LISNews

LISNews Now Available Via Kindle Blogs

And now LISNews is available by way of the Kindle platform: http://ur1.ca/4xp1k

As noted in the notice above captured from Identica, LISNews is now available via Kindle Blogs. Amazon sets the price for a monthly subscription and right now it is set at $1.99. We’ve got no input at all as to what Amazon charges in this instance. As long as you have a Kindle device you can get posts right out of the main feed delivered via Whispernet. According to Amazon, links in stories will work and will take you to linked content.

This is a bit of an experiment in plumbing LISNews content into other platforms. To get a subscription, visit Amazon. If you want to transmogrify RSS feeds on your own, see the right-hand side of the LISNews page for the XML link chiclet.

The LISNews Blogs To Read in 2011

If you’re like me (and you know you want to be) you’ll find this year’s list surprisingly unterrible when compared to the vast majority of librarian blogs. I started the “10 Blogs To Read This Year” way back in 2006 to help highlight the wide range of people writing in the many different areas of librarianship. Each year we’ve attempted to point out a group of librarians whose writing helps increase our understanding of the profession and its place in our rapidly changing world. Again this year we tried to choose 10 writers who cover very different aspects of our profession, 10 sites that inform, educate and maybe amuse. By following these blogs I think you’ll frequently find something new and interesting to read, and a place to gain better understanding of parts of librarianship that are outside of your area. We all have much to learn from each other, and these bloggers are working hard to share their knowledge and experiences with you. The lists from 2006, 2007, 2008,2009 and 2010. See also: How The List Is Made and Why This List Matters.

  1. All These Birds With Teeth [Feed]
  2. Forgotten Bookmarks [Feed]
  3. Hack Library School. [Feed]
  4. InkDroid [Feed]
  5. The LSW Friendfeed Room [Feed]
  6. Musings about librarianship [Feed]
  7. Pegasus Librarian [Feed]
  8. SearchReSearch [Feed]
  9. Screwy Decimal [Feed]
  10. The Undergraduate Science Librarian [Feed]


All These Birds With Teeth [Feed] is by Joe Grobelny, a reference librarian who does a great job spicing up his general interest posts with snazzy images. His posts are smart and engaging with interesting articles from a wide variety of places.

Hack Library School: by, for and about library school students. This is their challenge to you; participate or come up with a better idea. How would you hack library school? Originally inspired by an article over on In The Library With The Leadpipe Hack Library School is a group blog with a great style and interesting ideas. [Feed]

Every year we do our best to make the list interesting and fun. Not every blog on the list needs to be full of world changing expertly written essays. This year’s fun site is Forgotten Bookmarks [Feed], something I hadn’t seen until the last minute. The author works at a used and rare bookstore. These are what is found in all the books. It’s not as much bacon as you might think!

The Library Society Of The World may just be the most subversive bunch of librarians you know. The LSW describes themselves as “world-spanning group of library professionals and library advocates, dedicated to furthering the role of librarians, archivists, information professionals, and information educators through communication and collaboration.” They have a Web Site but the real action happens over in the LSW Friendfeed Room [Feed]

InkDroid [Feed]. Ed Summers is an Information Technology Specialist at the Library of Congress. Ed writes heavy on the geek side of things… XML, hardware, software, code, you name it, if technology is your thing, this is a great blog to follow.

Musings about librarianship [Feed]. The in depth posts keep track of interesting and cool ideas that might be used by libraries for benefit of users. Aaron Tay is a librarian at the National University of Singapore and his posts cover a wide range of issues in librarianship.

Pegasus Librarian: Learning in Libraries and Loving It. [Feed] Iris is a Reference and Instruction Librarian and writes about life in an academic library, teaching, and classroom ideas. Here you’ll find smart writing from the academic side of the profession.

SearchReSearch [Feed] is a blog about search, search skills, teaching search, learning how to search, learning how to use Google effectively, learning how to do research. It also covers a good deal of sensemaking and information foraging. The author, Daniel M. Russell, works at Google. His “Search Challenges” will help you refine your search skills.

Screwy Decimal [Feed] Tales from an Urban Librarian. (Absolutely also worth following on Twitter!) You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wish you worked with kids all day! Rita Meade is a public childrens librarian in Brooklyn. As she says she experiences “strange and wonderful things in my line of work. I like to share them.” Kids say the darndest things!

If you’re like me (and you really should be), you just love science librarians. Bonnie Swoger is a Science and Technology Librarian. She says she is interested in science communication and teaching undergraduate students about how scientists share information. She blogs at undergraduatesciencelibrarian.wordpress.com as the Undergraduate Science Librarian. She covers an interesting range of science topics. [Feed]

Happy 11th Birthday LISNews

As usual, I almost forgot! 11 years ago today I brought LISNews online.

If you’ve been around for awhile you already know the rest of the story, if not, I’ll spare you the details because you won’t read them anyways.

I can’t possibly thank everyone who has helped LISNews over the past 10 years. Steve Glabraith, Steven M Cohen & Nabeal Ahmed, were all instrumental in helping me during the early years (when I needed it most!).

We also had a few authors that posted like bloggers possessed, Ieleene, Aaron, Rochelle, and a few other authors who helped out for awhile and moved on. Behind the scenes Joe Frazee helped me get the original LISNews server up and running. Over the years a few dedicated souls have tirelessly submitted stories; Bob Cox, Martin, Lee Hadden, Charles Davis, and many others. Stephen Kellat, for the podcast, Robin, Troy, Andy, Dan and all the LISNews authors deserve a big thank you and a pat on the back for all their hard work. LISNews is a collaborative site, and we all work together to make it great.

I’d also like to thank everyone who has ever chipped in to pay for the server, submitted a story, wrote in their journal, left a comment, or just dropped by for a visit.

Happy Birthday LISNews. Here’s hoping we have a few more good years ahead of us!

Follow LISNews On FriendFeed, Twitter, RSS, Email, etc…

If you’re like me (And you know you want to be!) you’re just too lazy busy to visit all your favorite sites. There are many ways to read LISNews without actually visiting LISNews.org:
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/lisnews
twitter: http://twitter.com/lisnews
Identi.ca (includes LISWire posts too): http://identi.ca/lisnews
RSS: https://lisnews.org/rss.xml
Email: http://lishost.net/mailman/listinfo/lisnews
If I’m missing something here that YOU follow, let me know and I’ll see if I can make LISNews feed into your favorite site.

Announcing the LISNews Bulletin

The LISNews Bulletin has just been transmitted to the location of our printing partner closest to the venue of Computers in Libraries 2010. Blake will have 125 copies available to him to distribute at the conference for free. I want to thank our patrons for their generous financial support in allowing the Bulletin to be distributed at no charge.

There will be artwork. We’ve got an excerpt from a Cleveland-area artist’s memoirs about life in India in the 1990s. The owner of Erie Looking Productions offered up a “quick hit” piece from Tech for Techies never heard before on the podcast streams. This issue may be small but it is intended to be a tasty appetizer for a larger serial that might perhaps follow.

If you are not going to be attending the conference, you can still get a copy of the publication. Please contact the publisher, Producer Gloria Kellat, at [email protected] with your physical address so we can determine if our printing partner has an office near you. If there is, it will cost about USD$2.00 to have a special “RetCon” copy printed for you to pick up. If there isn’t, we’ll discuss options with you.

LISNews Librarian Essay Contest Winners!

Thanks to our panel of esteemed judges, Gary Price, Michael Stephens, Stephen Michael Kellat, Brett Bonfield and Jessamyn West, and everyone who voted on the essays pages. Winning essayists will receive one of several prizes including Amazon or Borders gift cards, and librarian web hosting from www.LISHost.org.

The Unspeakable Truth
Patron Expectations vs. Librarian Expectations in Library Service
Don’t Forget About Us

All three essays were very well read, rated by the readers, and universally well liked by the judges. There are so many other good essays there, so if you haven’t read them all, find some time and see what you’ve missed.

Celebrating Our Own / LISNews Author Andy W’s a Mover & Shaker

Congratulations Andy!!!! From Library Journal:

Flavor of the Month Move over, Cherry Garcia. If Andy Woodworth has his way, the next hot Ben & Jerry’s flavor could be Gooey Decimal System.

The 32-year-old adult services librarian at Bordentown Library, NJ, Woodworth is creator of “People for a Library Themed Ben & Jerry’s Flavor” a Facebook group he started in June 2009 that’s mushroomed to more than 8000 members and quickly gained international media and blogging attention. (It’s been picked up by Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, The New Yorker’s The Book Bench blog, Britain’s The Guardian, and even the United Arab Emirates newspaper, The National.)

But don’t be fooled. Woodworth’s project has a hidden agenda—it’s part of a multipronged advocacy effort to get libraries noticed, appreciated, and funded.

I don’t care what the name of the winning flavor is…but it’s GOT TO have chocolate.

LISNews Librarian Joke Contest All This Month

There’s still time to ENTER and WIN!!! Post those jokes ~now~ …Make Us Laugh! Anyone who submits a joke will be entered to win some cool prizes.

From www.funkandweber.com and www.StitchingForLiteracy.com …a set of four Needle and ThREAD: Stitching for Literacy cross stitch bookmark patterns, including two designed from the old chicken-and-frog library joke. You know, a chicken walks into a library and says, “book, Book, BOOK!” (you gotta say it like a chicken), so the librarian gives her a book. The chicken takes the book outside and down to a pond where a frog sits on a lily pad and croaks, “read-it, read-it” (that’s right, say it like a frog).

Book Marks from www.InMyBook.com
Web Hosting from www.LISHost.org

You’ll want to submit your joke(s) HERE starting March 1, and on through the month of March. Even if you don’t have a joke to enter, we hope you’ll check the tracker/RSS feed and vote on other people’s jokes.

Follow along on the tracker page (https://lisnews.org/joketracker) or RSS feed (https://lisnews.org/jokes/rss)