I’m terrible with titles–doesn’t matter what kind–blog post titles, subject lines of emails, titles for term papers, theses–I just wasn’t made to name things. Luckily, or hopefully, my writing makes up a little for the lack of skill with titling things.

Well, it is Friday and yes, it means some random thoughts about trying to help and improve the library, yourself, the world even maybe. When I was teaching on Tuesday, I used a quote by Ghandi, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” So yeah, I believe that by changing yourself and actions you can change the world. Where am I going with this?

Well, I read this great post by the Free Range Librarian, K.G. Schneider. Whose blog you should really subscribe to if you don’t already. It is insightful, funny and all the things that a blog should be. I love this post because peer-review might be broken, but publishing anonymous bloggers is not helping things, and I am sick of all the talk about the Annoyed Librarian too. It is way too easy to be pessimistic; it takes a lot more work to be optimistic and try to improve things when the economy is tanking and libraries are feeling the hit. But I would way rather be spending time improving things, be it trying to improve peer-review process or helping my students finally get how to apply information literacy concepts to their lives outside the university, than spend time complaining about it.

Here is a report from Pew Internet that talks about users having trouble with technology. This is nothing new, but I wanted to point it out so the next time you feel bad for not knowing the latest online game, just remember it only feels like everyone else knows about it. Most don’t and most people are still having trouble with basic technology stuff. Librarians are cutting edge–just remember that and remember it’s okay to still be learning. Just remember to take a deep breath when explaining something new to a patron. Not everyone is a techie, and that is okay.

And, it is a beautiful, sunny Friday morning. Enjoy your day, enjoy working with people and have a great Friday and weekend.

Oh and has anyone tried SlideRocket? It looks really cool and I need to play around with it. It’s an online presentation application. Anyway, just thought I’d check.