AkLA Conference 2008!

The Alaska Library Association Conference will be here in Fairbanks at the Princess Riverside Lodge Feb 28 - March 2! I went to last year's seminar in Anchorage at the Hilton. It is pretty neat to see all the different librarians from around the state - some of them even looked familiar. Attending the different focus groups was very informational. There were local and national presenters talking about different trends and issues libraries face. Should be interesting to see what topics they come up with this year!

(R)evolution of the Librarian

Anne Christie from BioSci recently sent me this interesting article from the New York Times about young up and coming librarians. It is called A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

I was convinced that library school was becoming outdated/obsolete before reading this article. It reminds me why we are doing this Learning 2.0 activity. All these new technologies are the things that are going to keep libraries alive for future generations. Librarians must learn to adapt to our ever-changing world of technology. Otherwise they will be left behind.

Flickr

Fascinating picture I found on Flickr. I just typed in “Fairbanks” and “Library” and this came up. I am wondering what state this library is in – doesn’t much look like Alaska…

Flickr is very new to me, so I am sure there is more to this site than meets the eye. But it seems like an amazing way to share high quality photos with many photographers both amateur and professional. My sister will LOVE to hear about this site! She is going to school to become a photographer. Many of last year’s SunStar covers were my sister’s work. (*so proud*)

FaceBook!!!

I LOVE my FaceBook! I must check this social networking site several times a day! It is really the only way I feel connected with all my friends, since I don’t see them in person on a day-to-day basis. I have been a part of this network for almost two years.

You can find out so much about your friends and your future friends on this site. People should be careful about what they post on these sites because employers have been known to check these sites for photos of substance abuse and reckless behavior.

Fun things you can do on FaceBook are: write on your friend’s Wall (forum), send them a private message, invite them to a group or event, share book/movie reviews, place an add in the marketplace, post your photo albums and now you can add all sorts of applications (100s of them) to more easily keep in contact with your friends. I found some of my friends from elementary school on this site.

I MUCH prefer FaceBook over MySpace. MySpace doesn’t seem quite as controlled or clean as FaceBook. When FaceBook first started you had to have a university email address to set up an account. Since then, high schoolers and people with generic (hotmail or yahoo) email accounts could set up a FaceBook account without being affiliated with a college. But FaceBook seems to be more closely monitored.

On MySpace you will probably get several dozen “friend requests” within the first day for people you don’t know or have no desire knowing. Some advantages that MySpace has over Facebook are more people have access to MySpace. Many local/national/international bands can set up MySpace accounts/websites for free. It is very easy to access.

Once you have set up your FaceBook account feel free to search my name: Amanda Huff and request me as a friend! : )