pafa.net

This is what happens when you drop your computer and try to fix it with help from phone support. I have to say, Dell has been good about this. They are replacing everything that broke in the fall. And everything that broke as a result of the “surgery”.So this is why I haven’t been online much this week. I’m traveling and this is my travel laptop. Ouch. Good things come from such events though, I’m going to relax tonight, drink a glass of wine and read a book. Now that’s really a treat!

The New York State Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education are seeking an experienced and innovative individual to serve as Assistant Commissioner for Libraries and State Librarian. The incumbent will lead the operations of the New York State (NYS) Library, a component of the Office of Cultural Education (www.oce.nysed.gov) within the New York State Education Department (www.nysed.gov). The successful candidate will have proven leadership qualities; demonstrate vision and the capacity to execute policy for library services in a rapidly changing information management, electronic, and digital environment; be able to operate within a complex and dynamic atmosphere and work collaboratively with diverse, often divergent, interest groups.

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Tech Soup and flickr have partnered to offer flickr accounts to qualifying non-profits. These accounts normally cost $25/year. Through this deal, non-profits can apply for either:

• Two 1-year Pro Accounts (admin fee of $6)
• Five 1-year Pro Accounts (admin fee of $25)

Why apply for more than one account? flickr accounts are for individuals, not organizations. This way, a number of staff members can have their own accounts.

Description: Flickr is an online application for storing, organizing, sharing, and discussing photos. A Flickr pro account allows unlimited storage, photos up to 10 MB in size, organization into any number of sets and collections of sets, and submission into the pools of up to 60 Flickr groups.

flickr is  handy tool for for using photos to showcase what your organization is all about. So, if you’ve been thinking about getting a Pro flickr account, here’s your chance.

(via Librarian in Black)

I’ve been playing with new themes and stuff for my blog. I like this layout and theme. Just need to find some of my own photos for the headers. And work on the content for the sidebars. This is how I’m avoiding getting some other projects done!

There’s a new Summer Reading community on ning.com. If you’re not familiar with ning.com, it’s a free service that hosts thousands of special interest groups where members share ideas through discussion forums, photos, videos, etc. There are already many popular library and education related groups on ning.com.

The purpose of the Summer Reading ning group is simply to share ideas for summer reading programs in libraries and connect librarians around the country and the world.

http://summerreading.ning.com/

If you’re not familiar with navigating around a ‘ning’ community, there is some help in the discussion forum when you login. Sign up and take it for a spin. Ideas & suggestions are most welcome. If you’re interested in helping to administer the group, please let me know.

This has a been a surprisingly unusual day.

Things started with 2 half-day training sessions for staff at the New York State Library. About 50 people came out to hear me bombard them (and I do mean bombard!) with web2.0/library2.0 ’stuff’. They then got some projects going and had lots of good discussions. Best of all, they’re getting support from folks ‘at the top’. Jeff Cannell, Deputy Commissioner for Cultural Education, (more…)