserted that the younger population aged 18 to 30, tagged as the “tech-loving” Generation Y, was most likely to use libraries to get problem-solving information and for general purposes. In their lives, libraries are not losing value. In fact, 40% of Generation Y respondents said they would use libraries in the future to seek information, compared with 20% of those age 30 and older. ” NPR’s news this morning called it an “information hunger” which I think is extraordinarily descriptive and accurate. My generation cannot live without information, and even though my hubby isn’t that much older than me, he and I are different in this regard. He only goes so far, once I get a taste I need to go all the way (to the library!)!
The Pew Internet study that is causing the cafuffle is located here.
Change in Idaho?
“Each time a man stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest of walls of oppression and resistance.
“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or greater intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
- Robert Kennedy
We The People In Idaho?
Did you know that we have three letters that Abe Lincoln penned in Boise, Idaho? Of course you didn’t!
The Idaho State Historical Society has a bunch, and Lincoln’s bicentennial is approaching!
So I am trying to come up with an outreach plan for K-12 students to learn about Lincoln in combination with this great program that sponsors FREE BOOKS TO LIBRARIES to learn about how we were all created equal! I love America!!
http://www.ala.org/ala/ppo/currentprograms/wethepeople/wepeople.cfm
Funomenal Tools in Idaho?
If I had had something like this years ago when trying to teach people how to visualize the step from card catalog to computer I would have had many less challenges. Am I thankful? I love a good challenge. But yes, I wish I had had this then:
http://deweyresearch.oclc.org/ddcbrowser/wcat
Thanks OCLC for all that you do!
Everyone else, you will love this phenomenal (FUNnomenal?) tool!!! Wouldn’t it be great to make our IR systems like this?????
