So much going on...

It has been an especially busy couple of weeks. The threat of drastic budget cuts for higher education weighs heavily on us here in Kentucky, but many good things are still happening. Here are a few things I started to write about but finally decided to compile into a single post:

New Video Windows Exhibit at the Hub
We just took down the Student Video Art exhibit this morning. The Libraries Diversity Committee created our newest exhibit, Views of Diversity. If you are in town, be sure to check it out. Otherwise we should have photos up shortly. (Thanks, Alice!)

New Blog for Reference Desk
Our reference desk has just launched an internal blog for sharing information among employees. I am delighted to see staff take the initiative and run with this project. This came about partly from staff exposure to blogs in our Blue 2.0 learning program. Woo-hoo, Young Reference!

Blogging in Instruction
A colleague from the campus Teaching and Academic Support Center contacted me recently about a blogging project for two sections of a geology class. Students will use the blog for reading discussions and projects this semester. From the first post:

We will be using this blog to compliment our face-to-face lecture sessions. Your participation is important as your posts will reflect your understanding of the course material. It is important that you are able to connect and relate what we have learned in class with current events in our world today.

My colleague asked if the Hub could help students with Blogger if they had questions. Would we ever! Blogs are a wonderful tool for this type of work. I remember using a BBS for class discussion in one of the first college courses I took--if only we'd had blogs then!

UK Second Life Island Live
I've written a little about the UK presence in Second Life. In the last couple of days, things have gotten really exciting as we've been featured in the campus newspaper. We've gotten a number of questions at the Hub about the Second Life client (for the record, yes we do have it installed on our computers in the Hub). I'm serving on several campus Second Life working groups, including one which is planning our big in world grand opening event. Stay tuned for details!