MaintainIT

Every month MaintainIT and WebJunction collaborate to provide a 30-minute webinar related to public access computing and MaintainIT Cookbook content. I just finished "dress rehearsal" for tomorrow's webinar, starring Robin Hastings... and I can tell this is going to be one of the best webinars yet.

Each month, we host a MaintainIT webinar for trainers. The goal is to help people think about how to use the MaintainIT resources in the training they are providing. We're hosting a train-the-trainer webinar tomorrow and in this one, we will focus on ideas for using MaintainIT resources in training that you provide online.

Happy birthday to Chris Peters, MaintainIT Cookbook author and one of my favorite people to turn to when I need to better understand something about library technology. If he doesn't know the answer to a question I ask, he sees that as a challenge and soon he does know and explains it to me, too.

At the MaintainIT Project, we're always working to find new and useful ways to communicate about library technology, so when I recently encountered the Reelfoot Regional Library System's Reel Wiki, I asked Joyce Gunnels if she would share some information about it with me. Luckily, she agreed and here are her responses.

Thank you to everyone who attended this month's train-the-trainer webinar! We discussed ideas for using MaintainIT resources in training. I highlighted resources that are available, talked about examples of trainings that are taking place, and asked the participants for ideas, too.

On Friday, August 1st, I attended and presented at the Northeast Kansas Library System's annual Tech Day. Michael Porter, AKA Libraryman, kicked the day off with an inspiring and engaging presentation about "gadgets". It was exciting to hear about technologies that will be impacting us not only in the future, but also right now.

I just attended David Lee King's SirsiDynix Institute webinar, "Video on the Web: A Primer." Like most librarians, I'm a word lover. Reading them. Writing them. Being surrounded by them. For this reason, blogging has been a natural fit for me and I've been doing it for years. As a reader of blogs and websites, however, I have become more and more aware of the story-telling power of the visual.

Much of what we learn from public libraries can be described as "successes" or "best practices" or "hip hip hooray, it went well!" But so much can be learned from the things we don't really want to brag about, the challenges, the stuff we "should've known," and the "oops!"

Here's where you come in.