Audience participation ideas

"Depending on the size of your group, and especially when you're conducting a workshop or longer training, you will want to encourage participation from your audience.

There are always some participants who participate more and some who participate less. It's easy for people who are shy to sit back and wait for the more outgoing members to speak up. How do you keep some people from dominating and help others to break out of their shell?

Here are some ideas that have worked for me:
1. Toss a Koosh ball or beach ball into the group
2. Hand out small cards or pieces of paper with words or phrases on them for participants to discuss.
3. Use an anonymous question box. continue reading details at

Speak Schmeak: things I'm thinking about speakers and speaking

Indian Library Professional Earns International Award

Mr. Debal C. Kar, Fellow, Library and Information Centre, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), was awarded with the SLA Diversity Leadership Development Program (DLDP) award for 2007 for his commitment and dedication to the profession. The Special Libraries Association (SLA) based in Alexandria, USA, a nonprofit global organization for innovative information professionals sponsors the award. SLA serves more than 11,000 members in 75 countries in the information profession, including corporate, academic, and government information specialists.

Mr. Kar besides being a technical expert on India’s library and information science, is also a sitting member on several government of India committees on library and information science and a board member of several of India’s leading library related associations. He has organized two International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL) in 2004 and 2006 respectively. The first ICDL was the largest digital library conference in the world and its organization and conduct was widely appreciated. He has published 25 articles in refereed journals and presented papers in more than 20 conferences. Source: THE MADRAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION [MALA]'s Infozine (www.sla.org).

A word about Taxonomy and standard platform @ Google

Here is an interesting insight, trend and prospects by Special Libraries Association Asian Chapter outgoing president's Jane Macoustra.

See the article 'Goolge Librarian: An Assessment' byJane Macoustra, SLA Asian Chapter NEWSLETTER 2006: Vol.3 Issue 3 & 4: 3-5

See also in the same newsletter:
Advancing your career: Mentoring, networking, grants and awards, p. 6 -7

Gurudevo Namah

Posted at Thursday, 06 September 2007 10:09 IST
Gaurav Saxena

The guru-shishya parampara may be a thing of the past but still Teachers' Day is an occasion to express one's gratitude towards teachers. September 5, the birthday of a teacher and former Indian president Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, is celebrated as Teachers' day. "Teachers are like candles who burn themselves to enlighten the careers of their students," goes the old adage. However, with changing times, computers have stepped in the shoes of teachers and the human angle is slowly and gradually vanishing. As far as classrooms are concerned, the increasing number of students has made inter-personal communication an impossible task, therefore the guru-shishya parampara no longer exists. continue reading

Higher education for the high-tech savvy

"As professors look for ways to engage a generation raised on the Internet, podcasts and chat groups are replacing the lecture hall

ELIZABETH CHURCH
From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 7, 2007 at 4:14 AM EDT

Students at Hamilton's McMaster University can hear the first lecture of the year for introductory psychology this week without going anywhere near a classroom.

In a break with tradition, the course's main lectures will be prerecorded and posted on the Web, available for students to watch when they have a free half hour and an Internet connection.

The online lectures, on topics such as colour perception and sexual motivation, are available only to students and, to ward off procrastination, are posted for a limited time. They include interactive slides, practice quizzes and a search function.

Students can pause or rewind, join chat groups or e-mail questions. "

Academic Librarians as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

Book Description
Emotional intelligence (EI), as based on the work of Daniel Goleman and his colleagues, has received a lot of attention in the Harvard Business Review and elsewhere as a leadership theory. It is composed of five domains: Knowing your emotions, Managing your emotions, Motivating yourself, Recognizing and understanding other people's emotions, and Managing relationships (managing the emotions of others). Its practitioners become particularly adept at managing the mood and performance of both their organizations and themselves. In Academic Librarians as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders, Hernon and company present a solid overview of EI, its connection to other leadership theories, and its particular application to academic librarianship. By moving beyond basic "people skills," they claim, library leaders can come to appreciate not only the unique challenges of personal and organizational growth, but how their own reactions and feelings are perceived by others. Particularly noteworthy is a strong focus on issues of diversity, including a chapter on how librarians of color regularly engage in self-renewal and restoration.

About the Author
PETER HERNON is a professor at Simmons College, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. He has authored 7 previous titles for Libraries Unlimited. JOAN GIESECKE is the Dean of Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. CAMILA A. ALIRE is Dean of University Libraries at the University of New Mexico.