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31
What I Learned at PLA 2008: Part 1
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Just spent 5 days in Minneapolis for the Public Library Association conference and came back with a renewed sense of confidence that there are a lot of smart, passionate, innovative, good-natured, and hard-working people working to improve public libraries and serve communities everywhere. It’s good to step outside of what’s happening in Skokie and learn from other libraries. We’re doing a lot of things right at MPOW, but there’s so much more we can do. Libraries and librarians are evolving, taking more risks, getting things done, and having fun at the same time.
So, to start things off, here’s what I learned from Karen Hyman’s exploration of 12 Questions for 2008:
- if you’re satisfied with the status quo, you’re not a great library or you won’t remain one long
- have a story. what’s your library’s story?
- your library brand is how people feel about themselves and their decisions when they’re with us; it’s not about how they feel about the library
- when it comes to branding, libraries usually stop at “Here’s our name!”
- have fewer stupid rules
- stop using words like “delinquent borrower”
- be nicer!
- your library is as friendly as your least friendly public service employee
- is your space holding you back? probably YES. do you have space where people can choose their noise level and activity?
- quova - geo-location software to authenticate people without library cards
- have a “teen volunteer of the year” award and get the local politicians involved
- marketing is about them. where are they in the picture? what do they care about? go where they are.
- www.qandanj.org video - “Now Your Library is Open Late Too!” - shown during MTV Music Video Award show
- most important, be FUN! fine free Fridays, eating and drinking in the library, concerts, dance lessons, tai chi, Princeton PL’s art wall, Artspoint.org
And here’s what was covered in Leonard Souza’s Technozoo presentation (zip file):
- Joost - created by guys who created kazaa, the internet revolutionizing tv
- Skype - same guys again
- Kiva.org - “loans that change lives”
- web 2.0 - people waking up to the fact that you can talk to others on the internet, social networking
- web 2.0 formula: “community + subject + interactivity = web 2.0″
- YouTube and Digg are examples
- Apple iPhone - 70% of mobile internet use done on iPhones, which tells us that this is a viable tool to extend our library services
- Starbucks “quick order” - ordering Starbucks on iPhone; ask yourself what this could mean for libraries, what services can we develop, start researching and developing now
- microsoft surface - “iPhone on crack”
- iPhone and surface - making the internet tangible
- eReaders revolutionizing books - Sony eReader and Amazon Kindle
- gaming - wii, ps3, xbox 360, nintendo ds, psp (demonstrated brain age on ds)
- instead of granting access, libraries need to learn how to grant tools of interaction
- keep the net neutral - important
- one laptop per child - the internet is about the become richer
- challenge to libraries: become as functional online as you are offline
And here’s what I learned from Sarah Cofer from Worthington (OH), 2007 library of the year, talking about social networking and outreach to teens:
- worthingteens is the name of their teen blog
- blog is used as outreach to promote services and also to connect with teens
- teens love photos page - highest number of hits
- blogging personal content, not just library stuff (ex. librarian blogged about dyeing her hair purple, going green)
- blog fusion used to integrate into existing library website, includes photo package
- approval of teen advisory board before launch
- blog rules and guidelines
- try not to make registration required to be able to post comments
- myspace page: goal is to drive traffic to the blog; traffic doubled after the myspace page went up
- facebook page: her personal account has become her professional account since that’s where her teens want to connect with her; the library’s page doesn’t have a lot of fans because it’s not a personal account; communicates with teens on a personal level, recommending books, talking about life, etc.
- feeds from blog are used to drive more traffic to the blog
- other cool stuff to look at: Hennepin co.’s book alerts, framingham’s twitter account, parma pl’s wiki called parma books, and using delicious tags as clouds on blogs.
Mar
18
NCAA Excel Madness
Filed Under Sports | Leave a Comment
Brent Evans has created the perfect tool for all you college hoops fans and/or gambling addicts. It’s a printable excel spreadsheet that offers drop-down selections.
Mar
18
Watch this…
Filed Under Videos | Leave a Comment
From Seth Godin’s blog:
Mar
14
Into the Wild
Filed Under Movies & TV | 2 Comments
“When you forgive, you love.
And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.”
Mar
5
Notes from the future
Filed Under Libraries, Professional Development | Leave a Comment
I read a lot of library-related blogs (I know, exciting!) and my favorite is Stephen’s Lighthouse. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear Stephen Abram speak for the first time and it was challenging, frightening, thought-provoking and inspiring. What I like about his writing and overall approach is that he’s not afraid to paint a picture that might not necessarily be what librarians want to see or think about it. He speaks honestly, he’s pro-libraries, and he thinks in terms of the big picture.
His slides from the presentation are available here, but here are some ideas/thoughts I wrote down while listening to him. A lot of this is me interpreting what he said, and plus he speaks fast, so I apologize in advance if I get any of this wrong:
- communities start to decline when they lose their libraries
- librarians need to get better about telling people what they do
- libraries are the last non-partisan space anywhere; you don’t have to be anything to use the library
- big question: how do we connect to people online since so many of our users are there already and are using us that way
- people with communication skills are taking over
- im ref is a conversation, email is not
- text messaging ref - aligning the technology with the tech our users are comfortable with instead of the tech that are boomer librarians are comfortable with
- libraries do “how” and “why” questions, while Google does “who, what and when”
- libraries need to reposition ourselves to answer the important questions of the community
- Google is fooling ALA and librarians into thinking that they actually care about us
- with the current economic situation, public funding will decrease
- dvd is dead in Europe and will soon be in North America; Denver PL has been experimenting with downloadable video to see how they’re going to handle the death of DVD
- will Reading Matter? Books do not need to be protected because they’re not at risk!
- people read more than ever now
- the average gamer is a 31 year old woman
- what is our 5-year plan? are we communicating our expertise? are we making ourselves known to our communities? some people in libraries don’t even want to wear name tags in fear of being stalked! how are we going to make ourselves known?
- we should be targeting the facebook user
- what action verbs are taking place in your library?
- staff your virtual branch properly!
- the social web is a way for libraries to connect to people; it’s an opportunity
- there are different kinds of learners and we need to respect that and build our services around that
- an inherently mobile focus
- improve the quality of the user experience
- have fun at the workplace; allow creativity and play
- eliminate the worry tank and the excuses and move forward!
- libraries are social institutions
- context is king, not content
- top 10 influences for the 2008 election (YouTube #1); how many are we using to influence our audience?
- clarification, not information (that’s what ref needs to be)
- things are constantly changing, so get in there and play, experiment, don’t worry so much about getting it perfect
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