From the moment the pandemic took hold in Spring 2020, libraries and library workers have demonstrated their fortitude and flexibility by adapting to physical closures, social distancing guidelines, and a host of other challenges. Despite the obstacles, they’ve been able to stay connected to their communities—and helped connect the people in their communities to each other, as well as to the information and services they need and enjoy. Ostman and ALA’s Public Programs Office (PPO) here present a handpicked cross-section of successful programs, most of them virtual, from a range of different libraries. Featuring events designed to support learning, spark conversation, create connection, or simply entertain, the ideas here will inspire programming staff to try similar offerings at their own libraries. Showcasing innovation in action as well as lessons learned, programs include COVID-19 Misinformation Challenge, featuring an email quiz, to encourage participants to separate fact from fiction; weekly virtual storytimes; community cooking demonstrations via Zoom; an online grocery store tour, complete with tips about shopping healthy on a budget; a virtual beer tasting that boasted 80 attendees; socially distanced "creativity crates" for summer reading; an online Minecraft club for kids ages 6 and up; a Zoom presentation about grieving and funerals during COVID, featuring the director of a local funeral home; Art Talk Tuesday, a one-hour, docent-led program; a virtual lecture on the history of witchcraft, presented by a public library in partnership with a university rare book room, that drew thousands of viewers; "knitting for knewbies" kits for curbside pickup; Songs from the Stacks, an ongoing virtual concert series in the style of NPR’s “Tiny Desk”; a pink supermoon viewing party that included people howling at the moon together from their homes on Facebook Live; and many others

Going Virtual: Distributed Communities of Practice contributes to the understanding of how more subtle kinds of knowledge can be managed in a distributed international environment. It describes work in the field of knowledge management, with a specific focus on the management of knowledge which cannot be managed by the normal capture-codify-store approach and provides answers to the questions of what is the nature of the more subtle kind of knowledge and how can it be managed in the distributed environment?

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. “A towering achievement.... Reading this book is like visiting an exhilarating city for the first time—dazzling.” —The Wall Street Journal During the two hundred millennia of humanity’s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such a flourishing of human endeavor—new professions, new forms of art, worship and trade—that they kick-started civilization. Guiding us through the centuries, Wilson reveals the innovations nurtured by the inimitable energy of human beings together: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Époque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change. Page-turning, irresistible, and rich with engrossing detail, Metropolis is a brilliant demonstration that the story of human civilization is the story of cities.

"Our subject is how virtual teams actually work; how they use networked electronic information and communications systems as the infrastructure for their teaming processes"--Introduction.

In Going Online, one of our most respected online learning leaders offers insights into virtual education—what it is, how it works, where it came from, and where it may be headed. Robert Ubell reaches back to the days when distance learning was practiced by mail in correspondence schools and then leads us on a tour behind the screen, touching on a wide array of topics along the way, including what it takes to teach online and the virtual student experience. You’ll learn about: how to build a sustainable online program; how to create an active learning online course; why so many faculty resist teaching online; how virtual teamwork enhances digital instruction; how to manage online course ownership; how learning analytics improves online instruction. Ubell says that it is not technology alone, but rather unconventional pedagogies, supported by technological innovations, that truly activate today's classrooms. He argues that innovations introduced online—principally peer-to-peer and collaborative learning—offer significantly increased creative learning options across all age groups and educational sectors. This impressive collection, drawn from Ubell's decades of experience as a digital education pioneer, presents a powerful case for embracing online learning for its transformational potential.

The ongoing information revolution is perceived as a profound organizational challenge for foreign ministries. Yet there is only scant empirical evidence on the nature of the change dynamics. Anchored in new institutionalist approaches in political science, this book reconceptualizes diplomacy as an institution of the modern state order and identifies its key organizing principles maintained by the global group of foreign ministries. With this conceptualization as a point of departure, the book provides a comparative analysis of information technology effects in the foreign ministries of Canada, Norway and Slovakia. The result is a comprehensive assessment of the magnitude and the direction of change in the organizational machinery of diplomacy in early 21st Century.

A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.

Learn how to go online with a winning sales and marketing strategy in this insightful resource Go Live! Turn Virtual Connections into Paying Customers helps readers understand and take advantage of several online tools to boost their sales and increase their revenue. Accomplished salesperson, consultant, and online personality Jeffrey Gitomer describes how tools like Facebook Live and podcasting can drive sales and help you connect with your customers. You'll discover: How to use tools like YouTube, LinkedIn Live, podcasting, and Facebook Live to connect with and develop your leads How to properly utilize social media like Instagram and Twitter to spread your message and sell to clients How to promote and repurpose content to create as big an impact on your audience as possible Written specifically for a post-pandemic sales audience, Go Live! Turn Virtual Connections into Paying Customers delivers results for anyone expected to deliver sales results in a virtual environment. It also belongs on the bookshelves of those who hope to take their successful offline sales strategies to the online world.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The #1 bestselling author of On Fire shows us how to recapture and harness our childlike sense of wonder in order to become more engaged, successful, and fulfilled. “Engaging . . . O’Leary encourages us to see the world through a child’s eyes.”—Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie There once was a time when we joyfully raised our hands to answer questions, connected easily with others, believed that anything was possible, and fearlessly jumped into new experiences. A time when we viewed each day not as something to endure, but as a marvelous gift to explore and savor—when we danced through our lives in awe of the ordinary moments and eager for the promise of tomorrow. Unfortunately, that’s far from our experience today. Instead, we feel disconnected and jaded. Social media reminds us that we don’t measure up, and the mainstream media barrages us with constant negativity. Many of us find ourselves caught in a life of dogged responsibility and mind-numbing repetition. The daily struggle to earn a living has caused us to lose the sense of wonder with which we once greeted every day. In his new book, bestselling author John O’Leary invites us to consider that it is possible to once again navigate the world as a child does. Identifying five senses children innately possess and that we’ve lost touch with as we age, O’Leary shares emotional, humorous, and inspirational stories intertwined with fascinating new research showing how each of us can reclaim our childlike joy, and why doing so will change how we interact with the world. In Awe reveals how we can regain that ability to see fresh insights, reach for new solutions, and live our best lives.

Addressing the roles of education, language, and identity in cyclical migration, this book highlights the voices and experiences of transborder students in Mexico who were born or raised in the US. The stories develop a portrait of the lived realities, joys, and challenges that young people face across elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels. The book not only discusses migration and education policies and pedagogies grounded in the fluid lives of these young people, but its photography also presents their experiences in a visual dimension that words alone cannot capture. This in-depth, multimodal study examines the interplay of language, power, and schooling as they affect students and their families to provide insights for educators to develop meaningful pedagogies that are responsive to students’ border crossing experiences. Living, Learning, and Languaging Across Borders is a vital resource for pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, graduate students and scholars in bilingual and multilingual education, literacy and language policy, and immigration and education in the US, Mexico, and beyond. It offers important insights into the complex landscapes transborder students navigate, and considers policy and pedagogy implications that reject problematic assumptions and humanize approaches to the education and migration experiences of transborder students.