Infolink Librarians

The Department of Arts and Culture briefed the Committee on the building of libraries in communities and in schools. Government had identified a need for transformation in the sector to address the challenges of a decline in service delivery and the disparities in service provision throughout the country. Libraries were excluded from Schedule 5 of the Constitution, resulting in problems with adequate access to funding. As a result, Conditional Grant Projects were introduced to transform urban and rural community library infrastructure, facilities and services (primarily targeting previously disadvantaged communities) through a recapitalisation programme at Provincial Government level in support of Local Government structures.

If librarians truly wish to be where the user is and to be user-centric, they need to be present in those spaces that users are. Embedded librarianship is a major focus for the future for the profession. The physical library will continue to provide  a place for research, for study, and for group work. But, with the dramatic increase in electronic resources and technological capabilities, bringing the library and the librarian to the user, wherever they are-office, laboratory, home, or even on their mobile device-is at the forefront of what it means to be embedded. 

(Thanx Mary for this link) Copyright for Librarians is a joint project with the goal to provide librarians in developing and transitional countries information concerning copyright law. More specifically, it aspires to inform librarians concerning: * copyright law in general * the aspects of copyright law that most affect libraries * how librarians in the future could most effectively participate in the processes by which copyright law is interpreted and shaped.

"school librarians are in a position to lead their colleagues throughout education into a new world. "We can model a shift to a paperless, social, ubiquitous learning environment where doing stuff takes precedence over learning how to do stuff," Johnson said. "If we don't, who will?""

Great collection of most search engines very nively laid out to explore the hidden web with!

"A collection of resources on how librarians are embedding themselves in learning spaces"

EPubbooks.com provides a selection of high quality, free ePub eBooks, for everyone to read. It is devided into sections for easy reference: Books, authors, genres and ereaders. You will need an ebookreader to read them but just see the ereader page or if you use a Firefox browser you can download the extension and read it straight in your browser here: http://www.epubread.com/

Thanx Stephanie for his great link! It has a toolkit and everything!

A really great local booksite

"This website provides useful reference information on a variety of social topics, including science, medicine, crime, and other social issues."

"Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts. In all there are 35,000 websites that have been reviewed and approved by Sweet Search. In addition to the general search engine, Sweet Search offers five niche search engines. The niche search engines are for Social Studies, Biographies, SweetSites (organized by grade and subject area), School Librarians, and Sweet Search 4 Me (for elementary school students)."

"Own Your Space is a free, sixteen chapter ebook designed to educate tweens and teens about protecting themselves and their stuff online. This ebook isn't a fluffy, general overview book. Each chapter goes into great detail explaining the technical threats that students' computers face online as well as the personal threats to data that students can face online. For example, in the first chapter students learn about different types of malware and the importance of installing security patches to prevent malware infections. The fourteenth chapter explains the differences between secured and unsecured wireless networks, the potential dangers of an unsecured network, and how to lock-down a network."

A lot of stuff regarding copyright in here. Lovely resource kit

A clickable map for Google Tools supporting Bloom's (revised) taxonomy

Thanx Andrew

As the internet replaces library databases as students' primary research option, a new discussion is emerging in academic circles: Is the vast amount of information at students' fingertips changing the way they gather and process information for the better--or for worse?

5 Ways To Share Music, Documents, Files & More On Twitter

"This space is for teacher-librarians to share their lesson plans and otherwise collaborate with each other. This space has been set up to follow the chapter headings from "Information Literacy for Life-Long Learning," the K-12 Library Scope and Sequence developed by the teacher-librarians of the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PA). (Please note that we begin here with Chapter 3, as chapters 1 & 2 do not require lesson plans.)"

S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a dynamic web-based multimedia resource that includes lesson plans, handouts, presentations, videos and other resources to enhance the teaching of information literacy.