Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Running for SLA Sci-Tech Division Chair, 2010-12

Here is a draft stump speech. It will probably go into the STN and the sla-st discussion list sometime in August.

Joseph Kraus has been active in SLA for the last 15 years. He has volunteered for several committee spots in the Sci-Tech Division and in the Physics-Astronomy Mathematics (PAM) Division. Sci-Tech Division activities -- From 1996-2000, he was the Webmaster of the Sci-Tech Division. In 2002, he moderated the Contributed papers session. For several years after that, he reviewed the contributed papers. From June 2003 through June of 2005, he was the Secretary. In 2004, he gave a paper at the “Winner's Circle of Best Science Websites". PAM Division activities -- Over the last 15 years he moderated the PAM-wide roundtable twice, moderated the vendor roundtable and was a member of and chaired the Awards committee. He co-taught a CE class concerning science resources in 2002 and 2003. He presented a poster paper in 2006 concerning science and engineering library branch renovations. He was Chair-Elect, Chair and Past-Chair of the PAM division from June 2006 through December 2008. He was very happy to chair the PAM Division when the SLA Conference was in Denver in 2007.

There are several big issues I think the Division should address. We need to: 1) Attract and retain DST members. We also need to get more members involved in the Division. 2) Encourage greater use of the discussion list and other communication and social networking technologies. Since the division has such a wide variety of academic, corporate and other special librarians, we should encourage the sharing of innovative ideas and solutions to common problems. 3) Make sure that the June conference is intellectually and socially stimulating. 4) Address the serials crisis and open access issues.

In short, I think libraries and librarians should strive for even more sharing of ideas and knowledge. In my work, I try to share as much information and knowledge as I can with others. If you want to learn more about me, take a look at some of my social networking accounts.

http://friendfeed.com/jokrausdu

http://www.nuthingbut.net (miscellaneous thoughts on librarianship and other stuff)
http://sci-eng-penrose.blogspot.com (work blog)
http://delicious.com/jokrausdu
http://twitter.com/jokrausdu
http://www.facebook.com/jokrausdu


Handheld Librarian virtual conference

I will be attending the Handheld Librarian conference tomorrow. If you are attending, maybe you could win a door prize? Go ahead and enter here. They will also be tracking delicious tags and tweets concerning the event. Use #hhlib. Thanks to Luke for the info.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Shanachie Tour came to Chicago

The members of the Shanachie Tour (Erik Boekesteijn and Jaap van de Geer) are "World Famous" for their travels and interviews. Here are some new ones. They interview some great librarians and friends of mine.

ALA Annual Conference 2009 Chicago from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.


OCLC Blog Salon:Shenanigans with Shanachies from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.



Thursday, July 2, 2009

Nuthing to do with libraries...


Ok, this has nothing to do with libraries, but I would like to share this link concerning the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado (BBBS). I volunteer for this great non-profit organization. This year, they reduced their services to the community because they have not received the same level of corporate and individual donations. This fund-raising campaign hopes to alleviate some of the financial pressures the BBBS is facing this year. If you feel like it, please donate to this worthy organization. It will really help support a great kid and my mentoring activities.