Family Man Librarian

In my previous post I ranted a bit about soundbites in our library profession and how I fear that such soundbites are too easily digested without question. Karen Schneider encouraged me to listen to the MP3 recording of the live panel discussion at ALA from which I derived my original criticism. So this [...]

I have enjoyed reading about presentations at the recent ALA annual conference. Of particular note for me are Owen Stephens’ extensive notes, available here. The ability for those who aren’t present at conferences to quickly catch up on essentials of what was discussed is, to me, hugely important and beneficial. I’m thankful for [...]

Several times over the past year or so, I have offered up criticisms of OCLC. OCLC is a staple of the library world, especially here in the U.S., but its reach is global and it is expanding all the time. The simplest or most concise way of expressing my criticisms is to say [...]

I have been sick for a week now and I am sick of it. I wish there was a way that I could build up my immune system. All of the kids except Keegan have been sick — for the second time in as many weeks — as well.In other news, in the [...]

A few people including Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black) and Carol Ou commented on a recent post I wrote comparing OCLC to Microsoft. Roy Tennant responded to this post on the hangingtogether blog, written by former RLG - now OCLC employees. Roy also responded to Carol Ou’s idea about FRBRizing local library catalog [...]

Ann Ercelawn, a dear friend and co-moderator of the SERIALST discussion list, posted a survey on that list yesterday that asked for responses to a series of questions relating to how we keep current within the LIS field. Below is the response I sent her. It’s not as detailed or complete as it [...]

Recently Roy Tennant joined OCLC and explained his reasons for taking this step in a post on the Library Journal: Digital Libraries blog. Roy is someone whom I admire and respect, a visionary and great communicator about technology and libraries. He has done, and continues to do, a huge amount of great things.
When I saw [...]

I was thinking today, after reading through the many different reports about the recently concluded Computers in Libraries conference, that after having read all of them, I feel as if I did not miss much by not attending.  This is something new, I think.  Lorcan Dempsey phrases the phenomenon in a much more cerebral way [...]

At the risk of sounding rather negative, even petty (or worse), I’ve noticed an awful lot of the inner circle syndrome in library blogland lately. It seems to be getting more and more obvious, but perhaps not to those who might be deemed part of that inner circle. Some time ago I commented [...]

Roy Tennant, well known columnist, speaker, moderator of Web4Lib and Current Cites and (last but not least) fellow Mac lover, will be giving the Windsor Lecture at UIUC GSLIS tomorrow (October 21). His talk will be on the topic of “The Academic Library in a Googlezon World.” More detail can be found here. [...]