This is part 2 in a series of managing iPads in the library. Part 1 (about the physical process of maintaining devices) was posted back in August. Part 3 (how to manage the software aspect of your devices) will come out next month. If you’re going to offer iPad services to your patrons—either as a part of programming/instruction or as items they can check out and take home—you’re going to want some way to get apps in bulk. If you’re only looking at free apps then you’ll want to wait for the next post where I talk about how to get apps onto devices. But if you’re going to use pay apps (which is really what you want to do, right?) then read on. You could set up each iPad individually and add a credit card/gift card to each one and buy apps as you needed them. That might not be…
Category: General information
Creative Commons Crash Course, a LITA webinar
Attend this interesting and useful LITA webinar: Creative Commons Crash Course Wednesday, October 7, 2015 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm Central Time Register Online, page arranged by session date (login required) Since the first versions were released in 2002, Creative Commons licenses have become an important part of the copyright landscape, particularly for organizations that are interested in freely sharing information and materials. Participants in this 90 minute webinar will learn about the current Creative Commons licenses and how they relate to copyright law. This webinar will follow up on Carli Spina’s highly popular Ignite Session at the 2015 ALA Mid Winter conference. Carli will explain how to find materials that are Creative Commons-licensed, how to appropriately use such items and how to apply Creative Commons licenses to newly created materials. It will also include demonstrations of some important tools that make use of Creative Commons-licensed media. This program will…
To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Scholarly Engagement and Twitter
I’ve been thinking a lot about scholarly engagement on Twitter lately, especially after reading Bonnie Stewart‘s latest blog post, “The morning after we all became social media gurus.” Based on her research and writing for her thesis, she weighs exactly what we as academic librarians and LIS professionals are getting out of digital scholarly engagement and how we measure that influence in terms of metrics. I’d like to unpack this topic a bit and open it up to a wider reader discussion in the comments section, after the jump!
Teaching Patrons About Privacy, a LITA webinar
Attend this important new LITA webinar: Teaching Patrons about Privacy in a World of Pervasive Surveillance: Lessons from the Library Freedom Project Tuesday October 6, 2015 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm Central Time Register Online, page arranged by session date (login required) In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA and FBI dragnet surveillance, Alison Macrina started the Library Freedom Project as a way to teach other librarians about surveillance, privacy rights, and technology tools that protect privacy. In this 90 minute webinar, she’ll talk about the landscape of surveillance, the work of the LFP, and some strategies you can use to protect yourself and your patrons online. Administrators, instructors, librarians and library staff of all shapes and sizes will learn about the important work of the Library Freedom Project and how they can help their patrons. Alison’s work for the Library Freedom Project and classes for patrons including…
Understanding Creative Commons Licensing
Creative Commons (CC) is a public copyright license. What does this mean? It means it allows for free distribution of work that would otherwise be under copyright, providing open access to users. Creative Commons licensing provides both gratis OA licensing and libre OA licensing (terms coined by Peter Suber). Gratis OA is free to use, libre OA is free to use and free to modify. How does CC licensing benefit the artist? Well, it allows more flexibility with what they can allow others to do with their work. How does it benefit the user? As a user, you are protected from copyright infringement, as long as you follow the CC license conditions. CC licenses: in a nutshell with examples BY – attribution | SA – share alike | NC – non-commercial | ND – no derivs CC0 – creative commons zero license means this work is in the public domain and you can do…
September Library Tech Roundup
Each month, the LITA bloggers share selected library tech links, resources, and ideas that resonated with us. Enjoy – and don’t hesitate to tell us what piqued your interest recently in the comments section!
A Linked Data Journey: Introduction
retrieved from Wikipedia, created by Anja Jentzsch and Richard Cyganiak Introduction Linked data. It’s one of the hottest topics in the library community. But what is it really? What does it look like? How will it help? In this series I will seek to demystify the concept and present practical examples and use-cases. Some of the topics I will touch on are: The basics Tools for implementing linked data Interviews with linked data practitioners What can you do to prepare? In this part one of the series I will give a brief explanation of linked data; then I will attempt to capture your interest by highlighting how linked data can enhance a variety of library services, including cataloging, digital libraries, scholarly data, and reference. What is Linked Data? I’m not going to go into the technical detail of linked data, as that isn’t the purpose of this post. If you’re…
Personal Digital Archiving – a new LITA web course
Check out the latest LITA web course: Personal Digital Archiving for Librarians Instructor: Melody Condron, Resource Management Coordinator at the University of Houston Libraries. Offered: October 6 – November 11, 2015 A Moodle based web course with asynchronous weekly content lessons, tutorials, assignments, and group discussion. Register Online, page arranged by session date (login required) Most of us are leading very digital lives. Bank statements, interaction with friends, and photos of your dog are all digital. Even as librarians who value preservation, few of us organize our digital personal lives, let alone back it up or make plans for it. Participants in this 4 week online class will learn how to organize and manage their digital selves. Further, as librarians participants can use what they learn to advocate for better personal data management in others. ‘Train-the-trainer’ resources will be available so that librarians can share these tools and practices with students…
Putting Pen to Paper
Back in January, The Atlantic ran an article on a new device being used at the Cooper Hewitt design museum in New York City. This device allows museum visitors to become curators of their own collections, saving information about exhibits to their own special account they can access via computer after they leave. This device is called a pen; Robinson Meyer, the article’s author, likens it to a “gray plastic crayon the size of a turkey baster”. I think it’s more like a magic wand. Not only can you use the pen to save information you think is cool, you can also interact with the museum at large: in the Immersion Room, for example, you can draw a design with your pen and watch it spring to life on the walls around you. In the Process Lab, you use the pen to solve real-life design problems. As Meyer puts it,…
My Capacity: What Can I Do and What Can I Do Well?
I like to take on a lot of projects. I love seeing projects come to fruition, and I want to provide the best possible services for my campus community. I think the work we do as librarians is important work. As I’ve taken on more responsibilities in my current job though I’ve learned I can’t do everything. I have had to reevaluate the number of things I can accomplish and projects I can support. Libraries come in all different shapes and sizes. I happen to work at a small library. We are a small staff—3 professional librarians including the director, 2 full-time staff, 1 part-time staff member, and around 10 student workers. I think we do amazing things at my place of employment, but I know we can’t do everything. I would love to be able to do some of the projects I see staff at larger universities working on,…