Nobody can save your butt but you

The flyer above is for a workshop being presented for school library media specialists this summer by Gary Hartzell. Even if he weren't my friend, I would encourage others to go to this.

Having been a school administrator for many years, Gary presents a unique perspective and set of strategies to school library media specialists. His book Building Influence for the School Librarian: Tenets, Targets, and Tactics is a must-read classic. And it's one from which any number of technology integration specialists might learn a thing or two as well.

Given the current state of school budgets now and into the foreseeable future, the strategies Gary teaches are absolutely critical if librarianship as a profession is to survive. Unless you are a classroom teacher with about 35 kids in 6 classes a day - all required for graduation, you job is probably being considered by somebody, somewhere for elimination to balance a budget. So it ain't just teaching skills that will keep you employed.

I am encouraged by what seems to be an awakening by many voices that we need to do a better job of relating to and communicating with our principals who have a huge say in staffing:

• Infomaniac, Fran Bullington has a great post: Advocacy: Annual Reports
• Leigh Ann Jones at Shelf-Consumed says you should be Talking to your principal
• The ever-brilliant Buffy Hamilton shares her Unquiet Library Multi-Media Annual Report

And I've written about this once or twice:

• No Principal Left Behind
• Using Planning and Reporting to Build Program Support

We'd like to think state mandates and rules and ALA and ISTE and a just, intelligent world and magic fairy dust will keep all librarians and tech specialists in their rightful places. But here's the deal: The reality is that nobody's going to save your butt but you.

What Gary has to teach and what our leading librarians share as reporting models can help you do just that.

Stay employed, please - kids really do need you!

Data and Darwin 2

At the end of last week I sent the warning below to our staff with the subject heading "TERMINATION OF YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT is spam/spoofing."  A phishing e-mail was making the rounds here in the district, and I was getting the usual assortment of "Is this for real?" kinds of questions.

Hi everyone,

This old chestnut is making the rounds again. It is definitely not from our department. As always, be highly suspicious of any email that asks you for personal information!

Doug  

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: WEBMAIL TECHNICAL SUPPORT UNIT 2010 <yranto5@bellsouth.net>
Date: Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 5:00 AM
Subject: TERMINATION OF YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT
To:

We are currently carrying out an upgrade on our system due to the fact that it has come to our notice that one or more of our subscribers are introducing a very strong virus into our system and it is affecting our network. We are trying to find out the specific email Account.

For this reason all subscribers are to provide their USER NAME AND PASSWORD for us to verify and have them cleared against this virus. Failure to comply will lead to the termination of your Account in the next 48 hours.

Required Information:
FULL EMAIL ADDRESS:
USERNAME:
PASSWORD:

Hoping to serve you better.
Sincerely,
Technical Support Unit
********************************************************************************************
This is an Administrative Message your webmail server. It is not spam. From time to time, mail server will send you such messages in order to communicate important information about your subscription.

********************************************************************************************

And guess what happened?

Yup, over a half dozen staff members dutifully filled in their email addresses, usernames and passwords and sent them to me.

Sigh.

I am seriously looking for an effective means of alerting staff about the dangers of spoofing. Anything that has worked for you in the past?

Image from <http://technosmart.info/how-to-education/what-is-email-spoofing/>

How "green" are e-books?

From Going Green? Good luck (Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 6, 2010)

Another example of when obvious isn't: Abandoning "dead-tree technology" in favor of electronic books. It would seem a clear plus, protecting forests, avoiding the polluting process of papermaking and reducing the greenhouse-gas-producing decomposition of any books that wind up in a landfill.

But according to research about "life-cycle assessments" in the New York Times, an e-reader requires the extraction of 33 pounds of minerals, including exotic metals from oppressed and war-torn countries. Manufacturing an e-reader and batteries requires some 79 gallons of water, uses an equivalent 100 kilowatt hours of fossil fuel and produces 66 pounds of carbon dioxide.

By all of these measures, producing a paper book has far less effect on the planet. In terms of environmental benefits, an e-reader, said the Times, doesn't break even until it has replaced the production of 40 to 100 books. That suggests e-readers may pay off in the long term. But their benefit is hardly clear-cut.

Oh, and here is an interesting little factoid:

...while ardent conservationists may save a few gallons of water by taking short showers, we waste far more than that by brewing a pot of coffee we don't drink. When you consider how much water is used in growing, processing, transporting and selling coffee, the virtual water use of a single cup of is 37 gallons.

Guess I better go finish the second pot I put on this morning.