BLOGWITHOUTALIBRARY.NET » michaelstephens

culture of “no” to culture of “why?”

ae-j — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:57:22 +0000

I wish I could remember where I saw this (perhaps in one of the many recent ALA Annual blog posts? If you know, let me know!) but here’s a brilliant idea: get all your public service desks to keep a “No List” — a list of all the times they say “no” to a patron. At the end of the month, collect the lists, figure out the policies that required the staff member to say “no”, and review those policies.

Seems to me that “we’ve always done it that way” might come into play without ever saying those words, so perhaps we need to start by asking ourselves why we say “no” to our patrons.

2 updates: Michael pointed out in the comments that SJCPL keeps a “no” list. Cool! Also, Katie Clark emailed me to let me know that she heard Dan Barlow from Westerville Public Library mention the “no” list at the Lita Next Gen Catalog meeting at ALA (I probably read about it in a blog report about the same meeting). Thanks, Katie!

Hey, who needs to fact-check when you’ve got such awesome readers? (kidding! About the fact-checking, not the awesomeness of my readers)

Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software

ae-j — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:17:09 +0000

Originally uploaded by etches-johnson.

Michael gave me his copy of his Learning Technology Report when he was in town last week. And he inscribed it too! Thanks, Michael!

Learning 2.0 comes to McMaster

ae-j — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:50:20 +0000

Last week, we were super fortunate to have Michael Stephens join us on campus for the launch of our very own learning 2.0 programme: Learning 2.0 @ Mac!

I probably don’t have to give you too much background on the whole “learning 2.0″ thing since it got quite a bit of blog coverage last year, but I will say a hearty thank you to Helene Blowers for putting together a truly brilliant programme and allowing the rest of us steal it shamelessly! That’s exactly what we’ve done at McMaster – the Emerging Technologies Group borrowed a lot from PLCMC’s 23 Things, added a few of our own, and formulated a 12-week programme of hands-on, immersive, self-directed exploration & discovery! We kick off on February 12th (next week!) and I just know it’s going to be all kinds of fun!

The best part? It’s been 4 days since the launch and we already have 53 participants signed up (that’s close to half our total staff!). If you’re interested in keeping up with the progress of the programme, keep your eye on our blog. And feel free to follow along!