Interview with Meredith Farkas

Meredith Farkas is Section Chair of the Libraries & Information Resources track in HigherEd BlogCon.  In preparation for the event, I asked Meredith to answer a few questions about her participation.

Dan Karleen

DK: You recently began working at Norwich University.  Tell us about what you do there.

I am the Distance Learning Librarian at Norwich, which is a brand new position, developed in response to the growth of our online graduate programs.  In this position, I help distance learners access library resources, work with the different departments involved in distance learning, provide reference assistance and information literacy instruction (both online and in-person), develop online instructional materials, and am in charge of the library's website redesign.  It's a great job, because I'm allowed, even encouraged, to experiment with new technologies in my daily work.  I've helped the people who administer the online graduate programs integrate wikis and blogs into their workflow internally, and they are now looking at how to use them with their students.

DK: On your blog Information Wants to be Free, you talk about something called "Library 2.0."  Can you tell us more?   

The idea of Library 2.0 represents a significant paradigm shift in the way we view library services. It's about a seamless user experience, where usability, interoperability, and flexibility of library systems is key.  It's about the library being more present in the community through programming, community building (both online and physical), and outreach via technology (IM, screencasting, blogs, wikis, etc.).  It's about allowing user participation through writing reviews and tagging in the catalog and making their voice heard through blogs and wikis.  It's about making the library more transparent through its Web presence and its physical design.  We need to make the library human, ubiquitous, and user-centered.  This involves a change in our systems, our Web presence, and our very attitudes. It will take a lot of work for a library to be completely 2.0, but the idea should inform every decision made at the library.

DK: As the Section Chair of the Library and Information Resources Track in HigherEd BlogCon, what kinds of presentation proposals are you hoping to receive? Are there any specific kinds of applications or ideas you would like to explore?

 I'd really like to the Library and Information Resources Track be a roadmap for Library 2.0.  What does the 2.0 Library look like and what do we need to do to get there?  What competencies does a 2.0 Librarian need to be successful?  What tools are most important to a 2.0 library's Web presence?  How will we need to change our library systems to make for seamless access and user participation?  A lot of people are talking about the application of Web 2.0 in libraries, and I'd really like to see concretely how people envision these ideas taking shape.  I'd love to see presentations in a variety of formats (screencasts, podcasts, etc.) to appeal to the diverse range of learning styles, since that's certainly a big part of Library 2.0.

Aloha! I'm one of the crew leaders of CabalArticles, a world-wide Internet article writing collective. We all write articles in Spanish and English for global net audiences, and are available for articles and other content creation for your blog. Below you can read my curriculum vitae, and you'll be able to see other crew leaders and team members' resumes on this site. At the bottom of my curriculum vitae, you will find some samples of our written and published posts. For work enquiries, please contact us with the contactform on this internet site and we'll answer as soon as we can.


CV
Judith E. Mooring 2866 Chapel Street Sugar Land, TX
Summary of Qualifications
Graduated With Honors from Yale University
10 years of freelance writing experience (explicitly for Electronic audiences)
Superb fluency in Spanish
Devoted, staff-oriented employee with a aptitude for particulars


Work Expertise
CabalArticles, New York City, NY
2001 - Present
Writing Team Organizer
Accountable for planning a global staff of internet writers to fit a demanding set of growth goals.
- Set unprecedented records for output, increasing productivity by 20% throughout the world
- Correctly maintained absolutely consistent logs of task distribution
- Maintained QC for world-wide production over a considerable staff of writers


Additional Abilities


Fluent in Spanish
Innovative skills using a wide selection of office software programs


Samples of Publicized Works