PLN highlights

From PLN

PLN highlights

PLN Highlights keeps you informed on new articles and milestones in the PALINET Leadership Network, through occasional posts (roughly once a week, never more than twice a week, rarely less than twice a month) that you can subscribe to via RSS or via email.

Wikis and blogs–and more at PLN

2 September 2008

What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network?

First, a contribution from a PLN member. Peter Bromberg adds some notes on service and flexibility in the Talk page for “Service and policy.” We’d love to see your comments there–or in the new “Policy and flexibility” topic in the Services forum.
Blog or wikis–which tool to use? is an entirely original piece for PLN, based on my own experience with PLN and other library-related wikis (on one hand) and investigating some 600 library-related blogs (on the other). The article offers comparative characteristics in text and in a table, and offers a few examples of when one tool or the other might serve a library better.
That article bridges from the existing PLN cluster of articles on wikis–Wikis and libraries, Transparency and MediaWiki and Wiki notes–to a new potential cluster of articles on blogging as it relates to libraries.
Blogs and libraries is an article in flux, one that may be split into multiple articles, but it’s already off to a good start (and also entirely original to PLN). Initially, the article discusses the basic reasons that you–as a library leader–should care about blogs, why “just do it” might not be the ideal approach to starting a new library blog (although the mechanics really are that easy), a few pointers to directories of library-related blogs (liblogs) and library blogs–and some blog basics, including some of the elements that aren’t really part of a generally-useful definition of blogs.
Some of the best-known and most respected blogging software (e.g. WordPress) and some of the best-known and most respected wiki software (e.g. MediaWiki) have something in common: They’re open source. PLN has an outstanding cluster of articles onopen source software, starting with Why look at open source now? by PALINET’s John Houser and continuing from there.

Take a look–and help us make PLN as useful as possible, by commenting, responding, contributing or just reading the current editorial, Long and the short of it, and clicking poll responses on desirable article lengths.

Bylines and readability - new at PLN

25 August 2008

What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network, PLN?

In terms of new articles, not a lot. With so much added over the past few weeks, there’s a lot for you to catch up on. Just in the past five weeks, during a period when things tend to slow down, we’ve added a major Open access cluster, eight articles combining summaries and original material to get you up to speed on this vital topic; What’s here, a new way to explore PLN; and more than a dozen new articles and substantially enhanced older articles on topics from OCLC’s From Awareness to Funding report to “impossible” positions, two very different items on generations, reading and viewing, and free speech and community challenges.

Two things have changed since last week, and we hope both of them will make PLN more valuable to you:

Most PLN articles are by one or more people–and we suspect you might want to read more by someone you find particularly interesting. That’s easier now. In most such cases, you’ll find bylines included in the list of Categories at the bottom of an article. You can click on a name to reach a list of PLN articles that include contributions from that author–or you can go directly to the Features and bylines page for a live list of all the bylines (and a few standing features such as the LLN Peer Panel and PLN Challenge). As of today, there are 72 feature and byline subcategories–from Alan Kirk Gray through Mary Carmen Chimato to Wayne Bivens-Tatum. (By the way, if you’re one of those authors, you can add information to your Category page–and if you have trouble doing that, send what you want to have added to me, crawford at palinet.org. Oh, and you might want to create your User page and link to it–every user has a User page, most of them blank.)
I’m writing the occasionalLetter from the editor, dealing with aspects of PLN and asking your help in making it better. The first real example, Long and the short of it, asks the question, “What’s the right length for a PLN article?” and includes a couple of one-click polls to make it easy for you to respond.

While we continue to invite direct contributions and responses, you can also help make this your PLN and the best possible resource by letting us know what works and where you’d like to see more (or less, for that matter).

Library approval ratings, generations, reading and more–new at PLN

18 August 2008

What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network?

The LLN Peer Panel discusses Library approval ratings–how their organizations would rank and what it all means–with contributions from Jamie LaRue, Jeff Horrell, Bill Crowe, Loriene Roy and George Needham.
Jamie LaRue considers Generations and the public sector, with an optimistic view of Generation X and the Millennials, both of which may understand the common good better than a certain very large generation before them…
…and LaRue also gets involved in a local challenge to a book, telling the story in Free speech and community challenges. This story isn’t over, and the article will grow later this week. There’s also a new Intellectual freedom category page, a subcategory to Policy, for articles such as this.
Reading and viewing notes includes shorter items that relate directly to reading and viewing, starting with two Leader’s Digest items.
Generations, leadership and respect combines library-related comments from three–and another new category page gathers together articles on Generational issues.
We continue to look for ways to make PLN content more useful by adding navigation and categories. One such is the new Resources category, a directory of articles that either consist of links to sources and resources for a given topic or that include substantial sets of links along with original material.
Finally, you’ll find major new additions to Qualities of successful leaders, Brands and Service attitudes.

Impossible positions, what’s hot and what’s here–new at PLN

11 August 2008

What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

Impossible positions and bad decisions combines posts by Tasha Saecker, Jeff Scott and Steven J. Bell on, well, impossible positions and bad decisions, from the perspectives of two public library directors and an academic library AUL.
Does success justify funding? offers Jamie LaRue’s comments on ”From awareness to funding” and his own library’s experience.
What’s here is something different and, we hope, useful: An expanded “contents page” to help you explore more of PLN than just the recent articles. When PLN went public, there was already “three books’ worth” of material in place. This page (which will be updated every couple of months) should provide another way to navigate through PLN’s resources. It’s a first attempt, and we’d love to have feedback.
Right around the 8th or 9th of each month, we gather statistics for PLN and offer a new What’s hot at PLN? page based on pageviews for the past month. That happened on August 8, and it may be no surprise that three open access articles were the most widely-read articles for the month, with the other five also in the top 25.
What’s hot at PLN? now has a second list of 25 articles–namely, the 25 long-term leaders in pageviews, excluding the most recent month’s top 25. You may also find that list worth browsing–but don’t ignore the less traveled roads!
Welcome to PLN isn’t exactly new (although it’s constantly being revised)–but it may be a little more welcoming! Until last week, you had to have a user account to read this essay (which, among other things, discusses opening an account). We’ve fixed that.

Two weeks ago, I thanked Peter Suber for noting PLN’s open access cluster in Open access news, the most important source for ongoing open access coverage. At the time, I expressed the hope that other OA-related blogs might mention this new resource. Well, it’s not an OA-related blog as such, but I’m delighted to thank Ellyssa Kroski, who calls this cluster “One of the best new resources I’ve discovered for getting to know about Open Access issues” in “Open Access and Libraries articles,” an August 11, 2008 post on iLibrarian.

From awareness to funding–and more at PLN

4 August 2008

What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

A major piece on OCLC’s report From Awareness to Funding combines a brief critical summary by Leslie Dillon (with links to other commentaries) and a longer discussion by Jeff Scott. Additional perspectives on this report would be welcome–either on the Talk page or as separate articles (I’ll see to it that they’re linked!).
Jamie LaRue considers the issue of public library boards evaluating library directors and recommends that they Evaluate performance, not people–good advice for any evaluation.
Another piece by Jamie LaRue–this one combining three of LaRue’s newspaper columns–offers one good example of telling your library’s story to those who need to hear: One library’s story: Who we are and what we do.
With more commentaries from Kindle owners, we’ve split off direct Kindle experiences from Kindle and ebook reader notes.
Leader’s Digest July 2008 is now in place as a monthly digest; two big sections are already visible elsewhere and others will be soon.