Howard, Jennifer; For Libraries, MOOCs Bring Uncertainty and Opportunity, The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education (March 25, 2013). Here’s a quote….

“Ms. O’Brien had one piece of basic advice for librarians wondering what to make of MOOC mania: Take a MOOC or two to see what they’re really like. “You can’t be a valued adviser if you don’t understand what it takes to do one of these courses,” she told the audience.”

Image by BrianCSmith CC Some rights reserved

Some that might be of particular interest to librarians…

• Metadata: organizing and discovering information – starts September 2013 (8 weeks)
• Hyperlinked Library MOOC – starts September 2013
• Surviving disruptive technologies – started 3 days ago, but looks like you an still sign up. 2-4 hours per week for 7 weeks
• Introduction to data science – May 2013 (8 weeks)
• Globalizing Higher Education and Research for the ‘Knowledge Economy” – Jan 2014 (8 weeks)
• Apps for Librarians & Educators ($125)
• Accessibility features of iOS for the iPad and iPhone
• How to write a thesis ($12)
• Responsible Computing – sounds interesting to see how they ‘develop foundational computing and information literacy’ for college freshmen
• The Economics of Information: Strategy, Structure and Pricing
• Digital Learning Transition

But you could choose one on any topic you like:

• How to listen to orchestras
• Introduction to guitar
• Message of the image
• Polite Puppy Dog Training Classes

Have you enrolled in a MOOC? What was it like? Have you asked your employer to fund a MOOC for professional development? How did that go?

Read Jan Holmquist’s article at Tame the Web to learn more about Unglue It.

Definitely worth a look…

And have a play with the ngram viewer. I used the terms ‘libraries’ and ‘librarians’. There was a peak in 1970s and a decline since then. Uh oh! Or does this just mean that those topics are now being written about in non-book formats?

Yahoo product consolidation

Yahoo has laid off quite a few staff of late and as a result is consolidating its products: shutting down some, merging others and putting their emphasis on yet others. You can read all the details and see the evidence for yourself at Tech Crunch.

A petition is underway via Twitter, to try and save delicious and in a very short time has picked up a lot of momentum. However, its hard to say whether it will have any impact.

So if it doesn’t and there is no way to save delicious, what do we do with all our bookmarks that we have fastidiously saved and organised there?  You have to love Wikipedia. They have a great list of social bookmarking sites for you to explore.

At least you now know what you are going to do on your holidays.     

Any recommendations?

Libraries that need to modify the access levels displayed against their holdings can do so through the Australian Libraries Gateway.

More information on this functionality is available from the National Library’s website.

Desert Leader uploaded to Flickr by Hamed Saber 15th December 2006, Attribution 2.0 Generic

Which got me thinking about who are the leaders and legends in the library world. Ranganathan and his laws come immediately to mind, as does Dewey.

Thinking about more modern times and I think it becomes more of a personal preference. I think about who I would have considered library leaders or legends a few years ago and things have changed. Although the leaders I looked to then may have moved on, they will continue to have a legend type status to me.

My leaders and legends these days include Warwick Cathro, Paul Hagon, Mal Booth and our own Kathryn Greenhill, all great Aussies in libraries. Further afield, its easy to create a list, beginning with Walt Crawford, David Lee King and Stephen Abrams. And that’s just from a couple of minutes of thinking.

But as librarians, we should be and are looking for new ideas and new inspiration, so I put it to you: Who are your library leaders and legends? Who are you looking to for your inspiration? I look forward to finding some of my own from the people you suggest.

Paper.li is in alpha release at present. Check out the widget in our sidebar and click through to see the paper.

This one is based on the libsinteract twitter account and the accounts that it follows, but other ‘papers’ can be set up to prepare a roundup based on a hashtag.

Please take a look and tell us what you think.

A discussion framework is available on the site as well as a transcript of Peter Garrett MP’s address to the National Press Club, in which he identified three key themes.

1. Keeping culture strong
2. Engaging the community
3. Powering the young

The discussion framework develops expands on these themes.

There are currently three questions on the forum and comments are already accumulating. They are about priorities for a policy, positive steps to advance Australian culture and an open-ended question about other important issues.

There are some great comments already on the site. Including one from Flying Pigeon who takes issue with the theme 3, says “I am young” and argues that it is “dangerous to the collective cultural development to single out a group for attention or benefit based on age”.

Other comments are quite detailed enumerating specific items to be included, and Hayley and Pinknantucket draw attention to libraries, archives and museums in theirs.

How about spreading the news with your library users, and encouraging and assisting those who are less web savvy to contribute to this discussion.

The consultation is not just limited to the web forum. Formal submissions can also be made. Check the site for details.

National Cultural Policy

And for our visual pleasure, this shot of the Mitchell Library, just one of many great cultural institutions in Australia.

Mitchell Library, Sydney (#24). Image by Christopher Chan. Used under CC license. Some rights reserved

And here are some “powered young” enjoying their culture, National Simultaneous Story Time at another great cultural institution, Mosman Library.

Storytime. Image by Mosman Library. Used here under a CC license. Some rights reserved.

PLVN Logo

Part of this rebranding has included the creation of the PLVN website, where you can find information about PLVN, Victorian public libraries and more.

It is early days and not much is happening yet, but it will grow with time and as more people come on board to contribute content.  This will be made easier by the website being built on Drupal.

What is worth noting at this stage, is PLVN’s publications page.  Apart from reports and statistics about PLVN and its member libraries, it also includes training, project and conference  reports, and other items of interest.

As I am on one of PLVN’s working groups, I will keep you posted on new developments as they occur.

Rose Holley writes  “Users have demonstrated a willingness to work towards the ‘common good’, to volunteer their time, energy, skill, knowledge and ideas and to be involved long term in a program of national historic significance. The collaborative activity from this new community is enhancing the quality of the data and therefore the accuracy of full‐text searching in a way that the National Library of Australia could never have achieved using its own resources alone.”

Many Hands Make Light Work: Public Collaborative OCR Text Correction in Australian Historic Newspapers by Rose Holley. (March 2009) ISBN 978‐0‐642‐27694‐0