On Facebook

If you want to get librarians talking, mention Facebook. Some hate it, some ban it, some dismiss it, some adore it. And me? In the past two years, I’ve been almost all of the above. 
I didn’t join Facebook when I was in grad school because it seemed a place for the undergrads. Though my similarly-ancient [...]

Blackboardwalla

I’m not a big fan of proprietary course management software. I’ve been a student and librarian with Blackboard, and now a teacher and librarian with WebCT (though we’re switching to Blackboard this fall). None of these experiences has been overwhelmingly positive. Last year a colleague and I decided that Blackboard is Web 2.0 for instructors [...]

Required library classes

Each semester here at the American University in Cairo, I teach at least two sections of LALT 101, a required no-credit one-hour/weekly information literacy class. Some students do exempt out of the course via an exam, but most undergraduates take it.
I really enjoy working with the same group of students all semester. It’s a nice [...]

Welcome to the Chatty Librarian!

This blog is dedicated to the discussion of public services within academic librarianship. I’m Joan, the blog creator and administrator, an Instruction and Reference Librarian at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. 
Working in Egypt is great–I’ll talk about that more in future posts–but I am missing the conversations I had with classmates in library school, [...]