More Kudos to Colleagues

It's been a busy day for announcements of awards and honors. The candidates for SLA Board of Directors have just been announced. I'm so pleased to report that not one, but two current IT Division Board members are running for SLA Board of Directors:

Holly Chong-Williams, a past chair and 2008 IT Program Planner, is running for Division Cabinet Chair-Elect.

Michael Kim, IT Secretary, is running for one of the Director positions.

The complete list of candidates:

For President-elect:

• Janice C. Anderson, Access Sciences Corporation, Houston, Texas
• Anne Caputo, Dow Jones & Company, Washington, D.C.

For Chapter Cabinet Chair-elect:

• Cynthia Barrancotto, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, Houston, Texas
• Ruth Wolfish, IEEE, Piscataway, New Jersey

For Division Cabinet Chair-elect:

• Holly Chong-Williams, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, Virginia
• Ann Sweeney, European Union - European Commission Delegation, Washington, D.C.

For Director (Two to be elected):

• Jessica Baumgart, Renesys, Manchester, New Hampshire
• Michael Kim, University of Miami Library, Coral Gables, Florida
• Daniel Lee, Navigator Ltd, Toronto, Ontario
• Nettie Seaberry, National Minority Supplier Development Council, New York City

Congratulations to all the candidates!

They're Going to Disneyland!

I'm so pleased to report that not one, but three colleagues here at the University of Kentucky Libraries have been recognized by ALA:

Dean Carol Pitts Diedrichs has won the Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award. A number of us have commented that she seems too young for a lifetime achievement award. (And no, I'm not just saying that to get in good with the boss.) We are very proud of her efforts and are delighted she has been recognized with this prestigious honor. A few words from the press release:

The ultimate practitioner/scholar, Diedrichs has written and spoken extensively on issues in acquisitions, serials, electronic resources, preservation, collection development, technical services organization and scholarly communication. She served for more than a decade as the editor-in-chief of Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, one of the premier peer-reviewed journals in the field. With colleague Trisha Davis, she developed the first Web-based course, Fundamentals of Acquisitions, offered by ALCTS, for which she was honored with an ALCTS Presidential Citation. Through her publications, presentations, committee assignments and consultancies, she has significantly influenced best practice in the rapidly changing fields of collections and acquisitions.

Becky Ryder, Head of Preservation, has won the first ever LBI George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Preservation Award. In addition to her outstanding, internationally recognized work in preservation, Becky is also a great traveling companion (Ecuador '06--woo!). An excerpt from the press release:

With her expertise in preservation microfilming efforts, she has readily moved that expertise into the digital environment. For 12 years she was project director of the SOLINET/ASERL cooperative microfilming projects. Ms. Ryder also has served as project co-manager of “Beyond the Shelf: Serving Historic Kentuckiana Through Virtual Access,” through which 2,700 titles serving as the premier representation of Kentucky history are available through the Kentucky Virtual Library. She has been an integral part of the University of Kentucky National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) team, since the inception of the program in 2005. Taking lessons learned from NDNP, she and her institutional colleagues developed the “Meta - Morphosis” conference to share approaches in converting early newspapers on microfilm and preserving the resulting digital content. Ryder's work with the Keenland Racetrack Library on a hybrid microfilm/digital project makes available a keyword searchable digital archive of the Triple Crown race coverage, while preserving the physical volumes and addressing long-term storage of the digital files.

Finally, I am especially delighted that my colleague here at the Hub, Alice Wasielewski, has won an ALA/EBSCO Conference Sponsorship to attend the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. The award provides up to $1000 to reimburse expenses to attend the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. Only ten applicants are selected annually for this competitive national award. Alice has been an essential part of the Hub team since opening day in early 2007. This award is well-deserved, and I am so happy for her.

Congratulations you all!

Blue 2.0: Play Week

What fun would Blue 2.0 be without a little playing? This week's module is Play Week. Even if you aren't a UK Blue 2.0 participant, I encourage you to check out our long list of fun and useful technologies that are worth knowing about and giving a try.

Just a few thoughts on the list:

The label generators are terrific for creating images for presentations. Slideshare is useful for distributing them.

I've used Rollyo for personal purposes--great for shopping multiple websites at once! It does have other non-shopping-related uses as well...

Second Life--I've said a lot about it already.

Everyone should clone themselves at least once--whether a Simpson or a Mee.

Technorati is a good site for looking for blog content. Plus you can favorite the blogs you enjoy!

I'm an Omnivore

I don't usually do the meme thing on my blog, but after reading my colleague Sarah's post, I decided to jump in. Upon completing the Pew Internet & American Life Internet Typology test, I learned that I'm an omnivore:

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

Initially I was surprised that this group is mostly male (70%). Then again, when I think about all the years I've worked in IT, it's really not so surprising. I can't begin to count the number of IT meetings I've attended on campus where there were only two or three women in an auditorium full of guys. I've been out of school for almost ten years (a scary thought--which also makes it obvious that I am slightly over the median age). During that time I haven't noticed a significant increase in women in IT, but maybe that will change as the millennials continue to join us in the workplace.

Anyway, take the test and see where you fit.

Blue 2.0: del.icio.us and Google Docs

Okay, I've also been a Big Blue Slacker lately. I'll chalk it up to an especially busy couple of weeks at work, the weather, or maybe even the Blue 2.0 Happy Hour last night. Foolishly one of our participants captured some of the evening's festivities on his camera--I guess he's thinking he'll get credit for that during Weeks 9&10: Photos, Video, and Podcasting. Fat chance.

Anyway, my thoughts on this module's activities:

del.ici.ous
I set up a del.icio.us account some time ago and had forgotten about it. I'm glad we did a module on it, as it reminded me how useful social bookmarking sites can be. It also reminded me that I really needed to import my current bookmarks into my del.icio.us account.

Google Docs
I've seen this sentiment expressed on other Blue 2.0 blogs but it bears repeating. For on-campus collaborations, I prefer SharePoint (hey Beth--bet you didn't expect me to say that ;-) I've used Google Docs a few times in the past, and it is terrific for off-campus collaborations. I've used it for several SLA activities and will likely use it again for that purpose in the future.

Popular Posts on the Information Commons

Since I have picked up some new readers over the last couple of months, I thought it might be good to recap a few frequently read posts about my experiences at the Hub, the information commons at the University of Kentucky. I wrote all of these posts in the hope that they would be helpful to others--I attempted to cover what has worked for us, what didn't work so well, what I might do differently next time, and so forth. I also tried to include as many pictures as possible. Enjoy!

The Hubbub
This was our first big party to welcome students to campus and introduce students to the library and to the Hub. I've already started planning the second one and will be posting more about it in the coming months. In the meantime, here's a recap of the 2007 Hubbub:

Part One: Planning Activities
Part Two: Publicity
Part Three: Staffing

Video Windows
One of the most visually striking things about our space (besides the grandeur of the Young Library) is our video windows art display. My post on the video windows includes a number of elements: our design process, early exhibits, staffing, publicity, future plans. (Incidentally, the blog companion to one of our first video windows exhibits was featured on BoingBoing.)

Unusual Service Desks
Our service desks have gotten a fair amount of attention. I've answered a number of emails from colleagues around the world about the desks, so I thought it might be a good idea to create a post focused on the desks: why we chose them, how they've worked for us, future plans.

I Facebooked Your Mom

I love this campaign the University of Kentucky Law Library has started to advertise their Facebook Page to students. Thanks to my colleague, Sarah, for sharing!

Integrating Pieces of the Cloud

Between recently finishing reading The Big Switch and the 2008 Horizon Report, I've been thinking a great deal about the future of computing, particularly how social tools will evolve. How do we connect disparate pieces of data--email and calendar data, bookmarks and RSS subscriptions, photos and video, presentations and papers, social networking data--and integrate them into a useful, organized body? I've just started collecting tools in this area (and have a great deal more to say on the subject) but I wanted to go ahead and start sharing a few:

Twine
My Facebook friend Sarah was featured in this New York Times article about Twine, a new online application that organizes content you select by tagging it with a consistent vocabulary. So those websites and feeds and notes you collect over time and think "oh, I'll look at that later"--those could be much easier to find. Unfortunately Twine isn't open to everyone yet, but stay tuned.

Xobni
I am excited about Xobni (and would like to be part of the beta). Basically, Xobni (it's Inbox backwards) takes Outlook data and organizes it for maximum productivity--threading conversations, pulling phone numbers from emails, offering an enhanced search interface, and most importantly, creating a social network among your contacts by mapping relationships. Maybe a Linked In -type app for Outlook? I'm intrigued. Read more.

OutSync
OutSync synchronizes Facebook photos with your Exchange contacts. At this point that's all it does, but it is cool to see a Facebook photo pop up on an incoming phone call or email. More importantly, it is representative of the increasing trend to bring together content from disparate sources.