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17
Staff Day
Filed Under 10 Things, Libraries, Professional Development, Videos | Leave a Comment
MPOW just had its annual staff day and I think everyone had a good time (especially the staff who took home the prizes, including a Dell Computer, Wii, and iPod). I know I did. It was especially fun to see people let loose a little during the gaming session, led by the Jenny Levine herself! We had three different stations where people experimented with Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, and DDR. I spent most of my time with the Wii Sports crowd and it got pretty intense at times! I think more than one person went home with some sore muscles that day.
Our library director, Carolyn Anthony, also gave her State of the Library address and we had a short video to introduce her. She deserves a lot of credit for being such a good sport (no pun intended) about it. My colleague and I had a lot of laughs as we worked on the video. You can check it out here:
More pics from Staff Day are available from The Shifted Librarian, The Analog Divide, The Utopian Library, and TheSkokieTen.
Nov
30
Thing 10: Virtual Library Branch
Filed Under 10 Things, Libraries | Leave a Comment
Regarding Thing 10 of the 10 Things.
I’m really impressed with the library’s website and have been even before working here. The design is appealing and the content is second to none. Each week I look forward to seeing the new front page image and I definitely keep an eye on what’s new with the website. I think parts of the website could be less wordy and I’d love to see the addition of blogs to our web presence, but these are both things that are being worked on so I’m not worried 
As far as downloading ebooks and eAudiobooks, I’ve done it but I still prefer reading books in print and listening to books on CD. Since I’m a Mac user at home, downloadable content from the library is not easy for me. For this exercise, I downloaded an eBook about home buying (for dummies of course) and a few eAudiobooks. I had some trouble getting the files to play and display on my work computer, but I went downstairs to the RS desk and it worked fine. I think the instructions for the downloadable content could be better. As it is, I think it’s possible for people to figure it out on their own, but not likely. If only we had some kind of technology talk where an expert could explain downloadable books in an entertaining, easy way…hmm….wait, we do!
Ricki, aka Queen of Downloadable Books, will be explaining all this stuff in her upcoming Tuesday Tech Talk on January 8, 7-8pm. Spread the word!
That’s it, I’m done with the 10 Things!
Nov
29
Thing 4: Social Networking
Filed Under 10 Things, Libraries, Technology | 2 Comments
Regarding Thing 4 of the 10 Things.
I have accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and some other social networking sites, but to be honest, I’m really not immersed in any one of them. On a personal level, I like Facebook the most from the ones I’ve tried and have used it to stay somewhat in touch with various friends, classmates, colleagues, and family. I opened up a MySpace account for this exercise and I have to say that I really can’t stand looking at MySpace pages. There are a few that I’ve seen (some from libraries) that are decent, but the majority of the ones I’ve come across would give me a headache if I stayed on them too long. I like LibraryThing a lot and have used it a just a little bit so far. I recently bought a barcode scanner so I can scan my books into LibraryThing, but we’ll see how long that project lasts!
As for how this relates to public libraries, I’m all for libraries expanding their online presence by creating MySpace pages and Facebook accounts, but I do think that for some people the idea of their library trying to “befriend” them online is kinda creepy. I’m in favor of libraries being more visible to people in general, meeting people where they are, and showing them what the library can offer them. But I also think libraries should take advantage of these types of connections to start a two-way conversation with people and invite them to have a voice in what they want their library to be. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the spirit of social networking sites continues to manifest itself in public libraries in the next few years. I hope our library has more conversations about the bigger picture surrounding all of this and how the library fits in.
I’ll end this with a few questions (and links):
Is the lonely American now just a bit lonelier?
Are most of us bowling alone?
Is virtual the new reality?
What are people doing on Facebook?
Nov
28
Thing 9: Google Tools
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Regarding Thing 9 of the 10 Things.
Ah, the almighty, ubiquitous Google…what else is there to say about the Goog that hasn’t been said already? Some people think it’s the greatest thing humanity has ever produced and others think it’s the epitome- of -evil. I think it probably falls somewhere in between :). All I know is that it’s a major part of our daily lives and there’s no end in sight to its dominance as a search engine and a lot more.
Librarians seem to have a love/hate relationship with it and I can understand that, but I think I’ve come to accept it especially since they come out with incredible stuff all the time. If it helps us in our work, we should use it plain and simple. During my first semester at University of Michigan, the announcement came about Google’s massive book scanning project in collaboration with, among others, the U of M Library. It was the biggest news you can imagine for us newbie librarians in training. Mostly, there was excitement about the whole thing, but I sensed uncertainty and some tension about the implications of a project like this. I think librarians are still trying to figure out if the Google Books project is a good thing or not, but I tend to gravitate towards the position of it being a good thing if it means more access to more people. The key word is “if” in that last sentence. There’s been some interesting discussions (okay, let’s call them verbal wars) recently about the so-called googlization of everything. Btw, Paul Courant, the University Librarian at Michigan, is blogging now and it’s worth a read.
Also, it appears to me that some libraries are beginning to adopt the Google model of allowing staff members to think creatively, sort of following the “Google Labs” idea where there is an ongoing effort to push things forward. I think this is a good thing. We don’t need to feel like we’re competing with Google but it wouldn’t hurt us to adopt their work practices. Spending 1 day per week on pet projects doesn’t sound like a bad idea!
As for Google Docs, I love the idea but I’m not so crazy about how it currently works. I’ve been sharing docs with people from work to collaborate on various projects (including the 10 Things) and there have been several instances where I’ve made changes to a document and it erased the entire document. Thankfully, there’s a way to revert back to a previous version, but these problems have kept me from feeling entirely confident in using it. We’re also using it to make past computer class presentations available to the public, but I’ve noticed that there are the occasional formatting issues when uploading a ppt file, which is more of an annoyance than a reason not to use it.
Nov
27
Thing 8: Wikis
Filed Under 10 Things, Libraries | Leave a Comment
Regarding Thing 8 of the 10 Things.
I would say that I use Wikipedia on a daily basis whether I’m at work or not. If I ever want a quick and easy snippet of information on any given topic, I’ll usually go to Wikipedia and see what’s there. Like everyone else, I often end up using it to search for pop culture or historical names, places, events, etc., but I’ll also use it to help me with a reference question if I need it.
When I’m at work and working on a reference question, Wikipedia is almost never the first source I check, but I have no reservations about using it if I get stuck on a question and think Wikipedia can get me on a helpful search thread. The external links and footnotes at the bottom of most of the better Wikipedia articles usually help me to get to other sources where I can verify the information I’m getting from Wikipedia. But hopefully I’m making an effort to double-check information I get from any source and not just from Wikipedia. I understand why people use Wikipedia since it’s so easy and fast, but my feeling is that reference librarians should be able to use other sources available to us with just as much efficiency, if not ease. Maybe there’s a direct correlation to how skilled you are as a librarian and how much you depend on Wikipedia. Someone who knows every single subscription electronic resource backwards and forwards probably doesn’t need to go to Wikipedia that often because they immediately have other sources come to mind when posed with a question. Maybe someday in the distant future I’ll get to that level of expertise as a reference librarian, but in the meantime I’ll be using Wikipedia when I feel like it’ll help. You just have to be smart about using it, like you would with any other source.
So, radical trust? Yes! Just not blind, dumb trust. Does that make sense?
As for how libraries can use wikis, I think some of the examples in our “Discover” portion of Thing 8 are great. Using wikis as specialized, focused subject guides for our community is a terrific idea. The key to any wiki, though, is getting people to contribute to it.
I can also see wikis being used effectively as a community portal similar to what our SkokieTalk/Net website accomplishes. The Davis Wiki is a great example of a community wiki for a specific town, and Toby and I used it in our experiment to create a Skokie Wiki a couple of months ago.
Finally, I think using a wiki as a staff intranet or at least a compliment to an existing, already effective staff intranet is a nice idea for most organizations. At Thousand Oaks Library, a colleague and I started a wiki as an experiment to see if it would work for us as a staff intranet. We set up a wiki and pitched the idea in various meetings to various members of the staff and people seemed to respond positively to it. Again, the key is getting buy-in from your target users, which isn’t easy to do. But like anything, I think if people see something as valuable to their work and life, they’ll adapt and start using something like a wiki.
And, finally (really!), here’s Seth Godin’s interesting take on the Wikipedia gap.
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