The Librarians on TV

The new television show about life in an Australian public library begins next Wednesday night on Channel 2 at 9.30pm. The Age Green Guide this week has a two page article about the new series and the characters. Here is a link to the article about the show: http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--radio/bigotry-by-the-book/2007/10/24/1192941129043.html

It should generate some interesting discussion in library staffrooms. Hopefully it won't be damaging to the public's perceptions of public libraries and library staff.

Share your views and reviews about the show here for your colleagues to read.

Missed Out On Learning 2.0?

If you missed out on Learning 2.0 complete the 23 Things listed in the Blog it's the same as Learning 2.0 without the prizes. Let us know how you're getting on.

23 Things

Screen gaze and play with intent

At the Library web 2.0 thing I went to at the SLV the other day, I felt that part of my job was justified when a leader in the Library 2.0 field, Helene Blowers, recommended that librarians spend at 15 minutes a day "playing" online (here's her presentation).

The thing is, we all should.

Need more reasons? Try Kathryn Greenhill's 20 reasons why learning emerging technologies is part of every librarian’s job. Kathryn was also at the L2.0 thing @ SLV and I even got to walk around the block with her and some others of local L2 mafia like Michelle Mclean (name dropper).

Don't know where to start? Here's Helene's 23 Things to give your L2 learning some structure.

Glenn

Yourtutor

Yourtutor is operational
Yourtutor is up and running for Frankston Library Service members. It's just been Blogalogued and should be linked from the library website soon (in the page header and from the Online Information page).

It's a free and professionally staffed online tutoring service for students from years 4 to 12.

Yourtutor creates an online classroom where students are connected to qualified, expert tutors for one-to-one help with homework, assignments, exam preparation and study questions. Help is provided for English, maths and science subjects, plus research and study skills.

The tutors are certified teachers, professional tutors, post graduates and advanced undergraduates from Australian universities. They can review specific homework and assignment questions with students online, using features like controlled chat, an interactive white board and shared web browsing.

Students can now communicate with tutors the way they love to learn – via the web - which makes the experience enjoyable as well as educational. Students can also get a print out of their session.

Yourtutor operates from 4 to 8 pm, Monday to Friday and it’s great!

ALIA Internet survey results

ALIA recently released the results of their Internet Filtering in Public Libraries 2007 survey.

For a quick overview, you can also see what was blogged about it on Libraries Interact.

I think that the survey results, observations and conclusions pretty much pan out with our view on why we don't go with web filtering, so reading it might be helpful for when you're asked why we don't have filtering (which happens occasionally).

Glenn

On line databases for 2007-2008

Don't be alarmed! We still will have lots of quality databases to use for reference.

Our final choices for Gulliver and BRUCE databases for 2007-2008 are follows:

Gulliver
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Gale Health and Wellness
Gael Science
Infotrac Onefile (lotsa Aussie content)
Infotrac Masterfile
EBSCO ANZ Reference Centre (newspaper articles, journal & magazine articles and images)
Global Books in Print

BRUCE
Gale Biography Resource Centre
Price-It!
Opposing Viewpoints

Glenda

BRUCE selections

Thanks to those who voted in the BRUCE poll and left comments.

As of July, these are going to be our BRUCE resources:
Gale Biography Resource Centre
Opposing Viewpoints - NEW!
Price-it - NEW!

As they have are poor performers, we will not be continuing with:
AutoRepair Centre
Grove Art Online
Proquest
What Do I Read Next?

Glenn

Zamzar

When you've got a customer with a file type (like something from Windows 2007) that our PCs don't support, help is now at hand.

.

With Zamzar, you can change file types online, for free and in less than a minute. All you need is this link - www.zamzar.com/url - and an email address and your PC using customer will be forever grateful.

.

Give it a burl!

Glenn

BRUCE poll

The poll (maybe the 1st of an irregular several) is about the BRUCE databases. I forget what BRUCE stands for, but basically it's about picking up online resources that aren't in the Gulliver Core. We already have some of those listed in the poll, but do we want to keep them?

We have to make our final decision by the 8th June. There's only so much money for these, so we can probably pick only 3 from this list. So, have a think about what might or might not be useful and vote for the things that we need or would be really, really useful.

Leave a comment to back up any votes if you like.

We'll take a look at the results before we make our final decision.

Glenn