Skip to content


Keeping Up

I had the opportunity to record a short podcast for Palinet this week. Since you can’t provide easy links in a podcast I am blogging the links for anyone who might find them useful.
We called the podcast “6 tips for keeping up with library change”.
My key tip was to find short periods of 10-15 minutes to learn continuously. I follow the 3 “F’s”: Find, Filter and Flow. Find places and tools that let’s learning opportunities flow over you. Then develop personal filters to separate what needs to be learned.
Here’s six ways to do that:
1. Subscribe to Bloglines and download the ‘sub with Bloglines’ bookmarklet. You’ll start by learning Bloglines and also learn about bookmarklets. There’s no excuse to be visting bookmarked blogs anymore. It’s a time watster. Then subscribe to your favorite blogs and the key library blogs like Steven Cohen’s Library Stuff, Jenny Levine’s Shifted Librarian, Blake Carver’s LIS News, Michael Stephen’s Tame the Web, Gary Price’s ResourceShelf, Michael Casey’s LibraryCrunch, John Blyberg’s Blyberg.net, Ed Vielmetti’s SuperPatron and more. Don’t forget the team blogs from OCLC It’s All Good, ACRLlog, etc. Then use Bloglines social filters to find others that match your interests driven by folks who have like interests to you.
2. Subscribe to the RSS feed from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. These reports make great subway, bus, airport and doctor’s office reading. Fill in those boring gaps of time. Don’t forget to read the Horizon report, OCLC studies, scans and surveys, etc.
3. Set up alerts for your personal interests. Among others you can do free alerts at Google Alerts, PubSub and Technorati. At least set up some for your own name and employer!
4. Do my 43 Things idea. Play. and track your play. Just choose something new and interesting like MySpace, Technorati, Google Base, or whatever and do it. Click and play. Try Google Labs for lists of new staff.
5. Use Podzinger and Podscope to find podcasts about library issues and other things you want to learn. Search iTunes for library-oriented podcasts. And follow and attend the free web programs offered by WebJunction, SirsiDynix Institute or Blended Librarian. It’s easy to learn when you schedule it and share it with colleagues.
6. And don’t forget print. I read Library Journal, American Libraries, CLA’s Feliciter, SLA’s Information Outlook, Computers in Libraries, Searcher, Information Today, Multimedia and Internet @ Schools, eContent, and more. Some have ‘lite’ online versions to check out.
That’s it. Enjoy.
Stephen

0 Shares

Posted on: March 2, 2006, 9:45 pm Category: Uncategorized

0 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.