The Role Of Councils In Collection Development

Many of you will have seen the discussion taking place on NZ-Libs following the posting of the following snippet contained in the “Auckland: Your Council. Your Vote” flyer: “Location and design of libraries The local boards will decide on the location and design of new local libraries, and any upgrades to existing facilities. They will [...]

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The Horizon Report 2010 & information literacy

Is information literacy dead? I’ve been pondering this for a while.  It has been a topic on my Twitter stream and at the recent TELSIG conference the term information literacy (IL) gained a kind of four-letter-word status. I don’t think the need for IL is dead.  I think the way we currently address that need [...]

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The Web Is Dead? I Beg Your Pardon?

I have to admit the irony of ready this on a webpage, and then reposting it on a webpage, makes me chuckle. I think I get the distinction between viewing an Internet resource on an “app” rather than a “traditional” webpage. Except I am not quite convinced, as even on their graph a the peer-to-peer [...]

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Innovation! Cooperation! That’s Your Public Library!

What a fabulous idea this is, highlighting yet again just how great public libraries are.  I wonder if we could get our local lines company to do a similar thing. The Latest Public Library Loan? Electricity Meters By David Rapp [From the Library Journal] Spurred by concerns about conservation and cost, public utilities across the [...]

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I Ain’t Hip, No Sir, Not Me, And I Don’t Get Foursquare

I have to confess that every time I see a tweet in my tweetstream of “I’ve become Mayor of…” from Foursquare I get a flash of annoyance. My curmudgeonly side surfaces and I want to hit the block button. You see I don’t really get Foursquare.  Off course that may have something to do with [...]

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Print Your Own Text Book From Wikipedia: Pediapress

In an interesting development (they say they have been about since 2007, but this is the first I have heard of them), you can now collate your favourite articles from Wikipedia and have them printed as book. You can print your own reference book, or text book. Knowing how academia feel about Wikipedia I am [...]

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Library Week: What’s Surprised You?

So it’s library week. We like everywhere else will be holding a number of events to mark the occasion. Despite being a little skeptical at first, I think I sort of like the “was surprised” theme for this week. so in keeping with the theme I had a question. As librarians, what question/request has most surprised you? [...]

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Nelson Leads The Charge Against Free Internet

Last month I mused on the future of Internet cafe’s in the modern world of free Internet.  Now it seems that some business are indeed feeling the pinch. I empathise with the business owner but he is missing the point. As the Internet and Wi-Fi gets cheaper it will become not a revenue stream, but more an essential [...]

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Prezi : alternative to Powerpoint. Saves kittens.

If you have ever suffered Death By Powerpoint or thought “there must be a better way” when sitting through the 70th slide of a Copyright In Libraries session you may be ready for conversion. Conversion to Prezi. Prezi is a cloud based presentation tool which uses zooming and sliding as a feature. It is based [...]

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