Happy New Year!

While I don't often post here anymore, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a happy new year and update you on my current projects.

I've moved on from learning spaces which was the original focus of this blog. Some posts still remain quite popular (and somewhat timely) though they are nearly ten years old:

• Unusual Service Desks
• Hubbub 2011
• Projected Floor Signs
• Video Windows
• New Thinking on Desk Signage

Since then, I have focused my research interests on instructional design. Specifically I've been working with the I-LEARN model and published a new paper last summer based on my dissertation work.

I'm excited to report that I'm now starting a new position with my current employer. I'll be part of the information literacy and assessment team, teaching instruction sessions, providing instructional design support, supporting student success initiatives, and working on research projects, including co-authoring the forthcoming second edition of Academic Librarianship. I'm also teaching another Academic Libraries course in the spring semester. I expect it will be a busy year.

I wish all of you a happy new year, and thank you for reading!

Updates from the Uncommon Commons

Hello again, readers!

Since I moved into a different position in 2010, I have apparently been reduced to one post per year. I was hoping to remedy that in 2014...but here we are.

This blog started with a focus on learning spaces, and several of the more popular posts are still reviewed regularly (like the ones about those weird-at-the-time service desks or the parties we used to have in the Hub or the video windows or the floor signs that are all pretty typical now).  Learning spaces are still a big interest of mine, and I was involved in some pretty exciting renovations in 2013. Lately though my attention has been focused on some follow-up projects related to my dissertation work.

I had the pleasure of presenting at four international conferences in 2014 to talk about the benefits of designing instruction using the I-LEARN model.  Interested in hearing more?  I am working on a post (an actual--not annual update--post about it).  One of the conferences I presented at last year was so awesome, I asked if I could join the program committee, and so now I am on for 2015. Interested in presenting in Tallinn in October?  Check out the European Information Literacy Conference.  I will likely be posting about that as well since the the 2014 conference was one of the best conferences I have ever attended.

I have also been teaching at two iSchools which has been pretty amazing.  Library science students who are eager to learn more about all things academic library--sign me up!

Since I can't use the doctoral student excuse anymore, I have stepped up my volunteer leadership work in SLA a bit.  I am currently serving on the executive board of the Leadership and Management Division as Director of Communications.  I am also in my third year of participating on the Professional Development Advisory Council, and I expect I may be Archivist for the Academic Division until I retire.  I have emphasized many times what a great group SLA is and how your can develop so many skills through volunteer leadership oppotunities.

So that's enough updates for now.  I am committed to writing more about I-LEARN and how it is a most awesome tool for building course guides, learning modules, and all sorts of instructional materials, so watch for that soon!

One Post a Year

As I have not posted anything in nearly a year (how did that happen!), here are a few updates.

My interests have moved more to information literacy instruction, though I am in the middle of a few learning space projects here.  I still post links to articles about learning spaces, interesting new spaces (have you seen this?), and other commons-related things to Twitter

As far as school, I passed my qualifying exam in April, and my dissertation proposal was approved in November. My research involves instructional design for information literacy instruction, and I begin data collection this month.  I hope to defend at the end of the year, which should leave me more time for picking up the blog again!

Happy New Year, and thanks for reading!

What Happened to the Uncommon Commons?

I had someone ask me about my blog recently, and after I noticed that it's been five months since I posted anything, I figured I should write something--if only for myself to make a mostly dead blog look a little better.  Ironically I have tons of projects going on in my new (well, still seems new to me) job, with school, and for SLA that would make for interesting and perhaps useful posts.  I've made several commons visits in the last few months and have much I could report.

However, I am just nine weeks away from my doctoral qualifying exam, so writing about all of those projects will have to wait.  I am hopeful that I can pick things up in the summer again.  Until then, I do post fairly regular items of possible interest on Twitter.  Thanks for reading!

Changes for the Uncommon Commons

This month I was appointed the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research at the University of Kentucky Libraries. This is an exciting new position which includes administrative responsibility for all of the public services based in the William T. Young Library as well as nine branch locations. I will have significant planning, budgeting, and development responsibilities, as well as the opportunity to develop new partnerships and initiatives and create an overall vision for library public services with a terrific team.

As a result, I am no longer managing the information commons, though it is a part of the Academic Affairs and Research division. My last hurrah in the Hub will be our annual Hubbub party next week (see 2009, 2008, 2007). At some point I will post a summary of Hubbub #4 with suggestions for future library welcome events.

What will happen to this blog? While I doubt that I will write very often, I do plan to continue sharing stories about library spaces and services, both commons-specific and beyond. I expect you will see me more often on Twitter, sharing articles and other tidbits of interest. But don't unsubscribe just yet. Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year!

Another year has passed. This blog is now two and a half years old, and I have been managing the Hub, the University of Kentucky's Information Commons, for nearly three. While I am posting less, I am Twittering more (@staceygreenwell). Between my doctoral program, a more-than-full-time job, lots of varied campus interests, and a new obsession with Pure Barre during the disc golf off-season (last year it was Zumba), it is much easier to share a link and a sentence about something interesting than write a few paragraphs about it. I still love this little blog and plan to keep on writing, particularly when I have something worthy of a longer post.

Here were a few of this blog's most popular posts in 2009:

• Projected Floor Signs
• SLA Academic Division is Official
• Hubbub 2009: Third Time's a Charm
• The Computer Lab of the Future

I had a terrific 2009, and I hope you did, too. Definitely one of the high points was getting to know my Frye class--you guys are great! I did not win the SLA election, but it was a valuable experience, and I met a lot of interesting people along the way. I also got to present at several library and IT conferences which is something I really enjoy.

I wish you all a happy, fulfilling, and prosperous new year. Thanks for reading, and here's to 2010!

Who's Reading?

After writing this blog for over two years, I do wonder who's reading. I look at my stats of course, and get the occasional comment, but it's still interesting to ponder who's out there. Today I was notified that this blog was selected as one of the best 100 blogs for school librarians, so I guess someone out there must find my posts helpful.

I mentioned before that I'll be attending the ALA Annual Conference this weekend. Any readers in the area, please stop by the poster sessions on Sunday and say hi!

5 Tips for the Best Blog Posts

I don't like blog posts apologizing for why someone isn't blogging. Most likely I'm too busy to have missed you in my aggregator anyway so why draw attention to it?

It is true that I've been busy lately and have not had much time to write. I do only try to write posts that are interesting and helpful, so I especially appreciated Penelope Trunk's five tips for writing a blog post people love. Start strong, be short, be passionate, and more. Read the whole post.

Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day recognizing Ada Lovelace, one of the world's first computer programmers, and a day where bloggers draw attention to women excelling in technology:

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.

To participate in Ada Lovelace Day, a blogger should sign the pledge, then post today, March 24, about a woman working in technology. I know it's getting late, but consider writing today about a woman who has influenced you.

I am so honored and thrilled that my friend and colleague Alex Grigg has recognized me today. Thank you, Alex!

Update: OK, I blogged too soon. I should recognize two more dear colleagues today: Catherine Lavallée-Welch, my inspiration for starting a blog in the first place, and Sarah Glassmeyer, Web 2.0 law librarian extraordinaire. Thank you!

Presentations, etc.

I tend to avoid personal posts, but I have a few things to share that may be of interest to some readers. I have updated my short vita page to list upcoming presentations. Among those, I will soon be headed to the Library Technology Conference at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN to give a keynote presentation on information commons and a session on using video creatively in your library. This really looks like an outstanding conference, and I am so excited to be a part of it. If any readers are attending, please be sure to say hello.

In other professional news, I am running for SLA's Board of Directors for the position of Division Cabinet Chair-Elect. I have been heavily involved with the IT division of SLA since joining the organization, and last year I led the petition drive to launch the brand-new Academic Division of SLA. I am also serving on the SLA Centennial Commission and Annual Conference Planning Committee. I know I have written about this previously, but if any of you are curious about SLA (or perhaps don't think of yourself as "special"), get in touch. I would love to tell you more about my professional organization.

Finally, I am delighted that the Frye Leadership Institute class of 2009 has just been announced. I am so thrilled to be part of such an esteemed group. If any readers are past or current Fryers, give me a shout.

What a busy year this is becoming, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

Other Blogs on the Commons?

So I've noticed lately that more and more of my blog traffic is coming from searches such as "information commons librarian blog." That got me wondering if there are others blogging specifically about the information/learning/research commons environment--readings, best practices, commentary, etc. Could I be the only game in town?

Please comment if you know of other blogs focused on the commons environment. Thanks!

More Blog Tinkering

On a cold and dreary Sunday morning, I have once again felt the urge to tinker with this blog's layout. This time I have added and rearranged some sidebar items. I added some links to make subscribing easier, including subscribing to the comments feed. I also added the option to subscribe via email. While this option does not appeal to me personally, I thought it might be useful for those of you who aren't into RSS yet (you're welcome, James).

In addition, I've listed other blogs where I contribute occasionally, including the recently launched Translational Technologies. I expect that list of blogs will grow, as the new Academic Division of SLA will be blogging soon, among other exciting things (contact me if you want to learn more about what's happening with SLA Academic).

New Blog on IT in Higher Education

Since I moved from an IT support position into the commons, I have continued to remain engaged with IT issues in higher education. I post about some of those issues here, particularly as they pertain to the commons, and I will continue to do so.

Recently I have been working with a colleague on a couple of presentations and an article focused on the drastic changes ahead for IT on campus. As this is such a significant and important discussion, we decided to launch a blog related to these issues. From funding to consumer technologies to cloud computing to changing student needs and attitudes, we know that the IT organization will evolve into something different. We are already seeing it with partnerships such as the information commons and the merging of library and IT support into one integrated service to better meet student needs. We see these changes and many more ahead and plan to share our observations as well as important reading. If higher education IT is of interest to you, consider subscribing to our blog, Translational Technologies.

New Blog Design

Probably 99% of you never look at my blog directly but read my posts through your RSS aggregator of choice. I don't blame you--I do the same, and certainly my little Blogger blog design isn't worth writing home about. After what shall be known as the my blog fiasco of 2008, I decided to tinker with Blogger templates a bit and just put together this new look. Go ahead, look now. I'll wait. Seriously, if you have any comments I'd appreciate them (other than the obvious "get with the program and design your own template"). Maybe one of these days...

Blogging Woes

So I pay attention to my blog's stats regularly via Stat Counter and Google Analytics. I occasionally check out my Technorati rating. But for some reason, it did not occur to me to periodically search for my blog. I happened to search for it last night and realized it wasn't indexed by Google. At all.

OK, that's pretty strange. So I started looking in my code and found some meta tags that were set to no indexing. Huh? Why would anyone have a blog and not want it indexed? What would be the point?

Best I can figure, the bad code came from a free third-party template I had been using. So I quickly chucked the whole template to be safe and went back to one of the simple Blogger templates. I figure I'll stay with that until I have more time to devote to the project.

Now I know that the real answer here should be to abandon Blogger entirely, set up WordPress, and actually host the blog from my domain (www.staceygreenwell.com) instead of simply redirecting. I also know I should invest in a real template, something more professional looking. I know enough about style sheets that I could probably design something myself that didn't look too terrible. I'm not sure when I will have time for all of that.

In the meantime, dear readers, I'm glad you found me. You probably didn't via a search engine! And if you weren't already, do a search periodically for your blog/website. Otherwise you might be as lost as I was.

I'd better wrap this up. My husband has pointed out that I have spent entirely too much time on my blog today. The parade is still sitting on the Tivo, unwatched, and I have sweet potatoes to peel. But I did want to share this with you, dear readers, so that such a thing might never happen to you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kentucky Librarians Blogging

Last week I attended the Kentucky Convergence Conference. This has become one of my favorite area conferences as it is focused on higher education IT, instructional technologies, and libraries. The programming is similar to what yo might find at an EDUCAUSE conference, albeit on a much smaller scale. I think Convergence is one of the best conferences for higher ed in the state and would like to see more librarians participate.

Anyway, at the conference I was talking with a few librarians from another institution and realized that I have no idea who blogs at other Kentucky schools. I'd be interested in following all the blogs of my higher ed or library colleagues. But since we really aren't well-known bloggers, it can be hard to find us. I realized that I could only name a few Kentucky bloggers, but I know there must be many of us.

So with that in mind, I've created a wiki of Kentucky Library-Related Blogs. Please add to the wiki and encourage others to do so. Thanks!

The Best Intentions

I attended two conferences this month. Since that time, I've been ignoring the folder on my desktop labeled "things to blog." If I learned one thing this year, it is that taking a small laptop to conferences encourages me to take a lot of notes in every session I attend. I'm not one who can blog live, nor do I want to devote valuable conference time on my laptop constructing readable blog posts. So the folder lingers on my desktop--day after day I think I'll look through the notes and start putting together some posts.

I've finally reached the point that I know it's not going to happen. So let me just say that both the KLA/KSMA/SELA/ARL NDLC Conference and the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting were excellent. I took notes on a number of sessions and had planned to blog several of them, but I've finally accepted that I really don't have time to blog any of them. Here are two I had to at least say something about:

Gaming and Learning: While Screen Time Can Be Well Spent with Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor Library District. Outstanding session, would love to see him back in Kentucky for another. Even though I'm not blogging this, here are a few notes I just had to share anyway:

• Average age of gamers is 34
• 25% of gamers are over 50
• Games outsold DVDs and music in 2007 media sales. Interesting note: books 27%, games 26% of media sales.
  
• Learning to read with Pokemon is not a bad idea: game contains 20,000 lines of text which is a huge motivator for learning to read!
• Study of surgeons at Beth Israel hospital: surgeons who are gamers had 37% fewer mistakes and performed procedures 27% faster than non-gaming surgeons

An Uncommon Learning Space with Rae Helton, University of Louisville.

This was of course a must-attend for me. While Kentucky is a small state and I knew a little about their commons project already, I enjoyed learning about U of L's planning process. I was particularly interested in their Digital Media Suite, the latest addition to the U of L Learning Commons (literally--it had just opened that Tuesday). The Digital Media Suite is a collaborative effort by multiple campus partners which offers support and equipment to create and edit audio and video files. In the presentation, she even showed us a promotional video created by students who work in the Digital Media Suite. Very cool!

Using Facebook to Promote Your Blog

A week or so ago, I installed the Blog Networks Facebook application and set up a page for this blog. The setup is pretty simple and relies somewhat on input from others. For example, I had to get ten people to confirm that I was the owner of this blog before I could be listed as the author. After I got fifteen fans, the page started pulling my blog's RSS feed. Once I get twenty fans, I'll start seeing statistics as to where my blog is most popular, etc. It's a neat little app, I suppose--just one more way to promote your blog. I like that I can use it to explore other blogs, particularly blogs that friends or "fans" write which might be new to me.

As a second way to promote my blog on Facebook, today I set up a Facebook Page for this blog. I have no idea how useful that might be, but I thought it would be interesting to compare the Blog Networks page and the Facebook Page. I'll watch for a few weeks and write up my observations.

Happy Birthday, Uncommon Commons!

So it's hard to believe I launched this blog one year ago. So much has happened in the past year, and it has gone by so quickly. I am glad I started this blog--for a few years prior, I was a regular contributor on some SLA blogs, but it's not the same as having your own space to share ideas.

Thinking of starting your own blog? What better time than now.

What's with the cake, you might ask. I bake and decorate a cake for my sister's birthday every year, some quite elaborate. This one was a simple one: Yoshi from Mario Kart.

Thanks for reading for the past year. I've got many more posts planned, such as an update on our next Hubbub party, an account of how we are creating a new online tutorial, and much more.

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!