This week in the blogosphere Brad Edmonsdon reports on Shodor and Bob Panoff’s leadership that have had phenomenal impact on STEM education at all levels. Shodor’s web site generates more than 3.5 million page views per month by more than 1 million visitors.

“Panoff’s Golden Hammer”
http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/tower/2007/04/18/panoffs-golden-hammer/

Other NSDL Happenings

DELOS/NSDL Summer School in Florence
DELOS, a Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries partially funded by the European Commission, and NSDL have joined forces in organizing a Summer School, Digital Libraries for the Digital Librarian Making the Journey from Traditional to Digital Libraries, to be held May 28 - June 2, 2007 in Florence, Italy.

The school intends to address some common concerns of cultural heritage institutions (such as libraries, archival institutions and museums) as they work together with information providers, publishers, publications suppliers to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the digital environment for the knowledge society. The digital medium is radically new for libraries, archives, museums and other information providers. The main aim of the School is to provide information professionals who intend to take leadership and responsibilities in the complex world of digital libraries with the knowledge of the technologies and the organizational issues involved in the transition from a traditional organization to a Digital Library, illustrating criteria and methods that exploit the strengths of digital libraries in a socio-economic and interdisciplinary manner.

This one-week intensive school will consist of ten half-day sessions that will include lectures, seminars, practical demonstrations, group work and field trips to cultural institutions. Distinguished lecturers from Europe and the United States will be addressing the following topics.

–Introduction to Digital Libraries
–Digitizing Information
–Digital Collections
–Describing Information
–Organizing the Digital Library
–Distributed Services and Identity Management
–Accessing the Repository
–Re-thinking the Role of Repositories
–Making the Library work for the User
–Scholarly Communication in the 21st Century
–Final Session: the (near) Future
–Field Trips

Call for Proposals: 2007 NSDL Annual Meeting
Available at the Annual Meeting website http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/>. The 2007 meeting theme, Advancing NSDL Networks, reflects that from its inception, one of the many proof-of-concept ideas pursued during NSDL’s development was the highly distributed effort of creating not just a digital library, but also the social and organizational structures that enable the library to meet the needs of various stakeholders. The concept has become a reality as partnerships have solidified into a network within NSDL and between NSDL and other organizations. The Planning Committee encourages proposals that address all aspects and nuances of technical and social networks, that demonstrate projects’ achievements, and that highlight new ways networks advance and serve NSDL and its many audiences.

Important Dates
Proposal Submission Opens: 17 April 2007
Proposal Submission Deadline: 4 May 2007
Presenter Notification: Mid-June 2007
Check the Annual Meeting website for a complete list of deadlines