Infoblog » George and Joan Podcasts

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud with a twist for the new year

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:00:50 +0000

For this installment of “George and Joan Thinking Out Loud,” Joan was unable to make the recording session, so George interviews a veteran librarian.

George makes reference to this site and to this site during the podcast.

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about the Great Tech War of 2012

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:21:55 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan discuss an article that George recently read in the magazine Fast Company, The Great Tech War of 2012. The article predicts an upcoming battle for supremacy among Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook in the markets for smartphones, tablets and more.

What [...]

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about Libraries and Entrepreneurs

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:27:27 +0000

This edition of Thinking Out Loud was originally broadcast as a live webinar on November 16.

Times are tough, unemployment is up, and libraries have responded by expanding services to people who are looking for jobs. But how about addressing the needs of people who are creating jobs? Entrepreneurs, especially the “new [...]

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about IT and the Five Laws of Library Science

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:43:52 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan take a look at IT in libraries – more specifically, about the relationship between library culture and IT culture. What do libraries look for when hiring IT people? What sorts of skills are needed? What might be reasonable expectations for libraries to have? [...]

George & Joan, Thinking Out Loud about Underutilized Library Skills

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:47:24 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, Joan starts things off by relating her experience at a recent League of California Cities conference. A panel she moderated got on the topic of underutilized library skills and this topic provides the grist for a lively discussion.

Among the underutilized library skills that George [...]

Let ‘em Browse

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:14:05 +0000

Birds do it, bees do it, and I do it every morning. It’s what brought me to the brand new Hippie Gypsy coffee shop (because I did it online last night). Richard Feynman did it on the beach (and Leland Myrick depicts that perfectly in his and Jim Ottaviani’s new biography).

Browsing: [...]

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about Going Back to School

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:04:52 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, Joan starts the ball rolling by reflecting that she still views the start of the new school year as the start of her new year, with thoughts of what she wants to learn and what she wants to achieve. Both George and Joan have lots of [...]

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about RFPs

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:19:13 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan suggest that librarians devote less of their energy to formatting the “right” answers when writing requests for proposals (or requests for information) and more care and thought to asking the right questions.

During the podcast, they mention a Wayne County Library RFI as [...]

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about Danny Dunn and the Nostalgia Machine

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:59:11 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, Joan recounts how she encountered a favorite book from her childhood, Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint, which sent her on a trip down memory lane. But it also prompted Joan and George to start thinking about the “retro experience” – and how important it [...]

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about Circulation Stats

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:28:27 +0000

In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan (in the same location for once!) discuss the realities of circulation statistics. What if customers could define their own loan periods? Do shorter loan periods artificially inflate circ stats? How good a measure of library usage are circulation statistics? How much of a [...]