Well that was a good nap.....

Hello all,

Been lazy busy since my last post. I didn't finish the 23 things in 2011. I learned little in 2012. Same for 2013.

But 2014 is going to be AWESOME!

Librarianship is not dead. And i'm maybe going to write about it every once in a while.

No promises.

We've turned over a new leaf, people!

Since we last saw each other, a lot has happened. First, I've moved a few times. Second, I had an internship. Third, I graduated with a masters degree and finished library school. Fourth, I got a job at the Hastings Public Library.

I was busy living life.......sorry.

But now i've participating in the Nebraska Library Commission's "Nebraska Learns 2.0" and I figure it's time to revise this blog and start it up again. There is much to learn and much to keep track of in in my new job. There are complex relationships to navigate and a lot of details that are pretty crucial to my job. This will be the place where I dump all of my new learning. and where I talk about all the good stuff that's happening in my library.

The other goal of the cdp23 is to get a solid foundation on all of the 2.0 stuff that I don't understand. I'm pretty tech savvy, but my problem is knowing what's going on. I'm not one to seek out information about emerging technology until The Daily Beast or NPR write a story on it. Hopefully, I'll be in front of what's happening in 2.0 tech and this will be a nice way to get a bit of practice too.

Cheers!

Jake

The End of the ebook REVOLUTION!

If you haven't been keeping track of what's big in libraryland this week, I am right there with you. It wasn't until today that I found out about the changes coming to Overdrive in the coming months regarding ebook uses and the power of the publisher to exact dirty capitalist revenge on libraries.The situation: HarperCollins has decided it is going to renegotiate the terms of its agreement with all ebook lenders (Overdrive and others) so that after so many checkout by patrons, an ebook may no longer be lent out. It will have to be repurchased. Essentially, libraries won't be in control of the conten they purchase.

[Insert angry tirade of your choice]

Now, while this is something is happening in the upcoming, I dont' think anyone can really be sure if it will last. With the ebook market getting bigger every day, it might be smart for some publishers to keep the old agreement, and thus get some business from libraries and econtent lenders.

Updates and such

Well,

It's been a long time and that's terrible of me. I have many things to put up as far as papers and thoughts go from my final semester of library school. Oh yeah...did I mention I graduated from library school? AND got a job? You didn't expect that did ya? Yeah....neither did I.

As far as this blog goes, I have some updating to do. Then I'll have to think about whether to keep it going as something else, let it go because all good things must go, or a third option I haven't thought of yet.

Input? Would you still read this if it were a blog about being a librarian? Or perhaps about the trials of a public service librarian doing technical services? It would be like a computer programmer doing computer sales. Fish. Out. Of. Water.

Think about it. I will too.

Jake

Practicum woots!

Hey all,

I know that between school and life, my blogging is pretty much a fail, but I will kindly update you on the progress of my practicum experience thus far.

I'm doing my practicum at Hastings Public Library and at Hastings College. I don't start at HC until the middle of September. I'm excited for that because my first order of business is to plan a mock book burning for banned book week. GET EXCITED!!! I love banned book week and I certainly love the idea of mock book burnings. Never the real thing though. That would be bad.

My current work has me at the Hastings Public Library. I'm doing some awesome fun stuff with programming and collection development. By programming and collection development, I mean doing weeding and planning programs. I LOVE weeding though, so this is a brilliant use of my time. I'm currently weeding the YA collection. We have to move the whole collection from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor. That means about 500 to 700 books have to go. Easy peasy.

The program that I'm developing is a pub quiz at the local watering hole. It's going to be awesome because I get to run it and I have friends that are going to fill the seats for me, giving me the numbers I need to have a successful program. Nothing says love like filling your seats for you. That's what real friendship means.

I'll probably throw up all the papers and other things i've written up in the last two semesters just so that you can see what I have to say about stuff. Also, I'll put up all my fliers that I'm making for my practicum.

More often than not, when I go into the Library, I have no clue what I want to read. Most times I'll set out at least an hour of time so that I can thoroughly browse every nook and cranny of the building. Recently though, I've discovered two really great online book blogs that have given me some really awesome ideas for books.

The first one is NPR's book blog [www.npr.org/books]. I found out about it on a drive home from work. Let me just point out that the people of NPR are really good at making some awesome reading lists. This summer, they've been doing a blog series of summer reads, ranging from the 100 best thrillers to great "laugh out loud" books for the beach. This last weeks was particularly interesting, because it featured nonfiction books to drag us "back to reality" for the end of summer. Another great piece that the NPR blog features are interviews with authors where we the listener find out what these popular authors have recently been reading. They also have all the reviews and commentary you'd expect from National public radio. One title I’ve recently discovered is Justin Cronin’s The Passage, a vampire book that makes Edward and Bella look like cute little kittens.

The second blog that I frequent that has been really helpful is the Shelf Life blog at Entertainment Weekly’s website [http://shelf-life.ew.com]. Not only do they give me all the great reviews that I like to help me pick a book, they also gave great pop culture tie-ins too. For instance, the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy was recently released, and Shelf Life is asking readers who should play the hero, Katniss, on the big screen. The blog doesn’t do just books either. It also features audio books, new releases in digital books, and graphic novels and comics. Two books I recently found on the Shelf Life blog were The Disappearing Spoon: and other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean and Hot X: Algebra Exposed by Danika McKellar. The Disappearing Spoon makes science and the periodic table both funny and cool, and McKellar’s Hot X makes math sexy again (if it ever was in the first place).

There are certainly many more books to browse through on both blogs, and there are absolutely other blogs out there, but these two give you a little bit of information about nearly everything. So keep an eye out for titles that pique your interest, and be sure to let us know what you want to read. We’ll be happy to oblige if we can.
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Awkward library story

Today I was interviewed at the library for a news organization. The broad overview of the story had something to do with the immigration issue in Fremont. For those of you who don't know, Fremont is pretty much the shit storm of immigration issues because most of the people who live here are rubes and bigots and assholes who see any dark skinned individual as a fence hopping, job stealing, ILLEGAL!

Now, my job here at the library is to sign kids up for library cards. I've been doing a pretty good job of it. I also admit that part of my job has been to get more individuals of Hispanic descent into the library, mostly because the Hispanic community in Fremont is an underserved population in terms of services we offer (as an aside, we don't have a single Spanish speaking individual on staff, nor do we have any people of color so I can't imagine why we wouldn't have more people of color in the doors).

Anyway. I just want to vent some frustration about how the interview went down because the library director was like an obtrusive school teacher because she was worried I would get "baited" by the interviewer and give a shitty soundbite.

Grr!