Silicon Valley Chapter | SLA

Publications by Chapter Members

Several of our members have published articles in the professional literature this year, and one has even published a book.  Congratulations to the authors!

 Jean Bedord, Principal, eContent Strategies

 "SMX West 2010: Nature of Search is Changing", Information Today, May 2010, p.26. http://www.infotoday.com/it/may10/index.shtml

 

Deb Hunt, Principal, Information Edge

"The Accidental Knowledge Manager: Another Role for Independent Information Professionals" ASIS&T Bulletin , October/November 2010  http://www.asist.org/Bulletin/Oct-10/OctNov10_Hunt.html

 

Raveena Raman, Senior Information Specialist, Analysis and Information Management (AIM) Services,  Elan Pharmaceuticals. 

1)  “Advancing the careers of life science professionals of Indian origin,” with Jagath R Junutula, Darshana Patel, Holly Butler & Anula Jayasuriya; Nature Biotechnology v28, 757–758 (2010).

2) “Protecting information resources before and After emergencies”, with Lisl Zach, Information Outlook, v14, n3, p25(3), April 1, 2010. Special Libraries Association    

 

Virginia Tucker, PhD Candidate, San Jose SLIS

Finding the Answers to Legal Questions: A How-To-Do-It Manual  with Marc Lampson, published by Neal- Schuman Publishers, October 2010    http://www.neal-schuman.com/bdetail.php?isbn=9781555707187   

 

Libby Trudell,  VP, Market Development, Dialog

“Does Taxonomy Matter in a New World of Search and Discovery?”  with Suzanne BeDell, Online  September 2010, v34, no 5 http://www.infotoday.com/online/sep10/BeDell-Trudell.shtml .   

 

Submitted by Libby Trudell

"Career Agility: The Brand is You"

by Alison Finch

Advocacy, professional development, and networking highlighted in this talk on the "Resilient Career."

San Andreas Chapter's first breakfast program of the year got off to a great start on April 9th with this timely presentation (PDF) given by Cindy Hill, Affiliate Associate at Outsell, Inc. and founder and president of Hill Information Consulting Group, and by Christian Gray in charge of Business Development at Reprints Desk. Lee Pharis graciously hosted the event at Exponent's Menlo Park headquarters.

The talk spanned a variety of topics from identity management and personal branding to LinkedIn best practices and social networking etiquette.

• How do you ask for a recommendation on LinkedIn?
• What is the risk of identity theft?
• How should you manage your LinkedIn connections?
• Are there examples of effective LinkedIn profiles for librarians/information professionals?

The "Resilient Career" is one that is agile, opportunistic, and sustainable. Cindy and Christian demonstrated how librarians and information professionals can use Web 2.0 tools to develop

• professional portfolios
• visibility
• a community of colleagues

Cindy and Christian encouraged information professionals to start building their own reputation, to push their boundaries and reach out to people beyond their immediate circle of colleagues and friends, and to explore professional options. Christian Gray showed a "before" and "after" page SLA and former San Andreas Chapter member Jeanie Fraser developed.

LinkedIn Recommendations

• Use the Summary section to develop an introduction to who you are and what you are passionate about and remember to include important keywords that search engines can find.
• Use results-driven examples of past accomplishments but be careful not to use proprietary information.
• Invite people
• Search and surf. Search for hobbies and favorite past-times to see who might also share your interest in peregrine falcons, for example. Social networks are about people. Have fun with this!
• Consider adding a photo and remember to include your activities outside your day job.
• Turn on some of LinkedIn's applications such as SlideShare, TripIt, Company Buzz, etc.
• Look at Groups and add some.
• Consider using LinkedIn answers as a way to position yourself as an expert.

Rocky Mountain Chapter SLA member Kim Dority has written and presented on career agility for information professionals. Christian had arranged to make several copies of her recent book "Rethinking Information Work" available which were then raffled off at the end of the session.

San Andreas Chapter's own Jean Bedord contributed her poster, "Building a Web Presence from Domain Name to Website" and offered helpful suggestions for librarians and information professionals wishing to build an online identity.

The message was start marketing yourself now before you need to start looking for another job. These are difficult times but sites such as LinkedIn offer opportunities to take advantage of the power of networked relationships to get your name "out there" and to let a larger circle of potential employers and colleagues know who you are and what you can do. Cindy Hill's parting comments were to anticipate, look for opportunities, enjoy the ride, and remember that career development is a continual cycle.

Did you attend this session? What did you think? Please feel free to post your comments to the Blog.

SLA Twitter Directories

SLA has announced two Twitter directories available through the Innovation Lab's wiki at  http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLAINNO/Twitter+Directory. Member login is required.  One directory is of SLA Members and the other is of SLA Chapters, Divisions, Caucuses & Related Groups.  The lists do not necessarily represent all SLA members and groups who use Twitter, but it is a first effort to aggregate a directory for those who wish to share their Twitter information with others.  SLA Members are welcome to add their names to the list. Directions have been posted on the wiki pages.

The "starter list" was compiled by Karen Huffman, Chair-Elect of the Knowledge Management Division, from responses to a March 2009 survey of SLA members and units.  The idea for compiling a list of SLA members and groups grew out of seeing other Twitter directories of lawyers, knowledge managers, government groups, etc.

Leslie Fisher

2009 President, San Andreas Chapter SLA

[email protected]

The Silicon Valley Archives

Leslie Berlin, the Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives, was the guest speaker at the February 25^th Solo Librarians meeting hosted by Eric Kristofferson at St. Jude Medical in Sunnyvale. 

As well as being the Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives, Leslie is a columnist for the New York Times, and author of the book, The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley.

The Silicon Valley Archives is housed in the Special Collections of the Stanford University Libraries. To study the origins and development of Silicon Valley in detail, researchers require access to primary source materials. These records are the building blocks of the history of the Silicon Valley. The Archives have been part of the Stanford Special Collections since 1983.

Included in the collection are the papers and artifacts of:

Ampex, Apple Computer, Fairchild Semiconductor, Hewlett-Packard, the Homebrew Computer Club, several industry associations, Varian Instruments, and the Whole Earth Catalog.

In addition, the papers and artifacts of individuals who have strongly influenced the Silicon Valley are in the archives, including:

Douglas Englebart, Andrew S. Grove, Robert Noyce, William Shockely, and Fredrick Terman

Leslie described the workings of the Archives and how donations of papers and artifacts become part of the collection and are made accessible to researchers through the Stanford Libraries Special Collections.

The meeting was attended by several archivists and there was a great deal of Q&A between Leslie and the audience.

More information about the archives is available at http://svarchive.stanford.edu/main.html .

 

Eric Kristofferson

[email protected]

Information Ethics Update

More than 40 Ethics Ambassadors and unit leaders attended the Ethics Summit held at the June 2008 annual conference.  Participants listened to presentations from ethics experts Christopher Bauer and Barbie Kaiser before forming small groups to brainstorm items for an Association values statement around information ethics.  The PR Advisory Council reviewed all of the output for common themes and selected the following top five values statements best reflecting the Association's core mission, values and objectives:

• Making appropriate use of other peoples' work (e.g. intellectual property) whether created within our organization or externally.

• Transactional Integrity: Acting with honesty, fairness, and in good faith in serving and providing value to customers and negotiating with vendors.

• Respecting the privacy and rights of individuals and organizations in use of e-mail and online discussions and provision of information on user actions to management.

• Educating our constituencies on good information-seeking behavior appropriate to the type of decision being made, legal use of the information and using authoritative information sources.

• Diversity, cultural inclusiveness, respect for differences (e.g. making our sentiments known when we feel that material may be used in a manner harmful or hurtful to any given group.)

Based on input from the SLA Board of Directors, it has been decided that it would be best to launch an international event promoting the value of our profession in the fall of 2009. 

SLA is in the process of appointing an Information Ethics Advisory Council, which will continue the initial work the Ethics Ambassadors began in 2008.  The charge of the Council and a list of its six members can be viewed at http://www.sla.org/content/community/committe/ethics.cfm.  

Those of us involved in the ethics initiative are excited about the possibilities for this leadership role in educating SLA members about information ethics and working to bring this issue to light as one of importance to the business and academic communities.

In the meantime, after hearing some of the suggestions at the Ethics Summit, the PR Advisory Council has come up with the following tools and ideas.  They expect that the Information Ethics Council will add to these as well as come up with new and useful resources for members.

• Information Ethics Blog:  http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/ethics/.  This is open to everyone, including members.

• Ethics Discussion List:  This is currently the main source of information and updates with the Ethics Ambassadors.  At some point, I hope that this discussion list is opened to all members to serve as the main means of discussing ethical issues members encounter.

• Bi-Weekly Info Ethics Poll in SLA Connections:  Plans are in the works for a bi-weekly poll question in the new Information Ethics Corner in SLA Connections.  This will be how we will gather statistics such as how many member organizations have an information ethics policy or how many members have been asked to do something they considered unethical in obtaining information. 

• Additional Tools & Ideas:  SLA is looking into creating a short form and/or list of questions Ethics Ambassadors can use to gather member input on details about ethical dilemmas they have faced in the past.

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about ethical issues in providing or obtaining information for your users, please contact me.

Wynne Dobyns
San Andreas Chapter Ethics Ambassador
[email protected]

SJSU Colloquia Spring 2009

The School of Library and Information Science at San José State University is pleased to invite you to attend our first Colloquia event for the Spring 2009 semester:

Bill Somerville, Executive Director and Founder, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, presents:
"How Do You Find the Philanthropic Doorbell?"
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Time: noon - 1:00 p.m.
Location: SJSU campus, Clark Hall 322

Maps and directions to the SJSU campus can be found at http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/slis/maps.htm.  Presentations are free, wheelchair-accessible and open to the public.

If you cannot attend this event in person, we also videotape each presentation.  Links to an Internet webcast (streaming video), an RSS feed, and an iTunes Portal podcast (usually both audio and video versions) will be posted to the Colloquia: Spring 2009 calendar web page at http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/slis/colloquia/2009/colloquia09sp.htm#feb0409 about a week after the event.

Report on Information Ethics Town Hall Meeting

July 28, 2008

Download this report in PDF

Sixteen Chapter members attended the Information Ethics Town Hall meeting on Monday, July 28.  Before introducing the evening's speaker, Wynne Dobyns, the Chapter's Ethics Ambassador, summarized an explanation of ethics as standards of behavior that tell us how we ought to act in the many situations in which we find ourselves.  These are well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what we ought to do. They are the rules you follow even when no one is looking, the sum of your guiding values.  This requires, of course, that you have consciously thought about and identified most, if not all, of the values by which you live.   That may be our first challenge.  Acting ethically requires consistency between our ethical standards and our actions.  It also requires that we continually strive to ensure that we, and the institutions we serve, live up to standards that are reasonably solidly based on standards of right and wrong and rules derived from those standards. 

What do we do, though, when there is pressure from colleagues, our users or our managers to do something we feel may not be right or we think is downright wrong?  These situations provide the challenges we face in striving to act ethically.  If doing something, or even not doing something, doesn't "feel right" by our own standards, it probably isn't.  The only thing one cannot do when aware of an ethics problem is to do nothing.  After getting the facts and evaluating options from an ethical perspective, one must intervene or one becomes part of the problem and bears some of the culpability for the consequences. 

The evening's speaker, Geoffrey C. Bowker, is the Executive Director, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University.  The Center's mission is to research and promote the use of science and technology for the common good.  Geof's main current research interests are in the fields of classification and standardization: in particular asking how these play into the development of scientific cyberinfrastructure.  His book, Memory Practices in the Sciences, published by MIT Press in 2006, was awarded the prestigious 2006 ASIS&T Award for "Best Information Science Book" of the year, judged to have made the most outstanding contribution in the field of information science.

Geof focused on three main points of discussion:  releasing information, massaging the truth and librarians as ethics ambassadors.  He began by stating that we often no longer know who knows what information or what they are doing with it, since information is no longer stored in archival boxes and cross-correlated by those who knew something about the subject matter at the time it was stored or by studying it afterwards.  Instead, surveillance is being used to gather data that is mined in many ways.  There is increasing pressure for primarily public and academic librarians to release information about their users, the users' records and the print and digital material they have used.  He referred to the report, "American Library Association (ALA) Announces Preliminary Findings of Study Measuring Law Enforcement Activity in Libraries," American Library Association, June 20, 2005 http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2005/june2004abc/lawenforcementstudy.cfm (Document ID: 159984).  Gathering this information is legal but unethical by professional standards.   Fighting this kind of information gathering is made easier by the presence of the profession's strong ethical standards.

Book Review: The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, by Dan Roam

By Karen Takle Quinn, Ph.D.

Roam, Dan. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.  New York: Portfolio, 2007. (ISBN 978-1-59184-199-9)

Dan Roam is the founder and president of Digital Roam Inc., a management-consulting firm that helps business executives solve complex problems through visual thinking.  His 2007 book, The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, was published by Portfolio.  Its goal is to teach readers how to solve problems with pictures using visual thinking.  Every chapter supports and illustrates Roam’s central idea that "Visual thinking is an extraordinarily powerful way to solve problems and though it may appear to be something new, the fact is that we already know how to do it." (page 31).  According to another visual thinking advocate, Robert E. Horn, words and pictures have been combined to improve human communication since the invention of written language.  This was especially "notable in the culture of Ancient Egypt." (Horn, Visual Language, 1998, pp.25-26).

We all have problems when communicating with someone who does not speak or understand our language.  Roam found that even when you learn to speak their language, as he did with Russian, visual thinking pictures are still especially useful when trying to share ideas with clients.

Report on the Virtual Tour of the SLA Website

SLA Chapter Cabinet Chair Libby Trudell and San Andreas President-Elect Leslie Fisher gave a tour of the SLA website on March 17th, with a brief overview of the San Andreas Chapter blog by Bulletin Editor Steven Kaye. Thanks to Thomson Scientific for sponsoring the webinar.

People who were unable to attend can review the tour at the following sites:
[Note:  If you do not have the webex viewer application already installed, you will be prompted to install it when you click on the first two links below.]

stream recording or download recording

Web 2.0 Awards 2007

Hundreds of Web 2.0 sites have been rated, ranked, and awarded into 41 categories by SEOmoz. Categories include Business, Marketing, Mashups, Social Networking, among others. Click on awards for the full listing (thanks go to Karen Takle Quinn for sending me the link!)

If you’ve used any of these sites, please respond to this posting with your comments and opinions – it’d be helpful to Chapter members!

Claudia Cohen can be reached at [email protected]

SJSU SLIS October Colloquium Series

The School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University is pleased to invite you to attend our continuing Colloquium Series featuring SLIS faculty and invited guests, as they address the challenges and promises of our rapidly changing profession.  Presentations are free, wheelchair-accessible and open to the public. 
 
Our October 2007 speakers are listed below:
 
Beth Gallaway
YALSA Serving the Underserved Trainer
Title: Gaming by the Numbers
Monday, 8 October 2007
Time: noon - 1:00 p.m.
Location: SJSU campus, Clark Hall 322
 
 
Dr. Dan Fuller
Assistant Professor, SLIS, San José State University
Title: Can Statewide Digital Libraries be Sustainable in K–12 Environments?
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Time: noon - 1:00 p.m.
Location: Fullerton campus, Room PL 68
 
and

Joe Matthews
Lecturer, SLIS, San Jose State University
Title: Determining and Communicating the Value of Your Library
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Time:  1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Location: Fullerton campus, Room PL 68

San Andreas Solo Librarian Meeting Summary: HighWire Press

By Lee Pharis, Manager - Information Resources, Exponent

On August 29, the Solo Librarians met at St. Jude Medical in Sunnyvale for a meeting hosted by Eric Kristofferson with guest speaker Bonnie Zavon from HighWire Press, a division of the Stanford University Libraries.  http://highwire.stanford.edu/

Started in 1995, HighWire Press currently hosts the primary, definitive version of  1,065 sites from more than 130 scholarly publishers, typically independent societies, associations, university presses and other publishing houses which produce high-impact journals. The topical focus has generally been in the biosciences areas, but the subject matter is expanding.

Full-text articles, high-resolution images, data supplements, and back issue content are all available through HighWire.  As soon as an article from one of the journals collections is published, it is available on HighWire (before or sometimes instead of the print copy).

HighWire-hosted publishers have collectively made almost 2 million scholarly articles free, the largest repository of free, peer-reviewed full-text content on the web.  (Publishers determine which articles are free, and which require payment, not HighWire.) 

About 300 of the journals on HighWire offer some form of free access to full text, often after only a year, thanks to the business policies of the various publishers.    

Using the HighWire search engine portal to publisher web sites is free; you can register for free with HighWire, and customize your free account.  It is easy to access and to navigate. 

Notes from Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference 20-23 August 2007 San Jose, CA Conference & Expo

By Dr. Karen Takle Quinn , Ph.D.

Why Attend This Event in the Future?

The San Jose, California, Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo held August 20-23, 2007--one in a series of global conferences--featured presentations and panel discussions covering all aspects of search engine-related use and promotion. It provided a unique setting for attendees to network with search engine industry professionals, newbies, entrepreneurs and marketers. This setting offered the rare opportunity to discuss current, as well as future, trends in search engines and their marketing, analytical and other performance improvement techniques, in addition to participants' past experiences. With a reputation as a lively forum where people learn as much from colleagues as experts, SES San Jose always draws an interesting and enlightening crowd. This year’s meeting environment offered many opportunities to learn the ins-and-outs of search engine marketing not only from top experts but, at times, from the search engines themselves. This popular conference included over 60 panels and sessions on timely topics including video search, link baiting, click fraud, and mobile search.

Please read on for the complete report on SES San Jose '07 and a list of the sponsors' Web sites...

We Welcome Your Comments to the Blog!

Did you know now you can post comments to the Chapter blog? You can! Comments enable you to interact with Chapter members and make the blog a more dynamic means of communication. You can create comments to answer a question posted on the blog, initiate a discussion, or share your input and knowledge with the Chapter.

Click here for an example of comments currently on our blog.

Posting a comment to the blog is really easy! Just follow the three simple steps below:

1. Click on the "Comments (n)" link for the post where you want to add a comment. The "n" might be 0 if there are no comments or, if someone has already commented it will show the number of comments posted. This is also where you'd click to read on the comments.

2. Fill in the required information that identifies you. Name and Email Address are required, but we will only display your name. If you enter a URL (for your own website or blog) it will be hyperlinked to your name. You can use your full name, which we encourage on a professional blog like this one - or use a nickname. And you can choose to have the site remember this information when the next time you comment.

3. Enter your comment in the big text box. Click on the "Preview" button to see how your comment will be displayed and (remember to do this!!) - click on "Post" to send your comment to the site.

Claudia Cohen
Bulletin Committee
[email protected]

Scitopia at SLA Denver

Big announcement and buzz at SLA Denver about Scitopia.org .  A FREE federated vertical search portal for 15 professional scholarly societies (Acoustical Society of America, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Vacuum Society, The Electrochemical Society, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Institute of Physics Publishing, Optical Society of America, Society of Automotive Engineers, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics  and SPIE).  More professional scholarly societies will be joining this venture.

Content sources include:

• three million articles and conference proceedings
• 50 million patents from the world's major patent offices
• full-text documents from the US Dept of Energy Information Bridge site

The developers of this project are continuing to evolve search tools and functions.  They welcome your comments and feedback. www.scitopia.org

Helen Josephine can be reached at [email protected]

Event: Solo Librarians Meeting At Ricoh Innovations - May 15, 2007

The Solo Librarians of the San Andreas Chapter of SLA invite you to their next meeting on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 6 P.M. Anyone with an interest in small libraries is welcome, including students and recent grads in the MLIS programs.
 
The meeting will be held at Ricoh Innovations on Page Mill Road near Highway 280 in Palo Alto. (See directions below)
 
Rowan Fairgrove, the librarian at Ricoh, will be both hosting the meeting and doing a presentation of Second Life as it relates to libraries.
 
Below you will find a link to Second Life as it is being used at SJSU SLIS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-9zt3Sd7oc
 
As usual, we will be starting with a light meal—probably pizza/ salad. The food will be purchased with your attendance in mind, so if you are planning to attend please notify Eric Kristofferson at [email protected] or (408) 522-6697 no later than Friday the 11th of May.
 
Please note that May 15th is just a little more than two weeks away, so you need to make a quick decision if you wish to attend.

Notes from the San Andreas Chapter Blog Launch Party - March 28, 2007

By Alpidia Barraza, MLIS, President, Synergized Info

Wednesday evening's San Andreas SLA Chapter meeting entitled, "San Andreas Chapter Blog Launch Party" was hugely informative.

The meeting began with brief presentations by blog co-editors Mary-Lynn Bragg and Claudia Cohen. The co-editors reviewed the Chapter's new blog, touting the fact that the San Andreas Chapter is only one of a handful of SLA chapters incorporating blog technology into their communications strategy. Of the 58 SLA chapters, only seven or eight chapters have blogs.

The highlight of the evening was speaker Michael Sippey, Vice President of SixApart.

While Sippey's presentation gave an overview of SixApart's four blogging products, Sippey spent a significant portion of his presentation addressing the unique functions and benefits of blogging.

SixApart has four blogging products categorized by market focus:
(1) Typepad and (2) Movabletype are geared towards the professional and business users; while
(3) Live Journal and (4) Vox are geared towards the consumer market.
To learn more about each product see SixApart's website at http://www.sixapart.com/

Sippey defined blogging as the "next generation website." A few of the features unique to blogs that Sippey mentioned included:
1. Blogs are easy to update.
2. Blogs are automatically categorized and archived.
3. Blogs enable conversation with your audience.
4. Blogs get the message out via web, RSS feeds and email.

Share, Reuse, and Remix - Legally: A Recap of Creative Commons Presentation

By Helen Josephine, President, San Andreas Chapter

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."  (From www.creativecommons.org)

Mia Garlick, General Counsel for Creative Commons was the speaker at the Joint Program meeting of the San Francisco and San Andreas Chapters, February 22, 2007.  Mia provided us with a short course on the advantages of using a Creative Commons license to share the creative effort of artists, writers, scientists and educators.  While the standard copyright does apply to all of our original work, some feel that the standard "All Rights Reserved" is too restrictive.  Sharing for non-commercial purposes may help to broaden the audience of a work.  Some authors and artists want to encourage use and re-mix of their work to continue the creative process.

Founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons has developed the tools to help those who want both to protect and to share their work.  On the Creative Commons site you can register your work and select the level of restrictions you want to apply to your license. You can allow use for non-commercial purposes, while still reserving your right to be paid for commercial use.  You can allow or restrict modifications of your work (re-mixes, derivatives).  You can allow modifications if the other party also agrees to share through a Creative Commons license (share alike).

Delegation – Crucial for Effective Management

An important managerial skill is the ability to delegate. Janice Lachance, Chief Executive Officer of SLA, writes that “good delegation saves you time, develops your fellow leaders, grooms a successor, and motivates;” on the other hand, “poor delegation causes frustration, demotivates and confuses the other person, and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself” (Leadership Connections, January 2007).

What is a manager to do? Think SMART, or SMARTER (Lachance’s easy-to-remember acronym). Delegated tasks must be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Agreed
- Realistic
- Time bound
- Exciting or Enjoyable
- Recorded

Admittedly, the tasks may not always be ‘exciting’ or ‘enjoyable’. Nonetheless, Lachance states, it is important to explain the relevance of the task and how the person responsible for it will benefit. To read more about other leadership tools, visit the SLA Leadership Center.

Online Program about Web 2.0 Technologies

Many of us have heard about and some of us are using Web 2.0 technologies in our libraries.

Learning 2.0 is an innovative online program about Web 2.0 technologies developed by Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The design of this online program was completely built on Web 2.0 technologies that are freely available on the Internet. These sites include Blogger, Flickr, Odeo, YouTube, PBWiki & Bloglines.

A team from the merged libraries of SJSU King Library and San Jose Public Library adapted the Blowers model and launched the SJSU/SJPL Learning 2.0 program for employees at the joint library. Participants are learning about RSS, podcasts, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Wikis, and other technologies having an impact on our professional and personal lives. The joint library has received hits from around the world, according to a cluster map on its blog as well as a few individuals not affiliated with either library who wish to participate in the program.
 
SJSU/SJPL hopes that other libraries in California and elsewhere consider offering this program to their staff. Libraries interested in adapting the learning program are encouraged to contact Helene Blowers or visit the About Page of the PLCMC Learning 2.0 program she designed.
   
Questions or comments regarding the SJSU/SJPL Learning 2.0 program may be sent to the following email address: [email protected].

Christine Holmes
Strategic Planning & Outreach
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Library
[email protected]