Archive for the Category ◊ ITART ◊

Howdy
Monday, September 20th, 2010 | Author:

Hi Folks — I wanted to introduce myself as your new incoming vice-chair/chair elect for ITART 2011. Thank you all so much for voting me in!! To tell you a bit more about myself, I was recently promoted to serve as the Adult Services & Programming Manager for Omaha Public Library. Prior to that, I held the position as Technology Librarian. However, I am wearing both hats until the new technology librarian starts. And I thought I was busy before!!

I received my MLIS at Louisiana State University and I have lived in West Virginia, New Mexico, Louisiana, Washington DC, Maryland and now I consider Omaha, Nebraska as home.  I currently serve on two local boards: Douglas County Historical Society and daOMA (design alliance Omaha) and I was accepted to Leadership Omaha, a 10 month program to develop community leaders.

My most recent and current project is TEDx Omaha, where I serve as the TEDx Omaha Selection Committee Co-Chair. I was responsible for seeking out and curating speakers and performers for TEDx Omaha, scheduled for October 16, 2010. I am excited that one of our speakers will be Gary Wasdin, Director of Omaha Public Library, who will be talking about how libraries connect, inspire and transform communities.

Lastly, I would like to say that it is my professional and personal mission to make the library relevant in every person’s life.

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ITART Vice Chair/Chair Elect Candidates 2010
Monday, June 14th, 2010 | Author:

ITART is pleased to have two great candidates running for office this year.

LOLA GILBERT

I am currently employed as a Research Services Associate at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Criss Library. Some of my responsibilities at UNO include serving as the coordinator for two of our library’s community outreach programs, creating and maintaining promotional and informational materials in both print and web formats, and developing technological applications and tutorials for instruction and reference services.

After the University of Missouri at Columbia awarded me my Master’s Degree in 2009, I began pursuing a Master’s Degree in Online Instructional System Design through Capella University. It is exciting taking classes to learn how to design instruction for an online environment, while actually using an online environment.

While I am a member of several professional organizations including the American Library Association (ALA), the Nebraska Library Association (NLA), and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), I do not give back to those organizations and their members by serving in any official capacity. I would embrace the opportunity  to give back to any of these organizations by serving as one of its officers.                                                                                  

 AMY MATHER

Amy Mather started working for the Omaha Public Library in February of 2008 as their Technology Librarian. Prior to that, she lived in the Washington, DC area and worked for ProQuest as their Technology Product Manager. After nine years at ProQuest, it was time to explore other job opportunities and an affordable place to live. During that time she made a trip to Omaha to visit her friend who had recently moved to the area. After a fun filled week, and a great steak at Mister C’s, she was sold on Omaha! A short time later, a job opportunity became available at Omaha Public Library and in the middle of winter, made the big trek to the Midwest…sans the covered wagon.

As the Technology Librarian at Omaha Public Library, she manages the website, electronic collections, and works on several outreach programs. Some her accomplished projects included managing the rebrand of the Omaha Public Library and redesign of the website. Past and present outreach initiatives include business database training for Omaha employers, game night for adults, and a highly successful “Speed Dating at Your Library” program that generated local and national media attention. In 2010, she was recognized along with her colleague for
Library Journal’s “Mover & Shakers” award. Amy continues to study all the ingredients that drive people to the library, whether virtually or physically. A combination of marketing, usability testing, and community networking, both change to physically and virtually, has proven to be successful driving factors in increased library usage.  But most of all, Amy believes it takes championing how the library can connect with your life.

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A short hiatus
Monday, January 25th, 2010 | Author:

image I was out sick all last week so I didn’t feel like posting much of anything. Yesterday I found out the the geniuses at Google have decided to abandon the .5% of their user base that knows what they’re doing and using FTP to publish to their own domain. Guess what? This blog is part of that .5%. So, chances are this blog will be moving to a different URL, probably something like ITART.blogspot.com. So, unless someone else starts posting I don’t think I’ll be doing much here until I get this all figured out in the next week or two. (If you’re interested in the gory details as to why, start with this article from Quick Online Tips and follow the links for even more details.)

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Annual Report now available
Thursday, November 05th, 2009 | Author:

1405978653 The 2008/2009 ITART Annual Report is now available.

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A new year begins
Monday, November 02nd, 2009 | Author:

The NLA/NEMA 2009 conference is over and we’re all recovering. Me, I’ve was at both NLA/NEMA and Internet Librarian last week (including crazy travel issues between the two) so we’ve all got a bit of catching up to do.

On the ITART front, all the new officers are in place and we’ve got plans for this coming year including murmurs of a day-long spring meeting revolving around eBooks (co-hosted with TSRT) and plenty of ideas for new content for this here blog.

So, stay tuned for more to come. In the mean time, if you have any questions feel free to leave them as a comment here of contact the appropriate ITART officer.

Cheers!

Chair: Michael Sauers
Vice-Chair / Chair Elect: Karin Dalziel
Past Chair: Jan Boyer
Secretary: Becky Wymer

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NLA works for you
Friday, June 19th, 2009 | Author:

strategic_planMost of the ITART board are at a strategic planning session for NLA today at the La Vista Public Library. In the afternoon, we’ll be meeting to organize ITART events for the fall conference. Keep an eye on this space for exciting conference news. Two hints: unconference and gaming!

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Nebraska Learns 2.0 Wrap-Up
Tuesday, March 03rd, 2009 | Author:

Nebraska Learns 2.0, Nebraska’s version of the popular “23 Things” online learning program originally developed by Helene Blowers at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, officially wrapped up on January 30, 2009. The intent of the 16-week program, which kicked off on October 6, 2008, was to encourage participants to learn about emerging technologies on the web that are changing the way people, society and libraries access information and communicate with each other.

When beginning the program participants were each required to create a blog and register its URL with program coordinators. During subsequent weeks, participants were prompted to experiment with and blog about a number of new technologies and tools, including instant messaging, RSS, Flickr, LibraryThing, Twitter, Delicious, Slideshare, wikis, YouTube, and podcasts.

In total, 165 participants registered blogs and began the program. During the ensuing 16 weeks they wrote 2,383 blog posts and left 2,257 comments on the Nebraska Learns 2.0 blog. Of the 165 who began the program, 83 finished all 23 Things by the January 30, 2009 deadline.

Participants who completed all 23 Things by the deadline received 15 CE credits and had their names entered in a prize drawing for nine 8 GB Creative Zen MP3 players. These MP3 players were made available through generous donations from ITART, NEMA, and NLA.

The following nine participants’ names were drawn:

The Nebraska Learns 2.0 program is still available online. Although it is not currently being updated it will remain live indefinitely. A list of all participant blogs is also available.

Category: ITART, social web  | Leave a Comment
New ITART Blog Layout
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 | Author:

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now and if you’re reading this on the blog proper I’m sure you’ve noticed the new layout. If you’re reading this in your RSS aggregator of choice, please take a moment to hear on over to http://www.nebraskalibraries.org/ITART/ and take a look. There’s still some tweaking to be done but the major portion of the move to the new design has been completed.

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