Lari's Bookshelf

Web librarians, ebranch librarians, cybrarians and other similar terms are proliferating the literature of the library world. What exactly do these terms mean and when will librarians stay ahead of the curve and finally be able to provide the finished product of the best library website ever? There's the rub. They can't. What is relevant now will be obsolete before you know it. Technology changes a lot in just a few years, and sure, there are ways for librarians to create websites that can stay relevant longer (especially when taking UX and accessibility standards into consideration). But if websites aren't quick to adapt to what users want and when they want it, they will fail to provide a friendly user-centered experience. We have to start thinking about library web services as always evolving. Websites aren't buildings. When we think of a library's website in terms of a digital branch, we might think of the old brick and mortar concept of...

There's a new 2012 calendar and it features information professionals or librarians. It's called Men of the Stacks  (FYI: some of the pics may be considered risqué) and it breaks the stereotype of what people typically consider a librarian to be: "We know what people think: Dewey, glasses, shushing, books, hairbuns, Party Girl and card catalogs.  Yes, we know what people think.  We know that the American library profession is approximately 80% White and 72% female; and we know that tens of thousands of librarians are expected to reach age 65 in the next 5 years.  We also know that this is not us." - MOS: The Calendar The thing that pleased me about this calendar, is that all of its proceeds are going to the It Gets Better Project , a movement designed to help struggling LGBTQ youth who are coming out in their communities. By the way, if you haven't seen George Takei's video contribution to a related organization, called The Trevor Project (which work...