catablog

Relocation

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 19:29:33 GMT

I began this blog a bit less than a year ago to get familiar enough with it to be able to represent blogging and its applications to my colleagues. Turns out, I really like it! Wanting to take the next step, I've set up a locally hosted WordPress blog: . Hope you'll follow me and replace Catablog with Remaining Relevant in your reader.

Library Radio

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 17:55:23 GMT

I happened to catch an interesting segment on the WMUL's (Lowell) morning program, The Sunrise Show. It was the assistant director of the Chelmsford (MA) Library, Chris Kupec, being interviewed about book recommendations. I came in in the middle, but listened for at least 15 minutes, so it must have been a lengthy interview. Judging from the casual DJ banter, Chris had brought an actual stack of books with him and there was lots of discussion. Chris came across as charming, intelligent, funny and completely accessible; helping to dash the remote, austere librarian image ('course, it probably helps that he's male and free from the constant specter of bun and glasses jokes). The interview finished with him "plugging" his library's book discussion groups. This is outreach in it's best form. Using popular media to remind people - hopefully the people pron to asking me why I'm a librarian since, according to them, libraries are obsolete- that there IS timeless value in their public libraries... they DO provide a service that the internet does not. So, way to go, Chris and Chemlmsfod PL for understanding the importance of diverse outreach and marketing!

Advent-a-geous

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 16:07:18 GMT

Having a December 1st birthday, I'm particularly enamoured of Advent Calendars. (I know it's approximately 24 days too late for this post.) My mom can't quite remember from year to year that I'd love for my birthday package to include one (preferably with chocolate, but I don't want to push my luck). The internet has saved her from the pressure. Here are two that I've been following for a few years:
Leslie Harpold's Advent includes a holiday tidbit and a family memory for each day. This is the first year she's solicited guest memories.
Also, advent-calendars.com, delightfully NOT as commercial as the URL might suggest, follows the annual adventures of Tate, the french cat- nice cartoons and story in French, English, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish. Check be sure to explore as far as day 17 to enjoy "Even the librarians can't find him, and they can find anything." YAY, Tate!

Snow Day!

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:02:57 GMT

Is there anything more wonderful than a snow day off (Brian pointed out that snow days are better than calling in well.)? Yes! A snow day off spent baking two, yes TWO cakes for a best girlfriend's 30th birthday/Christmas party AND making a delicious mexican soup for lunch (and dinner... for the next two weeks... we are not men of half measures). AND saving the choice quarter of the soup's lime to go into your mid-afternoon T&T? For the curious, the birthday cake is a scrumptious, double-batch Boston Cream Pie all from scratch and served in my prized crystal torte dish with a birthday message in powdered sugar on top. If only I had a camera, I would show you on my flickr account, but I don't... maybe in a week or so. *crosses fingers* The Christmas party cake is a boxed (and let it be said that I generally opposed prepackaged baked goods... I'm a scratch girl) yellow cake with tubbed chocolate frosting decorated with red icing for novelty's sake. The most thrilling about this project? I was recently gifted my mom's old Kitchen Aid mixer - the one I remember her using while I squirmed on a high stool next to her. And this evening I will fill out Christmas cards while watching my favorite Christmas movie (White Christmas) and it's all very jolly. So jolly and so important to unplug like this that I think we should rename 'snow day,' 'staff development day.'

passionate enough to become text

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:09:58 GMT

A colleague just send The Catalog Department to me. I think the idea of being 'passionate enough for text' is beautiful and true. I was also just discussing the pitfalls of IM and how communicating with it. How does it change the idea of and value we assign to 'face time'? He was worried that IM would become the new face-to-face - I think that it only enhances it. Same as telephone, email, telegraph, quill, and any other revolution of 'modern' personal communication. But, I find that many of my self censors come down in the remote format of IM - it's like making school kids wear uniforms - it strips us of our looks, our jobs, our status - and reduces each to their ideas and how they express them. Exposes them as disorderly, but passionate enough to be writing their own books.

yahoo looms large

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:21:51 GMT

Yahoo recently acquired del.icio.us and Flickr (ads are already starting to appear... sigh.), AND this morning I sit down to a message that konfabulator is also now also part of the Yahoo empire. This is okay, I suppose, as long as they don't bundle a bunch of s**t with the downloads as they do with their IM client. I am annoyed enough that when I downloaded the update, it erased all my settings and it took me a full ten minutes to figure out how to set the location. It's 0 degrees (why '0 degrees' = plural and '1 degree' = singular?) here this morning and I don't much need to know what it is in Palo Alto, thank you very much... I can't feel my toes. Anyway, I know I shouldn't be surprised, but one of the things I kind of liked about the social software movement was that it was so grassroots - I suppose it will continue to be by it's very nature, but... you know... I'm a librarian too... I hate change; expecially when I have no control over it.

imitation is the sincerest form

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 02:55:11 GMT

I just saw audible.com's new ad campaign, dontread.org. I'm flabbergasted that they saw fit to spoof ALA's Celebrity Read campaign. (Perhaps I should say that I'm home sick today, so I'm slower on the news that usual. And thanks to Brian for pointing it out. After my initial round of obligatory indignation and shock, I settled on flattered and smug. Why? Well... you know it's a pretty good ad campaign when someone, someone with their own fancy advertising budget, piggybacks on it. PLUS, they didn't even get celebrities... duh! Way to go, ALA.

World Summit on the Information Society

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:50:03 GMT

So, my uncle is an economist and he arrived back from the World Summit on the Information Society just before Thanksgiving. After dinner (and a number of glasses of wine) I gently questioned him about the Information Society Summit that I, as an information professional, had no idea about and had heard no buzz about in library circles. Reading between the lines about his trip and experiences in exotic, but not particularly welcoming, Tunis... I concluded that this is the same work that we, as librarians, do. And I was feeling at once resentful that we hadn't been invited and annoyed that we hadn't invited ourselves (this poses an interesting parallel to holidays with my family in general, but this is not the time nor the place). I'm not naive; probably there were a few librarians present, but why weren't they talking about it? Making sure those on the front lines knew about it? Why aren't we participating in this community on an international level? THAT my friends, is how we're going to stay current and relevant in a real way - not wringing our hands about Google Book or Scholar and anything Google-ish. Playing private-sector catch up with blogs, flickr, and wikis (oh my) will help, but he idea of social software is to participate in and facilitate community, well, in the information age OUR community is a global one - we're the users here and we have to demand inclusion. My real fear? The economists, lobbyists, and what have you are making these big decisions for us and the world is missing out on a perspective that we might provide.

As an interesting footnote, after Thanksgiving (and my chemical-high fiery-ness) had worn off, my outrage faded into christmas cookies and getting my work done (this, I suspect, is the culprit on a large-scale). It was Casey, my very favorite non-MLS (maybe luckily for him), library visionary, who reminded me, not directly, but by mentioning the much-touted $100 laptop. Like him, I clicked over to watch Andy Carvin's mini-mentory (look mom, I can buzz-word, too) and discovered it was created for the Summit. I think this is an illustration of our professional tendency to pay attention to things when they're already a force; a product, a trend, an initiative, an act. We need to get in on the ground floor. If we, as a profession, are going to participate in this 'information age' we're going to have to get our heads out of the sand.

Surrendering control of our Stuff!

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:56:03 GMT

I just read today's post on MaisonBisson about XML and PHP as well as Casey's referenced post on LibDev, and they've got me wondering why it's taking library's so darn long to embrace these technologies and give the patrons what they really want. (Don't come at me with "How do you know", they've voting with their Google/Amazon feet, folks...) And I'm not leaving myself out of this, granted that everything I want to implement I must first learn, but I'm a smart chick - I easily could've done it by now. So, why?

It occurs to me that this stuff; web 2.0, social software, online communities type stuff - means that we have to surrender all control of our content. We are SO not the gatekeepers anymore. These technologies are asking us to offer up our wisdom, our knowledge, our POWER and allow it to be used in ways we won't necessarily know about, let alone endorse. That, my friends, is scary stuff. I no one can be blamed for letting it freak them out (well, allow me a little blame - buck up buckaroos, it's not so bad, really).

Here's what the fear is blinding us to: this is two-way surrender. Yes, we're giving up control, but we are also enjoying access to other good stuff that will supplement our content and together we're bigger and smarter and brighter than the sum of our parts... sometimes you have to jump before you knowing who's catching you...

Ministry of Reshelving

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:52:52 GMT

There is an underground movement underway in our bookstores (libraries don't seem to have been targets, yet) to reshelve copies of George Orwell's 1984. Boing Boing picked it up, as did CNet AND there's a Flickr group. From a library perspective, this is interesting for two reasons.

First it's further proof (did we need that?) that our users are flocking to the "costco model" of librarianship - they want to do things themselves (Costco vs. Saks Model thanks to Gary Marchionini of UNC, Chapel Hill). They want control of the metadata and classification. I think we, as libraries, really need to answer this, and fast... AND the faster we do it, the better because our users want it SO much that they're resorting to petty vandalism to regain control of they're own information. If we can give them what they're asking for now, we can introduce it as a compliment to the controlled vocabularies we already do. So, something like, you search using natural language, you tag, and we'll show you how your tags match up with LCSHs and win you even more citations = best of both worlds. It seems a bit over simple, but the best ideas are, aren't they?

Second, we've been hearing about and talking about folksonomies and tagging online for a while now. And up to now, this has been a strictly digital phenemenon - this is the first I've heard of people showing signs of wanting similar control in the real world. This seems to me part of a trend toward an evening and closening (closening?) of digital and analog worlds. One is no longer consider the master and the model of the other - habits and trends inspired and formed in the digital format are now being passed into the physical and not exclusively the other way around.

Part Three - Buy, Hack, or Build

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 19:27:58 GMT

New Hampshire's own Casey Bisson presents last: OPAC Hacks. This is our big draw. He's done really nice interface integration of his website and Plymouth's online catalog.

Catalogs are 'so Web1.0'; they exist in a world were everything is disconnected. Apache, PHP, and mySQL are the core of his hacks. The library's presence inside the portal (myPlymouth) is very similar to the website outside the portal. Wanted to make it appear the catalog is just another part of the website. Catalog usage is dropping while database usage rises. Casey's talking about AADL, the current darlings of OPAC integration. Our users already have epectations, login to all yahoo's tools ONCE and from one place, we just have to meet those expectations. And we're STILL just meeting them, not exceeding... most of us are not doing that. This is 'identity management.' 'We're separating the way you display information from how you store information.' Okay, OPAC Hacks - no need to access the OPAC, just pull out the data and present it the way you want. New books up and give them context by provided subject (LCSH) from there. Man, he had a cool, search suggest... as the patron types into a search box, suggestions are made that are LCSH headings. It was being tested so it's not up, must get the URL.

Good presentation, a stupefying amount of information and ideas... I wish I were as smart as Casey. I miss Tim.

Part Two: Buy, Hack or Build

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:24:50 GMT

Second speaker is Pete Bell, co-founder of Endeca Solutions, covering faceted browsing/searching. Good quote at the top of a slide showing companies: 'for profit' libraries. Meaning that they can teach us lots, they're doing the same work and they're doing it better in a lot of ways. An interesting observation: both the morning presenters, while not librarians, but are here, presenting to mostly librarians about library-related stuff - they have NO concept of how current library catalogs work. BOTH have referred to card catalogs - Yes, they mean cards. Someone in the crowd made a great point that librarians are no good at communicating the level of sophistication of the systems they do use - I would say that's because they're tools, built on outdated algorithms that they were trained on. In the end, they don't explain it because they don't understand it - they only understand how it as a tool, not as something they built. He shows the browse function at Barnes and Noble Browse. Truth be told, I had trouble following, and if I do, users will... he's moving on now, though, I'll try harder. Ooops, nope, he lost me. I never even got the URL... Wait, fight breaking out. One person saying that current OPACs are good enough.

Buy, Hack or Build

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:47:13 GMT

After a horrendous morning which involved pre-dawn alarms followed by a gigantic rock on 495 and a flat tire- making me an hour late to pick up a conference speaker (more on that later) - I FINALLY made it the fall NEASIST program, Buy, Hack or Build: Optimizing your systems for your users and your sanity.

The first speaker is Joshua Porter, Director of Web Development at User Interface Engineering. He's speaking on 'Web 2.0 for the Rest of Us'. He's now defining hacking as 'design on the fly' which I love for it's simplicity. As part of this program committee it's been my job to advocate for this program - I've found it surprisingly difficult to tell them. Even sophisticated users think 'hacking' is bad - it's actually appropriately yankee. It's innovative. It's about being bold enough to break the rules. Viva la resistance! Interesting = Google.com doesn't validate (filing that tidbit away). Actually, looks like all the 'four horsemen', Yahoo, Google, Amazon, and MSN are full of hacks. New term: Social Hacks (whoo hoo). Example: "did you mean ____?" or "customers who bought this also bought"

RSS feeds as 'pull model' where email is a 'push model'. I wonder what kind of reader he uses?

www.housingmaps.com as an example. Built with Google Maps and Craigslist. It takes real estate listings from craigslist and maps them in Google - SO NEAT. I want to make this. The developer made it in his own time, without permission from either = remixing = Web2.0. Google publishes a guide to hacking maps. Between that and the fact that craiglist is rss makes it easy. WHY oh WHY is this not possible to do something like this for finding books in stacks? I wonder if I should replace our sort of bloated and confusing directions page with a link to google directions... hmmm...

Okay, now we're getting down to it - TAGGING! Amazon just added tagging last week!? Didn't know that. This is DEFINATELY a place that libraries should be. btw, I couldn't find the tagging in Amazon? He is showing bookmarklets which I think I've been misunderstanding - it looks like a bit of javascript that makes posting to things like del.icio.us even better... I must look into this.

In conclusion: folksonomies, blogs, wikis all 'provide tools to discover, recommend, share, and promote word of mouth... We're doing what we did offline, online.' This is SO library! We need to be here - this is WHAT we do, essentially... we facilitate communication and learning. Why aren't we being more proactive?

Final conclusion: Sharing knowledge is empowering, simply bestowing knowledge is enslaving.

digital collection development

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 18:08:26 GMT

In Building Library Collections: The Horse is Riding Us, Milton Wolf discusses how collection development as one of librarys' core services, with the introduction of digital information, has become
dangerously hijacked by the publishing industry. Essentially, by buying and/or accessing digital information in bulk, in the form of subscription databases provided by publishers we have surrendered selection to the corporate parties. By doing so we are compromising our commitment to providing unbiased and complete resources on a given topic. I think of this as a digital equivalent to the concern that big publishing has made it so easy for libraries to purchase from them, that the alternate views of the free press are not getting library facilitated exposure as they should. Wolf quotes John Berry Barlow: "Librarians are the content advocates." And finishes that "librarians are not doing a very good job at advocating" when it comes to digital information.

Wolf, Milton T. (June 2003). "Building Library Collections: The Horse Is Riding Us!" Journal of Educational Media & Library Services 40(4):429-37.

Video killed the information star

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 15:22:50 GMT

Inspired by a series of threads on Web4Lib, I'm thinking today about libraries and their future place as information providers. The traditional model of libraries has been that other people create the information and libraries act as benevolent, non-judgemental distributors. We're a clearinghouse. But suddenly people's attitude toward information has changed. They no longer have to go out and get it, it comes to them - they expect it at their fingertips. And in this information climate, libraries are starting to lose their footing. Here's the crux of the matter as I see it, FREE is no longer an ace in the hole. Now, people are willing to pay a premium for convenient and FAST. The recent Web4Lib thread points out that there's a whole generation of information-seekers who will gladly buy a book from Amazon instead of crossing their campus to get it at the library. How can libraries compete with that when the fact that they've always provided good-enough service (sure we'll get it, in ten days) for free? Well, we have to do better.

I can think of two ways (and I'm super inspired by the subsequent Web4Lib discussion). #1 Get stuff faster. How? Mmmm, what about on-demand purchasing? When I directed a teensy public library, this was my informal pattern: If a patron wanted a book and we didn't have it, I'd first check the state-wide catalog, if no else else had it, I'd buy it. I'd make every possible effort to get it as soon as possible. Sometimes B&T was good enough, sometimes Amazon, sometimes I'd go to the bookstore on my way home. I'd process it and hand it to them within a week. This accomplished two things, not the least of which was the good mojo it got from the community. People came back for that kind of quick and FREE service - they told their friends. It also rounded out the collection for everyone else in the state or nearby, for ILL purposes. Yes, maybe it has some questionable implications for collection development, but I think the community service outweighs that. Note: if it was *really* off the wall, I didn't buy it, I'd wait for long-distance ILL. Now, what would this mean for larger, say academic, libraries? I think they could do something similar, of course it would take a bit of workflow shuffling AND a hard-nosed policy AND quick moving AND good communication... those things are not really what libraries are good at, but no time like the present to start, right? I'm thinking that a policy could indicate that a patron's need should be satisfied within five business days, no matter the cost. So, try ILL, but monitor it so if it's going to take to long, another avenue is tried. Buy stuff for the patron. I know, it's a bit out there, but I do think it could work. I'd keep a giant poster board on the wall with tick marks for five-day-or-fewer victories and failures.

Next up: delivery. Bring the books to them. I see no reason this couldn't work on a campus, where people are pretty much localized. Mobilize some of those workstudy students to do book delivery. Many off-campus students have local PO boxes and campus mail is free! Send 'em there!

To summarize, we could be doing this... we'd need a policy, a plan, and an evaluation technique. other people are doing it. We have the resources, it's just a matter of moving faster and getting them in step.

ps. I *really* need to practice brevity, I know.

My latest contribution to our staff newsletter

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 20:49:11 GMT

You've heard the term multi-tasking? You've mastered patting your head and rubbing your tummy? You love email, send and receive dozens a day? It's time for the next level in online communication - IM. Seen any students lately hard at work on their computers, merrily typing into them teeny little windows? How about the same students hunched over their cell phones?

Well, they're sending text messages, called IM (for Instant Message) when executed at a computer and SMS (for Short Message Service) when from a cell phone. When more than two people are talking at once, it's chat. But whatever you call it, it's quickly becoming a chief mode of communication in many circles, including libraries. And as with many emerging technologies, it's moving out of the realm of recreation (or distraction?) and into becoming another accepted and expected tool for quick and painless professional communication.

The basics:

There are three major providers of IM accounts: AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN messenger. If you're an AOL user or have a yahoo.com or hotmail/msn email account then half the IM battle is won - those can be your accounts for IM too. If you don't or aren't, then getting such things are a snap (and free, by the way). Just click on the links above and register.

Once you have a username, you have subscribed to the service. But you need a way to access it. This is a bit like a webpage existing, but you need an internet browser to reach it. Each of these username providers also will provide software (read: the browser), but there's a payoff. When using their software you usually can only talk to people using the same provider. So you yahoo and I AIM = we can't talk. (This is starting to change, but it hasn't completely done so yet.) But wait! There's hope. There are a few integrated chat clients that will allow you to talk to almost anyone, regardless of what provider they use. (Sort of like, choosing Firefox over Internet Explorer. You get to the same thing in the end, but maybe with a bit more ease and flare. And we're all about flare.) These are Gaim and Trillian. There are others, but these are the biggies. Gaim is open-source and free. Trillian has a free version as well as a beefier one for purchase.

So, you've got your account, you've downloaded your client, all you need is a guinea pig or pigs, right? You need someone to talk to. Well, for the low low price of gratitude with a chocolate chaser, your systems department is here for you. I'm online most of the day and much of the evening. Open your 'buddy list' window. Click 'add a buddy' and put in my username. Once you see me in the buddy list, double click on it, type: "Lichen, you exquisite creature... when are you free for a lunch on me?", click send, and viola - You have joined the IMers.

What I do, if you're interested:

As you can see, I have accounts with many IM providers. Yet because I use the Gaim software they basically play nice as one. So I have one signon, one buddy list, and one IM window open regardless of how many people I'm talking to at once. Shhhh, don't tell Val. Actually, do tell Val, you can IM her. IM is being used more and more for in-house, professional communication. I'm on a New England wide committee and we even have our meetings, 15 of us, via this software. I also have a few plugins downloaded, one of them shows the artist and song title of whatever I'm listening to in your buddy list (depending on what client you chose). Please keep in mind that musical tastes are purely my own and imply no endorsement by the University Library. So, if you think this sounds cool, but you're still a bit shaky on it, feel free to... ummmm, email me or phone me and I'd be more than happy to help you try it out.

Much content above borrowed heavily from this blogpost by Aaron Schmidt. Some of you may remember Aaron as one of the presenters from the WebJunction presentation in September I hosted. He spoke on blogs in libraries.

Shoe Shopping!

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:51:10 GMT

Someone on Web4Lib mentioned for-profit, retail online websites in relation to 'library survivability' (a fab term)... they cited the usuals (Amazon and Google), but the point was to look beyond those for tips. Two things the for-profits are doing SO much better than libraries: interface design and searching. I know, I know - librarians are search-masters, but we're not successfully shifting out of our intermediation roles and applying our searching skills to designing robust search algorithms... for-profits are. *duck* For an example of wicked good searching (from a users POV), check out Zappos. Mostly it's faceted, but they're hitting on lots of gears. It's definately worth exploring... plus, you can pick up those strappy numbers you've had your eye on.

One arguement about this that I do think is valid: shoes are limited scope and facet therefore much easier to represent in this way. It's true... but I'm just saying...

Fame achieved

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 20:31:45 GMT

Well, after three tough days of self promotion, I finally made it into the hallowed halls of Internet Librarian fame: I'm on the right with the fantastic head of hair.

Okay, I surrender to the Google train

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 17:41:29 GMT

It's the last day of the conference and I feel like I've finally hit my stride. I'm active, listening, interested and critical... well, I'm always those things - but now it's healthily focused.

I just attended this morning's kenote with Rich Wiggins (Michigan State Univ), Roy Tennant (needs no introduction), and Adam Smith (Google Print/Library Project Manager). These were great - in the style of Washington Week - Rich and Roy debated the goods and bads of Google's relationship with libraries and library materials. I've been suffering from Google overload and have been tuning lots of the conversation swirling around it out - but this was quite good. Basically Rich was pro-Google Print and made some great points. My favorite of which was that what's been going up as 'digital libraries' is NOT... A online collection of biographies of first ladies, does not a library make - it's the equivalent of one thin volume on the shelf in Chocorua (my old haunt). How can we make a true digital library? He proposes digitizing the entire Library of Congress. I would propose a focus shift - PLEASE stop calling your digital initiatives "libraries" - they're good and valuable parts of a library, but they are not libraries by themselves. Let's not further confuse our already beleaguered users.

I've been looking forward to hearing Roy Tennant speak for a long time - I think it was good that this topic and context was the first. He went through a number of ways that the Google Print project would be harmful to libraries. Among others, these were: they're claiming fair-use which has been the domain of libraries for awhile- they're drawing too much attention which might ruin it for everyone. The results screen points to purchase the primary sources, not borrow from your local library. Many libraries, especially big academic ones have no-weeding policies - do we really want to digitize the garbage? The items falling under fair use will be available in full-text and the newer stuff, protected by copyright, will not. The consequence might be that older, and perhaps innaccurate sources, get more use. Also a good concern is that Google is a company and every good business major knows that companies have life spans do we really want to trust our "intellectual heritage" to a company over a well established library? (my answer is something like - why can't it be both... but more on that when me thoughts get clearer AND I love the term "intellectual heritage".) Also he mentioned advertisements and secrecy on Google's part.

Okay, so, my feelings about this are really fence-ified - but lean toward Rich, I think - Of course I would prefer that a large library does this project, but the fact is that they're not. Nor does it look like the will in any timely manner... libraries are not known for their nimbleness. I hope they get better.

Next Adam Smith spoke - my reactions to him were a bit different - sort of an 'outsider' or 'enemy' hyper-critism? But also a little envy - I want to work for Google! Also the visual contrast of the two aging (sorry guys), white haired, patriarchal librarians and the slick, young, smart, wired, well-spoken Google guy was such an amazing metaphor - bordering on cliche, actually. [I know it's not professional to say, but he's not too bad on the eyes, either - man I love geeky guys. Talk nerdy to me, indeed. Also, when did I get old enough to be attracted to someone wearing a wedding ring... sigh... dissappointing on so many levels.] In general I thought his responses appropriate, well thought out, and understanding. At times they were also a bit Bushian- I picture him patting our collective bunned heads and murmuring "there there, don't worry about your silly little profession - we'll look out for you." Liz Lawley asked a great question about how Google reconciles their statements that they're only benevolently interested in open information access while simultaneously keeping almost every detail secret. Ironically, although not surprisingly, he dodged this question.

Overall a great and provocative keynote... man, I wish I got this jazzed in the beginning of the conference.

In closing, I wonder if Google, Microsoft, and other for-profits who are suddenly moving within the sacred realms of libraries - dread speaking to librarians. These people are FIESTY - they're smart, well-informed, and they can be damn combative too.... I love 'em.

In other news - I'm finally convinced and I set up a Del.icio.us account last night. My username is The Gloaming. I haven't put much on it yet, but I'm giving it a shot. It's a professional necessity [insert battle cry]. One thing that it doesn't seem to support is rss feeds, something I love about Firefox bookmarks - I really don't want to set up another account with a reader for these... anyone have any insight?

Ethics and Blogging

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:08:51 GMT

Presented by Karen Schneider, director of Librarians' Index to the Internet and author of Free Range Librarian; one of my favorite blogs. She already has blogged her own talk = vg. I thought this would be a great one to attend considering that advocating for a blog at UNH is my new cause and I expect this will be a concern for my colleagues- as it should be and I want to be able to answer their concerns.

We're not about books - we're about people... You know what this is, right? Core services, mission statements, and goals... they don't change digitally. (Where have I heard this before?)

Okay, so, this is a good session for me - I need to clean up my poor blogging habits. I need to cite more -

Blog rules:

1. Transparency - Be sure you're a real person on the blog... give a bio. "Who you are and where you're coming from." (Karen) People are there to read your thoughts, meaning they're interested - so tell them who you are too. Ooo, that was good... we have to be aware of how you're represented to the outside world. Especially if you're writing as a profession and also representing the profession.

2. Cite It - See above... this is *really* important and I promise to go back and add a bunch of links and references. In my defense, I usually, at the least, give the name of my sources and inspiration... even if not a link. But I'll try to give more complete citations and links - hold me to that, will you?

This is going to become even more important - absolutely crucial, actually, in a library hosted blog. I wonder what could be done to facilitate citations... as in provide a special form in the entry space that will list footnotes. This might be another reason for me to try and write my own blog facility instead of buying one.

Ask your souces if you can quote them... this is an excellent tip.

"Blogging turns information into a conversation." THAT is a brilliant quote... and so relevant for libraries trying to move into the social realms of which blogs are already a part.

I'm not sure I got all the rules... surely there's more than two... I'll post back later.

3.

Planning for the Future

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 18:16:26 GMT

I'm in the first presentation of the day- the wifi is holding out okay; so far so good; steady as she goes...

This is Accelerated Planning by Rebecca Jones. I have high hopes for this - I'm TERRIBLE at planning. I'm impatient, I was to DO stuff. In this way I'm more of techie than I am a librarian... yes, I'm making generalities, but I've noticed, especially in my institution, that traditionally librarians are OKAY at planning, while the techies that have come before me have not at all which has had not-good long-term results. Basically there have been implementations that techies have done, presumably to make the lives of the served librarians better, but they foist something on them, then walk away. They don't talk to them about what they need, revisit them to be sure they're happy with the new product, and they're not always cheerful about providing support. I want to break this trend... doubly hard because I don't want to.

Some little thoughts from the presentation:
Know where you want to end up... what are you doing - WRITE these down... it makes you crystallize it.
What's your decision criteria?
How much time have you got? - don't be afraid to set your own deadlines. If you can't, ask someone else to do it for you.

Planning expands to the time allotted - This is true of most tasks, isn't it?
Take control of the process.
Already know the baseline - I read this as having a team leader who might be the one who's initiated this new project and they should arrive with the team with an documented goals for the end product plan.

Choose a team that's diverse, focused, committed, from many departments, levels of employment, seniority (new and long-term staff)... plan to use them to get staff buy-in.
Who owns the plan - the owner is the person who will implement the plan.
Have a clear goal BEFORE you call a meeting.
Be clear at the beginning that you might not use everyone's input.
Follow through - or you lose your credibility with potential future team members.

[Total aside because I'm doing so many things at once - I'm hearing lots about Konfabulator. I think it's time to check it out.]

SWOT - Oh man, I thought I could forget about this after my management class... but it *does* make sense - know your strengths and weaknesses.
Talk to people about it - get stakeholder input.
Natural light and be comfortable with the risk - if you don't do this, the project will not work.
Teams need a leader.
Be aware of what you're going to STOP doing in order to add something new. Make sure that happens, don't just say it.
No martyrs... we're all busy and we'll share the load.

Apologies for the choppy-ness... I just think much better this way.

Cool tools and random notes

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 23:57:00 GMT

Okay, I'm in the final program of the web managers day...
Frank Cervone is it talking about a good survey tool: Perseus Survey Solutions. I'm wondering if I could use it for usability survey, perhaps creating personas? Has anyone done this?

Open source CMSs that I am interested in investigating are Mambo and Drupal. I've known about these for awhile, but I'd like to really look at seriously... perhaps test it and introduce it to the staff via an intranet. I'm picturing committee meeting minutes, plan drafts, and, *oooo boy* library relevant rss feeds in one place.

disco music FINALLY

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 22:45:02 GMT

So, here I am at the first day of Internet Librarian 2005 proper (as opposed to to the preconference I participated in yesterday). AND I abandoned my Web Managers track (more on why soon) in favor of the public libraries track hosted by Michael Stephens. I couldn't resist because Jenny Levine and Jessamyn West were presenting on Flickr and Tagging. For those just tuning in, I attended a NEASIST program last spring on Social Software at which Michael and Jenny presented and it turned out to be the start of my interest in all aspects of this. Jessamyn is quickly becoming a library star AND she's a high-profile public librarian, which I think is good. Now I can say, with good authority, that she's also an excellent speaker. I think it really says something that these public-library people are fabulous - they're full of enthusiasm and not bogged down in theory and academia (not that there's anything wrong with academia, it's just that sometimes ya'll lose a bit of perspective). They're dynamic and interesting and thought-full and real advocates for their libraries and their libraries' communities, near and far. I want to be their friend.

Another reason I like them? Michael set up an wifi hub in this room which I accessed with no problem... Whoo hoo! I'm a product of my generation and I work best when I'm doing many things at once. So I'm much more dazzling here, when I'm listening to the speaker at the same time, than I ever would do sitting in my room or even in an internet cafe later.

Okay, on to the conference content.... As I mentioned, I attended a preconference workshop yesterday entitled, "Web Manager's Academy." It was extra $$$ (thanks again, UNH), but so relevant to my job that I felt it would be good... and it was, to a certain extent. It was four speakers. Darlene Fichter moderated and gave an overview of "next generation websites" and moderated; Jeff Wisniewski talked about Content Managment Software and CSS/designing with standards; Marshall Breeding discussed database connectivity and web services; Frank Cervone presented on federated searching and OpenURL. It was a good introduction to all these things and it taught me that I'm doing things, at least some things, right - especially when it comes to CSS and standards... but it was just an introduction and I guess I was hoping for something a bit more indepth. My other pretty big complaint is that this morning, two of the three presentations I attended were almost identical to the preconference presentations... so why did we buy both?

That said, I have to say that those presenters, really have it together. They get that what we, as library web designers are up against. Yes, we have to provide access to such diverse resources, services, information that navigation and information architecture is really important BUT we have to know our patrons and they need a little finesse with a slick interface... but not too slick. The interface establishes out credibility... I'm going to leave that here... you've heard me say it before. They also touched on a third dimension of difficulty - librarians. Us. We are handicapped by our own knowledge. Yes, indeed, we know too much and that makes our designs too confusing for people who don't know what we know. The answer? Well, as much as I'm dragging my heels about this, it seems to be Usability testing... and this is my next soapbox to my boss....

I heart my job

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 15:09:08 GMT

First, thanks to UNH for sponsoring this trip to LA, I made it safely here yesterday and spent a fantastic leisurely evening exploring, eating good mexican food, and planning my attack. One bummer, internet access in my room costs $10/day and I *really* wanted to be able to comfortably work from here. I'm over it, though, because I'm in an internet cafe drinking fabulous coffee and enjoying the comings and goings over my screen. So, maybe this'll get me into the world, instead of sitting in my room. Also, the conference halls themselves supposedly have wifi, although I wandered around with my laptop last night like some kind of crazed, internet junkie and couldn't find them. They gave me a sheet of paper at registration: We have wifi! Yay for us! Here's how to connect, here's the password... but no mention of where the hotspots are... sigh.

Today, I'll attend a day-long "Web Managers Academy: Building the Next-Generation Library Websites" and I have really high hopes that it'll help to focus my ongoing efforts to fill out my skill base. I'll blog about it later tonight.

In other news, this morning's mail included this piece Libraries: Standing on the Wrong Platform; Waiting for the Wrong Train? which has got me thinking a bit. Which is a bit critical of how libraries are changing to meet new demands. Basically, that they're a bit blind about it. I'm feeling like there author is not directly getting at the real issue - when it comes to technology and implementing it, libraries are not considering their users closely enough. Hmm, do I sound like a broken record here? I mean, perhaps, we're all so scared about predictions that we're going to become obsolete that we rush to jump on the bandwagon. We don't slow down long enough to think that maybe our users like us the way we are - in this swirling technological miasma; it's nice to know what to expect from your library. Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone - most academic libraries couldn't get away with it. Some public libraries could... how do we know? Get on the front lines, talk to the patrons, watch how they use your services... run pilot projects and DROP THEM if they don't work or are not used.

I beg to differ, somewhat, with this: "Already the web is affecting very core areas of library services: collections, preservation, and reference." Why does it have to be that way? Shouldn't the idea of 'core services' be consciously included in all of a libraries digital initiatives?

I'm clearly going to be spending FAR too much money on coffee this trip...

California, I'm yours.

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:53:23 GMT

I head out early Saturday morning for Internet Librarian 2005. I'll participate in the Web Managers Academy on Sunday and then enjoy three days of conference cruising. I'm looking forward to learning lots of relevent, cutting-edge stuff. Stuff I can come home and play with.

Plus.... it's in Monterey. Sunshine and fresh produce, here I come!