Recent library blog news: Reading Rants and Let Me Think
March 1, 2010
Our trip to Auburn went really well on Saturday! I’ll be writing a post about it tomorrow. For now, just a few news items from the library blogosphere.
Reading Rants, written by Jennifer Hubert and designed by Andrew Mutch, is a collection of booklists and book reviews that’s been around since 1998 (first as a website and then in 2007 as a blog. They also published a book). Jennifer posted to YALSA-bk yesterday announcing that with the help of her 7th graders and Andrew, Reading Rants had gotten a template redesign.
There’s been some controversy in central Indiana recently: the Monroe County Community Schools Corporation announced budget cuts earlier this month that would eliminate school librarian positions districtwide. There’s been a trend recently toward having one licensed librarian provide library service to multiple schools in a district with assistants overseeing the individual libraries on the librarian’s days elsewhere, but these budget cuts would eliminate all librarian positions within the district. Mary D’Eliso–IU-Bloomington SLIS grad, former assistant manager of children’s services at Monroe County Public Library, current library media specialist at University Elementary School, and (former?) instructor of Children’s Literature at IU-Bloomington SLIS–started Let Me Think: Adventures in a School Library at the end of January and wrote in an email, “I was thinking that the main crux of our elimination was that people have no idea what actually happens in the modern school library, particularly in areas of teaching and curriculum.” She’s intending for Let Me Think to include lessons, displays, and events.
I mostly think of blogs as tools for aspiring and practicing librarians to find book reviews and get new programming ideas and as an online community for people in the profession, but they can also be public relations tools, showing non-librarians what we’re all about.
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2 Comments Leave a Comment
1. webber | March 4, 2010 at 12:42 AM
A little unrelated, but here is an article abotu economics blogs that touches on some similar issues: http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2008/spring/pdf/econblogs.pdf
2. Gretchen | March 4, 2010 at 8:52 PM
Thanks for the link, Webber! I thought the article you linked to was interesting, and it explores a lot of the things I’ve been thinking about related to blogging recently. I expect this blog to evolve as I move from being a student to being a new librarian to being a seasoned librarian; right now it’s just kind of a chance for me to think about things in a structured way and to talk about what I’m learning, but I hope that as I gain experience, it’ll be useful or thought-provoking to someone. I’m also hoping that people will generate discussion in the comments and that I’ll find time to get involved with library culture and discussion online.
I’ve been surprised by how much time I’ve been putting into this, too. Because I’m writing “in public,” I feel like I need to compose these posts in a more formal way and revise them before publishing rather than just dumping some thoughts into a post–and I’m not even dealing with moderating comments or posting responses to what people say. I guess I hadn’t realized that I’d basically be trying to make myself write three short essays a week in doing this project.
But anyway, it’s generated some discussion among my peers and gotten me thinking about things more deeply, so it’s a good start. Thanks a bunch for reading, and for showing me the economists’ side of things.
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