ADDICTOMATIC.COM: INHALE THE WEB

I’ve just discovered a great new site to help you keep up with specific topics. “Addictomatic searches the best live sites on the web for the latest news, blog posts, videos and images. It's the perfect tool to keep up with the hottest topics, perform ego searches and feed your addiction for what's up, what's now or what other people are feeding on. After you search, you can personalize your results dashboard by moving around the source boxes. When you're done, bookmark the page and keep coming back to your personalized results dashboard for that search.”

I’ve set up searches on “one-person library,” “solo librarian” and my own name; and I’ve found items I’d probably never find any other way. Be sure to use the quotation marks for a phrase.

The site was created by Dave Pell, founder of Rollyo, who has just launched a new health news blog called The Skeptical Hypochondriac. (“Dave also is maintaining his son's site until he turns three and starts blogging himself.”)

Sites covered include: Google, Yahoo, Technorati, Ask, YouTube, Truveo, Flickr, Blinkx, Ice Rocket, Digg, Topix, Newsvine, Tweetscan, and their Top Blogs (from 150-200 blogs selected by Addictomatic “with a lot of help from sources like the Technorati 100 and the blog reading lists of some of our favorite bloggers.”)

The site “enablers” (staff) have a great sense of humor. This is from the FAQ:
“What if I get hooked and I can't stop? Welcome to the club.”

Try it—you’ll become an addict too.

URLs:
Addictomatic: http://addictomatic.com
Pell’s other blog: http://skepticalhypochondriac.com/

TOP 50 LIBRARY BLOGS: MY FAVORITIES

I gather that the original list was not in any particular order, so neither is this list. Nearly all have RSS feeds to make it easy for you to follow them--so do it!

Librarian.net, Jessamyn West, a rural, circuit-riding librarian/tech consultant, has “what is thought to be ‘the first single-editor library-oriented weblog.’” http://www.librarian.net

David Lee King, Digital Branch and Services Manager at the Topeka and Shawnee Public Library, tells us about the wonderful things he’s doing at his cutting edge library. http://www.davidleeking.com

Information Wants to be Free, from Meredith Farkas at Norwich University. Technology-oriented. http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/

Stephen’s Lighthouse should be on your must-read list. It is, from one of my favorite people, Stephen Abram, VP of Innovation for SirsiDynix, the big integrated library software vendor. He is also one of the profession’s premier forward thinkers. Plus, he travels all over the world and reads voraciously, thus keeping us up-to-date on just about everything library. http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/

Another of my favorite people, Michael Stephens, is a librarian turned professor (at Dominican University). He blogs on information technology and social networking, among other topics at Tame the Web. He’s big on customer service. http://tametheweb.com/

Jenny Levine left the library for a post at the American Library Association, but is still writing on technology and how we react to it on her blog, The Shifted Librarian. http://theshiftedlibrarian.com

LISNews, founded by Blake Carver, is produced by a group of librarians and covers the news of the library world (especially technology). http://www.lisnews.org/

Librarian in Black is the baby of Sarah Houghton-Jan, digital futures manager, San Jose (California) Public Library. Tech news mostly. http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/

Law Librarian Blog covers more than the legal field, especially on Fridays when it posts on the funny or unusual. From Joe Hodnicki (Butler County [Ohio] Law Library) and Ron Jones (University of Cincinnati Law Library) and a part of the Law Professors Blog Network. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/


URL for the entire list: http://www.getdegrees.com/articles/career-resources/the-top-fifty-librarian-blogs/

BRIDGING THE GENERATION GAP

Laurel Tarulli [Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada) Public Libraries] has a wonderful post on her blog, The Cataloging Librarian, on Bridging the Gap between New Generation Librarians and Boomers. Here’s just a part of it.

"Here are some simple facts (as I see them) about generational gaps and bridging them:

"Age. No one wants to be reminded how old they are and no one wants to be reminded how young they are. While an occasional comment meant to lighten the mood regarding age might be regarded as funny once, continual comments about age serve as a reminder to that individual that they are either a.) Older and perhaps their knowledge and ideas are outdated or b.) Younger and their ideas are not developed or worthy of consideration. Either way, it’s a put down and it’s inappropriate.

"Acknowledge that a gap exists. Gaps occur in experience as well as age. There are new professionals who are 50 and more experienced professionals who are 40. Taking pains to point out levels of experience or exhibiting actions to create “barriers” is just as much of a gap as the age factor.

"Perceptions and Insecurities. Believe it or not, your job can be done without you. You are replaceable. If you have the opportunity to work with a rising star, don’t feel threatened by their potential, nurture it. If you’re a next gener and you have the opportunity to work with a talented and energetic boomer, don’t make remarks about taking their job or stressing how you would do things differently if you were them. Learn from each other.

"Respect and compromise. While there will always be a gap among the generations, there are ways to take advantage of it. Rely on boomers for their experience, knowledge and expertise. Rely on next geners for their enthusiasm, ideas, energy and drive. In essence, it is a great partnership because the gap provides qualities that complement each other.

"One thing I’ve come to understand as a librarian working primarily with "boomers" is that a generation gap will always exist. I haven’t lived as long nor do I have the perceived life experience. I have my own experiences, perhaps more than some for my age, and a satisfactory list of professional accomplishments (with hopefully more to come!). I also do not apologize for my age any more than I expect my co-workers to apologize for theirs. I don’t want to be older, I don’t want to rush forward to get past this gap. And perhaps, this is where the gap is finally bridged–in an acceptance of where we are at in our careers and our lives. This comes from within and, as professionals it is our responsibility to attempt to achieve this."

URL: http://laureltarulli.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/bridging-the-gap-between-new-generation-librarians-and-boomers/

BUSINESS INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET

Nice group of links from RBA (Karen Blakeman of Rhodes-Blakeman Associates, Caversham, Berks UK).

Includes: key starting points leaflet, company registers by country, country specific information, day-to-day essentials (currency rates, biographies, maps, post codes), direct marketing, directories, financials & annual reports, government & politics, information brokers,market & industry research, mergers & acquisitions, news, statistics, information by industry sector, stock market & share prices, further reading.

URL: http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/

HELP FOR LAID-OFF LAW LIBRARIANS

Christine Sellers, formerly a Senior Research Librarian at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A., in Columbia, South Carolina, has created the Librarians of Leisure blog “in an effort to provide something positive to the law librarian community out of this experience….” She provides job listings, advice, and “a place to stay connected.” There was a post on LLOF about a focus group of “Laid Off Librarians” in the Law Library Society of DC.

Although it’s sad that it is necessary, this is a wonderful idea and public service. If you know of similar blogs for other areas of librarianship, let me know.

URL: http://lawlibrariansofleisure.com/

NEW (TO ME) LIST OF BLOGS

Globe of Blogs was launched on February 1, 2002 by Heather R. (she keeps her real name a big secret). At the time there were no other weblog directories online. You can search by author’s name, author’s birthday (why?), title, topic, or location. I searched “library science” got zillions, but only 50 were really library-ish blogs. It would be nice if you could really search by topics that were assigned by the blogger. But I still found a substantial number of interesting blogs that were new to me.

This is very interesting, if flawed, site and worth a look. If you like it, you can even buy a t-shirt, mug, or poster at cafepress.com. You can’t say that about many (any?) other blogs.

As of late April 2009, there were 68,201 weblogs registered.
North America: 39249 (58 percent)
Europe: 13197 (19 percent
Asia: 8351 (12 percent)
Australasia: 2310 (3 percent)
South America: 1905 (3 percent)
Other: 1458 (2 percent)
Africa: 1000 (1 percent)
West Indies: 425
Central America: 138
Pacific Ocean: 100
Indian Ocean: 33
Atlantic Ocean: 26

URL: http://www.globeofblogs.com/

DO YOU BLOG?

If you are a solo and are blogging, please send me your url--for the OPL Archives.
Thanks.

Reply to: jsiess@ibi-opl.com

FREE PAPER ON THE MOBILE WEB

Ellyssa Kroski has made available her report for Library Technology Reports titled "On The Move With The Mobile Web: Libraries And Mobile Technologies." (vol. 44, n. 5 / pp. 1-48, 2008).,
You should read about these technologies; if you aren't using them now you will be doing so eventually. Thanks to Ellyssa for the work and making it available free.

Chapter 1: What is the Mobile Web?
Chapter 2: Mobile Devices
Chapter 3: What Can You Do with the Mobile Web?: Mobile Web Applications
Chapter 4: Library Mobile Initiatives
Chapter 5: How to Create a Mobile Experience
Chapter 6: Getting Started with the Mobile Web

URL: Full Text Available At
http://eprints.rclis.org/15024/1/mobile_web_ltr.pdf

FREE OPEN CONTENT CATALOGING SERVICE

If you can't afford to belong to OCLC but still need access to catalog records, you have a new option.

LibLime offers biblios.net, "a free, browser-based" service with over 30 million bib and authority records licensed under the Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License. It works somewhat like Wikipedia, allowing you to use and contribute to the records "without restriction."

Check it out at http://www.biblios.net/

Of course, you can always use the records from WorldCat.org by rekeying the information into your own catalog. I'm not sure how "legal" this is, but we've been using OCLC records in some manner for years, so I wouldn't be worried--as long as there's 1) no chance you could afford to join OCLC and 2) you only use a few records. (Not an option for public or academic libraries, but an idea for small corporate ones......)

MOBILITY IN AND AROUND THE LIBRARY

Jessamyn West has a great entry in her "tech tips for every librarian" column in the May issue of Computers in Libraries (v. 29, n. 5). In "Mobility in and Around the Library," she discusses three kinds of mobility.

Patron mobility is making it easier for customers to connect wherever they are in the library. For instance, instead of telling them not to drape computer cords across aisles to plug into wall sockets, move furniture to where there are outlets or add outlets to areas where customers may want to sit and connect their laptops.

Content mobility is using whatever software is best for the customers, not the library. She advocates using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, but thinks Chrome might be another good alternative.

Finally, accessibility and mobility covers making everything available to those with sight, mobility, or other physical challenges. One idea that I personally use is a trackball instead of a mouse.

For details on the above and much more, see the full article. (It may be available free online later--check at http://www.infotoday.com under the Computers in Libraries link.)

CALLING ALL SOLO/OPL AUTHORS

If you have ever written anything about your library, yourself, or solo librarianship in general, please send me the citation. This includes papers written for classes or degrees.

I am working on the OPL Archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and want to make sure it is as comprehensive as possible. If I don't already have your work, I will ask for a copy for the archives (or a link to it online).

The next step will be to digitize everything so it will be available to everyone.

Thanks in advance for your help.

THE FIRST COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

(found by my father on the Internet, author unknown)

They recently discovered a smaller scroll hidden in the cylinder of the first scroll of the ancient Biblical scriptures, believed to be the actual “first page” of the Bible. When deciphered, it read:

“Copyright (c) 300 B.C. God. All Rights Reserved First scrawling First-Sunrise-After-Stonehenge-Keystone- Is-Shadowed, 300 B.C.

All beings, places and events depicted in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to actual beings, places and events past, present or future is purely coincidental.

WARNING: Some of the actions performed in this work are dangerous and should only be attempted by professionals familiar with the action in question.

NOTE: Those tiny points of light in the sky when it gets dark are called ‘stars’. Some of them do blow up on occasion. In no way should this be construed as a sign that there is, beneath such an explosion, any form of saviour. Should such a misconstrual happen, the author will not be held responsible for the avalanche of arrogance, zeal, bigotry, humanocentricity and other vile acts which will surely follow the residents of the planet into time eternal until someone sees fit to erase the denizens of the world and let the author start over.

DSBN 0-000000-0000-1
Suggested retail: 1 sheep.”

Twelve Tools That Will Soon Go the Way of Fax and CDs

Dave Pollard [Meeting of Minds, Caledon, Ontario, Canada] wrote about this on his blog, How to Save the World. Here are snippets.

1. Hard Drives:
The price of bandwidth, and the price of storage space in cyberspace, have both dropped precipitously. Expect them to drop further. At the same time, Homeland Security is going to be scanning our laptops every time we cross borders, and delaying or charging us if they deem the content to be uh... unpatriotic. So why keep anything on a hard drive anymore? Let the storage and processing all be done in cyberplaces with lots of space and processing power and just stream the results to us, so our machines can be light, pocket-sized, always-connected, pure communication devices.
2. “Wall of Text” Reports & Documents:
Generation Millennium is returning to an oral or visual real-time culture, where blocks of text are used only when visualizations don’t convey what’s happening better….
3. “Best Practices”:
…the sad truth is that most “best practices” are so devoid of context, of the knowledge and history that explains why they are so effective, that they essentially become unactionable. Show, don’t tell, and discuss, don’t proclaim…
4. Email and Groupware:
…replaced by simple real-time face-to-face, voice-to-voice and IM technologies.
5. Corporate Websites:
You just can’t put a filing cabinet up online and expect people to wade through it. Next-gen blogs by individual employees—personal, casual, chatty, accessible, hosted but uncensored by the employer—will soon blow even the best corporate websites out of the water.
6. Corporate Intranets:
Same rationale as #5.
7. Corporate Libraries and Purchased Content:
With luck, [librarians will] learn the employer’s business and morph into subject matter specialists, producing real research and analysis and adding meaning and value to information. But they won’t need a proprietary library for that. Nor will they have to pay for the content they add value to much longer.
8. Cell Phones:
On my increasingly-compact, full-screen, full-keyboard laptop I can get wireless anywhere for a small flat monthly rate, and then make unlimited phone calls, download files and communicate in a dozen different ways for free. But now on this tiny awkward cell phone, you’re going to charge me for every message, and severely restrict what I can send and receive. And I’m going to put up with this why?
9. Classrooms:
There is really nothing that can be done in a classroom that can’t be done using desktop videoconferencing with screensharing, for free.
10. Meetings:
Same rationale as #9.
11. Job Titles:
[replaced by] cross-disciplinary teams.
12. Offices:
People would rather have the money than the real estate…. The next generation works anywhere, anytime, anyway—home, car, coffee shop, and there is “virtually” no reason to go into an office to talk on the phone and work on the

URL: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2008/08/05.html#a2212

TOP TEN LIST FOR NEW (OR ALL) LIBRARIANS

Helen Tannenbaum, editor of Flying Solo, the newsletter of the SOLO Librarians Division of the Special Libraries Association, compiled this top ten list from posts on the dsol-sla electronic discussion list. I think it's great for any librarian!

10. Never lose your enthusiasm over purchasing a book truck.
9. Keep track of the things you do, the questions you are asked, etc.
8. Promote yourself and your services--don't be afraid to blow your own horn.
7. Don't be shy about asking the Solos list a question--that's why we're here.
6. Make nice with the following staff: IT people, office management, supplies purchaser, HR, your boss's assistant, mailroom and receptionist (i.e., Everyone).
5. Find small ways to be visible, such as posting notices or comics on a bulletin board, or emailing news items to all of the staff.
4. Hold an "amnesty" day when clients are asked to return "lost" material (even though there really is no penalty).
3. Get to know your patrons and anticipate their needs.
2. Always have treats available in the library.
1. Good luck, have fun, and don't let the turkeys get you down! (Good advice for all of you, not just newbies).

For more good stuff like this, join the Division and get your own copy of Flying Solo.

URL:
Solo Division website: http://www.sla.org/division/dsol/
(also on Facebook and LinkedIn)

I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS FOR YEARS!

SLA PR Director Cara Schatz cites an AP article by Melissa Kossler Dutton.

“According to the career experts they spoke to, if you take responsibility for your education and skills development by attending the 2009 SLA Annual Conference on your own dime, you will get the attention of management at your company, and do a lot to insulate yourself from the next round of lay-offs!

‘…an employee who is willing to cover part of the expense is going to get the attention of management, said Ed Rigsbee, an expert in trade association conferences and president of Rigsbee Research Consulting Group in Los Angeles. "If someone is willing to spend a nickel of their own, I'm going to be more willing to listen," said Rigsbee, who believes employees should invest 5 percent of their income in professional development,’”

Just what I’ve been saying for years. YOU should pay for your own continuing professional education because 1) YOU are the one who benefits most from continuing professional education, not your employer and 2) it is part of being a professional. Yes, it’s nice if your employer helps, but the responsibility is still yours.

URLs:
SLA blog entry:http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/2009/04/pay-your-own-way-to-sla2009-and-get-the-attention-and-respect-of-your-boss.html
Original article: http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/story/4907133/

TO MOBILE OR NOT TO MOBILE?

The latest Pew Research Center Publication is called Internet Typology: The Mobile Difference (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1162/internet-typology-users-mobile-communication-devices). Kerry Smith [Education.au, Dulwich, South Australia, Australia] summarized some of its findings on her blog, You Are Never Alone (http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2009/04/14/are-you-a-digital-collaborator/).

Fewer than half (39 percent) of the adult population of the USA are power mobile communication users. They divided people into 10 groups. Here are some of the ones that may impact how offer our library services.

Digital Collaborators (8 percent) “use information gadgets to collaborate with others and share their creativity with the world”—power users. Seven percent use mobile devices, but aren’t really thrilled about it. Another 7 percent look for information on the net and make it available through their social networks. Eight percent don’t have “robust” access to the net (e.g., broadband), but like their cell phones. Thirteen percent are net veterans, but use wired access. Fourteen percent have mobile devices, but don’t use them much and could live without them. Ten percent feel overwhelmed; 10 percent are indifferent; and 14 percent don’t use either cell phones or the internet.

Adding these up, only 15 percent of the US adults are real users of mobile technology; the other 85 percent would not benefit from our offering mobile applications. Now, where are you going to put your money?

BOOK REVIEW: You Don't Look Like a Librarian!

Ruth Kneale is one of our profession’s premier observers of professional image both in our minds and the minds of our customers. In her book, You Don’t Look Like a Librarian: Shattering Stereotypes and Creating Positive New Images in the Internet Age, she gathers many of her observations as well as the result of several surveys she has conducted.

The first chapter, “Stereotypes? What Stereotypes?” lists many of the public perceptions of librarians. You know, and older woman with her hair in a bun, glasses, and sensible shoes, or a gay man with a bow tie—both stamping books and saying shhh a lot. There are also many reactions by librarians to these images. The second chapter looks at “Pop Culture and Librarians” and highlights some of the depictions of librarians in books, comics, movies, music, television, advertising, merchandise, etc. Although very interesting, most of us have seen all this before. (I did, however, order a bunch of the books about libarians from my local public library.)

Chapter three, “Breaking the Stereotype,” describes 14 librarians who defy the standard idea of a librarian: Stephen Abram, Amy Buckland, Laura Carscaddon, Andrew Evans, Abigail Goben, Amy Hale-Janeke, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Jill Jarrell, J. Parker Ladwig, Jenny Levine, Joseph Murphy, Joshua Neff, Kathleen Robertson, and Shannon Smith. There are also bits about (and links to) groups of image-breaking librarians: Bellydancing Librarians, Butt Kicking Librarians, Librarians on Facebook, the Laughing Librarian, Librarian Avengers, Library Society of the World, Library Underground, the Lipstick Librarian, Radical Librarians. the Warrior Librarian, and a group I never thought I’d join (but I just did)—Modified Librarians (librarians with tattoos). This is fascinating stuff, and I had a great time following all the links, but it still is not the best part of the book.

That comes in the last chapter, “Thoughts on the Future.” Here she looks into the ways in which the roles of librarians are changing and the changes in our skill sets that will be needed. She also covers the role of librarians in virtual worlds and the evolution of the library into a community space. In the section “Now What?” Kneale writes, “To combat the stereotypes, we need to step up what we’re already doing. This, though, is just the first step. What else can we do to change the stereotype? Most importantly: Don’t be afraid of change. Don’t be afraid of technology. Don’t be afraid if you role changes to become more collaborative with your patrons (come out from behind the desk?). Don’t be afraid of your IT department…. Don’t be afraid to try something technologically new or to play with a new tool; you never know what you might find and how it might benefit you. Embrace new learning. Accept new modes of interaction. Lastly, start using social networking tools….”

The last words in the book may be the most important. “If you take one message away from all of this, above all, be ‘loud and proud’ about being a librarian, whether you have the word ‘librarian’ in your job title or not. Speak up! Step out! Stay out there, or get out there, to educate, inform, and assist!”

The book has two appendices with the results of her various surveys on librarians’ view of public perception in the Internet Age and patrons’ views. There are lists of references and websites by chapter and an index.

Bottom line: You should read this book and take its message to heart. If we don’t change, we’ll become irrelevant and disappear altogether. Great job, Ruth!

Kneale is an astronomy librarian in Tucson, Arizona and describes herself as “a librarian in geek clothing.” Check out her column “Spectacles: How Pop Culture Views Librarians” in MLS: Marketing Library Services, her website (http://www.librarian-image.net) and blog, Random Musings from the Desert (http://desertlibrarian.blogspot.com).

Bibliographic Information:
Kneale, Ruth, You Don’t Look Like a Librarian: Shattering Stereotypes and Creating Positive New Images in the Internet Age, Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 2009, ISBN 978-1-57387-366-6, US$29.50.

INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR INFORMATION SYSTEM NOW AVAILABLE FREE

The International Nuclear Information System database is now available for free. It comes from the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the press release, there are over 3 million bibliographic citations and abstracts from all kinds of sources (journals, conferences, patents, laws, web documents, including over 85,000 full-text scientific and technical reports, conference papers, patents, theses and preprints.

URL: http://inisdb2.iaea.org/

FREE & LOW COST LEGAL RESEARCH

Georgetown University’s Law Library has created a web site with great resources for legal research that are very low cost—or even free (we like free).

There are entries about and links to many resources, including case law, statutes and codes, legislative histories, and administrative regulations. In addition, there are tables summarizing features and costs of the following low-cost databases: Caselex, Casemaker, Fastcase, lexisONE, Loislaw, VersusLaw, and Westlaw by Credit Card.

What a great compilation!

URL: http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/freelowcost.cfm

DEFINITIONS OF INFORMATION LITERACY

Information Literacy:
the ability “to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information--from the American Library Association

Sub-competencies:
Media literacy: “being able to critically evaluate media, use media, and produce one’s own communication through the use of visual and audio media.” Information Age Inquiry, Indiana University, http://virtualinquiry.com/inquiry/media.htm

Visual literacy: “the ability to understand and produce visual messages.” 21st Century Literacies: Visual Literacy, AT&T Knowledge Net, http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/21stcent/visual.html

ICT literacy: “using digital technology, communications tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge society.” Digital Transformation: A Framework for ICT Literacy, Educational Testing Service, http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/Information_and_Communication_Technology_Literacy/ictreport.pdf

Digital literacy: “an individual can read and write digitally in order to ‘access the Internet; find, manage and edit digital information; join in communications; and otherwise engage with an online information and communications network.” Leigh Blackall, Digital literacy: how it affects teaching practices and networked learning futures—a proposal for action research, The Knowledge Tree, 7 October 2005, http://knowledgetree.flexiblelearning.net.au/edition07/download/c_blackall.doc

PROFESSIONAL MATTERS: Improving the Profession: Ideas from Another One

Now that the last issue of The One-Person Library has been distributed, I will be posting longer selections on this blog--mostly articles I had written or collected but that never made into print. This is the first one--expect more once or twice a week.

Richard Weingardt, a structural engineer, made these suggestions for improving his profession. Just substitute “librarian,” “librarians,” and “librarianship” for “engineer,” “engineers,” and “engineering” to see how we can improve our own profession.

“Over the years, I’ve received hundreds of letters from readers, many of them insightful and revealing. More often than not, their comments underline the day-to-day concerns and dilemmas our profession is facing—where it’s headed and who will be populating it in the future. The issues on the minds of the younger engineers differ from those of the older, more experienced practitioners. Typically, the younger these engineers are…the more worried they feel about how best to advance technically and move up in their companies or departments. They’re also concerned whether they made the right career choice, about the future of structural engineering as a true profession, and about becoming leaders in the profession, industry, and society.
“Those out of college for several years and well into their careers, on the other hand, have more interest in addressing issues such as the ramifications of engineering increasingly being considered a commodity rather than an intellectual or professional service.
“Both younger and older engineers…have been concerned about the deterioration of the profession’s stature. They’re also concerned about the lack of recognition and appreciation for structural engineering and the achievements of its professionals.
“How can most of these items be positively dealt with? Increase the number of engineers of all ages and levels of experience who are active in the professional societies and involved in consequential leadership roles in industry and society. Just working at our jobs…and leaving the advancement and betterment of the profession to someone else is not the answer.
“Many intelligent and highly committed American structural engineers…are capable of forwarding the technical expertise of American engineering know-how. But to influence the direction of the American structural engineering industry…required honing one’s natural leaderships skills and identifying the paths to becoming a person whose advice non-engineers, as well as engineers, will seek out.
He further suggests establishing a structural engineering hall of fame, observing leaders in the field who are involved in advancing the professional and trying to do even more than they do, and finally,
“If you’re a seasoned engineer, commit to helping those following you to be the best they can be. In addition to having fun doing engineering work—something you love—expand your influence and range of deeds. Then, not only will time fly, so will your sense of accomplishment as a successful professional and as a human being and citizen of the world.
“Remember the words of John Ruskin: ‘The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get paid for it, but what they become by it.’”

adapted by Judith Siess, OPL Editor
from Weingardt, Richard G., How you can influence structural engineering’s future (Column: The View From Here), Structural Engineer December 2005, p. 50

DID YOU LIKE THIS? if not, let me know..........

SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUR CUSTOMERS

Jay Ehret, founder of The Marketing Spot, had this to say about social media on the Flooring the Consumer blog.

1) Start now. Establish a presence and get comfortable using social media. It’s not yet imperative that use social media, but it probably will be someday. You need to be ready.

2) Don’t try to do everything. Pick one thing, the most appropriate for your [library], and get good at it.

3) Don’t ignore traditional media. It’s not dead and never will be. However, look for traditional media that are innovative and also understand the new media.

4) Don’t get evangelized. There’s a lot of hype out there coming from so-called social media evangelists. I’ve seen the question asked by one social media evangelist: “Can social media save (a particular) small business?” Turns out, no. That particular business went out of business. A [library] will not live or die based on involvement with social media.

5) Do what your customers will accept, not what you want them to do. If your customers do not congregate on Facebook, there’s nothing you can do about it. Be where your customers are likely to be.

URL: http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-media-series-jay-ehret-on.html