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…
Year: 2015
Jobs in Information Technology: September 30, 2015
New vacancy listings are posted weekly on Wednesday at approximately 12 noon Central Time. They appear under New This Week and under the appropriate regional listing. Postings remain on the LITA Job Site for a minimum of four weeks. New This Week: Reference and Research Specialist, WilmerHale, Boston, MA Lead Developer, Requisition # 1500793, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ IT Technology Specialist, Mead Public Library, Sheboygan, WI Director of Library Systems, University Library, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA Collection Development and Digital Resource Management Librarian, Penn State University Libraries, Hershey Campus, Hershey, PA Reference and Instruction Librarian, Penn State University Libraries, Brandywine Campus, Philadelphia, PA Visit the LITA Job Site for more available jobs and for information on submitting a job posting.
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!
It’s a Brave New Workplace
LITA Blog Readers, I’ve got a new job. For the past month I’ve been getting my sea legs at the University of Houston’s M.D. Anderson Library. As CORC (Coordinator of Online Resources and Collections), my job is supporting data-driven collection decisions and processes. I know, it’s way cool. I have come to realize that the most challenging aspect of adapting to a new workplace may well be learning new technologies and adjusting to familiar technologies used in slightly different ways. I’m text mining my own notes for clues and asking a ton of questions, but switching from Trello to Basecamp has been rough. No, let’s be honest, the most challenging thing has been navigating the throngs of undergrads on a crowded campus. Before working remotely for years, I worked at small nonprofits, graduated from a teeny, tiny liberal arts college, and grew up in a not-big Midwestern town. You may…
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…
Triaging Technologies
I manage digital services and resources at a small academic library with minimal financial and human resources available. For almost a year, I served as solo librarian for fixing and optimizing the library website, library services platform, electronic resources, workflows, documentation, and other elements of technology management vital to back-end operations and front-end services. Coping with practical limitations and a vast array of responsibilities, I resorted to triage. In triage management, the primary consideration is return on investment (ROI) – how stakeholder benefits measure against time and resources expended to realize those benefits. Condition Black: The technology must be replaced or phased out because it is dysfunctional and impossible to fix. Into this category fell our website, built with the clunky and unusable Microsoft SharePoint; our laptops running Windows XP and too old to upgrade to a more current operating system; and our technology lending service, for which we had no funds to upgrade the dated technologies on offer. Down the…
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…
LITA Forum early bird rates end soon
LITA and LLAMA Members There’s still time to register for the 2015 LITA Forum at the early bird rate and save $50 Minneapolis, MN November 12-15, 2015 LITA Forum early bird rates end September 30, 2015 Register Now! Join us in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis for the 2015 LITA Forum, a three-day education and networking event featuring 2 preconferences, 3 keynote sessions, more than 55 concurrent sessions and 15 poster presentations. This year including content and planning collaboration with LLAMA. Why attend the LITA Forum Check out the report from Melissa Johnson. It details her experience as an attendee, a volunteer, and a presenter. This year, she’s on the planning committee and attending. Melissa says most people don’t know is how action-packed and seriously awesome this years LITA Forum is going to be. Register now to receive the LITA and LLAMA members early bird discount: LITA…
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!