LISNews: Librarian News

Posted by request of the Producer at Erie Looking Productions, Gloria Kellat:

As a reminder, the LISNews Bulletin will be released at Computers in Libraries 2010. Blake will be giving out copies at no cost to those receiving them as this is a market test to see whether or not there might be interest in a continuing print serial. Although Blake will be giving copies away, the printing cost remains real. We have a patron page in which for USD$10 you will be listed with your chosen affiliation statement in recognition of your support. We already had one benefactor throw down and show their support. To make this happen we need others who are brave enough to stand up as well. Send USD$10 with your name and affiliation via PayPal to erielookingproductions@gmail.com by April 5th. I will ensure that thank you notes are sent to benefactors but must stress that while such donations can come from anywhere on the planet they are not tax-deductible.

It is probably a good thing I did not ping Blake with yet another note asking if the votes were tallied yet. Congratulations to Abigail Goben in the US, The Effing Librarian at Effing's volcano lair, and Ned Potter out in the United Kingdom. I also want to thank all the writers for their great works.

Patient LISNews followers might be starting to see a pattern. If you are one of those followers, you're pretty much on the right track. We started out with the summer series in 2009 where essays were invited. The essay contest in February was open to all who came. The forthcoming LISNews Bulletin is going to be a hybrid of the two processes in which all can propose but due to the scarcity of available pages there will be choices made. You need to hear LISTen #111 to hear what the submission process for the Bulletin will be.

The end goal to all this is to encourage expression in today's knowledge economy. The traditional role of librarian as caretaker for end products is starting to go away. Nowadays librarian success is better ensured by knowing about the birth to death life cycle of information expression forms. Database vendors now securing exclusivity agreements with content producers will impact how librarians serve their patrons. Knowing why that happened helps with finding workarounds and other solutions to ensure that patrons are still being served. Practicing participation in the different stages of the life cycle for a piece of information allows for more holistic work within today's knowledge economy.

We keep testing out ways to build community virtually these ways so that librarians can stay on top of the heap in the knowledge economy. While the virtual world cannot contain the whole conversation all the time, it can at least serve as a starting point for it. How can we help patrons if we do not get our own feet wet?

In the end, keep writing.

Something we all care about has become a website, a facebook page and a twitter campaign, Save Libraries, organized by librarian Lori Reed.

LISHost is proud to host the new website; here's the facebook page and the twitter hashtag is #savelibraries. How many hits on twitter??? Check out Topsy.com.

Now get out there and spread the word!! More info to come shortly.

This week's podcast took a different operational stance in recording. Instead of the usual cassette deck, we shifted instead to a reel-to-reel system:

If you click the picture above you can see a larger version of that snapshot. The computer pictured functioned essentially as an overgrown cart machine. This week's episode was recorded on a 1978 TEAC 3340S deck at 7.5 ips on normal bias. The other deck we were working with was intended to give more of a 1970's audio vibe but the recorded results sounded like chipmunks on a methamphetamine binge.

News was slow this week and budget constraints dictated that South by Southwest Interactive was not happening for the air staff. A miscellany is presented as well as a zeitgeist review.

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