LISNews: Librarian News

Librarians vs. Archivists
Next week, city council’s finance committee is to consider the naming of the new archives and library materials building, the one Mayor Jim Watson had proposed to name for Charlotte Whitton and he now proposes to name for James Bartleman.

I understand that part of the reason for choosing Bartleman, aside from all his positive attributes, is that the building is both a library and an archives building, and the library fans and the archives fans each want their own champion’s name on the building. The librarians are damned if they’ll accept an archivist’s name and the archivists are damned if they’ll accept a librarian.

Herewith, a salvo just launched from the library side, which wants the building to be named for Claude Aubry, Ottawa’s first bilingual chief librarian.

The Chillicothe and Ross County Public Library recently received the Psychologically Healthy Workplace award from the Ohio Psychological Association. Leslie Hartley, adult services manager, accepted the award on behalf of the library. Kudos!

The application process for this award was part of the library’s ongoing wellness initiative, spearheaded by Hartley.

“The evaluation team was impressed by the library staff’s quick recovery and teamwork following the widespread economic meltdown of 2009, and their success in rebuilding their work teams and service model,” said Hartley.

The library’s award-winning wellness initiative, also recognized by Ohio, includes a demonstration garden, nutrition and exercise information, participation in charity events such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters Bowl-a-Thon and several 5K runs, and inclusion of the broader community in the library’s wellness activities.

The library’s wellness program is being nominated for a national Psychologically Healthy Workplace award as well.

Story from Chillicothe Gazette.

The future of information access, part 1 and The future of information access, part 2... from Jill Hurst-Wahl. Earlier this month, Sean Branagan, who is the director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, asked that she guest lecture in his class on the topic of the future of information access. The class is seeking input from a wide variety of industries on what the future may hold and its impact on communications (e.g., news). In her 1.5 hour lecture, she spoke about the following ideas, some of which are evident in today's environment...

NPR ran a piece called How Does The CIA Use Social Media? They mention how the CIA is following publicly available information like Facebook, Twitter, and foreign radio stations to gather information. They mention that some of their information gatherers are people with Masters of Library Science degrees. Later in the piece the researchers are referred to as "Ninja Librarians".