Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

This is the fifth installment in the Sarah’s Online Reference Warehouse series.  In the days of a speedy downturn in jobs, funding for state & community colleges, and company/government  budgets across the U.S. and abroad, perhaps some of our library customers would like to pursue a free online education. And you know what?  You can get one!  A few great places to look for free online classes:

• MIT Open Courseware: free videos of lectures, lecture notes, and exams in dozens of disciplines
• University of California – Berkeley: webcasts of lectures for a couple dozen classes
• Stanford University’s iTunes U: dozens of classes of free lectures, through the popular “iTunes U,” used by other universities too
• Harvard@home: a selection of lectures, events, and talks at Harvard
• Open Yale Courses: a few dozen classes’ worth of free lectures

MIT & Berkeley seem to have the most consistent and broad range of content.  While these classes won’t yield degrees, they do yield knowledge.  Those looking to increase their skill sets to be more marketable in the competitive job market would be well-served by taking a few classes applicable to their job interests.  And hey…ever wish you’d pursued that MA in English at Berkeley?  Perhaps you can get just a wee bit of satisfaction from listening to some of those classes on your commute home.

Take a look at all of the Sarah’s Online Reference Warehouse entries.