libraries

Why Maine Needs the Maine School Library Network

Yesterday I had the chance to drive to Augusta and testify to the state legislature (specifically the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Technology). There’s a bill that’s working its way through the system: LD 256. In a nutshell, it tweaks the way the Maine School Library Network (MSLN) is funded in order to ensure the network continues to operate in the years to come. Now having sat through a couple hours’ discussion on the bill, I thought it might be useful for me to give you, the people who weren’t there, a quick overview of what the MSLN […]

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Maine Library Association Annual Conference

Another MLA annual conference is in the record books, and I for one am very glad to have emerged from the other side. I go to a fair number of conferences each year, but I only actually take part in running one. This one. And it’s made me appreciate how much work goes into a successful conference. There’s a ton of moving parts, and staying on top of all of them can be dizzying. This year’s conference was a great success, I think. We had a record turnout (183, which was 60 more than we had last year). We were

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A Report on This Year’s ALA

I’m in the airport waiting to fly back to Maine after another successful ALA (despite the Travel Gods’ best efforts to keep me from getting down to Orlando). It hasn’t been a perfect trip, but it’s been a good one in spite of that. What have I been up to? Let me tell you. I’ve been doing the library thing. I had an all day meeting on Friday focused on how to be an effective leader at the state level. It was filled with other state chapter presidents, and we discussed things lie how to respond to sensitive legislation and

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3D Printing: A New Outlook

I posted yesterday that I was skeptical going into my conference on 3D printing. I was far from convinced this was something my university should be pursuing, and I really wondered if it wasn’t just another flash in the pan that people would explore and then abandon a few years later. But somehow, and much to my surprise, the conference changed my mind. It didn’t change my mind about 3D printing (and 3D scanning and drones and augmented reality and virtual reality, which the conference also covered), but rather, it made me see the important space in higher learning that

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3D Printing for Fun and Profit

I’m at an all-day conference on 3D printing and Maker Spaces on college campuses today. Not sure what I’m going to find out about them, but that’s pretty much the reason I’m here. Libraries have been doing a lot in the last few years to really push Maker Spaces: areas where people can come to create things, be they printed or pounded out in metal or nailed together in wood. A fair number of libraries have argued that this is the next big thing for libraries. I’m skeptical. (Or at least, I was going into today. Maybe I’ll see the

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