A Library in the Place of Many Fish
My 2014 travels through Nunavut have brought me to appreciate the symbiosis between the people and the library. There are 11 public libraries in…
Open Digital Badges: the New Education Credential
You may have earned a badge in your life. Often when people think of badges, they think about the Girl Guides or Boy Scouts…
Emerging Librarian Competencies: Accessibility as a Core Competency
I believe that there are a number of core competencies which all librarians should be encouraged to develop, and they include accessibility.
House of Books No More
If you open a browser on your phone, tablet or computer and search for the definition of a library, you might find the following:…
The Guelph Library Project
The Guelph Public Library has been trying to build a new main library for many years. Many, many years. The current 1965 facility is…
Leadership and the Development of Library Accessibility Policies
This year I have had the pleasure to be a part of a hiring committee for a new librarian position and, rolling up my…
Let Them In: Volunteers in Academic Libraries
In the fall of 2012 I was a third year history undergrad at the University of Guelph with a growing sense of angst about…
Big Bookstore School Library Fundraisers
In recent years, it has become an increasingly popular practice to hold school library fundraising events at a large bookstore chain. We have all…
User Experience and Translatability: Compatible or in Conflict?
UX (User eXperience) is not an easy concept to pin down, but there is general agreement that it focuses on the total subjective experience…
Project Goldilocks: Getting Library Learning Space “Just Right”
While there is a lot of discussion surrounding learning commons and you can certainly incorporate current trends, I think that to create productive learning spaces for students, collaboration with students is key.
In Praise of Maker Culture
My library doesn’t have a makerspace. We don’t have a 3d printer, a CNC router, or a laser cutter. We don’t have piles of…
Let’s Give Them Something to Tweet About: Applying Best Practices at Western Libraries
In The Librarian's Nitty-Gritty Guide to Social Media (ALA, 2013), Laura Solomon advises that social media is “incredibly easy to learn but can take a…
Mine the Gap: Leveraging Open Access Through Citizen Engagement in Science
The progress of science is a cumulative process, one that fundamentally depends on the rapid and widespread dissemination of new findings, so that they…