Steiner reaches out to Georgia State students through a variety of technologies, including Facebook, YouTube, blogging and instant messaging. Under her guidance, the online chat service at the Georgia State University Library has seen a surge in users. Throughout the school year, Steiner also conducts information literacy classes for students online.

Along with her devotion to virtual reference, Steiner is very active in the Georgia Library Association. In 2008, she was the chair of their New Members Round Table. She is also the founder of the Atlanta Emerging Librarians, an organization that provides library, information and media science students the opportunity to network with their future colleagues. Since many of these students are in distance learning programs, this organization helps them develop peer relationships with other emerging librarians. It has been extremely successful, with almost one hundred people attending their meetings at various metro Atlanta libraries.

Finally, Steiner already has significant publications and presentations under her belt. Most significantly, Steiner co-edited a book titled The Desk and Beyond: Next Generation Reference Services. This collection deals with innovative approaches to in-person and remote reference services in academic libraries. She has also co-authored an article on wiki usage in academic libraries, as well as performing several presentations on how wikis and other Web 2.0 applications can affect library services.

Sarah Steiner is truly a rising library leader, with her multiple publications and presentations, together with her activity in the Georgia library community and her improvement of online library services. She well deserves the NextGen Librarian Award, since she is constantly developing new ways to communicate with the next generation of students and librarians.

Wikimedia pegs future on education, not profit
“Analysts have pegged Wikipedia’s value between several hundred million dollars and $7 billion, the latter by Silicon Alley Insider, a technology blog known for its list of the World’s Most Valuable Digital Startups. But its keepers have thus far refused to sell ad space. They are adamant that the encyclopedia’s value is tied up not in potential advertising revenue but in something much loftier – its ability to positively affect the news industry, educational publishing and the nature of open-source knowledge creation and dissemination.”

Grainne Conole of OpenLearn presented a talk titled Technologies or New Pedagogical Possibilities at the Eduserv Foundation Symposium 2008. She focused on the “informational aspects” of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom, particularly how they might (or might not) change pedagogical models.

The video can be viewed here at iThinkEd.

“The inspiration for the platform was the realization that the current social world is too static, according to Wang.

With Lively she wants users to be able to interact using words, 3D graphics and gestures. The furniture users pick for their room should give visitors an idea of who they are, and it is more poignant to receive an animated hug than seeing the text “[[hug]]” displayed on the screen, according to Wang.”

The full article, Google adds third dimension to online social relationships, can be read here.