Category — Libraries and Archives

Cult Of 2.0:
Confession: I have my own religious mental picture of librarians and libraries and the primary symbol has always been the monk and the monastery. People driven by and dedicated to structure and fundamentals. That’s not all a library is but in truth I believe the majority of what constitutes a library is fundamentals, basic rules that guide our actions on a day to day basis. We’re a tool for visionaries, not the visionaries themselves.
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I find this to be very problematic. Perhaps I’m an optimist and just think that everyone is a visionary, if they want to be and find a way to be, they can be a visionary. Everyone can contribute and lead elements of the field forward.

There are structures and fundamentals, this is true, but libraries are not monks and monastaries or the homes of servants, they are places that serve the community and there is no better way to serve than to provide leadership and direction in the service of those communities, their informational needs, their cultural needs, and their social needs. The guide is to serve, but not to be be servile.

Paper Daisies: NYC:
These things happen all the time

I’ve always said (well, since I moved here 4 months ago) that NYC smells like a toilet. Apparently, though, these things happen all the time. I didn’t notice this today, but I guess many others did.

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This is an interesting post… for those interested in attending Pratt for a graduate degree in library science.

YouTube – A Librarian’s 2.0 Manifesto:

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This is an interesting library 2.0 manifest from the standpoint of a librarian.

33 reasons librarians are still extremely important:
A no-nonsense list, good for any sort of situation. My favorites are 24) The internet is subject to manipulation, and 32) Libraries are a stopgap to anti-intellectualism. [thanks forrest]
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i know several anti-intellectual and more sinister anti-academic oriented librarians in training. they seem to have a strong negative feeling for anything they see as not immediately applicable, and or ‘academic’, ‘theoretic’. This is a tragedy of the ‘professional’ school certification and training, i think.

How you can get a library job, too:
More on successful library job searches over at Wanderings of a Student Librarian.
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not to dissimilar from my opinions.

Top 10 Online Databases for General Research « FMU Online:
When writing papers for school, it’s always good to start your research online. Many academic journals publish their articles online—which can give you a head start on research prior to heading to your local library.

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it is not always good to start online…. but these are good references to some extent.

thesecretmirror.com » Blog Archive » The State of Open Source Archival Management Software:
The State of Open Source Archival Management Software

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a nice analysis from the secret mirror.

Springer Book on Wikis free to download:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-540-29267-8/

In English

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I’ve not read this yet, but it looks like a good howto-type outline.

Librarian’s Ultimate Guide to Search Engines:
Librarian’s Ultimate Guide to Search Engines is a helpful starting point for anyone – librarian, professor, or student – wanting to get a lot more out of web search. By Scott Hawksworth for DegreeTutor
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again this is very handy… for more than librarians.

Yesterday, I was thinking about the MLS. I don’t know much about the tradition of the degree, but I think there are some real issues. I am not sure that the MLS does what the MLS says it does. keep in mind, I am not a big advocate of certification in general, but I think the MLS is a certification. The issue is that it is a huge, 30-36 credit, that is 10-12 course program of study at most schools. I think that this causes some issues with what an MLS is. It on the one hand looks like a professional program of study, like an MBA or and MPA, but is in fact a certificate to be a librarian, or occasionally archivist, etc. This causes a great deal of tension. I think that the certificate part of the MLS needs to be stripped out and put into a certificate program. This program would be a 3 or 4 course program that could would be a graduate certificate. Then the ALA could provide a certificatory exam based on those 3-4 courses. The curriculum in those courses could be standardized, and then students would know that if you do those courses and pass the exam, you can be an ALA accredited librarian. Here is the caveat. You should not be able to take that exam without a Master’s degree. That master’s or higher degree could be an MLS or it might be in say Digital Humanities, information systems, art history, or anything really. So Master’s Degree + 12 credits + Test = Librarian . This would resolve, in my mind, the issues around whether a MLS can prepare someone to be a Systems Librarian. What are people’s thoughts? does this make sense?