While I typically don’t republish newsbits from beyond Drexel, I wanted to call attention to this announcement from the American Libraries Assn “Library Info Technology” division. The kind of value this one entrepreneur was able to provide by serving up low-cost shared services really illustrates the opportunities that are continually opening up as web-based services evolve. I think if more iSchools were operating “clinics” with low-cost consulting to support these services, I think that would be even better! ( I hope to have more to say on that topic in the near future….)

“2008 LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award winner announced
CHICAGO – Glenn Peterson is the 2008 recipient of the LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award for his development of EngagedPatrons.org. Engagedpatrons.org provides low-cost and free Web site services for public libraries. The site went live in May 2006, enabling even small- and medium-sized libraries the ability to offer high-quality Web services to their patrons, services that most would otherwise be unable to provide.”

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Here’s the link to the full text.

Instant Messaging:
Hagerty Library and your IST Librarian now offer browser-based instant messaging reference services using the Meebo widget, 9-5 weekdays. Why is this special? Because for anyone who just wants to ask a quick question, IM is perfect. Besides, according to an unscientific survey of teenaged acquaintances “email is for old people.” On my site, see the box on the far right hand side. No client or IM account needed on your end! Check it out!

To get your own Meebo account, and enjoy IM access across all other IM platforms, go to www.meebo.com. Just fyi – our Reference Desk service uses “Pigeon” – (formerly GAIM) on account of its nice features for capturing the “log files” of IM interactions with patrons, and storing them in one place on the departmental shared drive.

CRC Evening Office Hours
Your IST Librarian has begun holding office hours in the iSchool CRC from 5-6pm, one evening per week. The plan is to rotate between Tuesday’s, Wednesdays and Thursday’s. Monday’s I’m usually on the Reference Desk at Hagerty, and Friday’s… well let’s just say there’s other business to attend to. I’ll do my best to update my Twitter microblog as soon as my office hour plans are set for the next week. Thats the bit of text that shows up underneath my photo on all the Library Research Guides I edit – with the headline “Where’s Tim now?” Let me know if you think that page loads too slow with all these gadgets plugged in. I still consider all of this experimental and I may have to change things around if it bogs everything down.

What is Twitter? Aside from loads of hype about it helping to track friends via text messages, it also seems to be an easy way to update my webpage. And it keeps me to 140 characters!

As always, you are also welcome to contact me about scheduling a F2F or phone meeting for less serendipitous encounters!

Best,
Tim

My postings on Second Life have not exactly reflected the growth of this project that the Library started back in …June? Our Library “Second Life Task Force” has been on a tear lately. Last week I hosted my first hands on training session for a group of neophyte colleagues about how SL is being used by librarians. It included an overview that borrowed liberally from Penn State IST’s Bart Pursel who I heard a speak at LeBow the previous week (see his site for slides). My talk also highlighted work being done on InfoIsland, but in two hours couldn’t hold a candle to the course they taught in-world.

Ours was more of a quick and dirty start-up session. We walked attendees through the avatar-creation process via the NMC.org portal, then toured Drexel’s Island and some other library-oriented sites in SL. I’ve had some good feedback from my colleagues, some of whom are already fielding requests for library collaboration on SL projects from their patrons.

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Feeling thrifty? Ready to go to some extra lengths to get your readings? Already tried the bookstore, and Amazon? Here’s the shorthand version of what we tell folks at the Reference Desk.

First, your best bet, be sure to see what your faculty have made available on Library Reserve for your class. If there is currently NOTHING on Reserve, not even a copy of your textbook, you might ask your faculty WHY? Be sure to look under both your faculty’s last name and your course number before you hassle them. This is their responsibility to get us a copy, or at least request it.

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The Hagerty Information Services (reference) Librarians are all getting laptops and working out options for “roving” – aka – having regular “office hours” at times and places more convenient to students. Don’t be surprised if you see me doing email in the Rush Building lobby on Tuesday’s this fall term from 5-6pm! (You can check my location via “Twitter” on my webpage)

PS – what is Twitter? Here’s the wikipedia entry. For me, it’s the shorthand way that I intend to let faculty and students know where I am hanging out while “roving” around campus. Mostly it’ll just say “I’m in my office” – but you never know!

So *that’s* what an institutional repository is good for!

Check out all these iSchool PhD student posters from the last two year’s worth of Drexel’s internal “Research Day” poster session events.

Do YOU have scholarly publications you would like to see in Drexel’s iDEA electronic repository? Get in touch!