From the Director's Desk

[Preparing for these talks, with voice and text-chat going simultaneously, is always interesteing. I've decided I don't care for pasting the whole text in - it crowds the screen, and interrupts the flow of the talk.  If a talk is in voice (or on stream) it's better, as far as I'm concerned, to post the text elsewhere (beforehand is best, of course, then you can also give out a notecard with the text....but afterwards is still good.)  For a talk which has time built in for questions and comments, I still favor text chat, slow though the medium is.
This time, I tried an intermediate practice of preparing the bits I would paste into the chat window, to supplement what I said in voice. That's the stuff in blue, below. It felt like a good working compromise, and now I'm thinking about useful ways to employ both "channels" at once]


To briefly introduce myself, I'm the director of a community library here in SL, and the founder of a consortium of community libraries. The Alexandrian Free library supports libraries that exist to serve specific "SL Native" communities - that is to say, communities that have formed in SL, and that have some significant portion of their existence in SL.

http://www.thelibrarymilitant.net/alexlib/

I said I'd speak on Digital publics, anytime reference,  and the conversation of culture...with reference to Ranganathan's 5 laws.

But once I started making my notes, I realized I was never going to get through all that in 15 minutes, so Ranganathan will have to wait for another time, but you will find a copy of this talk on my blog in the next day or two

So......what do I mean by a digital public?

http://www.danah.org/

"My research examines social media, youth practices, tensions between public and private, social network sites, and other intersections between technology and society.

In my dissertation, I investigated how American teenagers socialize in networked publics like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Xanga and YouTube. I was interested in how the architectural differences between unmediated and mediated publics affect sociality, identity and culture"

Here's the scope note from MeSH, the U.S National Library of Medicine Subject Headings

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2009/MB_cgi?mode=&term=Proprioception

SSensory functions that transduce stimuli received by proprioceptive receptors in joints, tendons, muscles, and the INNER EAR into neural impulses to be transmitted to the CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. Proprioception provides sense of stationary positions and movements of one's body parts, and is important in maintaining KINESTHESIA and POSTURAL BALANCE.

"I've been thinking a bit recently about literary style and usage, and have had a chance to re-read various modern guides on the topic.  Several points I came across, however, were a bit jarring in their differences from what many of us have internalised in the Caledonian penumbra.
Even the BBC house style guide recommends using "medieval" instead of "mediaeval".  Shocking!
So, since (1) this is an area outside my usual expertise, (2) initial Google searching turned up naught, and (3) your name is the first I think for such erudition, I pose this question:  what were the style guidelines and resources for English usage at the peak of the Empire, ca. 1890s?
My thanks in advance for your help.  Please add it to my tab.
I remain, &c.,"

Dionysius Lardner (April 3, 1793 - April 29, 1859)  -  http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/dionysiuslardner/

Read more here: 

Citizen Logistics http://citizenlogistics.com/  

GroundCrew: http://groundcrew.us/

Jane Mcgonigal: http://www.avantgame.com/

Institute for the Future: http://www.iftf.org/

1. Books are for use.

1. Information-giving objects should be used as many ways as they can be

2. Don't limit what can be done with your materials

2. Every reader his [or her] book.

1. Every Avatar their Book

1. I'm indebted to Randall Woodland of UM Dearborn for the phrase "read the avatar as written." For a librarian that means: take seriously the needs of the patron as they present themselves to you as their community librarian. You're not here to second guess them any more than you're here to judge their interests
   
2. Every interest group their materials. Steampunks. Dragons. Steampunk Dragons. Tiny Steampunk Dragons who trade pastry recipes. Really. All of them.
   

3. Every book its reader.

1. Who else around SL might be interested in your collections or exhibits?
   

2. Network, network, network - find the uses for what you have.

4. Save the time of the User.

1. Gather the resources that are relevant for the community you serve....and keep up (as much as you can) as those interests expand

2. Be as eclectic in your sources as the community you serve is, just use your Librarian Mojo to choose the best available, and contextualize them in helpful ways, so they're useful to both experts and novices within the domain.
   

5. The library is a growing organism.

1. Don't fence in what the library may become next

1. Don't assume that a library can only be what libraries have been before
   

2. Don't turn a deaf ear to what user-or-community-needs may ask the library to become

1. Be open to serving newly articulated community needs