2008
Nov
12

Swings and Roundabouts

By Hilary Davis “If where our scientists are and how they work is fundamentally changing, doesn’t that fundamentally change how we support them?” (Luce, 2008 – audio | slides) A major change to our profession is afoot. Well, more than afoot – the “E-science” ship has sailed and has some major momentum behind it, but...
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2008
Nov
05

Sticking it to Instruction

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath By Ellie Collier I always feel the need to preface my praise for this book with a little background. I’ve read a slew of best sellers on behavior. I started when a friend was raving about Malcolm Gladwell. I...
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2008
Oct
29

Pro-Con-ference

By Derik Badman Earlier this month, I presented at a one-day conference. Everything happened ordinarily. My submission of an abstract was accepted and I was scheduled in a session with two other presenters. Preparing for the presentation, I worked up my outline, gathered images, and put my slides together. The night before, I practiced my...
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2008
Oct
22

Google, stupidity, and libraries

By Kim Leeder As a teenager, I never tried drugs because I didn’t like the idea of any substance affecting the processes of my brain. It never occurred to me that the long hours I spend working, reading, and researching in front of a computer could have a similar effect. Recently I found out that...
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2008
Oct
15

On the ALA Membership Pyramid

“…i [sic] only renew [my ALA membership] out of a sense of professional obligation, and also because of the fear that i’ll [sic] put it on my resume and get busted as not being a member.” –c-dog By Emily Ford Membership in the American Library Association means professionals are bound together by the tenets of...
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2008
Oct
08

What Happens in the Library…

By Brett Bonfield In 1968, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, a couple of newlywed architects, had the humility to laugh with Las Vegas rather than at it. A few years earlier, Tom Wolfe had written, Las Vegas has become, just as Bugsy Siegel dreamed, the American Monte Carlo-without any of the inevitable upper-class baggage...
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