Scholar | Speaker | Writer | Teacher | Advocate
Well, I got very tired of Google Video being under supported. The statistics just never worked, and it has recently become more and more of a pain to get things uploaded. Instead I’ve switched to Blip.tv to host my webcasts. I’ve uploaded most of the one’s I put on Google (where they will remain as well).
If you are interested in seeing what’s there, check it out at: http://rdlankes.blip.tv/
Call for Papers
Deadlines:
July 31, 2008: 500-word abstracts
August 31st, 2008: notification of decision re paper acceptance for publication
September 30: notification of decision re in-person paper delivery
November 14st: : final paper due, 3,000-5,000 words
December 1st, 2008: online proceedings available
The ALISE Juried Papers Committee seeks submissions on the conference theme “i-CREATE” (Information / Culture / Research / Education / Art / Technology/ Experience). The papers should emphasize creativity and innovation towards creating a new model for LIS education for the digital age.
Papers on the topics of cultural and social aspects of information that bring focus to digital contexts are of particular interest. Domains might include digital libraries, archives & preservation, cultural & museum informatics, virtual scholarly communication & literacy, and outreach in a Web 2.0 world. These might include:
This year papers will be accepted to the conference’s online proceedings, with a subset of papers selected for presentation during the conference meeting itself. All papers selected shall be considered peer reviewed conference papers.
All papers will be made available online preceding the physical conference. The online proceedings will enable online conversations and discussions of the papers. Authors are expected to monitor these online conversations concerning their papers. The subset shall be selected for their match to the general conference program and the ability to stimulate online discussion.
Only electronic submissions shall be accepted.
Inquiries, abstracts and papers should be sent to:
R. David Lankes, Associate Professor School of Information Studies
213 Hinds Hall, Syracuse University, 13244
rdlankes@syr.edu
I’ve added a ratings function to the blog. Now you can rate my posts out of 5 stars.
Please excuse the self promotion, but Kyle Austin did a great profile on me for our student newspaper:
http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2008/03/06/Feature/The-Web.Wizard-3254722.shtml
I am so excited. The reference movement that grew up around the VRD conferences has put together a new conference:
“The Reference Renaissance is sponsored by BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) and RUSA (Reference and User Services Association, ALA). BCR’s dynamic President and CEO, Brenda Bailey-Hainer is chairing the conference committee. The committee is a group of vibrant library professionals who recognized the vacuum that was created when the Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) series of 7 conferences ended in 2005. The Reference Renaissance conference fully embraces and builds on the legacy of the expanded VRD mission to create a forum of LIS professionals, researchers, and students to explore all the facets of today’s reference service array, including traditional and virtual reference environments.”
Not that this group in any way needs my endorsement, but they certainly have it. The VRD years were an incredible time in my life, and (being bold) an incredible time in the evolution of reference. A movement grew up of talented practitioners and researchers out to change the world. In the intervening years, I have witnessed the folks in that movement keeping up the pace of innovation. So it is great to see a showcase for their work.
It is great to see our VRD legacy continue. Of course it will only continue if we actually show up. So go. Don’t only plan on going, put in a session (call for participation below). Reference is not dead, and the golden days of VRD were only the beginning if we put our travel and conference dollars to work. There is power in showing up, and there is power in place. In San Antonio I called upon the entire VRD community to join me in a mission. A mission to engage in our profession and improve it. Lately I have talked about the obligation of leadership and the important of innovation. Let us once again convene, plot and inspire. See you in Denver.
Call for Participation
A Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends
August 4-5, 2008
Denver, CO
Conference website: http://www.bcr.org/referencerenaissance
Sponsored by BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) and
RUSA (Reference and User Services Association), an ALA Division
Rumors of the “death of reference” have been greatly exaggerated! Reference and information services now encompass not just traditional forms such as in-person point-of-service, telephone, and e-mail, but also Instant Messaging, Text Messaging (SMS), blogs, wikis, library pages on MySpace and Facebook, and virtual reference desks in Second Life.
A Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends conference will explore all aspects of reference service in a broad range of contexts, including libraries and information centers, in academic, public, school, corporate, and other special library environments. This two-day conference will incorporate the multitude of established, emerging, and merging types of reference service including both traditional and virtual reference. It presents an opportunity for all reference practitioners and scholars to explore the rapid growth and changing nature of reference, as an escalating array of information technologies blend with traditional reference service to create vibrant hybrids.
Our theme of a “Reference Renaissance” was taken from an editorial by Diane Zabel, in a recent issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly (winter 2007). Zabel wrote of a “resurgence of interest in reference” and that “reference is experiencing a regeneration, a reference renaissance.”
Submissions of papers, panels, and workshop proposals are welcomed that analyze issues, identify best practices, advance organizational and technological systems, propose standards, and/or suggest innovative approaches that will reveal as well as invent the future of reference in this exciting and unfolding landscape. The conference will be organized around the following interest tracks. Please note that the sub-bullets are intended to be suggested topics, not to be a comprehensive listing.
TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS:
DEADLINES:
April 4, 2008 Deadline for All Submissions
May 5, 2008 Notification of Acceptance to Speakers
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
Submissions should be sent in electronic format (as an e-mail attachment as a Word document or pdf) to Program Chair Marie L. Radford (mradford@scils.rutgers.edu).
Information on conference registration and hotel reservations will be forthcoming on the
conference website at: www.bcr.org/referencerenaissance
District Dispatch Podcast #26
R. David Lankes, Director, Information Institute of Syracuse; Associate Professor, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies; Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) Fellow
Andy Bridges, Communications Director, ALA Washington Office
Subject
In his role as OITP Fellow, Dave Lankes (pictured) has been engaging library schools across the country in conversations about the importance of participatory librarianship. In this episode of the District Dispatch Podcast, he tells listeners a little bit about it.
For video of Dave’s presentation at Drexel, please visit his blog. And be sure to head over to ptbed.org to learn all about participatory librarianship and how you can take part.
Program Length
14 minutes, 19 seconds
Check it out:
I’ve just been officially appointed Chair of the ALISE Conference Juried Papers Committee. This committee is responsible for jurying the papers presented at the 2009 conference. Don’t be surprised if the process involves some participatory concepts in the review and acceptance process.
For those interested, I need to nominate 5 additional members or the committee, and I know I’ll be looking for referees.
OITP will be hosting a meeting to discuss participatory librarianship and the library and information science curriculum with LIS programs in the greater New York City area on December 18th, 2007. The meeting will be held at the Pratt School of Information and Library Science in Manhattan.
For more information please contact David Lankes at rdlankes@iis.syr.edu
The American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) named R. David Lankes a fellow through December 2008. Lankes will lead a collaborative research project with OITP on the evolving landscape of information technology and its implications for the education of the next generation of library and information science (LIS) professionals.
“Professor Lankes is the ideal candidate to serve as the first OITP Fellow,” says Alan Inouye, OITP director. “He is a leading LIS researcher as well as someone with ties to, knowledge of, and interests in the larger library community. Professor Lankes has the ability to cultivate stronger ties–for mutual benefit–between library practitioners and institutions and the LIS research community, and he’s also a future-oriented thinker.”
Lankes’ primary work will be to enhance the office’s outreach to the scholarly and educational library and information science communities. While he will be working with the office on a wide range of issues, his primary focus will be on further developing the concept of participatory librarianship first set out in the OITP technology brief Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation.
“Libraries are in a great position to improve their services, and their positions with their communities,” says Lankes, associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and director of its Information Institute of Syracuse. “OITP is really a think tank within ALA, and it is important that it teams with scholars as much as possible. I’m very happy to be part of that process. It is vital to the entire library and information science community that practitioners and scholars engage in a continuous conversation on how best to serve patrons.”
Lankes’ work on participatory librarianship has included presentations both domestically as well as in Australia, Italy, and Sweden. More information on participatory librarianship can be found at http://www.ptbed.org and on Lankes at http://www.DavidLankes.org.
OITP advances ALA’s public policy activities by helping secure information technology policies that support and encourage efforts of libraries to ensure access to electronic information resources as a means of upholding the public’s right to a free and open information society. It works to ensure a library voice in information policy debates and to promote full and equitable intellectual participation by the public. It does this by:
I’ve just changed my web site rather radically. I did this to make it easier to find things (hopefully) and easier to maintain. The blog remains pretty much untouched (for now) except for the addition of some posts. I had to do this because now the entire site is pretty much run from the WordPress database.
The biggest change is the collapsing of the Participatory Librarianship site into my own site. Since this is my major research focus, I figured it was time to put myself on the line and closely associate my research with the project. I’m hoping it makes my site more useful than just going to get a copy of a vita or a presentation. Now when I update the participatory site or my own, both are updated. In a few days going to PTBed.org will show you the same splash page minus my information. If you go to www.DavidLankes.org you get the splash page plus my professional information.
My former site looked minimalist, but in fact the search engine behind it made things complex and the pages for presentations a bit overwhelming. I hope this makes it simpler.
So, major changes:
As always if you see something screwy please let me know. I highly recommend using Firefox over IE. IE is still flakey with CSS and the timelines simply work better in Firefox.
I’m sure I’ll be tweaking for some time, but let me know how I can make it better.
For those technically oriented (or my digital library students) some tech details:
Bog Software: WordPress
Search Engine (and Web Links): Sphider
Timelines: Simile (http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/)
All of these packages were tied together with PHP. The individual non-blog pages were created with PHP tapping directly into the WordPress database.