Bonus Blog

Library Land Bloggers

View my quick slide show:
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/3tO8porpUq/library-land-bloggers

Blogs from my specialization

Joyce Valenza ­
“NeverEnding Search”

A high school teacher-librarian at Springfield High School in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania since 1998, Dr. Joyce Valenza was also the techlife@school columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer for ten years.  With posts every few days, her interesting and insightful blog is chocked-full of learning tools for students, teachers, and librarians that she has thoroughly researched and interacted with, providing recommendations and insight on using techno-gadgets, information literacy skills, and Web 2.0 tools.  She also provides insight on other happenings in library land.



Paige Jaeger­  
“Library Door”

Referring to herself a “regular librarian in an irregular world” Jaeger is the coordinator for School Library Services within a cooperative educational service board assisting 31 school districts in upstate New York.  By providing shared educational programs and services Jaeger intergrates the Common Core State Standards through collaborative learning and strong library programs.  Posting about twice a month, her graphic-filled blog provides easily adaptable teaching tips for integrating Common Core State Standards into the curriculum.  She is also a proponent of providing eBook access to all students and encourages other school librarians to develop eBook collections for a new wave of transliterate teens.

Blogs outside of my specialization

Buffy Hamilton ­
“The Unquiet Librarian”

A 2011 Library Journal Mover and Shaker and former high school librarian, Hamilton has been the Learning Strategist for the Cleveland Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio for just a couple of months.  With over twenty years of experience in public education as a high school English teacher, technology integration specialist, and librarian her highly entertaining blog contains several posts a week highlighting her conference presentations, descriptions of activities, displays, and workshops in her former school library, and clever methods to provide media to the masses... “Library on Wheels” anyone?  


Anonymous ­
“The Annoyed Librarian”

An anonymous blogger for Library Journal, the “Annoyed Librarian” has found a soapbox to peddle “her” beliefs on what’s wrong in Library Land.  Though some some criticize “her” for using anonymity as a shield for controversial views and for sometimes engaging in bad online behavior- proponents praise “her” for standing up to the radical right...a radical right in library land?  Sometimes offering suggestions and sometimes not, I believe that the Annoyed Librarian is successful at being the harbinger of bad news, and because we don’t know the messenger- we can’t shoot her.  The Annoyed Librarian is the “kick in the pants” we need to understand how problems like threats to personal privacy, limited access, and lack of funds put libraries in peril and we need be vocal in  our support of libraries and try to do something to save them.

Possible identities of the Annoyed Librarian:

• Michael Gorman- former ALA President (which the Annoyed Librarian “denies”)
• K.G. Schneider-  blogger: “The Free Range Librarian” and University Librarian at Holy Names University in Oakland, California (self-confessed, but probably not)

Trends

• "Ssshhhhh-ing" librarians- Pew report on what patrons want out of their libraries
• Goings on at National Conferences
• Participatory learning
• Integration of Common Core State Standards

Analysis

Librarians are so interesting, yet the common perception is that we sit behind a desk all day long trying to keep everyone quiet.  The blogs that I have been following prove otherwise.  Librarians are dynamic and on the cutting edge of technology- constantly trying to utilize new tools to infuse excitement into participatory learning for all ages.  These bloggers are so adept at sharing their knowledge that I find it disheartening that so few people understand what a great librarian can do and this is somewhat revealed by the amount of comment traffic on each blog.  Both Valenza and Jaeger get very few comments on each posts, and many times there are no comments on a post at all.  This does not necessarily reflect how many people they are reaching, but it does reveal how readers of the blog connect to the information they are sharing.  Hamilton has quite a few more comments on her posts, but this seems to happen when she is commenting about a national library conference and the larger conference audience is reacting to her posts.  The Annoyed Librarian receives the most comments, but many of them are just snarky retorts to the Annoyed Librarians complaints about “her” frustrations with what is happening in Library Land.

What is happening in Library Land?  If the bloggers that I followed are a window into the goings on at most school and public libraries, then everyone must be pretty active.  It seems that all the bloggers have a high interest in the integration of tech tools into a participatory learning setting.  They are also passionate about providing the best library experience for their patrons through creative uses of resources (digital and print).  Where three of my bloggers put a positive spin on the world of librarianship, always seemingly chipper and upbeat, the Annoyed Librarian stands out as being, well, annoyed.  Sometimes I find this refreshing and sometimes I find it terribly disheartening, but it plays an important role in the blogosphere, not everything in Library Land is sunshine and daisies.  We need to understand that threats to libraries also threaten our ability as librarians to provide the creative services and education we are capable of.