PL 4/10: Summer statistics

LATINA is a summer course for teachers, librarians and students who want to work easily and fluently on the web.

At the course, each participant develops her or his own project, which is presented and discussed during the third week. This year one of the topics is evidence-based practice. We will use library and educational statistics as a case. This topic could also be developed into an individual project.

The “evidence movement” started in medicine, but has become an important influence in many other professional fields, like teaching, nursing, social work and librarianship.

If you are interested in the practical use of statistics – for management, planning and promotion – we encourage you to take a look at the LATINA programme – and the slide show from last year.

Resources

• Welcome to LATINA 2010
• Summer school 2010

PL 3/10: IFLA and LATINA

I look forward to 2010.

Most of my teaching now takes place in the LATINA/lab – which means  that both I and my students can take the web for granted. We can explore the possibilities a fully digital environment opens.

The year that passed involved a fair amount of LATINA-based teaching:

• a full term course for European library and Chinese media students in the spring
• our regular three week summer course in June and July
• an in-service course for Norwegian museum pedagogues in the autumn – I am now doing the final evaluation of their work

PL 2/10: Top ten in 09

These ten posts from Plinius had the most hits in 2009

1. PL 12/09: Parma next! 1,532
2. PL 11/09: Blogging and pictures from Porto 260
3. PL 49/09: Norwegian IFLA-papers 2009 216
4. PL 65/09: Plan for Erasmus Mundus 206
5. PL 8/09: BOBCATSSS opens in Porto 125
   

PL 1/10: Father Frost has arrived

Father Frost has arrived in Gjerdrum.

The temperature approaches twenty below zero. The cold will last for three weeks, the weather bureau informs us. The day is wonderful, however, sunny, dry, and sparkling like champagne.

I went for a walk with my wife. Once outside, I sense the deep truth of Bob Dylan’s words: You don’t need a weatherman, to tell which way the wind blows. My cheeks know.

PL 72/09: Statistics for library advocacy

To contribute fully to social change and development, libraries must be heard by publics and decision-makers outside the library sector.

IFLA has asked the Statistics and Evaluation Section to develop a one-day course on statistics for advocacy, and I have just proposed a paper on this project – for the IFLA 2010 session Making It Count: Social Science Data Literacy as an Information Fluency convened by Social Science Libraries Section & Information Literacy Section

PL 71/09: Blogs in library learning

IFLA beckons and deadlines loom.

I have experimented with blogs as a teaching and learning tool for some years now, and today I sent the following

Proposal for the IFLA Section for Education and Training (SET) Open Session on the topic New digital directions and library education: sustaining library education programs.

Their deadline is December 31.

SK 12/09: Business in Bulgaria

Bill and Melinda have established the world’s biggest transparent humanitarian foundation.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has an endowment of about thirty-five billion dollars. To maintain its status as a charitable foundation, it must donate at least 5% of its assets each year (Wikipedia). The world’s richest individual – Warren Buffett -  has donated about half his assets to the Foundation.

PL 70/69: Global population statistics

Library statistics can not stand alone.

When we work with statistics about libraries, we will often need statistics from other fields. Population data are needed to calculate some of  the most basic library indicators – for instance loans and visits per capita. Statistics about literacy and reading, health and education,  infrastructure (water, roads, electricity, …) and culture can often be used to

• show the need for library services – focused on particular problems to be solved
• the impact of library services – based on comparisons or time series

PS 11/09: Maps and statistics

Everybody knows that maps are useful.

We use maps to navigate at sea, to find restaurants,  to illustrate history books,  to select routes,  to develop zoning plans – and for many, many  other purposes.

If the maps are wrong or out of date, however, we get into problems.  The restaurant has moved. The bridge is closed for repairs. The lake has turned into a swamp.

PL 69/09: Appropriate learning and teaching

By 2012, the Rwandan government wants every child between 9 and 13 to have a portable computer.

Each machine should have “an internet or intranet connection to download free educational software and electronic books“, explains the latest issue of The Economist (Upgrading the children, Dec. 5-11, p. 42). The program would cover 1.3 million kids – and the aim is to include the six-to-eight year olds by 2015.