Infoblog

In his first podcast of the new year, Infoeople’s resident book reviewer, Michael Cart, muses on the recent death of the venerable review journal “Kirkus Reviews” and worries a bit about the continuing migration of print to digital forms. Happy New Year, indeed!

Cites from this podcast are here (in PDF format).

Side note: since Michael recorded this podcast, there are indications that Kirkus Reviews may yet survive. Stay tuned!

I know, I’m usually plugging an Infopeople podcast, but today I’m plugging this great interview on T Is for Training with our own (well, she’s her own person, but we love her) Sarah Houghton-Jan aka the Librarian in Black. Sarah has a new book coming out, and is also going to be teaching a new online course for Infopeople (check out the description and sign up here). Sarah has lots of hopeful words for libraries and good advice for keeping up with new stuff – oh, and figuring out how to find a balance between work life and home life.

If you ever need to show a patron or coworker (or family member or friend) how to use Facebook or Twitter, be sure to have these Mashable guidebooks handy! Each guidebook goes into nice detail (in a nice, accessible FAQ style) on a variety of topics from the basic (setting up an account) to more advanced features (sharing music or video, hiding Facebook notifications). Why reinvent the wheel with great tools like these around? Oh, and while you’re at it, subscribe to Mashable’s RSS feed – you’ll find tons of great info to be discovered.

Thanks to Stephen’s Lighthouse for the lead.

In this year’s end (or year’s beginning) podcast, George and Joan contemplate how the top ten New Year’s resolutions can be applied to libraries. Among their ideas: spend more time this coming year being more customer-focused or try something new (a new service, a new technology). Do you have other ideas for resolutions? Let’s hear them!

Happy New Year!

In a rare holiday humor Infopeople’s book guy Michael Cart wallows in sentimentality in this podcast, singing the praises of Dickens’ immortal A CHRISTMAS CAROL and the enduring delights of reading aloud. Can you guess how many copies he has? 17!

Cites from this podcast are here (in PDF format).

In this special edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan offer up “A Visit to the Library,” with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore.

On behalf of George and Joan, and all the folks at Infopeople we wish you and yours a safe, healthy and happy holiday season!

In his latest podcast, Infopeople’s resident book maven Michael Cart speculates about what the book of the future will look like (hint: maybe a lot like the book of the past — long past, as in the Victorian Age).

Here is a list of cites from the podcast in PDF format.

Be sure to tune in this Thursday at noon for Infopeople’s next webinar, Writing a Library Behavior Code, with Mary Minow. It starts at noon and will last an hour.

This webinar will benefit participants by helping them draft legally enforceable behavior codes. It offers guidance on reasonable behavior rules, distinguished from restrictions on user’s free speech rights. What type of notice must the library give its users about its behavior policies? When is an appeals process required, and what should it entail?

WebJunction has a new section of their website that has links to job search resources, impact studies, unemployment statistics and more. the also link to the archive of Infopeople’s Nov 10, 2009 webinar, Best Practices for Helping Job Seekers in the Library. It’s a useful resource for libraries that is still growing.

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan take a look at best practices. George read an article in the Harvard Business Review’s free e-mail newsletter that got him thinking about the wisdom of always thinking best practices are, in fact, the best practices. In the library world there is often an assumption that if it’s a best practice, then it should be adopted – or alternatively that even if you have a great idea, it shouldn’t be implemented until it’s an accepted best practice. They discuss these ideas and more in this intriguing podcast.