I am a little behind my fellow contributors to this blog so this is simply an introduction to me and what I’ll be blogging about.

About me

I am currently the University Librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.   While I am in academia now I started my career (more than 20 years ago) in a public library and have worked over the years with special libraries, archives and museums.  For eight years I worked at Wayne State University in Detroit where they have an ALA-accredited MLS program.  My experience there gave me a glimpse into the changing nature of librarian education.

I have only been at McMaster since July but we have already made some significant changes.  We are going through a transformation process, which you can read about on my blog.

About my contributions

I am particularly interested in the application of new technologies within libraries.  Gaming (MMORPGs) and virtual worlds (Second Life) are of special interest to me.  Some of you may have seen my post “I want a gaming librarian” and may be interested in knowing that we are, in fact, hiring a gaming librarian.  This position will provide leadership in the development and implementation of innovative, highly engaging, habitable environments for teaching and learning.  Our forray into Second Life, where we now offer reference services, has been well received by the Hamilton community. How can these emerging and highly popular technologies be incorporated into libraries so that we can reach our users wherever they are?
I am also interested in new models for the organization.  I know there is some resistance to the “2.0” moniker but I’m going to use it anyway!  What is “leadership 2.0” or as one of my librarians recently asked what is “administration 2.0”?  Given the radical redefinition of library resources, services and facilities, how do we radically redefine our organizations as well?  What does that mean?  What will they look like?  More importantly, how do we redefine our organizations given the constraints of our parent organizations?  (universities, school districts, corporations, government agencies, boards, etc)

Finally, I will also, out of necessity, blog about changing space.  Our Science Engineering Library, a building straight out of the 70’s – left virtually unchanged since its construction – is on the university’s capital campaign for a $4 million dollar face lift.  What kind of space should it become?  How do we appeal to this generation of student?  What should it include?  What should be removed?  In particula, how do we strike a balance of “collections” (which are used less and less often) with “technology” and “collaboration space”?  This will be a major challenge for us over the next couple of years.

So, I will have a wide variety of topics to blog.  I’m looking forward to it – watch this space – it should be fun!