*Photo taken from Flickr w/Attribution CC License: http://bit.ly/1UnoxIN Many institutions have seen the rise of makerspaces within their libraries, but it’s still difficult to get a sense of how embedded they truly are within the academic fabric of their campuses and how they contribute to student learning. Libraries have undergone significant changes in the last five years, shifting from repositories to learning spaces, from places to experiences. It is within these new directions that the makerspace movement has risen to the forefront and begun to pave the way for truly transformative thinking and doing. Educause defines a makerspace as “a physical location where people gather to share resources and knowledge, work on projects, network, and build” (ELI 2013). These types of spaces are being embraced by the arts as well as the sciences and are quickly being adopted by the academic community because “much of the value of a…
Year: 2015
Get Involved in the National Digital Platform for Libraries
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Emily Reynolds and Trevor Owens. Recently IMLS has increased its focus on funding digital library projects through the lens of our National Digital Platform strategic priority area. The National Digital Platform is the combination of software applications, social and technical infrastructure, and staff expertise that provides library content and services to all users in the U.S… in other words, it’s the work many LITA members are already doing! As libraries increasingly use digital infrastructure to provide access to digital content and resources, there are more and more opportunities for collaboration around the tools and services that they use to meet their users’ needs. It is possible for each library in the country to leverage and benefit from the work of other libraries in shared digital services, systems, and infrastructure. We’re looking at ways to maximize the impact of our funds by encouraging…
Jobs in Information Technology: September 2, 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: Head Librarian, Science Library and Director of Scholarly Communications, Princeton University, Princeton,NJ Sales Representative, Backstage Library Works, Midwest Region Analyst Programmer III, Oregon State University Libraries & Press, Corvallis, OR Web Product Manager and Usability Specialist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Interlibrary Loan/Reference Librarian, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA Health Sciences Librarian, Asst or Assoc Professor, SIU Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL University Archivist, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC Visit the LITA Job Site for more available jobs and for information on submitting a job posting.
The Case for Open Tools in Pedagogy
Academic libraries support certain software by virtue of what they have available on their public computers, what their librarians are trained to use, and what instruction sessions they offer. Sometimes libraries don’t have a choice in the software they are tasked with supporting, but often they do. If the goal of the software support is to simply help students achieve success in the short term, then any software that the library already has a license for is fair game. If the goal is to teach them a tool they can rely on anywhere, then libraries must consider the impact of choosing open tools over commercial ones. Suppose we have a student, we’ll call them “Student A”, who wants to learn about citation management. They see a workshop on EndNote, a popular piece of citation management software, and they decide to attend. Student A becomes enamored with EndNote and continues to grow their skills with it…
August Library Tech Roundup
Each month, the LITA bloggers will 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! Brianna M. Here are some of the things that caught my eye this month, mostly related to digital scholarship. Yasmeen Shorish unpacked data-related roles in the library. Thomas Padilla gave practical ideas for undertaking text analysis projects. I’m intrigued by the NCSU Libraries Social Media Archiving Toolkit. DH + Lib shared a cool CFP from the Journal of Open Humanities Data. I enjoyed CRL‘s webinar on text mining tools in the social sciences and humanities. John K. Jason Griffey gives us an overview of Carbon 3D who uses ‘stereolithography’ technology in 3D printing I’m a sucker for to-do lists and Bullet Journaling might be the ultimate to-do list! David Lee King has a round-up of…
Jobs in Information Technology: August 26, 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: Librarian for Health Sciences, Old Dominion University Perry Library, Norfolk, VAHead of Systems Development, Old Dominion University Perry Library, Norfolk, VA Huck Chair, and Head of Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Special Collections, University Park, PA Senior Library Manager – Olympia, Timberland Regional Library, Olympia, WA Technology and Content Strategy Manager (Librarian III), Suffolk Public Library, Suffolk, VA Visit the LITA Job Site for more available jobs and for information on submitting a job posting.
iPads in the Library
Getting Started/Setting Things Up Several years ago we added twenty iPad 2s to use in our children’s and teen programming. They have a variety of apps on them ranging from early literacy and math apps to Garage Band and iMovie to Minecraft and Clash of Clans*. Ten of the iPads are geared towards younger kids and ten are slanted towards teen interests. Not surprisingly, the iPads were very popular when we first acquired them. We treated app selection as an extension of our collection development policy. Both the Children’s and Adult Services departments have a staff iPad they can use to try out apps before adding them to the programming iPads. We bought a cart from Spectrum Industries (a WI-based company; we also have several laptop carts from them) so that we had a place to house and charge the devices. The cart has space for forty iPads/tablets total. We use an…
Jobs in Information Technology: August 19, 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: Coal and Coke Heritage Center Archivist, Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Fayette Campus, Uniontown, PA Head, Library Systems, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV Program Director, Resource Acquisitions and Discovery, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN Director, Library Technology and Digital Strategies, Emory University, Atlanta, GA Chair, Libraries Information Technology, University of Florida/George A. Smathers Libraries, Gainesville, FL Visit the LITA Job Site for more available jobs and for information on submitting a job posting.
Attend the 2015 LITA Forum
Don’t Miss the 2015 LITA Forum Minneapolis, MN November 12-15, 2015 Registration is Now Open! 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. It’s the 18th annual gathering of the highly regarded LITA Forum for technology-minded information professionals. Meet with your colleagues involved in new and leading edge technologies in the library and information technology field. Registration is limited in order to preserve the important networking advantages of a smaller conference. Attendees take advantage of the informal Friday evening reception, networking dinners and other social opportunities to get to know colleagues and speakers. Keynote Speakers: Mx A. Matienzo, Director of Technology for the Digital Public Library of America Carson Block, Carson Block Consulting…
Interacting with Patrons Through Their Mobile Devices
Mobile technologies, specifically smartphones, have become a peripheral appendage to our everyday experience. We often see individuals oblivious to current surroundings exhibiting dedicated attention to their mobile devices. This behavior is often viewed in a negative light; however, with the level of global media engagement people are able to achieve with these devices, it can be hard to blame them. The ability to participate in social media, sending quick messages to friends, listen to music, watch videos, surfing the web, fact check information, or even read a great book, is all right in your hand. When attempting to interact with patrons through technology, utilizing their familiarity with their mobile device can help to achieve a more positive experience. This is when “Let’s build an app” is often reverberated. Although that is a great idea, it is a complex development process and there are a number of ways to achieve interactive…