Circulating Ideas

Allison and I teamed up for an interview over at Authors are ROCKSTARS! with author Gwenda Bond to discuss her YA novels BLACKWOOD and THE WOKEN GODS, the overwhelming awesomeness of her first ALA conference, and her love of Christopher Pike. Read the transcript. This is the last of the interviews Allison and I did … Continue reading Gwenda Bond – Librarians are ROCKSTARS!

Steve, along with Allison from the Authors are ROCKSTARS! podcast, speak with Cory Doctorow, author, blogger, journalist, and activist. His newest book for young adults is HOMELAND and he is co-editor at Boing Boing. Around the time of the ALA Midwinter conference last year, I teamed up with Allison and Michelle from Authors are ROCKSTARS! to produce a series of interviews we called Librarians are ROCKSTARS!, where we spoke with authors about their experiences with libraries. Since Allison and I were both attending the ALA conference in Chicago this summer (Michelle couldn't make it, sadly), we wanted to do some more interviews with authors. Last week, you heard our chat with Gene Luen Yang and this week, we're proud to let you hear our insightful interview with Cory Doctorow. Even though he had a busy conference, Cory graciously gave us his time and shared his thoughts on how librarians remain relevant in the 21st century, his support for fair ebook terms for libraries, and spoiled the end of Homeland (not really). Stay tuned to Authors are ROCKSTARS! next week for our final joint interview from ALA. SHOW NOTES: Craphound Boing Boing Authors for Library eBooks [ALA] Cory's talk at Library of Congress [Craphound] Philip Pullman: 'Authors must be paid fairly for ebook library loans' [The Guardian]Libraries 'have had their day', says Horrible Histories author [The Guardian]

Steve, along with Allison from the Authors are ROCKSTARS! podcast, speak with Cory Doctorow, author, blogger, journalist, and activist. His newest book for young adults is HOMELAND and he is co-editor at Boing Boing Read the transcript. Around the time of the ALA Midwinter conference last year, I teamed up with Allison and Michelle from Authors … Continue reading 28: Cory Doctorow – Librarians are ROCKSTARS!

Collaboration is one of my favorite things to do. I love working with other librarians to accomplish bigger and better things, and I'm happy to say that I was able to connect with Allison Tran from the Authors are ROCKSTARS! podcast once again for our semi-regular Librarians are ROCKSTARS series (we spoke with Kirby Larson and Tom Angleberger earlier, along with her regular co-host Michelle). When Allison wasn't busy trying to recruit me into YALSA like Sam Jackson recruiting superheroes into the Avengers, we were chatting with a number of great authors. First up in this series is Gene Luen Yang, Printz Award winning author and artist of AMERICAN BORN CHINESE and the new BOXERS & SAINTS. Visit the Authors are ROCKSTARS site for more info on this interview and stay tuned throughout August for more great author interviews!

Collaboration is one of my favorite things to do. I love working with other librarians to accomplish bigger and better things, and I’m happy to say that I was able to connect with Allison Tran from the Authors are ROCKSTARS! podcast once again for our semi-regular Librarians are ROCKSTARS series (we spoke with Kirby Larson … Continue reading Gene Luen Yang – Librarians are ROCKSTARS!

Steve attended the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago and talked to a diverse group of librarians about their conference experiences. As a special bonus, this episode features three songs Julie Jurgens wrote for specific sessions at the conference.

Steve attended the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago and talked to a diverse group of librarians about their conference experiences. Read the transcript. As a special bonus, this episode features three songs Julie Jurgens wrote for specific sessions at the conference.

Steve chats with Jason Griffey, who talks about his hugely successful Kickstarter campaign to support future development of his LibraryBox project.

Steve chats with Jason Griffey, who talks about his hugely successful Kickstarter campaign to support future development of his LibraryBox project. Read the transcript.

Guest host Kate Kosturski assembles a panel to discuss gender issues in libraries, including Coral Sheldon-Hess and Marge Loch-Wouters. Kate Kosturski is JSTOR’s Institutional Participation Coordinator for the UK and Northern Europe, where, in her words, “I tell people in Europe how awesome JSTOR is and then hopefully they buy some.” A 2011 ALA Emerging Leader, Kate received her MLS from Pratt Institute in 2010 and is the co-founder of ALA CraftCon, a relaxing crafting hour at the Midwinter and Annual Meetings. In her spare time, she enjoys crafts, cooking, baseball, running, photography, politics, and technology. View her work online at katekosturski.info and follow her on Twitter as librarian_kate.  Coral Sheldon-Hess is an engineer-turned-librarian living in Anchorage, Alaska. She has worked at the University of Alaska Anchorage as a Web Services Librarian since 2009, when she drove across the continent with three birds, some house plants, and a trunk full of homebrewing gear. In her spare time she teaches computer programming to women, crochets, does geeky tech things, reads, bicycles (poorly), and evangelizes on behalf of the Oxford comma. You can find her blog at http://sheldon-hess.org/coral, or follow her on Twitter at @web_librarian. Marge Loch-Wouters received her MLIS in 1976 at UW-Madison SLIS and had worked as a children's librarian and children's library manager ever since. She is a long time active member of ALA (she currently sits on Council), Wisconsin Library Association and WI Women Library Workers, a feminist library organization. She blogs at Tiny Tips for Library Fun and also presents workshops, webinars and teaches as an adjunct on innovative youth services. Loch-Wouters was named WI Librarian on the Year in 2010. When not working she can be found hanging out in social media or in nature.

Guest host Kate Kosturski assembles a panel to discuss gender issues in libraries, including Coral Sheldon-Hess and Marge Loch-Wouters. Kate Kosturski is JSTOR’s Institutional Participation Coordinator for the UK and Northern Europe, where, in her words, “I tell people in Europe how awesome JSTOR is and then hopefully they buy some.” A 2011 ALA Emerging … Continue reading 26: Gender Issues in Libraries

Guest host Kate Sheehan assembles a panel to discuss work-life balance, including Meredith Farkas, Jenica Rogers, and Karen Schneider. Kate Sheehan is the special projects coordinator for Bibliomation,a consortium of public and school libraries in Connecticut. She joined Bibliomation in 2009 to work on their migration to the Evergreen ILS as the open source implementation coordinator and has been fortunate that the good people of Bibliomation have been willing to scrape together funding to keep her popping up at meetings. Kate has been the coordinator of knowledge and learning services at Darien Library and the coordinator of library automation at Danbury Public Library, which was the first library to implement LibraryThing for Libraries. Prior to joining Danbury Public Library, she was a technology and reference librarian at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, Connecticut. A graduate of Smith College, Kate’s post college experiences in the corporate workplace inspired her decision to get an MSLIS from Simmons. She finished library school in December of 2003 and has been happily ensconced in the public library sphere since then. When she’s not coordinating, she works as a writer and consultant and blogs at loosecannonlibrarian.net, ebookprimer.com and ALA TechSource. Meredith Farkas is the Head of Instructional Services at the Portland State University Library in Oregon and is an adjunct faculty member at San Jose State University’s School of Library and Information Science. She's also the author of the book Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication and Community Online (Information Today, 2007) and writes the monthly column “Technology in Practice” for American Libraries. She's the creator and manager of Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki and has created a number of well-known national conference wikis (ALA 2005 and 2006, Internet Librarian 2006-2008, etc.). She has presented internationally on topics such as social technologies, managing library technology projects, encouraging innovation organizationally, and LIS education. In 2006, she was named a Mover and Shaker by Library Journal for innovative uses of technology to benefit the profession and in 2009 she was honored with the LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology. She lives with her wonderful husband and adorable toddler son in one of the best places in the world and feels lucky to have been able to achieve what she has in both her professional and family life. Jenica P. Rogers is Director of Libraries at the State University of New York at Potsdam, coming from a background in cataloging, collection development, and staff training. Jenica serves as the chief administrator of the Crumb and Crane Libraries, with responsibilities that include short-term and strategic planning, fiscal management, fundraising and donor development, representing the libraries to outside constituents, and supervision of 24 FTE employees spanning NYS Civil Service employees, professional staff, and librarians. Jenica’s current professional interests include interrogating the ways our information economy is breaking down and reforming now that the internet changed everything, figuring out what the role of a library is in a reality in which warehousing books is sort of passé, and informing, mentoring, and supporting new library professionals as they hit the real world face first and at full speed. Jenica earned her MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2001 after graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 1998 with a BA in English Literature. In 2009 she received a SUNY Potsdam President’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service and was was nominated one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers for 2009.  Karen Schneider is the University Librarian at Holy Names University in Oakland, California and she has just embarked on a P

Guest host Kate Sheehan assembles a panel to discuss work-life balance, including Meredith Farkas, Jenica Rogers, and Karen Schneider. Read the transcript. Kate Sheehan is the special projects coordinator for Bibliomation,a consortium of public and school libraries in Connecticut. She joined Bibliomation in 2009 to work on their migration to the Evergreen ILS as the … Continue reading 25: Work-Life Balance

LiTTech, Episode 80 features part two of the shared discussion between Circulating Ideas and LiTTech about the state of the MLS. Emily, Addie and Steve continue their talk with David Lankes, Jill Hurst-Wahl, and Cori Dickerson. Read the transcript. This is part two of the conversation. Part one is here. R. David Lankes is a professor and Dean’s … Continue reading The State of the MLIS, Part Two (LiTTech 80)

Steve teams up with Emily and Addie from the LiTTech podcast to discuss the current state of library and information science education with guests David Lankes, Jill Hurst-Wahl, and Cori Dickerson. This is part one of the conversation. Part two will be in Episode 80 of LiTTech. R. David Lankes is a professor and Dean’s Scholar for the New Librarianship at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and director of the Information Institute of Syracuse. Lankes has always been interested in combining theory and practice to create active research projects that make a difference. Past projects include the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology, the Gateway to Education Materials, AskERIC and the Virtual Reference Desk. Lankes’ more recent work involves how participatory concepts can reshape libraries and credibility. You can hear earlier Circulating Ideas interviews with Dr. Lankes here and here. Jill Hurst-Wahl, MLS, is a digitization consultant and owner of Hurst Associates, Ltd. She also an Associate Professor of Practice in Syracuse University's School of Information Studies and the director of the iSchool's Library and Information Science Program. She is a member of the SLA Board of Directors (2011-2013). Jill's interests include digitization, digital libraries, copyright, web 2.0 and social media. Cori Dickerson is an absentee MLS student and a part-time librarian in the great state of Texas. Her art and English degrees keep her in the lap of luxury, and the high school students keep her from making any progress on her To Read list. Cori's trying very hard not to be a responsible adult, and spends far too much time playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. (Star Trek is her one true love, however!) She can generally be spotted on Twitter and Pinterest, scavenging ideas from much cooler people.