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2/28/2007

"Discover the other side of ..."


software
Originally uploaded by Copenhagen Public Libraries.
I am completly loving this new library campaign from the Copenhagen Public Libraries. Roughly translated (I think) the poster intro's say "Discover the other side of..." Bottom tag line ? (the machine translation was sketchy here) - "Copenhagen Libraries - it's not what you think"


From Flickr photo pool: (translated here)

"With thought-provoking - and maybe provocative - posters at the Copenhagen town life and at the libraries and with the slogan: "Københavns Biblioteker-alt hvad du kan tænke dig" /bibliotek.kk.dk go we new roads with this Brande-text: "At the library we have everything what you can imagine: You cause peace to think carefully and give this a thought. You get time to come ahead, come to the rear and come again. Space for that you may be yourself, because here is nobody who decides what you have to think. You are free to get lost in your thoughts - and think of something, you have never thought of before."

See all the posters in the Flickr pool - way cool!

2/27/2007

Indexed - a new favorite find

This site is worth adding to your aggregator's feeds ...



MyCookieSpace

---> Just taking a break from this regularly scehduled blog to provide you with this small, sorta-amusing update. Bear with me on this one please ...I think I've been peddling thin mints for last three days :) <----

If I’ve seemed absent here for the last few days… it’s been for good reason. It’s Girl Scout cookie delivery time.

Being a "brownie mom" and asst. troop leader makes it hard to avoid the cookie sale pitch. But I’ll be honest, I wasn’t born with that Electrolux salesman gene, so selling cookies door-to-door rates right up there with pulling a hang nail. Just get it over with and move on - at least that's what I've been focusing on. And it doesn’t help that Katie, my seven year-old, didn't inherit the sales gene either... which, of course, makes it near impossible for her to earn that coveted cookie badge. :)

So to those of you in the office who've helped me save face in the cookie-mom club by shelling out hard cash for your samoas fix, I’m eternally grateful. And for those you still wondering where you can find a scout to support your cookie addiction, I still have a few boxes left ... but as I also found out today, you can also get your fix by locating a GS cookie outlet on Myspace ...



Girl Scout Cookies on MySpace


2/24/2007

Book Me


helene3_1024
Originally uploaded by Dave & Bry.
Thanks Dave!

This adds a whole new meaning to being "bookish."

2/21/2007

KCLS does 27 Things

It's amazing to see other libraries spinning the program and adding more great discoveries to the list. King County Library just launched their own Learning 2.0 U and extends the program to 27 things by adding MySpace, Google Labs and more.

I especially love thing #27 - Suggest one more Web 2.0 topic you would like to learn about. With so much out there to play with, this "thing" should create a whole new list of items to explore !

2/20/2007

Filed Under - Quotable

"Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future."

- Kathleen Norris

2/19/2007

SDI Exec Conference Follow-up

Being the last speaker for the day is always a hard spot to fill, especially after all the audience members have been saturated with lunch, dessert and a monster cookie break ... and it also doesn't help to be the only obstacle left before the complimentary cocktail hour. :) Anyway, for those of you in attendance for my talk this afternoon at the SirsiDynix Institute Executive Conference, here are the slides from my presentation on Learning 2.0

You can gather more details from the SirsiDynix talk archived as both a podcast and webcast. But for more information about the program also check out these links:

...and in the press this month:

2/18/2007

Interview with Michael Welsh

John Battelle interviews Michael Welsh on his thoughts on 2.0 and the video that he created that has been rocking the web for the last week and half. My favorite thought from the interview (and there are lots of good thoughts) is this quote, "The best tools are those that are flexible enough to be used beyond that for which they were intended. The more a web service can build this kind of flexibility in, the better, as it can tap into the collective intelligence of those using the service to extend its possibilities."

Just think about this in terms of our library catalogs and webspaces. Are they so controlled that they don't allow unintended uses? Do they provide the flexibility to allow users to make them "their own"? Are users empowered to contribute and connect into the "collective intellenge" of the community, users, or even librarians? I know we're making some headway (thanks to the excellent work of Casey Bisson, John Blyberg and others) in this area... but is enough. Think about it? I know I am.

Read the full interview here. BTW: If you've got a questions for Michael, John's opened up his comments section for questions. I've posted one. :)

2/17/2007

Convergence & Library Culture

I think I read over 100 pages today on my flight out to Colorado Springs (getting stuck in OHare for three hours helped too) of Henry Jenkin's lastest title, Convergence Culture. But it was this passage on page 168 that made me stop and think of libraries …

“Media producers can garner greater loyalty … if they court the allegiance of fans; the best way to do this turns out to be giving them some stake in survival of the franchise, ensuring that the provided content more fully reflects their interests, creating a space where they can make their own creative contributions, and recognizing the best work that emerges. In the world of ever-expanding media options, there is going to be a struggle for viewers the likes of which corporate media has never seen before. Many of the smartest folks in the media industry know this: some are trembling, and others are scrambling to renegotiate their relationships with customers. In the end, the media producers need fans just as much as fans need them.”


Substitute “library” for “media producers / franchise” and “library users/ community” for “fans” and I think this idea of “renegotiating our relationships” with our customers is also true in libraries. We need to make sure our collections and services “reflect their (changing) interests”, our spaces (both physical and virtual) allow for collaboration and “creative contributions” and most importantly recognize our communities and make sure our libraries allow them celebrate themselves (ie “best work”). For “in the end the (library) needs the community just as much as the (community) needs (the library).”

Anyway… In addition to this thought, the book’s an interesting and insightful read on culture and the convergence that is happening today between old and new media. Highly recommended!


2/16/2007

Wii- Everybody Votes

I swear if my hubby and I hadn’t agreed to "no extraneous spending" for the next few months so that we could actually afford a family vacation to France in May, I’d go out and buy one of these this weekend. Wii’s are more then gaming … just take a look at this new Wii channel.



So, since I can’t afford a Wii at the moment, I’m very thankful for YouTube... but it's still killing me. :)

2/15/2007

Bibliotek 2.0 - 23 Ting :)

Wow ... library staff are joining the fun all over the globe :)


"This Blog is a co-operation between Copenhagen, Randers and Herning's libraries."

On Growing Talent ...

If you get beyond the opening paragraphs which focus on company and market information, this article* on developing talent & creating innovative organizations has a lot of great ideas. Among my take-a-ways, are:

  • Make Talent a priority: "Mussallem's priority for the position was to nurture talent, so we sat down immediately to take stock of the company's talent, assess the corporate structure, and begin to build a culture that prized innovation, risk taking, and development."

  • Build Talent Management into your culture & nurture it from the top; "His first actions as CEO highlighted the importance of talent management. First, he put talent on the agenda of every board of directors meeting, as well as monthly meetings of Edwards' executive leadership team"

  • Set expectation that developing talent is the primary role of leadership: "Next, he decided that talent management would be a leadership competency that every company manager is evaluated on annually."

  • Involve employees in their own development process: "At the individual level, employees are asked to create personal management objectives, which are mapped to the key operating drivers by managers and directors"

  • Continually evaluate those jobs in your organization which are "critical" to your strategic priorities for the year: "Identification of critical jobs is driven by position, not personality."

  • Build the bench to match your critical positions: “Once the job is identified as critical, then we ensure that there is A talent in the position and create a pool of potential successors. For each critical position that exists at Edwards, I identify two or three successors.”

  • Provide options that challenge staff and allow them to move around and experience the business from different perspectives: “For the youngest, most promising talent—often engineers—the company’s technical development program offers four different professional rotations during a two-year period.”

  • Continuously evaluate the approach: “Every 18 months, Mussallem invites employees to participate in an engagement survey that measures employees’ attitudes regarding workplace conditions, functional management, corporate leadership, learning opportunities, and more.”


From Growing Talent at Edwards Lifesciences (exec summary)*
, T&D Feb 07

*NOTE: Only the Executive summary is available to non-ASTD members through the website. But you can access the full version in either Ebsco Academic Search Elite or MasterFile Premiere. Gotta luv library databases :)


2/12/2007

More thoughts on learning libraries ...

Mark from MB InformationDesign left a comment on my blog post about Libraries in Transformation that I think is just too good not to share ...

In my opinion, this is very true. We have the same discussions over here in Austria and Germany. Where to go? What to do? How to defend against SEs?
I don't think these are the proper questions. The concept of a teaching library is to enable the learn process and to support it. Libraries must find the way back into the learning scenario of students, not the other way. The question is: how can we help students to achieve their (learning) goals?

greetings from Dornbirn, Austria
Mark Buzinkay
MB Informationdesign

I think Mark makes a good point, the concept of a "learning library" should not be about teaching or instructing students about libraries and how to use library offerings (electronic databases, reference materials, etc.). But rather it should be about "enabl(ing) the learn(ing) process." This means providing every means possible to support learning it whatever environment (form, channel and/or technology) that the user is comfortable in.

5 Weeks to a Social Library

It seems like this valuable online course has been months in the works, so it was good to see an email in my inbox announcing it's launch. :)



Congrats Meredith and all who are involved in getting this free program for libraries off the ground!

Disclaimer: I contributed a short screencast as part of the Introduction.

2/11/2007

Sneak Peak

Meredith Farkas has a new book coming out on social software soon and I was among the lucky ones to get a advance copy to preview.

Anyway, I'm not sure of the publish date, but I can tell you this, the book's excellent! And although I consider myself pretty up on the social software scene, I was surprised at how much new information I gathered from the title. Meredith's really done her homework on this one ... well done!


2/10/2007

Teen Second Life makes front page

What a lovely surprise when I pulled my weekend paper out of the mailbox this morning ... the library's teen Second Life project was front & center on the Charlotte Observer's front page.

Read the full story here, Schools, libraries find second life in Second Life

"The libraries have set up in areas specifically designated for their use... The Alliance Library System of Peoria, Ill., was one of the first libraries to hang a virtual shingle last year, and staff members there have morphed into the backbone of the growing library presence.Kelly Czarnecki, a librarian at ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center, and Matt Gullett, a technology staffer for the library, began talking about buying an island in Teen Second Life, an offshoot that is only open to teenagers. Alliance agreed to a partnership and put in the startup money, buying the island and paying maintenance fees. They call it the Eye4You Alliance."

Related links:
PLCMC Teen Second Life info
Teen Second Life Eye4You Alliance
InfoIsland Second Life Library


Congratulations Matt & Kelly! You guys rock!!!

Basic Book Handling Skills

Thanks to Darlene Fichter for this discovery and hilarious video of a monk trying to adjust the latest technology of the 7th century - books.



The sad thing is that the reality of this video is actually being seen in our schools today. When Peter Gorman came and spoke to our library staff last week, I was surprised to hear him talk about the lack of basic book handling skills that many children who enter the school system lack. For some kids (especially those who may be new immigrants) books are not found in their homes, their parents have never read to them and until they enter kindergarten this form of technology has completely eluded them. And for school systems around the country this is a reality that they often deal with.

Sad isn't it? But then again that's just another reason why libraries are so important. They are often the only place that many children get there first (and perhaps only) exposure to books.


2/09/2007

Experiencology- Library Style

I've been following Experiencology (I'll admit it, I love the title of her blog) for a while now - ever since Stephanie's Oct & Nov series titled Bathroom Blogfest. :)

Anyway, over the last week and half, she's been running a series on the "Experience Library." And while her focus at looking at Cerritos Library in CA has been more on design and architectural features, I'm always intrigued to learn what other people think are those little library WOW factors.

The Experience Library: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

PS: I wonder what she'd think of the library at ImaginOn (Flickr set)

We interupt this Friday for a short video announcement ...

From Ape to Computing Man ...




Today's video spotlight is brought to you by the letters "l, a & t"

Learn ... Adopt ... & Thrive !!!

2/08/2007

Libraries in Transformation

Virtual transformation, Hamilton Spectator, Ontario

"Like other businesses, libraries are trying to find their way in a fast-changing digital landscape. New users don't see the library as a segregated book warehouse -- they want to shape information. ...

To shift the library's role, (Jeffrey Trzeciak, chief librarin at McMaster University) wants to collaborate with profs, to offer material actual courses need. He wants a "learning library" measured by student success, not the old, traditional metrics like quantity of holdings or budget size."


Emphasis in abstract is mine. :)

2/07/2007

Another Learning 2.0 Challenge

Via Janie Hermann @ Library Garden:

"The Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative (CJRLC) has issued a Learning 2.o challenge to anyone who works in a CJRLC member library. This is a great chance to learn new skills and I hope others will join me in taking the CJRLC Tech Challenge."

Wow! It's so amazing to see libraries developing programs like these that challenge and reward staff for taking on personal initiatives. I especially love Challenge #6 - "Teach someone else how to use one of the technologies described above!" Libraries are built on the foundation of "knowledge sharing" and it's great to staff members being challenged to take this personally.

Congrats CJRLC!!!

PVLD Kicks Off Learning 2.0

Via Kathy Gould's Palos Verde Library District Director's Blog:

"Today PVLD launched the Learning 2.0 Challenge - details can be found at www.pvldlearning.blogspot.com or by downloading the flyer at Download StaffLearningFlyer.pdf ...

Staff incentives include MP3 players and drawings for Nintendo Wii, MS Zune, iPod Nano and more.

PS: Love the party pictures and the cake photo - a Sandisk MP3 player :) Very cool!

Video: Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Thanks Nicole for the recommendation. She's right, this video is awesome




Other videos and work from this talented group of staff and students @ Kansas State.


2/06/2007

Stephen Abram On Second Life Library

From Rev Up Your Avatars - Future Libraries’ Third Presence in Second Life

"Several people, including one from the library press, asked me why Second Life libraries were such an important development. One said they just didn’t “get it.” I know it’s not age, because I’m getting up there, and I get it. I didn’t have a great answer at the time, but it gave me the impetus to write this article. It’s about the experience. It’s about learning by doing. It’s harder to get Second Life in the abstract – much like it was difficult to explain what the Web and Internet were going to be in the early days."

The emphasis above is mine, not Stephen's, 'cause I think he got it right --- It's all about the experience. If you haven't tried SL yet, do! You might be amazed by what you find.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Steve Jobs on DRM

Steve Jobs offers up three alternatives to the DRM problem, including this...

"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."


Sounds great Steve, but do you think you could also advocate the same for the downloadable audiobook publishing industry?

PS: I think Jobs left out an obvious 4th alternative ... to adopt a global DRM platform/solution that will work for everyone on all media players.

ACPL's got it going on ...

Those folks at ACPL have really got it going on. I've already posted about the Rate This Page feature (which I love BTW) but then I saw this ...



What better to celebrate National Library Week, then by allowing your community to celebrate themselves!!!!

Wayyyy Coooool!!

Related post: On telling "our story"

Inviting Feedback




Allen County Public Library's
Rate this Page -- What a great way to invite feedback on your library's website! :)

2/05/2007

Changes

Discovered via MSN: World's Oldest Newspaper goes Digital

"For centuries (since 1645), readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden's Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world's oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace...

Despite its online transformation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar remains No. 1 on a ranking of the oldest newspapers still in circulation compiled by the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers."

Some how this news both thrills and saddens me - How about you?

Perhaps a reason to keep that extra external keyboard around ...





Frets on Fire

Flickr image pool: fretsonfire
YouTube videos: Fretsonfire

Learning 2.0 in Sweden

Thank goodness for RSS feeds and Systran language translater.

Machine translation:

"During the spring comes this blogg to last the end punk for those hits that aim to encourageing Malmö town library personnel to experiment and faith themselves more about new services and tools. Services and tools which influences and changes our possibilities to förhålla us to information.

The hits are inspired of the “Learning 2.0” programmes ...We believe Malmö town libraries is first in Sweden."


I know the translation is lacking in lots of ways, but without machine translation like Systran, I'd have no idea why this blog would end up in my RSS feeds. :)

Orginal post here: MSB- Bloggen


2/04/2007

The learning adventure continues ...

Lately it seems like a day doesn’t go by when I don’t field an inquiry from someone about duplicating of using Learning 2.0. What makes the whole L2 experience the best for me is when I see other people improving and expanding the program to fit their own organization needs. In the last two days, two such examples were recently unveiled and in looking over the list of discoveries that each program is encouraging participants to play with, it’s clear that they’ve made some adjustments and modifications that are for the better.

  • Garfield County Libraries Social Networking Contest - Developed by Deputy Director Mindy Kittay for GCPL staff, this program is built using a wiki and encourages the exploration of 19 neat things including GCL’s own Firefox toolbar , Protopage, Pandora, Esnips, Fixster and more.

    Mindy emailed me this weekend and shared this… “Ever since reading about your Learning 2.0 Program last year I have been working on something similar for our library. It has taken me about 6 months, most of it on my own time, but I finally put the contest out to the staff last week and I am floored by the response and the quality of the work that they are turning in.”

    Way to go Mindy. It’s so neat to see a Deputy Director taking on this type of leadership at this level. If your experience mirrors anything like PLCMC’s, then you 6 month investment will be returned ten-fold.

    FYI-JFTR, It took me about 4.5 months to develop PLCMC’s program and most of it was on my own time as well. :)

  • Learning 2.0 @ Mac (McMaster University, Ontario, Canada)
    Amanda Etches-Johnson and the Emerging Technology Team of McMaster University just kicked off their own spin on Learning 2.0 for University library staff. What’s neat about their programme (I’m using the Canadian spelling here) approach is that they have not only expanded the programme to twelve weeks and added some new topics (Gaming & Virtual worlds, browser tools, and social networks), but they have also added a “Learning Group” element to element people exchange ideas and explore together.

    At PLCMC this group concept wasn’t formalized as well as McMaster’s, but it definitely was an organic growth outcome.

Anyway, these programs are just two more excellent examples of ways that the Learning 2.0 approach can foster staff development. And for other libraries considering such opportunities of your own, I encourage you to take a look at both of these excellent examples.

PS: Here’s a link to some other programs as well.

2/02/2007

Band-aids & thoughts inspired by Chris Harris

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with folks about band-aids lately. Not the kind that my 5 year-old insists will magically make her skin stop itching if I just let her “have one more, pleaseeeee.” But rather the kind, that as organizations, we create ourselves whenever we patch a procedure or create a work around for a process that no longer fits our needs.

This week I received an email from a staff member with a “wish list” of items for the next version of our ILS and while I’d love to be able to say that these enhancements will definitely be included, I know there’s no guarantee yet.

Anyway, as I read the list of items (which included simple things like the ability to set permanent parameters for pull lists and improvements to check-in alert messages) it occurred to me that most of our staff has already created band-aids for these short-comings. These are frustrations they shouldn’t have to work around (example: A check-in message that says “This item has 4 tapes, please check to be sure all are present” shouldn’t automatically check-in the item unless the staff member confirms it.); instead their work flow should have an easy rhythm.

But what is worse then applying too many band-aids, is not knowing when to peel them back slowly or just rip them off. We seem to have gotten comfortable with our scabby patches (especially in our ILSs and catalogs) to the point that we don’t even realize that they’re still there. And when the band-aid wears thin, we seldom seek consultation but raterh reach for another from our medicine cabinet.

Christopher Harris offers a great post this week on looking deep inside into the guts of our OPACs and asks the question … do MARC records really have to be the core of the catalog, or is there a better way to connect and improve the search and find experience?

It’s an interesting question and a great post to ponder. I for one appreciate Chris’s prompting to look under the accumulation of band-aids and take a second look.

What's your take on OPACs? Are you happy with your band-aids or ready for something better?

PS: I agree with Chris, AADL's SOPAC rocks and the band-aids are pretty amazing too!

2/01/2007

Tagging


"The December survey, released Wednesday, found that 28 percent of Internet users have tagged content, and 7 percent have done so on a typical day."

From: Tagging' content becoming popular online
See Also: Pew Report Summary