Author Archives: Michael Stephens

About Michael Stephens

Dr. Michael Stephens is an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. His research focuses on use of emerging technologies in libraries and technology learning programs. He currently writes the monthly column “Office Hours” in Library Journal exploring issues, ideas and emerging trends in library and information science education. Stephens has spoken about emerging technologies, innovation, and libraries to audiences in over 26 states and in nine countries. He is fascinated by library buildings and virtual spaces that center around users, participation, creating content, and encouraging the heart. As a professional he worked 15 years in public libraries.

Oodi in Helsinki

Hey all – a colleague in LIS George Needham was in Helsinki and paid a visit to the central library Oodi (I believe it is pronounced “ode”) Here are some of his pictures. This library might be a choice for a globally themed inspiration report!

Checking In

Hey all – I just want to do a general check in with everyone and see how you are doing. Remember we are operating under fluid dates for assignments but also I just want make sure everybody’s doing OK. It feels like there is a lot of churn in the world right now, so please […]

This…. this is what we do.

I'd like to thank the library worker @RichmondLibs who treated my dad with such kindness and compassion when he was returning my mother's books after she passed away. You made a painful event more human and manageable for him. It meant the world. — Nicholas Poole (@NickPoole1) October 1, 2022

Inspiration: Robots from Texas

David Daghita at McKinney PL shared these presentations about new tech innovations with me via former #hyperlib student Nick. One covers the implementation of the mobile roaming in the library and the other is on using ROBOTS as book carts! Take a look if you have time. Mckinney Mobility Make like a Robot Presentation

Posting & Submitting Your Assignments

Hey all – I am grading Roadmap assignments as they come in. I have had a few PDFs or URLs to Canva creations submitted directly to Canvas grade book. To make sure everyone in class can see and explore others’ work, please follow the submission guidelines. Here is the one for the Roadmap: Posting and […]

Inspiration: Gear Haul Video

This is our “Digital Pedagogy” professor again. What I think is interesting for our class: if you were in charge of a digital creation space of some kind, you might be purchasing similar equipment. Might be worth the 8 minutes to see what he has procured with his grant. This might be inspiring for the […]