New Blog of Interest

Jason Setzer, Reference Librarian at Davidson County Community College, has a blog of his own, The Strong Wall. You can go there to read about library topics, Web 2.0 developments, and more.

Social Networking and Libraries

How are MySpace, Blogs and other social networking applications affecting your library? Do you have policies in place about their usage? Bandwidth issues? Here are some positive applications of social networking software by libraries (and one museum):

• Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library Youth Services
• Brooklyn College Library
• American Museum of Natural History
• Cheshire (CT) Public Library
• University of Texas - Austin Libraries
• Portland Community College

NCCCLRA Conference

Don Forbes and Michael Crumpton were nice enough to give up some time at last week's NCCCLRA Conference opening session to let me speak about the blog and generate a little publicity. Later that afternoon, I chaired a meeting in the Wake Tech library for librarians and directors interested in the blog. Among those attending: Pat Leamon (Alamance CC); Jason Setzer (Davidson CC); Allen Mosteller (Cleveland CC); Denise Bosselman (Sandhills CC); Santosh Shonek (Durham Tech); Julie Humphrey (Durham Tech); Bob Schenk (College of the Albemarle); Don Forbes (Guilford Tech), and Jenny Hock (Surry CC).
We had a good discussion on the scope of this blog and what we hope to achieve. We realize that not all NCCCLRA members are able to attend the annual conference. We also realize that most of the professional literature dealing with bibliographic instruction and reference addresses the needs of public or university research libraries. We will try to address topics of interest to the CC Librarian in the blog, and hope you will feel comfortable commenting on postings. Please don't be shy; we'll have a better "conversation" if we have plenty of members commenting on the blog. We discussed several ideas for topics, but feel free to email if you have a topic to recommend. If you do not have a Blogger account or are confused about commenting on a post, please see the July 13 post for directions. Let's get the conversation started!

Leaving Comments On Blog Posts

• Click on "Comments" under the story of interest
• Type your comment in the "Leave A Comment" text box; leave your name and CC affiliation if you want to
  
• Pick anonymous in the "Choose An identity" area (unless you already have a blogger account).
  
• Click on the blue "Login and Publish" button and your comments will be published
• Click on the title of the blog at the top of the screen to get back to the front page of the blog.
• Comments may not appear immediately

Welcome to Reference & Instruction Exchange Roundtable

This is a cooperative effort to start a dialogue about Reference and Instruction in NC Community Colleges. What are you doing now, what are your instructional and reference success stories, and what are your ideas on improving instruction and reference services with the CC student population? Comments are enabled on this blog, but please stay close to the topics listed in the mission statement at the top of the screen.

We would also like to start a conversation about peer evaluation; you may also see references to this concept under "peer coaching" in the professional literature. We are interested in this concept with the emphasis on "peer", with librarian's working to improve each other as professionals, not as a part of an employee's evaluation.