AL Focus
This is the Blip version of American Libraries Focus, featuring the video work of ALA's American Libraries magazine. To utilize our full ...Video Episodes:
9 Views
06:35:38 10/16/09
Maggie Stiefvater interview
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Maggie Stiefvater, author of "Shiver" and "Lament," sits down with Booklist to talk about the challenges of writing paranormal fiction, the strangeness of being called a romance writer, and who would win in a no-holds-barred cage match between homicidal faeries and love-struck werewolves. Also, she shows off the sketch book that has her in trouble with the Department of Homeland Security.
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12:14:33 10/12/09
Say Anything game tips for National Gaming Day
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Librarians Chris Harris and Brian Mayer discuss the game “Say Anything,” which is available as a free donation to libraries from North Star Games for National Gaming Day on November 14. Chris and Brian show how to play the game and provide tips for using it in public and school libraries. To register for National Gaming Day and for the free donation, go to http://bit.ly/ngd2009 before October 21! To learn more about National Gaming Day, go to http://ngd.ala.org.
37 Views
12:21:19 09/29/09
2009 Banned Books Read-Out
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Each of the top 10 most challenged books were represented at the 2009 Banned Books Read Out, which kicked off Banned Books Week September 26 at Chicago's Bughouse Square (across the street from the Newberry Library.) This video features ALA President Camila Alire, authors Cecily von Ziegesar (Gossip Girl) and Lauren Myracle (ttyl), and a reading from Chicago Public Library's Teen Volume Reader's Theatre troupe. More ALA videos at alfocus.ala.org.
4 Views
08:35:40 09/23/09
Banned Books Week: Puppet Book Banners
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Chad, Rustle, and Mooch, the Crash Pad puppets, misinterpret the meaning of Banned Books Week, trying to throw some books with objectionable content--including Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Joy of Cooking, and the phone book--out of the library, until Herb points out the error of their ways. More ALA videos at alfocus.ala.org.
91 Views
12:15:10 09/17/09
IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2009
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Scenes from the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Milan, Italy, including music from the Concert for IFLA, held August 25 in the Duomo, and interviews with:
Jesus Lau, delegate from Mexico
Outgoing IFLA President Claudia Lux
Paula Restrepo Duque of EPM Foundation, which won the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Access to Learning Award
Deborah Jacobs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
New IFLA President Ellen Tise
Barbara Ford, delegate from the United States
Read AL 's full IFLA coverage at www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/tag/ifla09/ . More ALA videos available at alfocus.ala.org .
1 Views
09:18:36 09/15/09
ALA Connect for Non ALA Members
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One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
While ALA Connect is a superb professional networking resource for members of the American Library Association, it can be equally valuable for professionals who are not yet members of one of the largest and most active professional asssociations in the United States. Students, consultants, and other professionals with an interest in librarianship will find the resources in ALA Connect extremely valuable for connecting with ALA Members. It's easy to get started.
Simply point your browser to connect.ala.org. Click on "Create New Account" on the lefthand menu.
Non ALA Members simply choose a username, and enter your email address. fill out the form with your First Name, Last Name, and organization if you choose. Agree to the ALA Connect User Guidelines (after you've read them, of course), and enter the CAPTCHA terms.
You'll receive an email with your username and one-time log-in password. Simply enter that information or click the URL in the email, and you're ready to take advantage of all that ALA connect has to offer.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the help community or use the 'contact us' form if you have questions.
Music: Cherry Rag by Tom Joad and Gerry Dempsey, available at www.archive.org.
1 Views
09:15:40 09/15/09
ALA Connect for LIS Students
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 13:15:40 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
ALA Connect offers the opportunity for users to create member communities- communities that any ALA member can participate in. This provides a great opportunity for LIS students and alumni to congregate in an unofficial sort of way, network and build those professional relationship!
To see if your school already has a community for students and alumni, you can search for it using the search box, or browse by category. Student and alumni related groups will be listed under Member Communities, because they are user generated. By expanding the alumni Groups list, I can see the institutions that are already being represented in Connect.
If I don't see my own alma mater, I can create a community by clicking here. It's always a good idea to follow the format of the other LIS groups, to make sure that yours is easily found by others. In addition, you can select the subject headings alumni AND students by holding down the CTRL key while you select. If you need more information on creating a new member community, visit the "Create a Community FAQ" page under Help, or watch the Creating a New Community Screencast.
Once I've created my group, I can see it by mousing over My Member Communities . I can invite friends by clicking on Invite Friend, add images, and add events to the calendar, like with any member community.
As a student, you can start to build your own professional network by adding classmates and colleagues to your Connect Network. You can also explore groups that might be of interest to you by doing a quick search for students, and limiting by group by clicking advanced search. Finally, you can browse groups that pertain to your professional interests by browsing the groups by category. Check out the "Finding New Groups in ALA Connect" screen cast for details.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the help community or use the "contact us" form if you have questions.
Music: Momentum by Crepusculum, available at www.archive.org
1 Views
09:09:39 09/15/09
Keeping Up with Connect: What's Going On
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 13:09:39 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
There's so much happening on ALA Connect, you may feel a bit overwhelmed trying to find your way. But with a few easy features, you can quickly put your finger on the pulse of ALA Connect.
From the ALA Connect homepage you can browse upcoming events, view most recently created member communities, follow comments recently made, and more. Let's take a closer look.
The Connect Calendar lets you browse upcoming events from all groups--those events that are made public, that is. Click the More link for a full view of upcoming events, deadlines, and more. Check out, for example, this discussion of The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter on ALA's Second Life island.
Back on the homepage, we can also view recently created member communities. Of course, you can browse all member communities to connect with others on topics of interest to you. But this section allows you to hone in on what's happening now. Did you know, for instance, that you could use Connect to touch base with alumni from your MLS program? Or to learn more about gaming in libraries?
For more on finding groups and communities--those you belong to and those you don't--be sure to check out the What's New with My Groups and What's New with Other Groups screencasts.
The Recent Comments section gives you a sense of the current conversations on Connect. What are people saying right now? You may see recent discussion about ALA Council, for example, or tips for teaching government information to kids. Start from the top to follow the whole discussion.
Back at the homepage, you can view popular Connect content--that is, public pages that people are viewing most.
Follow popular tags to browse to content, too! Tags are user-defined keywords describing posts, documents, and events. That means tags help you find content as organized by users, rather than by ALA structures. This tag cloud will show you the most commonly used tags, meaning the topics and themes being most discussed. The bigger the font size, the more often the term has been used as a tag. Click on Gaming, for example, to check out relevant posts and events.
The right sidebar of the ALA Connect homepage is your gateway to keeping current with the pulse of ALA Connect. Check in often to check out the conversations.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the Help community, always available at the top of the screen, or use the Contact Us form if you have questions.
Music: Cherry Rag by Tom Joad and Gerry Dempsey, available at www.archive.org.
0 Views
09:04:57 09/15/09
Finding New Groups that Might Interest You
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 13:04:57 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
ALA has over two thousand divisions, committees, task forces and round tables, and Connect offers an additional 500 member created communities- and this number is growing every day. So how does one find new groups that might interest them?
This is Finding New Groups in ALA Connect
From the Connect homepage, you can start browsing by looking at the New Member Communities and Popular items on the right side bar. You can also browse by tag. Click MORE to see all the tags.
For a complete listing, browse the groups from the navigation bar. To get started, head to Browse ALA Connect and select By Category. Expanding the ALA groups list gives you an extensive, alphabetical look at all of the different groups by subject. Clicking on a subject heading, like Diversity, expands the topic to include links to all related groups. Member Communities also offer the same capability regardless of what parent ALA Committee or Division the community derives from.
If you're interested in finding out if there is a group for your specific interest, you can search for it. From the home page, enter your interest or topic. Then click the Advanced Search link, and limit to Group. Click Search, and the results are groups that relate to your interest. If they are committees, you can either join them or read their public content.
To browse the member communities, expand the member communities link. Here you can browse communities by topic. If you find something you like, you are free to join by clicking JOIN here.
Another way of finding new groups is to browse the profiles of people you know, admire, or whose work is related to your interests. By connecting your own committee work with the ideas and specialties that interest you, the groups feature of ALA Connect offers an opportunity to broaden your professional horizons.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the help community or use the contact us form if you have questions.
Music: Momentum by Crepusculum, available at www.archive.org.
0 Views
08:57:56 09/15/09
What's New with Other Groups
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 12:57:56 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
This is What's New with Other Groups in ALA Connect
Just like on Lost, it's always good to know what Others are up to. In ALA Connect, groups can publish content so that anyone can view it. That way, they can share what they are doing with you, and you can find out what's going on with them.
To find out what's going on with a group, you can Browse the different types of group by category, or even scroll through an alphabetical list of them all. But, this can be a little unwieldy. To help narrow down the choices, you can browse by category, or type of group. You can even look at new groups and groups with recent activity. If you want to know more about finding things that might interest you, check out the Finding New Groups screencast.
If you know the name of the group you're interested in, try searching for it. I'll search for LITA- The Library and Information Technology Association. The results show me that LITA has a division, as well as quite a few committees-which are formal groups within ALA's structure- and communities, which are user-generated, based on interest. To find out more about the differences between the groups, check out the Groups FAQ page under Help.
Right now, LITA has some content that is public- I can see it even though I'm not a member. I'd really like to be alerted each time public content is posted, so I can do that by subscribing to the rss feed on this page. Now, when I look at my feed reader, I can see new public items that have been posted!
Groups have to manually check a box to mark items public, so you don't have to worry about your work being made public if you don't want it to. To read more about this, visit the Groups FAQ page under Help. However, groups are encouraged to make their meeting notices public, as the ALA Open Meetings Policy states.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the help community or use the 'contact us' form if you have questions
Music: Momentum by Crepusculum, available at www.archive.org.
1 Views
08:55:43 09/15/09
Online Docs: Collaborative Document Editing on ALA Connect
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 12:55:43 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
You and your group members can now collaborate on and keep track of your ALA work all in the same spot with ALA Connect's Online Docs!
From the ALA Connect page for any group or community with which you're affiliated, just visit the Online Docs section on the right sidebar. Follow the Add link to start a new document or follow the Online Docs link to visit documents already created.
Why should you use Connect's Online Docs? Here's what you need to know...
Reason #1: Online Docs are just like Word documents, except they're housed online in ALA Connect and therefore easily accessible from anywhere. Use the Edit tab to make changes. Standard text editing options are available, plus options to hyperlink text or embed videos. Instead of emailing your colleagues a new attachment whenever you make a revision, like with Word documents, all your changes are managed online right in ALA Connect. No more aggravation trying to figure out who has which version of your shared document.
Reason #2: Online Docs offers collaborative options, allowing you and your colleagues to work on the same document online. Instead of inviting your group members into your new document, like with Google Docs, Online Docs already knows which ALA members are in your section, committee, or community. Use the Members link on the right sidebar to see who belongs to your group. All members of the group can see and edit the documents by default. You can make the document available to people outside your group and even to non-ALA members, too, to reach a wider audience. Select the Public option in the Audience section.
Reason #3: Online Docs tracks changes for you! With multiple people working on the same document, you may want to revisit a previous version. Use the Revisions tab. All edits are tracked, so a history of the different versions of your document is maintained in ALA Connect. You can always check earlier versions for changes you may want to reinstate.
ALA Connect will manage your Online Docs, alongside your calendar, other messages, posts, and more. You can log in anytime to make changes.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the Help community, always available at the top of the screen, or use the Contact Us form if you have questions.
Music: Open Gates by Crepusculum, available at www.archive.org.
4 Views
08:50:07 09/15/09
Profiles and Networks: Finding People on ALA Connect
[LESS INFO] 4 VIEWS | ADDED 12:50:07 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
Using ALA Connect, ALA members can create a personalized network with colleagues, friends, classmates, and others around interests, issues, events, and more.
Each ALA member has an ALA Connect profile, always accessible from the left sidebar. Your profile is already populated with membership information from the ALA membership database.
You can use your profile as a homebase for your online information, posting professional information and interests, even your resume. Edit your profile to remove, add, or change any information you want to share. Non-ALA members can view information from your profile, too, if you choose to make it public. Of course, your profile will be available only to ALA members, if you choose the members only setting. To find other members on ALA Connect, you can take advantage of a few different options. If you know who you're looking for, use the Advanced Search feature in the upper right corner. Choose the Member Search tab and enter the name of the person with whom you want to connect. From the results page, follow the members name to view his or her profile. You can even add the member to your network for easy access later. Use the Add to My Network link.If you're not sure who you're looking for, you can browse group memberships with your My ALA Groups section. Because ALA Connect knows membership information about each person from its membership data, you can easily navigate to each of the groups with which you're currently affiliated to find other members in those same groups. Use the Members link on the right sidebar. If you join a community--that is, an informal group organized around a specific topic, rather than a formal ALA group like a division or a section--you can also view the members. Use the My Member Communities section.To revisit the members of the network you've created for yourself, use the My Network tab of your profile or the My Network link directly on the left sidebar. You can even contact people in your network directly through Connect. Use the send message link. For more information about ALA Connect, use the Help community, always available at the top of the page, or the Contact Us form if you have questions.
Music: Momentum by Crepusculum, available at www.archive.org.
0 Views
08:49:01 09/15/09
Using ALA Connect with Your Existing Social Media Tools
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 12:49:01 09/15/09
One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org
ALA recognizes that many of its members are well-versed in online social media tools.
Connect isn't intended to be a replacement for your favorite social media network, but it makes it easy to share information with your networks with just a few simple clicks.
For example, I just notice here that the NYC Librarians Meet-Up group is having a meet-up this Sunday at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. I can easily share this information with my network on Twitter, Digg, Facebook, Delicious, MySpace and more.
To do this, I simply scroll down and locate the "share" button at the bottom of the lefthand menu. When I click, I see a number of options. I'll choose twitter, since I have an account for my work at the Metropolitan New York Library Council.
I'll wait a moment while Connect contacts Twitter, and I see that the information is added to my text box. I'll add a comment, click update, and the link is added to my Twitter stream. You can follow the same steps to send information from Connect to any of your favorite social media networks.
I can also bring RSS feeds from various sources into a community that I administer in Connect. For example, I have set up a community in Connect for librarians that are members of the Metropolitan New York Library Council. If I want, I can have our METRO twitter feed display in the sidebar of our community page.
First, I go to Twitter and copy our RSS feed from my updates.
Next, I go to the edit tab on my community page. Scroll down to the external "RSS Feed to display in sidebar" box and paste that URL. Scroll down to the bottom, and click submit. And now the feed from our tweetMETRO profile will show up on the right-hand side of this community page.
For more information about ALA Connect, visit the help community or use the "contact us" form if you have questions.
Music: Open Gates by Crepusculum, available at www.archive.org.
1 Views
10:50:46 09/10/09
Terry Pratchett 2009 Printz Awards speech
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Terry Pratchett, author of the Honor Book "Nation," delivers a speech at the 2009 Michael L. Printz Awards, July 13, in Chicago.
1 Views
06:46:25 09/10/09
E. Lockhart 2009 Printz Awards speech
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 10:46:25 09/10/09
E. Lockhart, author of the Honor Book "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks," delivers a speech at the 2009 Michael L. Printz Awards, July 13, in Chicago.
11 Views
06:19:50 09/10/09
M. T. Anderson 2009 Printz Awards speech
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M. T. Anderson, author of the Honor Book "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves," delivers a speech at the 2009 Michael L. Printz Awards, July 13, in Chicago.