Author: rdlankes

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Interview with Anna Maria Tammaro

Video and audio from a short interview with Anna Maria Tammaro on New Librarianship and Italian librarians:

Interview on New Librarianship with Anna Maria Tammero from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.

Audio Only: https://davidlankes.org/rdlankes/pod/2014/Italy.mp3

Here is a list of the questions we started with:

1. What is the value of librarians and how can it be measured? if the librarians’ value is facilitating learning in our communities, how can we measure the achievement of members, their outcomes, and our impact?

2. In the Italian context, the autonomy of librarians is very limited: how can we feel responsible of improving our society?

3. In Italy, librarians have different education levels and work in different contexts in the North and the South of Italy: how can we share a common Library model?

4. As university librarians, how can we facilitate knowledge creation? should our role be in line or in collision with our University role, that shares the same mission of knowledge creation?

5. You put forth a kind of subversive vision of our profession. The first words that come to my mind are: overall change, assertion, participation. I find your idea of a new librarianship very inspiring. As an academic librarian, I ask to myself how librarians’ mission of improving society through facilitating knowledge creation can be reconciled within the academic community we first serve, whose mission is in a way parallel or identical. Isn’t that a role our parent institution will never let us play, if not just as a second choice?

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Master Class Now Open for Enrollment

Starting at the end of June I’ll be running the New Librarianship Master Class (June 30-July 27). For those who are familiar with the MOOC I did last summer, this is a repeat of that course. For those unfamiliar, here is a description:

About the Class

Libraries have existed for millennia, but today the library field is searching for solid footing in an increasingly fragmented (and increasingly digital) information environment. What is librarianship when it is unmoored from cataloging, books, buildings, and committees?

The vision for a new librarianship must go beyond finding library-related uses for information technology and the Internet; it must provide a durable foundation for the field. New Librarianship recasts librarianship and library practice using the fundamental concept that knowledge is created though conversation. New librarians approach their work as facilitators of conversation; they seek to enrich, capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities.

Join David Lankes for this online course that provides a foundation for practicing librarians and library science students in new librarianship. It builds on The Atlas of New Librarianship, the 2012 ABC CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature and seeks to generate discussion about the future direction of the profession.

Course Introduction

For a brief video introduction see: https://vimeo.com/96621020

For a brief video introduction of New Librarianship see: https://vimeo.com/49680667

Join Others

Thanks to the generosity of the State Library of Illinois, the class will be open to all comers, but is targeting participants in the ILEAD USA project. To enroll, use the following instructions. Note that the class won’t start until June 30, but you can register now and get a sense of the course management system used.

Self Enroll

This course is being taught using CourseSites by Blackboard, an online platform for organizing and securely sharing course materials, online lectures, discussion and other learning activities. To request enrollment into my course, follow the steps below:

1. Launch a browser and enter the following URL to the course home page:

https://www.coursesites.com/s/_ILEADUSA

2. Once at the course home page, click the “Self Enroll” button.

When signing up, take note that you can register using existing account information from popular web services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, Yahoo and Windows Live to make it easier to login.

Questions

If you have any questions please let me know at [email protected], or use the Discussion board under “Overview and Introduction.”

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EveryLibrary Rapid Response Fund

I love this idea. I have been a big fan of EveryLibrary since it started. They are doing good work for a good cause (libraries) and they are doing it in a smart way. Their latest effort, Rapid Response Fund, will allow them to help libraries at the 11th hour:

“Our Rapid Response Fund is designed to amplify the voices of local library advocates during a crisis by supporting paid ads for outreach and action. “

I urge you to take a look: http://everylibrary.org/rapid-response-fund/

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A Good PET Scan

If there is one thing that cancer has not taught me it is patience, so here’s the punch line: Had my first PET scan since the stem cell (bone marrow) transplant on Wednesday. Got the results today. The results: no indication of cancer at this time.

Now for more nuance than Twitter will allow. My oncologist sees no indications of lymphoma on the scan and is comfortable waiting 3 to 6 months for another scan. This is clearly good news. I don’t (and probably never shall) use the word cure. The cancer can come back, that’s why I’ll be monitored for the next several years (remember that the stem cell transplant procedure has a 50% success rate).

So. Great news. A great reason to have a great summer. I still have a compromised immune system, so I watch what I eat, stay away from sick folks, and off of airplanes (and cruise ships).

One scan down – a bunch more to go!

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Day 100

Today my bone marrow turns 100 days old. In stem cell transplant circles that’s a milestone. To celebrate my wife and friends have organized a blood drive and I’m hoping there will be cake. Earlier I posted a video of the effects of chemo. Today I post the “completed” video that shows the changes from the start of the transplant process to today. I’m no prettier, but at least I have eyebrows.

For those who have asked about how I’m feeling, an update: I am feeling very good. My energy (and beard) is back. My stomach is back to what it was before the treatments (which was never good, but at least manageable). My toes still tingle and hurt from peripheral neuropathy –likely a reminder of chemo I will have for the foreseeable future.

My white blood cells, an indication of my immune system’s strength, are in the normal range. So I still need to be very careful of what I eat, I need to stay away from sick folks, and avoid recycled air in airplanes. However, as many have noted, I am able to get out and about.

My platelets – their precipitous drop started the whole Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis – are over 100 and approaching normal. The doctor even gave me the all clear to start rollerblading again (with a helmet and all the pads).

I put the word completed above in quotes because, of course, I’m not done. Next week I have another PET scan to see if there are any remnants of the cancer. The hope, of course, is that the scan will be clean. The reality is that it will probably have some ambiguity. The possibility is that the cancer is not gone and there will be more treatments (radiation, chemo). Here’s the thing, even if the scan comes back clean, those three possibilities – clean, ambiguous, and bad – will be with me for years to come.

Still, in the face of the old Yiddish saying “Man plans and God laughs,” I’m taking my own advice, and continuing on. I go to work, I write grants, I schedule appointments past one month. Every time I put something on the calendar more than a month away I have this feeling that I’m setting myself up, but I do it anyway. Maybe after the PET Scan I’ll do it with a feeling of “screw you cancer,” but we shall see.

From biopsy to 100 days after stem cell transplant. from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.

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New Librarianship Master Class to be Offered Again

Last summer I offered a MOOC on the basics of New Librarianship. Over 2,300 people enrolled. However, many said they couldn’t participate at the time, or had to drop out for other obligations. Now, thanks to the State Library of Illinois’ ILEAD USA project, I’m offering it again.

Starting June 30th and running through July 27th, I’ll be re-running the MOOC. To be clear, this is the same course as last summer, not a follow-on. Also, unlike last summer, there will be no Continuing Education or College Credit options (though I will send out a delightful certificate of completion for those who want it).

Another important to note, the original site for the Master Class will remain up as an archive. There will be a new URL for this MOOC with fresh new discussion boards and such.

So, more details to come.

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Nerd Absurd’s 100th Podcast

I’m a big fan of the Nerd Absurd podcast and had a blast talking to Virginia, Nick, Leland, and Andrew. We talked libraries, maker spaces, MOOCs, tenure and academia. Perhaps that’s why I have such a good time….they let me ramble.

Take a listen and check out their other great episodes at: http://nerdabsurd.com

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I Want Your Blood…Donated

As many of you know, I have been battling Hodgkin’s Lymphoma for the past year. I’ve been through chemo and most recently a stem cell transplant. Throughout this entire ordeal, I have received numerous blood transfusions that have enabled me to keep fighting. Through the kindness of others, I have been able to live.

So, to pay it forward, my wife, friends, and I are coordinating a blood drive with the American Red Cross on Wednesday, June 4th. It will take place at Holy Cross Church in Dewitt, NY from 1:00-7:00pm. We are asking everyone to please consider coming out and donating blood that day. It’s such a wonderful thing you can do for those who really could use your help. It takes about an hour of your time although the actual donation takes about 10 minutes.

You can contact my wife directly ([email protected]) to set up an appointment or call the American Red Cross. Please join us in giving back to our community!

I’d also ask my area librarian friends to post a flyer (download it here) on any community boards you may have. And feel free to pass this along to others who may be able to help. Together we can make a difference! Thank you.

Blood Drive

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The Faithful and the Radicals

“The Faithful and the Radicals” Opening Keynote for Expect More, The NYLA-SSL Annual Conference 2014. Syracuse, NY.

Abstract: School librarians must have faith in the work and the work of their colleagues. Yet faith alone will not advance the cause. Advancing school librarianship requires radical action.
Slides: https://davidlankes.org/rdlankes/Presentations/2014/CNYSchoolLibraries.pdf
Audio: https://davidlankes.org/rdlankes/pod/2014/cny.mp3

Screencast:

cny from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.

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Stand for Those We Miss and Love

When my father died there were no testimonials at the funeral service. Aside from a few remarks of the priest, no one stood and spoke for my father. When I asked the priest about this later, he pointed out that there would be plenty of opportunity to talk about my dad at the wake and in the weeks to come, but the service was a time to think about God’s words. It is an argument that I understand, but it I think that’s God’s words could only be enhanced by the memories of a man that we knew and loved.

So today I stand up for JoAnn Gunter. I never met JoAnn, but came to know her through her amazing daughter Buffy Hamilton. With Buffy as our intermediary JoAnna and I cheered each other on through our trials with cancer. This weekend JoAnn died of pancreatic cancer.

Today I stand for Joanne Silverstein, my dearest friend and closest colleague who died of breast cancer. I stand for Jeffry Katzer, a mentor through my Ph.D. program who died of prostate cancer. I stand for Jill Abdo, mother to my son’s best friend who succumbed to colon cancer. I stand for Grandmother Anne Goodman who died of colon cancer, and my Grandmother Dottie who died of leukemia.

I stand as someone who has fought with cancer and as someone who will remember you. Someone who says your life was important. I stand to remind those who remain that life can be hard. I stand to remind everyone that cancer takes and takes and takes. I stand to remind everyone that no matter how much we are loved, or how much good we seek to do, we all can be taken too soon.

Yet I also stand to remind all of us to be brave. That while darkness has taken these beautiful people, it is because of the light they added to our lives that we remember them. To remind all of us that to mourn is natural, but so is celebration. Take time today to stand and celebrate those in your life who you have lost, who you will miss, those who made your life better. Stand today; stand still if just for a moment, and celebrate those people in your life who are gone, but remain a part of you.