Librarians in the (New Social) Media

Librarians are hitting the big-time news like never before. Here are the latest offerings:

Public Library Geeks Take Web 2.0 to the Stacks, Wired, March 29, 2007

Helene Blowers of the North Carolina’s Charlotte & Mecklenburg County public library describes the Learning 2.0 program she developed:

Recognizing that librarians need to know how to participate in the new media mix if libraries are to remain relevant, Blowers challenged her 550 staffers to become more web savvy. Using free web tools, she designed the program and gave staff members three months to do 23 things.

They created blogs and podcasts, tried out Flickr, set up RSS feeds, learned about wikis, uploaded video to YouTube, played with image generators and Rollyo, and explored Technorati, tagging and folksonomies.

Link courtesy of Michael Stephens @ Tame the Web.

New and Improved Libraries CBS News video

With competition from book stores and the Internet, libraries are looking for new ways to attract users. Susan McGinnis takes a look at what some facilities are doing to revamp their image.

This is a worthwhile news story, but it does bug me that they imply librarians haven’t been paying attention to the new media, and that we are now trying to keep up. Arggh. In so many ways librarians are being the leaders with this!

Also, I think CBS needs a librarian to help them with their video library. There is nothing to tell us what day this news story was recorded or run. Same with all their other videos. I mean, the Oscars Buzz and the Gerald Ford tribute sit there as if they were just posted.

Link courtesy of Jeff Scott via a forum post.