There was a lively Twitter discussion over my lunch hour about Michael Stephens’ Library Journal Office Hours column this week, “Essential Soft Skills.” He talks in particular about “soft skills” for new graduates: communication, initiative, continuous learning, sensitivity and understanding, professional responsibility, and “further skills.” I think he’s spot on, so I’ll just point you [...]
I’ve talked often about DeKalb Public Library here. We’re pretty hardcore users. We attend programs, and spent a couple of years as part of their Science Fiction Book Club, Destination Wonder. I work with them routinely through the Friends of the NIU Libraries. We love our local library, and have nothing but praise for the [...]
I had a chance to read the Ithaka S+R report “Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Historians.” I know, it’s near the holidays. I don’t want to think about it either. But this is one of those conversations we probably need to be having, because the report surveyed the very people we are ostensibly serving, [...]
Have you seen this Ithaka S+R report on “Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Historians?” If you haven’t you should really read this. Because on my initial skim? We history-centric subject specialist type librarians have become rather irrelevant to current historical research methods. That frightens me. Go have a read, and let’s talk about this. [...]
Sure, why not? I’ve been a bad blogger. 1. There is an Forbes article today suggesting that libraries and publishers should not be arguing about ebook purchasing, but rather, ebook licensing. My reaction: NO. Licensing of ejournals bankrupted libraries as they costs went up 8-15% per year, but our budgets remained flat. This is not [...]
Gosh, I’m kinda tired. This makes sense, if I sit down and think about all of the things I’ve been up to lately. We had a lovely set of two vacation/work trips to the Twin Cities area, and saw lots of friends, ate all the food, went to a Rembrandt exhibit, petted kitties, drove, conventioned, [...]
Musings from the shower this morning. We have heard (and often discussed) the phrase “information wants to be free” which goes with “information wants to be expensive.” The more I play with my Nook and look at the struggle of moving ebook files about, even when I own them and have the right to do [...]
So, I’m still just recovering from having hosted the Horatio Alger Society’s annual conference here in DeKalb. Here are some of the important things I learned or had reinforced, having put together the whole shebang from soup to nuts, basically. 1. Deadlines are wishy-washy for most things, except catering. Always submit a higher number to [...]
So, today I’m headed down to Champaign-Urbana to participate in a CARLI Digital Preservation Forum on Tuesday morning, as one of the speakers. My talk is called “What is Digital Preservation?” Here are the slides, if you want to see what I’m up to, or print them out before you attend. They are also available [...]
For your convenience, I am posting the slides for my On The Front Lines talk, embedded from Slideshare. Otfl thomas2012 View more PowerPoint from Lynne M. Thomas
