CalPoly

Seth Godin‘s blog post, The future of the library, although focused particularly on a future “public” library that perhaps doesn’t exist yet, is interesting to consider applied to the academic/university library of today:

A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh*, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

Pretty good, right?
Unfortunately, academic libraries have not been able to achieve as quickly in our collections as we have with our physical spaces. His vision of collections as “finally abundant, hardly scarce, hardly expensive,” feels like the opposite of where we are in dealing with annually-inflating licensing costs for the highly specialized resources and databases required by our customers.

It really emphasizes for me again the importance of the new ways of preserving academic output, for example in institutional repositories like DigitalCommons@CalPoly and the need to support and encourage other methods of Open access publishing.

(*An aside: if you’re like me and further interested in this “Mesh,” I’ve requested our library order a copy — until we get that, you might check Link+.)

Photo courtesy of Kennedy Library. Some rights reserved.

Places and Spaces: Mapping Science is a great site for a wide variety of interesting maps. Some highlights are:

Carte du Tendre (Map of Affection or Tenderness). I can only imagine what lurks in La Mer Dangereuse.

Ph.D. Thesis Map by Dr. Keith V. Nesbitt. I’m still trying to figure out which step on the path towards a Ph.D. corresponds to Picadilly Circus.

History of Science Fiction by artist Ward Shelley. This is the last item on that page and the image is one that’s flitting around the narcissismagoria (blogosphere / twitterverse / facehole).

At libraries, especially those that are embracing and chasing the technological (b)leading edge, technology (so says the Washington Post) is driving more in-person visits, circulation and usage.

This is definitely our experience at Kennedy Library. Not only is our web-use up, but our in person visits are up as well. We continually look for ways to put technology in the reach of our users — from more computers to more outlets for laptops to technology to check out (kindles, cameras, etc) to more online services and help.

Read the Washington Post article Libraries launch apps to sync with iPod generation for more.

Case in point: their awesome Banned Books Week web page.

They have students reading excerpts. So cool!

We have a modest Banned Books Week page and I really look forward to making it into something great, too. Just wait 2011 Banned Books Week. I’ve got my sites on you.

You’re in luck: I’ve made a(n uncomprehensive) list.
» See other university and the library web sites

Good solid article from Wired about the state of our online lives. So the web is dead? Or the web is evolving? Or maybe the term “web” means different things to different people. No matter how you slice it, we are in a bigger time of online flux than the heady fun days of Ye Olde Webbe 2.0.

» Read the article

And then seriously start thinking about what your users need from you in app form. And I’m not just talking consumerism here… I’m talking information. How do people on mobile devices interact with your Olde Webbe Site? And what information do they need? What do they want to do? How can you help them do it? It’s time to shift your proverbial paradigms people. Get crackin’.

Short film from Predictably Irrational about procrastina— oooh shiny.

All joking aside, this hits on a big truth: we all love fresh starts fueled by high hopes and lofty ideals.

» Procrastination and Self Control

Southern California has been an earthquake hotspot in the last week (or months) (or years) (who’s counting?). The USGS (the go-to site for all things “did you feel it?”) has a cool animation showing earthquake action in California and Nevada for the last seven days. That’s 1000 earthquakes, folks, albeit most of them itty-bitty 1.0-ers. Still cool to see.

Thankfully the Central Coast shows no action during this time period. Knock wood, people.

Wikipedia has published an FAQ for Librarians in their Outreach wiki. Great idea, long overdue.

Hat tip, with some brief commentary over at Library Journal.

Part One. The header.

So not my style. So large. Takes up so much space. So dominating. Overtakes the content. And yet? I freaking love it. So gorgeous and clever and smile inducing. This is from the Nosotros Blog.

Part Two. The poster.

We make a lot of posters over here in web land (you’re surprised right?). This one has to be one of my all-time favorites. I think I may need a copy of this for myself. Super love. You can get a copy, too (a tabloid-sized one, anyway), right here (.pdf, 5.1mb).