Riot Librarian

The revolution will be organized.

  • ALA Annual 2012 Recap

    This year, most of my time at ALA was spent in meetings, and I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to check out sessions and hear the cool things that people are doing in libraryland. I also cut out a lot of the social stuff I’ve done in the past, and…

  • Supporting Librarians

    In a re-cap of a Libraries Rebound event put on by OCLC Research Library Partnership, Jim Michalko briefly mentions that the phrase “embedded librarian” might not be a very good one. He argues that the phrase “enshrines ‘other-ness,’” reinforcing that the librarian is somehow separate. He suggest the phrase liaison librarian instead, but I’m not…

  • Is it time for ALA again?

    Yes, it is, and this time ALA is practically in my backyard. Ok, it’s an 8 hour drive away, and I don’t really have a backyard, but I’m looking forward to a trip to Southern California. I’m extending my stay down south with a few days at the family compound (ha) in San Diego. So…

  • Reflections on One Year at CDL

    It’s hard to believe I’ve been back in California for over a year now. My one year anniversary at CDL was April 11, and it’s been a full year, with a lot of challenges, and a few bright and shining moments. My work now, and my day-to-day professional life, is very different from my previous…

  • MARC as linked data

    I wanted to draw attention to an article I read recently: Improving Presentation of Library Data using FRBR and Linked Data by Anne-Lena Westrum, Asgeir Rekkavik, and Kim Talleras. If you’re curious about how linked data might be implemented in a specific library project, and how you, yourself, might think about going about a similar…

  • Et tu, brute?

    Other people have said more insightful and salient things about Penguin’s recent defection from Overdrive, but I didn’t want to let this one go without saying something. Penguin’s decision to pull all ebooks from Overdrive’s lending program is a huge disappointment (especially when you consider it in light of the fact that they make a…

  • Library Week in the Life

    It’s Library Day in the Life time again. I do love this project, and I love it when libday posts start appearing in my RSS feed. It’s fun to hear what other librarians do, what other jobs are like, what kinds of work and projects are happening in the field. And it’s fun for me…

  • Thoughts after ALA Midwinter

    I got back from ALA Midwinter on Tuesday night, and after taking a day to ponder all the things I heard and discussed over the long weekend, I wanted to quickly write up a few observations and thoughts. I’m trying to take an overall approach, rather than detailing each session I attended, as I have…

  • Supporting Infrastructure

    I recently read a quote in OCLC’s report, “Libraries at Webscale”: Leslie Crutchfield says that “The expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons that collective efforts fail.” That quote really stuck with me because it so aptly describes the project I’ve been working on for the…

  • Getting Ready for ALA Midwinter

    Like many of my library brethren, I’m getting ready to head to Dallas next week for ALA Midwinter 2012. I’m getting kind of excited, because I like conferences, and I’ve never been to Dallas, and I’m staying in a nice hotel. I like traveling to new cities for any reason, and no one who knows…