A Wandering Eyre

ALA has been working hard, as have the divisions, in the past couple of years to incorporate more unconference type things into the schedule at Annual and Midwinter. Up until this point, these things have been special events and, while there are a few, most of them are not recurring. It is time to start [...]

And also in the news: Mob Rule Learning is reviewed over at ForeWord. These kinds of things make me do one of two things: make me think, “Hey, I wrote that!” or look behind me for that smart person being discussed; she sounds interesting. –Jane, is occasionally interesting

I had a nice chat over the phone with Alexandra Rice from the Wired Campus at the Chronicle of Higher Education last week. She posted the interview today. I really would like the discussion about how people are using the wisdom of the crowd in the classroom to be something that happens more often. A [...]

Here are a couple resources that might be useful to you if you are new to the idea of the wisdom of the crowd or if you need a little inspiration for your own mob: unconference.net – Though the blog on this site is not updated often and much of the information was posted long [...]

There are a lot of reasons why you, your library, or your library related organization should participate in National Library Unconference Day on Monday May 2nd at 1pm EST. It could be the amazing speakers lined up for lightening talks. Maybe it is because unconferences are always so darn fun. Perhaps, this is the perfect [...]

Something happened yesterday that I am still trying to understand. I am not talking about the shooting in AZ. This was much less tragic in the worldly sense, but more tragic to me personally. An open meeting was closed to me because I could not physically sit in the room, though the means necessary for [...]

I am presenting at 3:20 in room 205. It is going to be very interesting and FUN! I am going to talk about how to use the concept of an unconference to solve your staff training issues. There will be zombies. Participation is required. But not participating zombies. Sorry, no brains for afternoon snack time. [...]

Today, I am getting ready to leave for LITA Forum. Leaving the house for a couple days and leaving Mr. Rochester, The Bairn, and The Dogs behind means a lot of extra preparation for me. I will leave them food and water so they should all be alive when I return, I hope. I will [...]

It is humid. The World Cup is on. Women in sensible shoes and cat vests are mingling with NextGens sporting tattoos and dyed hair, all vying for advance reader’s copies or a cold beer. It must be a librarian conference! It has been a couple years since I was really in the swing of an [...]

These are my notes on the presentations given during the Unconference at ALA. Here is how they came into being: As a large group (we had over 50 participants!), we brainstormed trending topics in libraries. Topics generated during this ranged from the digital divide to services in libraries. Then, each person was able to vote [...]