Librarian Way

Gerry Mckiernan, Science and Technology Librarian at Iowa State University Library, posted the following to lita-l@ala1.ala.org and several other lists of interest to librarians.

I’m pleased to announce the launch of Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services, ‘a blog devoted to application and use of online social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace for any and all types of library-related programs or services.’

Friends will include announcements, general news, as well as citations and links to significant articles, books, and other publications about online social networking in general and their use by libraries and librarians.

The Friends blog is at: onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/

Their FeedBurner feed is:
feeds.feedburner.com/FriendsSocialNetworkingSitesForEngagedLibraryServices

ALA | Hurricane Katrina. Most librarians are already aware of this Web page put together by the American Library Association. This link leads to a lot of news about efforts to help libraries and librarians who went through the hurricane. News includes suspension of dues due for hurricane victims, the CQ Press decision to replace all of their books that were lost by libraries during the storm, an appeal from the SOLINET Job Bank for temporary or permanent jobs for librarians, and a list of preservation resources compiled by ALA/ALCTS.

ALA President Michael Gorman wrote (full text) that New Orleans is still being considered as the location for the ALA 2006 conference: “The single most important thing that ALA can do for New Orleans is to hold our conference there if we can.”

American Libraries Online is keeping an ongoing status page on libraries in the region hit by the hurricane.

The world of librarianship is small. I imagine that most librarians know of someone, a friend or colleague, who was touched by the storm. It is still so overwhelming to grasp. It seems that every day we read or hear about another problem to be resolved. My heart goes out to you.

ASIST SIG Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting is a multi-author weblog created for the purpose of discussing various aspects of these Internet applications. The weblog is under the leadership of Michael Leach, President-Elect of ASIST. There are currently seven authors who will be responsible for maintaining the weblog for a month at a time according to a schedule. The weblog will include postings about conferences and tutorials related to this social networking technology. Please visit.