The Internet Librarian 2009 Conference is accepting speaking proposals, so make sure you get your ideas in by the deadline April 3, 2009. This year's theme is "Net Initiatives For Tough Times: Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices." This is my first year on the review and organizing panel, so be sure to send in your good stuff 
As a response to the Movers and Shakers award from Library Journal, the librarian-created-and-supported Library Society of the World has created the Shovers and Makers blog to highlight all the wonderful things people are doing throughout libraryland. What are you doing? What do you contribute to your library, your users, your profession each day? I love it, love it, love it…and thank the wonderful people behind this site. I know you, you know me, and we all know who really shoves, moves, makes, and shakes. We all do! From the site's self-description:
I am honored to announce that due to the nomination of friends and colleagues whom I respect tremendously, I have been named one of the 2009 Movers & Shakers by Library Journal. You can see the whole list of winners and see my own profile as well, in the Trendspotters category. The photo chosen for the article is one in which I am not smiling (sorry Mom). I am happy that the article includes an important part of my professional philosophy:
I am honored to be included alongside colleagues like Michael Porter, Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap Van de Geer, Geert Van den Boogaard, Jason Griffey, Karen Coombs, Jenica Rogers-Urbanek, Lori Reed, and Dorothea Salo. Congratulations to everyone I know, and to everyone I don't. You are all making a difference in our profession, and that deserves thanks.
So to all of you M&S winners from this year, past years, and those who have not won but do amazing things for our profession, I sincerely thank you for what you do every day.
We are all wanting to offer our users online book clubs, right? And I don't mean that chapter-a-day auto-e-mailed out stuff. I mean a real, online book club with interactivity, discussions, the whole nine yards that a F2F book club would have (that's 'face to face' for y'all who missed that).
Well, if you can't afford the staff time to run an online book club yourselves (truly, it's not much, but if you really can't I promise to understand), then check out Open Book Club. The podcasted show is hosted by Christy Cashman and Debbie DiMasi, who interview authors and others about writing and books. They offer a mailing list, an option to list your book club with them (take them up on this!!!), and a forum for online discussions of each title. March's book is The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti, so saddle up and get your users reading with them, if not with you!
Something I am constantly asked for today is money management sites. I am working on a "Sarah's Online Reference Warehouse" post on the subject, but in the meantime, take a look at this post I found from back in September from The Wall$treet Fighter blog: The Top 18 New Money Management Sites. These 2.0 tools help people manage their finances, keep track of expenditures, and easily see their debt (or savings – ka-ching!) rise through various graphical tools. My favorite tool to use as a family is Spendji : easy to use, simple enough for kids and teens to get involved with, and multifaceted enough to meet most households' unique needs. And my favorite tool as a consultant is Xpen$er (whichlets you track business expenditures instantly via Twitter, IM, text-messaging, and other methods). How 2.0 can you get?
I just re-discovered this lovely post from Phil Bradley about how to limit a web search by date. The search engine guru supreme offers several search engine options and describes what date limitation features they offer. It's really not that hard, if you know where to look. And Phil knows. Now, so do you!
Check out PolicyMap.com, a great resource for finding the location of federally funded institutes nationwide, like public housing, schools, as well as statistics from the census and other data sources. While they do offer a premium service with more features (mostly not useful), the basic service will do a lot for you. You can get maps, reports, and tables of data on a variety of factors. You can layer the different data one on top of the other to correlate things like the location of schools vs. household income, or poverty levels correlated with infant mortality. You can view things so easily, the site truly did amaze me when I started clicking around. You can zoom in and out of the map, change data parameters, or remove choices all with a click. It’s very easy to use, data-rich, and generally awesome. See the example below, and please note that clearly there are not a lot of people of Asian descent where I live.
My friend and co-worker Theresa McGovern, Librarian at the Fairfax Library in Marin County California, was profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday: "No 'Stupid' Questions for Reference Librarian" by Edward Guthmann. The piece is a loving description of her childhood love for reading and libraries, what being a librarian means to her, and what day-to-day life is like for librarians today. Theresa is one of the best readers' advisory and most hard-core reference librarians I know. She knows the print materials as well as she does the online materials and she always seems to leave the patron with a feeling of being helped just that little extra bit that makes a difference. I'm so happy she was profiled, and am very proud to call her my friend. Good going, Theresa! Our next lunch is on me. 
If you haven't seen the Pew report from February (as usual of late, I'm behind), the Generations Online in 2009 Report is very interesting and really kills some of the assumptions and stereotypes about online users young and old. If you're looking for an accurate portrait of what your users really are like in terms of online behavior and knowledge, this is a must-read for every library staff person. I personally think we're not offering enough for people in the "higher online skill" area. These are the bulk of our public library constituents, but what types of activities, classes, and resources does your library offer for these people? If you can't think of 5 major things off the top of your head, that means you need to do more (if you live the gospel of Sarah).
Paul Doty from the Owen D Young Library created a presentation about using Firefox effectively in libraries. I found several useful tips in the presentation, including the history of Firefox, why it's useful in libraries, useful features, and some key add-ons. See if you learn something new!
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