Transliteracy & Librarians

Are You Transliterate?
Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.
The updated meaning of the term, in this case as the plural 'transliteracies', evolved at the Transcriptions Research Project directed by Professor Alan Liu in the Department of English at the University of California Santa Barbara. Liu later developed and formalised the Transliteracies Project, researching technological, social, and cultural practices of online reading, which launched in 2005. Based at UCSB, the Transliteracies Project includes scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and engineering in the University of California system (and in the future other research programs). It will establish working groups to study online reading from different perspectives; bring those groups into conjunction behind a shared technology development initiative; publish research and demonstration software; and train graduate students working at the intersections of the humanistic, social, and technological disciplines.

This is important for Librarians, staff must be able to cross the divide between printed, digital and virtual worlds to address the constantly changing needs of the communities they support. I'd like to help them understand how library customers use social media tools (blogs, social networking sites, virtual worlds, podcasts, text messaging, etc.) to gain information, and how they can use these tools to share the library's value with the community.
If we are not then we can't serve our Library community as best as we can or should.

Please
http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/