Sarah Houghton-Jan

Why? Save money, improve customer service, should institutional commitment to lifelong learning, increase staff retention rate, motivate staff to keep learning.
Staff training takes time and money
Competencies based training cycle

Step 1: Planning and Brainstorming - What does your staff need to know how to do with technology to do their jobs well. For: Creates [...]

I follow Marshall’s writing so I’m interested in what’s on his radar. Also, want to get a tip of two about what to ask Polaris.
Him and Me

OCLC study showing that users do not turn to libraries for info needs. Only 2% of students start with library and only 1% in libraries. Uh [...]

For this, I’m just looking for more ideas about how to punk our city’s cms. I heard Darlene and Jeff when I went to Monterey a few years ago.
Him and Me

Improve the site incrementally. Iterative change - small stuff instead of big stuff. This model is so much easier on us web [...]

I’m here because MCL is really acting on an initiative to raise our profile and move services beyond the library walls - my role, of course, is to do so online. I’ve been really wanting to blog about our town and its inhabitants: good restaurants, walking trails, potholes… Is that kind of thing [...]

Things got a bit mixed up because the keynote speaker had travel trouble, but that meant that I got to have a very nice chat with some folks from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Again, it’s incredible to me how far off the radar libraries are. Here is an organization in the business [...]

Session: Taking Care of your Website: Savvy Software by Bill Savoy, President of Savvy Software
This is a vendor demo. They’re out of Portsmouth, NH, which is kind of cool.
Browser based.
Fall River School District is their demo site.
Admin levels for editors and contributors - very much like Scriblio/Wordpress.
WYSIWYG editor - browse local files for things [...]

First session: Assessing Technology Needs and Creating a Technology Plan for Non-Profits by MJ Shoer, President of Jenaly Technology Group, Inc.
As I continue to work with libraries implementing Scriblio, I thought it would be helpful to know how to give libraries advice on how to think about their technology plans.
Do we even know what we [...]

Today I’m attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference. It’s so easy to forget that libraries are also non-profits. I’m excited to learn how other types of institutions who struggle with the similar challenges of limited funding, outreach challenges, and working with committees and/or boards are dealing with the particular challenges of technology. I’m immediately [...]

After a particularly windy night in Dover and a recreational tragedy with which to contend, I hit the road for Burlington and NELA.
My journey took me through Lebanon, home of my all-time favorite pub. It’s everything a town bar should be - high ceilings, hardwood floors, comfy stools standing sentry at a long copper [...]

I’m looking forward to the New England Library Association conference in beautiful Burlington, VT next week, Sunday 22 October to Tuesday 24 October. NELA has done a great job lining up a series of presentations to speak to librarians in all types of organizations.
I’m particularly looking forward to Marshall Keys‘ Step Up to the [...]