Very soon, you too can own this very lovely book. Proofs are done, galleys are done, everything on our end is done, done, and done. We’re officially at the printers, folks!

Library Blogging is suitable as a gift for any occasion, and you can pre-order now (pre-order? No, just order, I think) at Amazon…go here and order! Or just wait until I have dozens of copies that I can’t possibly get rid of, and offer me a couple of bucks. Your choice.

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PIC-0033

Originally uploaded by griffey.

Bad placement of a sign on my campus. The actual ramp is to the left of the stairs, but you’d think maybe an arrow or something might have been appropriate.

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Betsy surprised me a few days ago with this, which she claims is either a late birthday or early father’s day present: a signed, numbered, limited edition of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

It’s put out by Subterranean Press, and is gorgeous. Subterranean is a press that specialized in high quality printings of limited edition fantasy, scifi, and horror…I want to own nearly everything they print.

But for now, I will just stare and covet my copy of my preciou….I mean, Snow Crash.

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I’m very, very excited to announce the next step in the continuing attempt to take over the world illustrate modern communication methodologies and community building for the larger LITA and ALA types:

YourBIGWIG

This is a place for members and potential members and interested parties of the LITA Interest Group BIGWIG to gather, talk, and most importantly: do stuff. The site is open…anyone can create an account and participate in the site, add content, etc. It gives us a place to meet virtually, and a place where I hope good ideas are filtered and implemented. Consider it a BIGWIG-driven playground.

The site is Drupal based, and will be chock-full of open source goodness over time. We’ll also continue to experiment with Web 2.0 tools and hope that people use the site to do so.

So: Join us virtually, and then decide if you want to join us at conferences and such. Either way, we’re happy to have you participate in our playing. Come join us!

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After being tagged by Amanda, and looking back at the Michael Stephens post that tagged her, I decided to take her up on it. The meme:

Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.

It was terrifically hard to come up with any one thing that I am passionate for kids to learn about, simply because there are so many AND because both Michael and Amanda hit solid homeruns with theirs. But here’s my attempt (and here’s a link to the original photo).

Connections are Everything. This isn’t just personal connections, although as you go through school, read online, join groups and such, the personal connections you make are central to your success in life. My connectivity to individuals in libraries around the world have made me better at what I do and enabled me to build a rich understanding of practices different than just those I am surrounded with on a day-to-day basis. Maintaining these connections are incredibly important, and the social capital gained from them (both bridging and bonding) is a key to being successful in the modern age.

Read another way, connections are everything in the very technical sense that understanding and interacting with modern information technology can be seen as the management of connections. How do you connect two disparate pieces of IT these days? An API, RSS, JSON, or some other standard. TCP/IP is the connection that runs the world. Building better technological connections make for richer and deeper options for our users, in ways that we may not entirely predict or understand.

If you focus on maintaining and understanding connections, you’ll be a better librarian.

EDIT: The lovely Jenica and Dorothea chime in as well with their take. These are all amazing, and if I taught at a Library School I would seriously think about designing a syllabus around them.

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