LibraryTechtonics

August 22, 2007

Novel Trip Ideas from Kayak.com

Just last night, a patron came to the desk and asked, "Do you know of any good places to search for plane flights online?"

As a matter of fact I do, my friend.

I've been a big fan of Kayak.com ever since some friends of mine recommended it to people coming in from out of town for their wedding. This travel metasearch culls through different airline and travel search sites to help you find flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises. An account on this free service can can store customized searches complete with alerts, a log of past searches, your home airport, and preferred airlines, which makes searching very easy if you come back often. Once you find your desired travel choice, clicking on a link will take you to the site where you actually book and pay for your chosen options.

The service is very easy to use, and even with so many search options, it's pretty streamlined and intuitive. I showed the patron how to use the search, inputing the home airport, the destination airport, and the dates of travel, and he said, "Wow, you did all the work, now all I have to do is find the flight." It is that simple, but there are also enhanced features to the site that help you refine your search, like widgets that let you specify the time spans of when you want land going and coming, adding area aiports to your search, the number of stops, and tweaking your travel dates and times. Other features include a matrix view of all of your flight options (a la, say, Orbitz or Travelocity), a graph to show you the prices over a period of time to help you time when you buy, popular sales and travel destinations, and prefab searches for major cities across the globe (on the bottom of the home page).

And those are just the toys for the airline flights. The hotels search uses Google Maps to map out the hotels and their proximities to each other and places of interest (you can even input an address of your choice and go from there), and you get details about each property as though you were looking directly at the hotel site. Car rental searching is just as easy.

The patron periodically had questions, but usually by the time I walked over to help, he'd figured it out. I was able to answer questions about how etickets work, travel insurance, how to pick out seats, and how airlines vary in their policies. A few other patrons came up to the desk as I was discussing the etickets with the patron, and they said, "Wow, this really *is* Information! Who knew you guys knew all this stuff!"

Now they know. ;)

As if I didn't love Kayak.com already, a theme for a recent weekly newsletter was "Novel Trip Ideas," like visiting Dickens' London and staying in A Room With a View in Florence. Too cute. It's definitely worth checking out. Heck, it would make a cool library program series: get a bunch of widely-traveled patrons together, have them give presentations, include a mini lesson on sites like Kayak.com, travel reservation tips (especially for online booking), and show of your travel book collection while perhaps having the traveling presenters talk about which books, sites, and people recommendations helped them plan their trips. If you do it, let me know, I'd love to hear how it goes!

2:38 PM | Permalink

August 9, 2007

MIT-NBC Journalism Competition at Reading Public Library

For the past 3 weeks, I've been working on an exciting project that came to Reading Public Library around about the beginning of July. Figures I'd be writing about it just as it's going to end, but better late than never!

My friend Jason Haas, who is working with The Education Arcade over at MIT, approached me about possibly bringing a project to the library involving teens generating news content for sharing online. It sounded promising and exciting, although the timeline was going to be really tight: the initial meeting with Jason, Scot Osterweil, our director Ruth and my supervisor Lorraine was on June 28, and the program start date was set for July 16, the height of summer reading program season.

But the project was just too exciting to pass up, so we went for it. The goal was for each teen, or group of teens, to produce a local news story that had a national context, as well. The competition was limited to teens who live or go to school in Reading, going into 9th grade through 12th grade, but the content type for submissions was wide open: photo essays, podcasts, videos, articles, you name it. If it could be shared on the web, it was an eligible format. In partnership with NBC, MIT would provide resources such as hardware, mentorship, and anything else the competitors needed. They also arranged for office hours as well as workshops with Kathy Abbot, a producer at NBC in NYC. Every teen who submitted an entry received a $25 iTunes gift card, and the grand prize (which will be announced on Monday, August 13) is a trip to 30 Rock to see the NBC studios and meet NBC staff.

For serious, kids. And it was just Reading, MA.

We knew it might be tough to bring in kids during the summer without the help of school, so the media blitz began as soon as possible. The initial press release went out the week before the program started, and was published in the local papers, as well as the July 12 issue of the library's Off The Shelf newsletter (scroll down to see the "What's Your Story?" article) and via the high school student and parent email list, with their permission. We also posted flyers at all of the local teen hangouts, and a slide version of the flyer on the local cable channel bulletin board, not to mention tons of word of mouth marketing. I even sent out a special message to the Netguides.

Our efforts were well rewarded: 30 people attended the information session on July 16, and 13 kids signed up on the spot, which was more than we anticipated. Several more students signed up after the general meeting, which took sign-ups to 18.

After that first meeting, the program really took off. The schedule and communication guidelines were firmed up and published in the July 19 issue of Off The Shelf (scroll down to the "Report It Now! Mit-Nbc Journalism Competition - Sign Up By Monday, July 23" article), and everyone participating in the competition was added to a secret Facebook group (it sounds more mystical than it is, it was really to protect the privacy of the minors in the group), which was used as the online home base for the competition. The NBC staff interacted with the kids in Facebook, as well as through the meetings at the library, one of which was actually facilitated via iChat, since the producer wasn't able to make it because of official producer business. Topics ranged from obesity and eating disorders to Habitat for Humanity projects and much more. It was impressive to see how seriously the kids took the project, but also to see how much fun they were having creating their news.

For the most part, the kids who produced video were able to film with their own video cameras and edit with either iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, nothing more sophisticated was required. Truthfully, those are the tools the teens use for their school projects, so it wasn't a huge learning curve for them. What really seemed to be most helpful were the office hours, the meetings with the producer, and the Q&A on the Facebook group.

The projects were due in this past Monday, August 6, at 6pm, at which point there were 7 submissions from 10 participants (there were several groups and several individual projects). We're currently in the judging phase, where the MIT and NBC crews are reviewing the projects. On Monday, August 13, someone from NBC will be here to present the winners, and we'll get to view and talk about the projects. I'm hoping to make it a public viewing, but as with many a quick-lined project, we're still working on that part. ;)

12:11 PM | Permalink

August 8, 2007

Netguides lessons learned, and class changes

The Netguides program I started back in February is doing really well. We're averaging about 8 appointments a month, which isn't too shabby, and many of the participating patrons will make a next appointment request after their first. I've also set up a few patrons on a recurring appointment cycle, which 5-6 regular weekly appointments in a row, with the intention to reassess their skills at the end of the cycle, and decided how to proceed with regular appointments going forward.

The Netguides themselves are awesome. They really have immense patience, and they really want the patrons to learn. The volunteers are also very honest and open with their evaluations of the patrons they work with, which has been really helpful in assessing their needs and helping them with trouble spots.

Some of the weak spots in the system have had to do with scheduling. Wrangling teens, as you may know, is a little like herding wet cats. Overall, the system works well:

1. I have a chart that tells me what days and times students are available which matches the chart on the appointment request bookmark, which is what I use to match them up with an appointment.


2. I set a tentative appointment on the Netguide side *first*, to guarantee a volunteer's availability, and pop it into the calendar in the Yahoo! Group marked TENTATIVE.


3. I call the patron and offer them the date and time (if the patron is not home, I leave a message asking them to call; only then do I give them the details, which forces them to call).


4. If all goes well, I can mark the calendar appointment as CONFIRMED, and the Netguide knows to come in. If an entry is marked TENTATIVE on the day of the appointment, they know not to come in.

However, the problem seems to be with getting patrons to call back. I can email the Netguides, they all check email regularly. Most of the patrons, naturally, don't have email addresses, because they don't really know how to use them. This bit makes the scheduling process time consuming, and causes a lot of back and forth from the patron to the Netguide and back again. My Super Volunteer Marie does a lot of work helping out with the schedule, but still, it's exhausting for us both.

After talking it over with my supervisor, I have a new plan (I love talking to my supervisor, she's wicked smart and an awesome problem solver). We meant to have drop-in hours scheduled for the Netguides before, but that didn't work as well as I'd planned. Several of the kids opted for the minimum 2 hours per month, with the potential to maybe work 4 hours, which meant that I could only really use them for 1 class or 2 appointments, but not both. And I know that, at least for now, 12 kids is really the max I can manage and still do all the other things I do at the library, so adding personnel is not the answer.

So, the new plan is:

• Up the minimum monthly requirement to 3-4 hours per month, to solve the not enough hours covered problem without increasing my volunteer load. This shouldn't be a problem for most Netguides, since many opted for anywhere from 4-10 hours a month. If it is a problem, I can reserve those Netguides as class assistants, and that can be their monthly schedule.


• Schedule everyone for regular hours every month, so that each Netguide has a *set* schedule, like, say, every Tuesday night from 7-9p, or every other Saturday from 10a - 12p. This gives everyone a little more certainty of scheduling, including me, and allows me to make a set schedule several months at a time.


• Offer patrons time slots in the range that the Netguide shifts happen. That way, Marie and I can fit the majority of appointments into prefab slots when we know someone will already be scheduled for a shift. We can still offer the "Other times" option to people, but this will make the appointment process way less painful and exhausting.

I think it'll be a vast improvement, so I'm very optimistic.

I'm also making some serious changes to the regular class schedule. Now that we have the Netguides to cover very basic topics (basic computing & internet, Office applications, etc.), I won't be offering most of them on the schedule anymore. The basic topics really work best on a one-to-one level, anyway, and it leaves the schedule open for the more in-demand stuff and more interesting, progressive topics.

To test the waters on whether this is the right direction, I put out a SurveyMonkey survey (linked from the library home page), that I also printed out for people who aren't so good with computers. This allows patrons to get their 2 cents in before I finalize the schedule.

My current draft schedule has the patron faves on it: Getting Started with eBay; Geek Out, Don't Freak Out: Digital Cameras; Excel: Formulas, Formats, & Sorts; Word: Tables & Images; and other stuff. But then I've also planned for a few new and interesting things, like how to download free audio books via Podiobooks and sites like it; and a 3 class series for digital pictures, including a Geek Out for digital cameras, a class on downloading and editing, and a class on sharing photos using email, photos sites, and cute widgets that do cool things online. The schedule is still a draft, and doesn't go public until after the survey results come in, so I still have space for changes.

I am a little worried about how the patrons will take the shift from basic stuff in a class environment to basic stuff one-on-one. To be honest, the basic and beginner classes always filled with the same people, and they sign up for the classes before anyone else can, so it's hard for anyone else to get in. All the same, I'm wondering if people will just say, "Yeah, but when is the *class*?" or "When are *you* teaching it?" or even "I don't really want to make an appointment, can't you just tell me when someone will be here teaching it?" I think it'll be a matter of education, on the site, at the desk, on the schedule, in the newsletter, everywhere we can. Besides, how much better does it get than making your own class at the library, right?

Overall, I think the Netguides + classes formula has been fabulous, and I think it will continue to be successful, especially with the changes I have planned. I've given the Netguides a hiatus for September, so that we can figure out schedules, have meetings to check in on skills and such, and recruit/train and/or refresher train as necessary. Besides, we need to make room in there somewhere for a pizza party or two!

3:48 PM | Permalink

July 30, 2007

What on earth does geocaching have to do with libraries?

In response to my posts about the geocaching program at my library, I received an email this morning from a librarian who, upon sharing the geocaching presentation with another librarian, was greeted with, "What are the literacy outcomes of geocaching?" in a sort of "don't we have better/more important things to be worrying about?" kind of way.

Her question to me was, "How do I respond to this?"

Here is my response (with a few links added for the post), with permission from the correspondee. It's not short, but I think it's a quick read:

Hmmm. I'm trying to think of a concise way to respond to this comment, but it sounds like there needs to be a backstory for this person to go beyond the "books == literacy" mentality. So here's me thinking out loud; feel free to use whatever you like in here to help your response.

Geocaching teaches problem solving skills, environmental awareness and conservation, health and exercise, treading lightly on the earth, and using the internet and gadgetry (quickly becoming an everyday fixture in people's lives). Geocaching is *information* literacy as much as it is a fun game.

At Reading Public Library, the caches placed by the Children's Department are part and parcel with the myriad activities offered as part of our summer reading program that make it so popular that people from surrounding towns come to register for *our* summer program instead of with their home libraries (you can check out the calendar on our site and the children's section of the site for information about our program, which changes every year).

The caches help make kids and parents aware of town forest lands they never knew existed, gets them outside on a nice day, and gets them excited to come *back* the library to announce triumphantly, "We found it!" And, if you look at the pictures of the presentation, the kids totally dig the hands-on and toy gadgetry part of it, and it changes the image of a librarian from a funny duddy to someone they think is smart, cool, and someone they can relate to.

People see articles about geocaching in the newspaper (like, say, this very recent article in the Boston Globe
), and they want to know more. What better place to go than the library, right? Alas, most people don't even think to call the library to borrow a free book, so the likelihood of them calling us, unless we let them know we actually know something on what appears to be a very technological topic, is minimal.

All too often, libraries are focused on, and known for, one very specific type of literacy: reading, books, education. While this does meet the needs of a specific audience that shouldn't be ignored, it pretty much ignores the rest of the constituency, which can't possibly find a reason to go to the library in the first place. We're a public good for all of the public, not just the neediest.

As a case in point, I have a Question up on my Facebook account right now that asks:

Be as pie in the sky as you want: What product or service would encourage you to visit and/or use your local public library (especially if you don't use your library now)?

I'm getting answers like "space to play D&D," "career info," "proximity to where I am" from the elusive 25-40 year old group. Now, granted, this isn't a very wide sampling, but one of the things you don't see in the answers, and something I don't often hear from non-library friends when we chat about it, is "more books". Most of these people buy their own books, get Netflix delivered to their door or computer, download music instead of borrowing CDs, and (used to, before I entered the profession and changed their minds) think that librarians were mean and not worth talking to.

While libraries are focusing on the traditional values, the world is passing us by. The world is *far* from traditional anymore. Grandparents send email to grandkids, kids need help finding a better supplement of information on their papers than Wikipedia, and social networking sites are binding the next generation of internet users to each other for information networking,
leaving librarians who don't get involved knee-deep in the culture (as opposed to just, say, networking with each other) out of the loop. Bringing in the 25 to 40-somethings (and their kids, if they have them), who have the motivation to make change everywhere else in their lives, might motivate action in them to save libraries, because they'll suddenly see that there's a public good in it for them, too.

And, besides all this, what about fun? Can't there just be fun at the library? Fun and games are an integral part of learning, and libraries are only just now catching on with gaming in the library, and even that's not enough. Our loud children's room, with it's baskets of crayons, toys and books everywhere, DDR for little kids to learn at their own pace, story times on laps and in pajamas, movie showings, and never *ever* a quiet moment, is a testament to how fun is what really brings kids to the Reading Public Library. If they just wanted books, their parents would come in without them.

If we're going to make that successful transition from an irrelevant institution to a place people care to save, we need to stop just warehousing books and start interacting in the new information economy. Which, heaven's forbid, might include fun.

10:52 AM | Permalink

July 26, 2007

Geocaching multimedia extravaganza!

You can view the slides of my geocaching presentation from the other night on SlideShare (or, conveniently, here):

You can view the photos on Flickr.

And, you can view both the Get a Clue and Magic! caches on the Geocaching site (you need an account to see the coordinates).

Did I mention the cutey little pic on our home page?

Talk about marketing the library's programs, and getting around and *visible* on the web!

12:03 PM | Permalink

July 13, 2007

RPL program on geocaching next week

If you're in Massachusetts, and want an excuse to stop by my library, or to see how I give presentations, or just to learn about geocaching, I'll be doing a short program at the library about that super outdoor sport that combines GPS technology with the great outdoors.

Geocaching for Families
Wednesday, July 18
7:30 - 8:15p
Reading Public Library

I did the program last year, complete with a quick summary on the origins of geocaching, a little bit about the library's geocache in the town forest, and the entire contents of my geocaching bag laid out on a table for kids to peruse. It's an open, free program, anyone can come, bring your friends. See you there!

9:37 AM | Permalink

January 13, 2007

Overheard at/love for the Information Desk

Normally, I work a Saturday rotation, where I work a Saturday every 3 weeks. However, I'm working 3 Saturday shifts this month (the only Saturday I'm not working I'll be in Seattle), so I'm here at the desk for the day.

A typical Saturday usually starts with at least four patrons waiting at the door for us to open (if it's a day with a story hour or sing along, we usually see an army waiting for us), and the usual number of patrons trickle in over the course of the morning, hitting a high point just after the customary brunch hour. Then, 'round about 3:30p or so, we see another burst of people, with a regular rush of calls, questions, and how-do-I-finds about 4:30p, finishing off with a relatively long closing time line at the Circ desk at 5p.

It's a progressively busy day.

Saturdays, the desk is always staffed with two librarians. If it's quiet enough, we can each sneak in a little off-desk time in the Workroom, in the wonderful and productive solitude. I was privy to an hour this morning, which was super, and came back down to the desk so that Kathy could go up for an hour herself, then head over to the Children's Room to cover a 1/2 lunch, while I woman the Information Desk downstairs before it gets super duper busy.

I've had three interactions, one after the other, that made me smile. Working Saturdays isn't normally a problem, but it does shorten my weekend, so I've been feeling a bit frazzled and short of my own time all month, which makes working the desk more taxing and less fun.

One gentleman was not only impressed that we have climate information for Reading (there's a a climatologist who tracks this stuff, but I don't think he's a town employee, he just does it), and that he could use any of our computers without having to sign in or comply with a time limit (we do have a 15 minute limit if it's busy, but we seem to have enough computers that it's seldom a problem).

Another gentleman was putting a few things on hold, so I asked for his card. He was quite pleased to say he had it on him, and he keeps it in his truck all the time, which is only a problem if he rides his bike to the library. Upon mentioned that we now offer key fob library cards that patrons can switch to from regular cards, we got into a brief chat on privacy prompted by the notion of trying to merge all of those crazy fobs on everyone's keychains into one, and how that might be just a *little* too Big Brother. He was glad that the library does such a great job protecting everyone's privacy, and it was worth the little inconveniences (no record of borrowing history, for example).

The third involved a woman with a small boy in tow, looking for a newsletter with a copy of our monthly calendar. While our newsletter is being published weekly via a blog online only, we do have a paper copy at the Circ desk with all of the library events on it. She was talking to her son as she walked away, listing off everything she though was cool on the calendar (DDR for Kids, book groups, etc.) and said out loud, "It's the latest, it's the greatest, it's the library."

Yet another reason, and a pleasant reminder of why I don't mind working Saturdays so much. :)

10:55 AM | Permalink

December 22, 2006

Holiday time makes everything especially festive

The most interesting thing happened to me this morning. I have a reverse commute from just outside of Boston to Reading, MA up Route 93 North. On any given workday, 93 South is a veritable parking lot starting very early in the day and running until about 9:30a or so, and I always feel so bad for the travelers stuck in that mess everyday.

I need to be at the library by 9a on Fridays, and it takes about 20 minutes to drive to work sans traffic, so onto the highway I hopped this morning. What to my wondering eyes should appear all sorts of empty space on 93 South. The traffic was just as sparse and flowing as it was on my side of the highway. While I realize that the lack of cars is likely due to people starting their holiday off time early today (yesterday was the normal traffic yuck), I choose to see it as the holiday spirit somehow.

My library is all sorts of festive. We've got Holiday Goof-off time (click on the little pic for details), more sugary gifts than anyone can possibly imagine, all sorts of decorations, and holiday music playing on all of the computers at the service points. Not just your boring classics, but streaming audio from all sorts of holiday music channels with hip remixes of classics. My computer is playing The Christmas Lounge, with music from the likes of Sutro Heights, Rauder & Hobbs, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. And it was playing this when I *got* here to the Information Desk for my shift, so it's not just me.

Not to mention that our director, Ruth, was kinda enough to treat everyone in the library to lunch take-away from a local Thai place for lunch. Many, many thanks to a director who gives 150% to the library.

In the meantime, the Friends of the Library annual book sale display is almost empty, which is awesome. Every year, we order a selection of books, and sell them with proceeds going to the Friends. The Friends are the wonderful people who do all sorts of work for the library, and raise funds to provide us with financial resources for programs. Many a snack at many a program is thanks to the Friends!

Everything is decorated. We've got menorahs, trees, garlands, snowmen, wreaths, bows, and a lovely-yet-anachronistic bouquet of pink and white roses on the Information Desk. Where they came from, I don't know. But they are lovely.

The library will be closed over the weekend, but we'll be right back in the swing of things next week, offering movie nights for teens (3 nights of Lord of the Rings movies), DDR, and all sorts of other fun for the younger vacationers.

I myself will be trying to write up some of my recent adventures in librarianship, including my 3-week course in volunteer management, a really interesting 1/2 course on technology planning and management sponsored by NMRLS and WebJunction, and maybe those classes I did in CT at the beginning of the month. I'm guessing that won't count towards my Holiday Goof-off time quota, even if it's on my own blog on work time. I need to find more creative ways...

You would think that the Friday before Christmas would be dead in here. While I'm not getting as many hits on the desk as I would during a normal Friday from 2-5p, this joint is hoppin'. All 6 computers in the lab are taken, all 4 kiosk machines in front of the Information Desk are busy, students are working on National History Day projects, other patrons are picking out movies and books for the weekend, although I have no idea when they'll have time to read them. How anyone will have time to read *this*, I don't know. :D

In any case, a Happy Solstice to everyone (started last night at 7:22p, so it's technically still Solstice, thank you :D), and if I don't post again before then, a Merry Christmas to everyone, too.

2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 20, 2006

Long overdue Netguides update

Long overdue update in general, for sure.

Over the past few months, my supervisor and I have been working with Alex "The Boy Scout" to revive our old Netguides program, where high school students are trained for individualized technology help for our patrons. The project has shaken out into 3 stages:

Stage 1: Planning and compiling
This is where The Boy Scout's help will be the greatest, and will fulfill the requirements for his Eagle Scout leadership project. We didn't know in the beginning that Alex would not necessarily be working alone; as it turns out, his scoutmates are his minions, and he's in charge of managing and delegating work to the rest of his troop.

So far, he's revamped our application materials, as well as a few other odds and ends and is in the process of putting together a general manual for the program. He has also written an article for the local paper about the program, from which we received many inquiries of interest, and set up a table in the library on a Saturday to drum up interest for the program, answer questions, and hand out applications. The Boy Scout's one busy guy, let me tell you.

Other tasks for The Boy Scout include developing a manual for the Netguides themselves, developing further promotional materials, and helping with interviews, training, and evaluation for certification as a entry-level Netguide. Once this phase is complete, he's released from all duties, and will be evaluated by his troop leaders for eligibility for Eagle Scouthood.

We received 23 applications total before the deadline on December 15 (1 after which will, sadly, be ineligible), which is really way more than I expected. How many we keep will depend on all sorts of stuff from the next phase. Our plan is to schedule a general information meeting in early January for all of the applicants to explain the next steps in the process, what the commitments will be and how they can meet them, general policies, and setting up quick little 20-minute interviews to get to know them and make sure they're customer service people.

Stage 2: Training and yet more planning

How many applicants we keep will depend a great deal on how things go in the interviews, and what kind of availability everyone has. We want to make sure we can have decent coverage with whatever group we have, plus backup (since kids are really busy these days, and are also often subject to the schedule quirks of their parents/guardians/caregivers). So yeah, I'll have to get back to you on that little bit.

Once we pick our starter group, we'll run three 1-hour training sessions. These sessions will include everything from general orientation, etiquette, basic customer service concepts, dealing with difficult people, time limits, and thinking on the user level. One of my favorite exercises that my supervisor used in the last iteration of the program was teaching people to do everyday things like they've never done them before, such as tying a shoe, chewing gum and blowing a bubble, stuff like that. I have another partner exercise where one person has a picture of a house, and they describe it to their partner to draw. This gets everyone thinking outside of their experience, and thinking like the people they are helping.

After the training, we'll do an evaluation to make sure the Netguides are ready for field duty. I'm thinking a quick on-paper test, then a quick live-action scenario with a willing patron, so we can test their retention as well as their hands-on people skills.

Then comes the scheduling. There are three types of interactions for Netguides: drop-in, on-call, and by appointment. Drop-in nights will consist of 2 hours in the computer lab, where anyone can just drop by and say, "I need help with...," and spend 45 minutes with a Netguide (Netguides will get at *least* a 5-minute, ideally a 15-minute, break between patrons). On-call will mean having a Netguide chillin' or doing homework near the Information Desk, where we can summon them to help a patron with any computer needs, including using a mouse, printing a document, or filling out forms online, for example. Patrons will also be able to make an appointment with a Netguide for one-on-one help.

Stage 3: Evaluation and "graduation"

Every Netguide interaction will come with an evaluation form for the patron. Netguides will be encouraged to keep journals of their experiences, if that will help them record their progress or articulate any problems. Since many of the students will be using their hours to fulfill community service requirements for other organizations, having this documentation helps them and us in the long run. It also allows us to evaluate each student's performance, and find ways to make them happier and more productive in the program, which is important for volunteer retention.

For students who fulfill their 2 hours per month requirement, and wish to move on to other things, we'll recognize them with a certificate and letters of recommendation and whatnot, and even snacks and pizza. The volunteers who want to stick around will be made into a new and evolved breed of Netguide, who will help train new Netguides and can work on other projects should they choose. The monthly requirement will likely remain 2 hours per month, which isn't all that much, although we won't stop them if they want to do more. :)

And so the Netguide cycle will begin again.

We'll also do a little internal evaluation, look over how the logistics are working, and fix anything that needs fixing. It'll probably also involve writing a small report, so that we can lobby for funding as necessary in the new fiscal year. As it is now, we're not a line item or anything, but if we do need money for supplies or anything, we can request funding from the Friends.

Many things are still being worked out on the fly. It's very, very beta. We do anticipate popularity of the program, given that I get many queries on whether or not I do private lessons (I don't), when we'll be doing general computer everything basics classes, and when I'll be doing *more* classes (I won't). The idea is that the Netguides will help patrons, get the kids the community service hours they need, and take the pressure off me to do more classes than my schedule can sanely allow. Nevermind upholding the reputation of the library as a tech forward and friendly place. Overall I'm stoked, and I'm sure I'll be way more energetic and enthusiastic with the busy holiday season out of the way.

Happy Hannukah 6 nights in, by the way!

6:28 PM | Permalink

November 29, 2006

Continuing ed classes at SCSU

Things have been a bit crazy busy, what with all the stuff going on at RPL (gearing up for Netguides, the launch of NetLibrary eAudiobooks and MP3 players for borrowing, our LSTA grant for promoting databases, and the regular everyday stuff of my job, all of which warrant their own posts), taking on the PLA Blog in-full, and dab of public speaking, not to mention just general life stuff. So crazy busy, it's been hard to find the time or the energy to *write* about it all, even though I very much want to.

The NAHSL presentations I did back in October (posting forthcoming) led to a gig doing continuing education classes for the Southern Connecticut State University Information and Library Science program this coming Friday, December 1. I'll be teaching two 3.5-hour classes, one on Social Bookmarking for Librarians and another on The Art of the Wiki. I'll be posting both presentations after Friday sometime for your general perusal. If you're in the New Haven area, and you'd like to attend either class, you can contact the SCSU ILS folks and find out how (the information isn't on their site for some reason).

I'm finding it interesting trying to create classes for librarians who don't live online when I have no real sense of what they know and what they don't know. With patrons it's different, because I can somehow gauge the average skill on my interactions with everyday patrons as well as the regulars in my classes, and put together something that's balanced enough to fly with everyone, but flexible enough to change on the fly to better meet the class needs.

With librarians, since we have no real, solid, standardized, across-the-board technology competencies for our profession, it's a bit hit or miss. It could be that I'm preaching to the choir for three hours, or it could be that I need to do way more backpedaling than I originally anticipated, never getting to the hands-on component of the class.

The up side is that I made presenting the class in a technology lab a requirement. I can't express enough the need for anyone learning technology to have hands-on time with the technology, where the student is the driver of the mouse, must take the time and brainpower to logic it out, and has the opportunity to commit some of the information to even the vaguest of muscle memory, even if they don't remember everything exactly later.

Don't get me wrong, I do offer classes at my library that are presentation-only (my Getting Started with eBay and Getting Started with Craig's List classes are my first foray into the presentation-only realm) for broad overviews to get patrons started and encourage them to explore on their own, which they often do as a result of the class. But when it comes to the HOWTO stuff, as most people know, reading the instructions is one thing, understanding them well enough to do it is another. If you have someone in the room to help you logic it out and correct your mistakes, with a trusty handout by your side and other people to commiserate with ;D, you're more likely to really *learn* something. My Geek Out classes are a prime example of this.

In any case, I should be getting ready for work. Stealing snippets of time to post has been difficult lately, but I wanted to make an effort to populate my sorry-looking empty home page with something interesting and substantial to renew the faith of my readers, and for a greater part *myself*, in my blog, even as my blog has been rebelling against me (problems with the software, no stats, upgrading to MT 3.33 because I haven't had time to finish the WordPress shift, bleh). More positive things are head, I'm sure!

8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 6, 2006

Interfiling: like embellishing a basket

Yet another reason to love my library. We try stuff, see if it works, entertain new ideas, and try something different if it doesn't work out. We've got a lot of new stuff coming up (I've been remiss to write, there's a lot going on in my non-library life, and blogging here has unfortunately taken a back seat), but I wanted to highlight this while it was fresh.

A few months back, different departments at my library began a discussion on interfiling the nonfiction DVDs. I can't remember where it started, but like just about everything else here, it was a multi-department, synergistic brainstorming and effort to decide if it was a good idea, and how and when it should be done.

Over the past little while, we've been moving things around quite a bit. A flooding incident necessitated closing our nonfiction area (the entire basement) for repairs, which meant moving quite a few things around to keep them accessible, including our very popular DVD collection. We liked some of the changes so much, that with a few tweaks, we kept them. For instance, the DVDs are now upstairs with the bestsellers near the circ desk (which is the first thing you see when you walk in), instead of in the basement with the CDs and VHS tapes. Not that our circ figures on the DVDs were shabby before, but high-traffic + high-demand = high circ + better security. Not as many disappearing DVD discs as before.

(We might be moving our CDs upstairs, too, but it would require a bit more layout finagling, and a bit more planning.)

We started out a little while back interfiling the DVDs, cassettes, and CDs for language with the language books in the stacks. It just seemed silly to say, "Go one room over to the shelf with the CDs and tapes, then go downstairs on that side to the DVDs and VHS tapes, then go to this row downstairs on the other side of the floor for the books." One stop just seemed to make the most sense, and it's been working so far.

Today, the interfiling of the nonfiction DVDs begins. It's not so much like patching holes in a basket, as carefully adding embellishments to a basket that could just use some sprucing. Now the "learn to play guitar" DVD can be found with the "learn to play guitar" books for music enthusiasts, and all of our WWII documentaries will live with the matching book materials, which will work out nicely for history buffs and students doing reports. You know, like mini points of service on different topics with different content media. Like, say, doing a search on the web and seeing web sites, blogs, news hits, YouTube videos, and podcasts, but, you know, more static. Reading residents might get less exercise running around, but I think they'll be OK with that. ;D

I don't know if other libraries do this, or how many. I don't know if there are librarians crawling out of their skins as they read this, or nodding their heads in firm agreement, or not really knowing out to react. I'm just not sure, but I definitely feel like sharing. I, professionally, think it's a smashing idea, and I think our patrons will like it. Sure, there will be a few puzzled looks for a while, and some "where did that move to *now*?" murmurs, even with all the moving from construction well behind us. But, overall, people tend to like our changes, and I think they'll like this one as well.

It does bring up the interesting question of whether or not to move the VHS nonfiction tapes, too. They do still circulate a good deal, and it would be nice for people to know that they have VHS options if all of the DVDs are out. My guess is that we won't, since they don't circ nearly as much as the DVDs, and they make a significantly more sizeable footprint than DVDs on the shelves.

Who knows, we'll see. :)

11:21 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2006

The charming business of reference

An older, retired gentleman kissed my hand at the reference desk today.

A few months back, we started offering fax services at the library. So many people asked if we offered faxing, and upon assessing that we could offer the service without significant negative footprint to our day-to-day business, we decided, "Why not?" For a nominal fee of $1.00/page, patrons can send outgoing faxes right from the Information Desk, where we also offer notary service (all reference librarians are notary publics). And we get quite a bit of traffic on our cranky-but-serviceable little fax monster.

Anyway, the aforementioned older gent comes to the Information Desk at the library three times a week to fax his timesheet for his part-time job. His days start rather early (today he lamented he had been up since 4:30am), but what bothers him more than the early hours is the fact that he needs to fax his timesheets in three times a week.

We have taken to affectionately calling this particular patron "Fax Man," and he is well aware of his moniker. There is a certain level of aloof familiarity that comes with regular patrons who make us smile, and so when he approached the desk, I was naturally conversational, but not so much that it could be misconstrued as *too* special. After his comment about disliking all the faxing, I replied, cheerful and somewhat matter-of-fact, that if he didn't have all of this faxing, he wouldn't get to come visit us at the library as much.

The man held out his hand, and said thank you, and I reached across the desk to shake it. Much to my surprise, as he told me I was right, and thanked me for making such an astute point, he kissed my hand with a 1950s-style politeness, and told me I was very charming. I told him we all do what we can. :)

I've had some ups and downs lately that have made me feel everything less than charming overall, nevermind in my interactions at the desk. As a librarian, I am a customer service representative for a community and information service point, it's really, really hard to just call in cranky or not-so-service-inclined. Sometimes I just strap on the, "No, really, I'm polite, I can help you," mask and do my job. Today it felt natural, and it was nice to be noticed for it, so I thought I'd share. :)

3:17 PM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

The Boy Scout comes through

As I've mentioned before, I'm working on a project at Reading Public Library to revive the Netguides program. Netguides is a program where volunteers (mostly teens) are recruited and trained to be one-on-one technology help for patrons.

The Boy Scout (who has taken on the Netguides revival as his Eagle Scout project) has finally received approval from the elders, which means we can finally get started.

The Boy Scout will serve as a jack-of-all-trades in this project in roles that will more than cover the leadership requirement for Eagle Scouthood. He will help us assemble the physical manual as well as the content of the manual, which will contain policies, procedures, and forms; help to formulate a marketing campaign for the program, including logos and flyers; recruit fellow boy scouts and other teens to apply to the program; assist in choosing from the applicants; and assist in the Netguide training process. Once this is all set, we'll have an established program that helps the community, and he'll be released to his Eagle Scout nest.

We had all hoped (The Boy Scout, my boss, me, The Boy Scout's Mom) that this project would be accomplished over the summer, so that we could have the program in place for the fall, but the approval process took all summer. So, the current plan is to have The Boy Scout start on the manual and recruitment portion now, and plan on training teens over the winter break for launch in January/February.

The Netguides program will dovetail nicely with my upcoming class schedule, allowing me to offer a wider variety of courses while the Netguides cover Mousing Around, Basic Internet, as well as offering one-on-one help in the Geek Out Don't Freak Out classes. It will also work nicely with the Statewide Database and Promotion LSTA grant (scroll to the bottom of the page to see the abstract) we received to promote databases, freeing up time for me to work on the grant classes, and possibly assisting us in the grant classes or providing grant class follow up help.

So. Very. Excited. I'll keep you posted.

11:04 AM | Permalink

Once devoted, now perfidious

I've been really happy with our public computer setup for a while now. We went from heavily locked down Windows 2000 machines, some of which were old and clunky on top of being on an antiquated operating system, to Windows XP machines that better mirror a normal computing environment with features (including Deep Freeze) that prevent anyone from breaking them.

About three weeks ago, one of the computers in our Computer Lab started acting a little funny. It was just the one computer, and since not every patron reports a problem with a computer (most likely for fear of being blamed for the problem), we don't know how long it was happening before that, if at all.

The monitor would just turn off in the middle of work, and not turn back on again. The computer would stay on, and no amount of wiggling the mouse, turning the monitor off and on again, or tapping the keyboard keys would do anything. I tried to shut down the computer using a key sequence (if you hit the Windows button on the keyboard, then hit U and U again, provided there isn't anything in your start menu that also starts with U, you can actually shut down your machine), the using Control-Alt-Delete (something I try only in bad situations), but neither worked.

Ultimately, I had to resort to the most awful solution: holding down the power button on the computer for 10 seconds until the machine powered itself down, and then pushing the power button again to turn it back on, a tactic that really shouldn't be used unless all else fails.

The machine came back up, and the monitor worked fine. However, given any indiscriminate period of time, the problem would happen again. From what we could tell, and from what patrons told us, there didn't seem to be anything obvious that caused this cute little problem. With just one machine exhibiting the problem, we figured we had 5 other computers in the lab (plus the 2 in the reference room, 1 in the business center, and 4 kiosk machines for basic web) to tide us over while we brought the infidel back into the fold of functioning public terminals.

Then the others started to follow suit. The 4 other Dell Optiplex 270s in the Computer Lab starting turning against us, a nearly full-scale technology mutiny. All except the 1 Dell Optiplex 280 seemed to be immune to this little quirk.

To our knowledge, there is a known hardware problem with some of the capacitors on the motherboards in the 270s, so, in a way, they can't be blamed for the madness. However, that problem generally causes the entire computer to turn off spontaneously, not the monitors. At first I ventured a guess that it was the video card that was the issue, since I tested the computers with a brand new LCD monitor which had no positive effect on the issue (and ruled out the dying monitor theory, which was my very first guess). But, since we've since found that the issue can be recreated by browsing through directories (folders) on the computer, the new guess is that it's not the video card, but still something either a) hardware in nature, or b) related to a recent Windows update that could be conflicting with hardware drivers.

Or something.

The latest news is that our town tech support has ordered hardware replacements from Dell (in accordance with our warranty contract) for the machines, but due to the part-time nature of my position, the fact that town tech support is 2 people with barely enough time to email updates, and the fact that my boss is on vacation this week, I don't have all the details quite yet. We're hoping the hardware replacements will fix the problem very soon.

All this to explain that this one computer issue has pretty much preempted a good deal of my other work for the past several weeks. (And, for those of you who have never been party to this kind of troubleshooting, hopefully this gives you a helpful inside look.) It's been keeping me pretty busy on several different fronts, from hands-on troubleshooting to communicating with various forms of tech support to explaining the issue to staff, and determining how to explain it to patrons. Not to mention the stress of having a substantial library service, for all intents and purposes, not available. However, everyone has been working as a team, which makes it all a bit easier.

All the same, it's pretty big, and has required many deep, cleansing breaths.

9:51 AM | Permalink

One step forward, two steps back

I'm not sure how the summer got away from me. I think that it has something to do with the post-ALA syndrome of coming back and trying to catch up after a week away, and then never really being caught up until a few months later.

After ALA, I came back to my new schedule of 25 hours a week, which is a huge shift from 10-17 hours a week. It requires a complete revamp of my current schedule, since I have projects for PLA and my own bloggy fun to work in my non-library hours, plus just my regular work from home routine, which usually consists of multitasking between work, life, and household stuff.

Let's just say I'm still not settled into a schedule, and it's been a little crazy.

However, I do feel like I'm getting a little closer to something I can call normal.

As was anticipated, we had no problems filling my new hours at work. When I say "we," I mean me, my boss, other staff, and, most influentially, the computers. I kid you not; the computers at the library have suddenly become very, very needy. But I'll get to that in a later post, to break up this updated into bite-sized chunks. No need to choke you all with a long post after such a long period of radio silence. :)

Overall, things are going well. I'll post some updates on the projects I've been working on, my normal class planning fun, and some new and interesting things that have been added to my bag o' responsibilities at work.

9:38 AM | Permalink

July 6, 2006

Benefits are weird

Thanks to the hard work and support of the director of my library, my supervisor, the staff, and the voting fabulousness of the town of Reading, I now not only have more hours at my library (technically, 26.5/week), but I also have benefits.

To give you some background, I originally started at Reading Public Library at 10.5 hrs/wk, without benefits. (Yep, everything that I was talking about doing was fit into that little amount of time. I'm big on process efficiency and stuff.) I was in complete and total understanding that 10.5 hrs may be all there ever was for this position, and that no promises could be made for more, which I accepted without argument or issue.

Round about January, my supervisor Lorraine had mentioned that they had hoped to petition for more hours in my position, but that it didn't appear possible, but since I knew about the conditions ahead of time, I didn't really feel disappointed. I continue to be amazed that they pay me to have as much fun as I do, and the finances are just about comfortable for my husband and I, so it's all good.

Then the campaign began.

Ruth, the director at my library, decided that I simply needed more hours. Now, we all knew that I needed more hours, but budgets being what they are, I knew it might be difficult. But Ruth was simply her diplomatically diligent self (a condition I think of as "Ruthless" in a good way) when it came to getting me these hours, and she had lots of ammunition from Lorraine and the rest of the staff, as well as from my accomplishments thus far.

In February or so, I did a presentation for the selectmen of the town about the state of technology in the library. I highlighted the complete overhall of all 22 public machines, the existence of our wiki-as-intranet, the computer classes I teach (including the Geek Out Don't Freak Out sessions), the GIS stuff we were doing with the town GIS person (Reading has a GIS person on payroll, which is just so hot), anything I could think of. They were duly impressed with my presentation skills and accomplishments, and I received an email from the town budget guy saying that he hoped they could get the town even within just 10 years of the library's technology.

So what started as no money for more hours evolved into 26.5 hrs/wk (that includes one Saturday per month), and *benefits*. I have the option for medical and dental (which I have gobs of through my husband, who works for a pharma company and has the best benefits ever, so I'll be opting out), and paid holidays.

The assistant director, who handles timesheets before they go to the town, came in to explain the holidays, since I had my first holiday on Tuesday for July 4th. Now, I would normally work Tuesday night, so I took the hours (I technically get 5.3 hrs/holiday, through a complicated matrix of figuring I won't explain here), but so many of our holidays fall on Mondays -- a day when I don't work at all -- that the concept of getting money for days I don't work is weird. Turns out I need to take the Monday holiday hours off during another part of the week, so that I, too, get a holiday like the other Monday workers, and still get paid. This hurts my head immensely. Benefits are just weird. I mean, it's good, but still.

9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 4, 2006

All sorts of fabulous news

For about a year now, people have been asking me if I've been looking for full-time work, and if I'd leave my job for a full-time gig. For about a year now, I've been telling people that I won't leave my job for the world, and that I'd work part-time at Reading Public Library for the rest of my life if I could make it so.

As it turns out, my library has definitely shown me some love in return. The director of my library went to the mat for me with the town, and my supervisor in information services as well as just about everyone else I work with there, really have been so very supportive! So it is with much joy and professional glee that I announce that I now have a *benefited* position at RPL, with more hours. The exact number is still up in the air, but I'll have at *least* 20 hours a week, probably about 25 is my guestimate. I'll still be able to travel working for the PLA Blog (where my contract has been renewed for another year), and yet have more time for more fabulous projects at RPL.

But wait, there's more!

I have acquired a volunteer. She's a sophomore in high school, and she's delightful. Her job will be to serve as an extra set of hands in my classes for patrons who may need a little extra help keeping up (even when I'm going pretty slow), and she'll also be able to help with some of the more administrative bits of classwork, like making reminder phone calls and printing handouts. And, well, whatever else she might find interesting. She says she'll stay as long as she can (as long as she's not bored), and you can probably imagine working with me is pretty entertaining, so there's no such thing as bored in my joint. Her first class with me is the AIM chat class I'm teaching next Wednesday.

Good things, like bad things, come in threes, it seems.

One day a few months ago, I had an idea. Not really a unique idea, but still, a good idea. Wouldn't it be awesome to have a team of volunteers who could help patrons with one-on-one technology assistance? Maybe offer a few drop-in nights each month where people can come in, ask questions, work on tutorials with guided help, learn to use a mouse, whatever? Heck, maybe even have one just hanging around, to give us reference librarians a hand at the desk when we're busy, someone to just help people get around a computer when we have 5 patrons waiting for us (because, you know, that happens in my library)? You know, without cloning myself, and still being able to keep up my class schedule, my tech plan work, staff training, and desk hours.

Apparently, our library did run a program like this a while back called Netguides, which actually got written up in a book (the title of which escapes me), and my boss was totally hip to the idea of resurrecting the program. And, as it turns out, about the same time I mentioned this idea to my supervisor, she told me there was a Boy Scout in Reading with leadership aspirations on a mission to become an Eagle Scout, in need of a project.

He was shopping around the town departments, checking to see who had what for him to do. After a few months of back and forth, I had a phone call with him a few weeks ago, where I was talking up our project (it was between the library and a web project at the fire station). We finally had a meeting with "The Boy Scout," as I've come to refer to him, and it sounds like once he gets approval from his unit leader, he's all ours, and we can have the Netguides program up and running by summer. My new, more copious hours will definitely come in handy on this one.

While there's tons more to talk about (our recent staff day field trip was a blast, I've attended some really nifty webinars, there are a few issues and ideas floating around on which I'd like to weigh in, and I'm working on some interesting developments for the PLA Blog), I figure this is a good start for now.

And comments on this blog, henceforth, will be turned on. :)

3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 24, 2006

Near north of Boston? Come to a free talk about bullying

I've heard more than my fair share of stories of bullying, between kids, at adults, in schools, in libraries. Since my library is offering this extra-groovy *free* program, I thought I'd give it a little plug (text care of the current issue of the RPL Off The Shelf newsletter).

***
SPOTLIGHT ON DOUG WILHELM
"You never know what a big deal bullying is until it happens to you"
Chelsea Tice
Middle Schooler
From The Revealers website: http://www.the-revealers.com/

Does bullying exist in Reading's Middle Schools? Despite a growing recognition of the seriousness of this problem, some adults rationalize or cover-up bullying. Others deny its seriousness sighting a lack of concrete evidence to warrant concern. Strangely enough, it is these attitudes that perpetuate bullying ---creating an environment where students are often too distracted to learn and where they frequently feel threatened, isolated and depressed.

Author Doug Wilhelm asked Middle School students from three schools in his home state of Vermont about their real experiences with bullying in school. From physical abuse to physiological bombardments, Wilhelm shares his findings in his latest novel, The Revealers, wherein a group of students ally themselves to "out" the dreadful reality of bullying in their school.

Mr. Wilhelm will be this year's Visiting Author, and will be in Reading on April 27-28. As in past years, the author will be visiting both Middle Schools and will also provide an evening program at the Library.

This year's evening program, "Bullies," is Thursday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m. in the Meeting Room of the Library. This is a free program, open to all parents, teachers, librarians, and students.

The Visiting Author Program is funded through a cooperative effort of the Friends of the Reading Public Library and the Parker and Coolidge Parent-Teacher Associations. This visit is also partially funded by a grant from the Reading Cultural Council. Join our special guest, Doug Wilhelm, for a discussion of his writing on this important topic.

MORE BOOKS ABOUT BULLYING

FOR TEENS
Fat Boy Swim by Catherine Forde (2004) Teen Fiction.
Teased and abused for being grossly overweight, Jimmy, a fourteen-year-old Scottish teenager who dreams mysterious dreams and secretly aspires to become a chef, decides to turn his self-loathing life around by learning how to swim.

So You Want to Be a Wizard? by Diane Duane (1983). Teen paperback.
Thirteen-year-old Nita, tormented by a gang of bullies because she won't fight back, finds the help she needs in a library book on wizardry which guides her into another dimension.

Drowning Anna by Sue Mayfield (2002). Teen Fiction.
The novel begins with Anna's suicide attempt, and as she hangs between life and death, the events of the past unfold. This is a moving novel that accurately portrays the cruel bullying that many teenagers experience.

Odd Girl Speaks Out: Girls Write about Bullies, Cliques, Popularity, and Jealousy by Rachel Simmons (2004). TEEN 305.2308 ODD

FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS
And Words Can Hurt Forever: How to Protect Adolescents from Bullying, Harassment, and Emotional Violence by James Garbarino and Ellen deLara (2002). 649.125 GAR
***

Directions to Reading Public Library
From Route 128 take exit 38B toward Reading. Exit 38B is Route 28. Follow Route 28 to the center of town, the Town Hall will be on the left. Make a left onto Route 129. Make a left onto Middlesex Avenue. The Library is just ahead on the left at 64 Middlesex Avenue.

7:07 PM | Permalink

April 20, 2006

Patrons wonder at emoticons, think they're cute

Yesterday I taught my first Email for Beginners class. I had advertised the class as a "set up an web email account and learn how to use it" sort of outfit, but interestingly enough half of my attendees already had email accounts, and the other half didn't. I thought this might present a few intersting problems, but since I collect email addresses from those who willingly volunteer them at class registration (I send out email reminders to them instead of calling, according to their preferences), I was able to track down the webmail URL for their respective services, so that they could learn to use their existing email in the class. The timing worked out better than I expected, since it took the people with email addresses about the same amount of time to find and log into their webmail as it did the newbies to sign up for accounts on Yahoo! Mail (which has, by the way, some really nice email tutorials for patrons to refer to).

Originally there were 8 patrons signed up for the class, and 4 people on the wait list. Despite the fact that I left reminder messages for all of the attendees saying that if they couldn't come to please call to open up seats to the wait list, only 4 of my students showed up. I know the people on the wait list really wanted to come, so the whole thing was really frustrating. I'm contemplating keeping track of the people who skip class often, and perhaps after a certain number of infractions telling them that they will be placed on the wait list for any future classes they sign up for. Especially since, as it is now, almost all of my classes have 4-8 people on the wait list, and I don't want them to miss out because of no-shows. I might also call people on the wait list and tell them that they are welcome to come down and see if anyone doesn't show to fill the seats. Alternately, I could beat bad patrons with a stick, but I'm guessing that's all sorts of illegal. ;)

Long story long, I had 4 students yesterday afternoon.

I find it interesting how little self confidence people have when they're sitting in front of a computer. I'm not trying to be snide or anything here, and this is not just the knowledgeable techie in me talking. I really do feel like most of my job is to instill people with faith in themselves. I do find that the people who attend my classes are able to take what they learn and apply it to computer situations that are unfamiliar to them. I tend to give out lots of little tips here and there, in bite-sized chunks, that they can take away with them, and I see them apply some of those bites in other classes, which is really cool to watch.

In teaching webmail, the easiest part seems to be filling out the form. The hardest part seems to be trying to disconnect the concept of email from all of the other, bigger computer and internet concepts long enough for them to understand that everything on the screen really means what they think it means, and that it really is that simple.

But the most fun of all is explaining culture. Much like the IM discussion that was going on over at Mark's blog, while email can be used just as a tool (write a message, send, be done), email can also carry a bit of internet culture. Emoticons, phrase abbreviations, writing and reading styles, all feed into a sort of cult of email. OK, not really a cult, but a subset of internet culture that really does exist. In teaching people how to use email, I feel it's my responsibility to teach them about cultural aspects, and good etiquette. And, well, in my mind, the understanding and appropriate use of emoticons is totally a (very fun) part of that.

I wrote a colon and a close parens on the board, and told everyone to tilt their heads to the left, then asked them what they saw, remembering fondly the first time I saw a smiley and was told to tilt my head. After a few chuckles, I tried a colon and an open parens, then a semicolon and a clost parens, etc. Everyone thought it was really very nifty as I explained that emoticons show up in email, in IM, on bulletin boards, all over the internet. I encouraged them to use them, and to look them up if they ever didn't understand one. Meanwhile, I explained that they could use them and look all sorts of wicked cool and old-school, which they seemed to like.

Then we covered LOL and LMAO (and me saying the word "ass" in class actually went over with lots of laughter) and a few abbreviations they might see here and there. When I talked about the concept of SHOUTING, I actually saw someone go back to the message they were composing and quickly start deleting and retyping. While I didn't talk too much about copying original messages in replies, I did mention it in the handout. It was a festive time.

Most patrons are generally suprised that I'm so patient in class, especially given that they make so many mistakes (their words, not mine), and that I'm a techie person (everyone's had bad experiences with the impatient, know-it-all tech types). I actually had one patron tell me that it's usually these mistakes that cause her to give up, and that at home her husband doesn't have the patience to explain everything. I told her that she's not allowed to give up in my class, and that she can keep coming back to take as many classes and ask as many questions as she likes. She learned a lot yesterday, went home proud of herself, and she's signed up for 5 more of my classes.

So yeah, it was a good class. I had fun, they had fun, and typed emoticons are still just a little hip in the age of smiley icons.

11:01 AM | Permalink

April 12, 2006

Teaching kids about geocaching at my library

When I received the current issue of Off The Shelf newsletter (the weekly newsletter for my library, published on a blog, with an RSS feed, an email counterpart, and an edited version in the local paper) last Thursday, it was noted that Rachel Baumgartner, one of our Swiss Army knife librarians (she works reference, children's, *and* local history, and she does a wicked good job at them all) would be leading a nature walk for kids and parents in the Reading forest. On top of being a very diverse librarian, she's quite the green thumb extraordinaire (you should see her yard and plants, they're beautiful!), so she really knows her nature.

My husband and I are big on getting out into nature: hiking, walking, camping, canoeing, all that. So I emailed Rachel to see if she'd be scheduling a nature walk for grown ups, since we'd like that a lot, but we're not much for kids.

Flash forward to Sunday, when my husband and I are breaking in our brand new waffle iron (our first official wedding gift). I get a call from Rachel saying that she and her husband are going on a nature walk that very afternoon, and would we like to come. So post-waffleage, my husband and I got ourselves together for an outdoor jaunt. Camera, check. Digital binoculars, check. Water and snacks, check. Geocaching bag, check.

Geocaching bag?

Yup. My husband and I are of the breed of nature and tech geeks that like to wander around holding a GPS on a scavenger hunt for a little container filled with suprises and a log book, making every effort to avoid muggles finding us out. We spent our entire minimoon on a geocaching adventure, we like it so much. It's a fun way to get out into nature, or even just explore a city, since you can find caches in just about any setting. Since we were going out into nature, I checked the Geocaching.com site for a cache that might be near where we might be, stuffed the coordinates into the backpack filled with our geocaching supplies (GPS, trinkets for cache swap, Cache In Trash Out kit, headlamp, extra pencils and paper, etc., all in a ziplock bag), and off we went.

We figured that if the cache was near our walk, we'd bump into it, but if not, we'd hit it after the walk on our own. Turns out our walking companions were intrigued (I'd talked about geocaching at work before), and since the cache wasn't on our path, we hopped in the car and headed in the direction of the coordinates in the GPS (by now, Rachel's husband also had his GPS out, and we were all tracking it). Luckily enough, Rachel found the cache (which doesn't always happen), did our swap, took some photos, and headed on out.

As the fun was being had, the ideas were flying. I'd always thought that there should be a virtual cache at the library, just because that would be cool (I'll be working on that soon). Rachel was thinking even bigger to the children's summer reading program, where the theme is games.

So we are now looking at creating and placing 3 library-sponsored, family-friendly caches in Reading, MA. We'll be looking for little stuffed animals to represent Reado, our kids summer program mascot, and Chumley, the kids room gerbil who will be the subject of a kidnapping-whodunnit for the kids this summer, to place in the caches, and probably adding some travel bugs, too. Perhaps we'll be able to swing buying 3 GPS units for the library to check out to patrons, if we can get them at a cheap enough price used. Rachel asked me if I'd do a program/presentation about geocaching for kids grade 3-5 and parents, and show off my geocaching bag ;D. Such a super keen thing. I even volunteered to do a field trip to one of our caches. In future, we could even do workshops on creating caches with kids.

And this is how the library newsletter and an afternoon in the woods created a wonderfully interactive and fun program for the community and the staff at my library. Thought I'd share.

2:38 PM | Permalink

March 20, 2006

A note of clarity on my employment status

On a few occasions during my trip, and in a few emails in recent months from readers, there have been questions regarding the status of my employment, and/or inquiries on whether or not I'd be willing to relocate or switch jobs.

I haven't updated my "About the author" page in way too long (even after Walt Crawford sent me a note to poke me about it; I even gave him permission to mock me openly if I didn't do it in a timely fashion). But I'm fixing that today.

In the meantime, just to clarify, I currently work for two employers: Reading Public Library (henceforth abbreviated RPL) in Reading, MA, where I am a Reference & Techie Librarian (yup, my official title), and PLA, where I co-manage the PLA Blog with Steven M. Cohen. While the PLA position is quite flexible and can pretty much be worked at any domestic location, the RPL position is very fixed.

There are three words I most often (and in *very* good humor) use in response to efforts at recruitment away from my RPL position: cold dead fingers. That's right, kids, I only work there 12 hrs/wk (it's really 10.5 hrs plus one
Saturday a month, but the weekly number works out to 12), but I wouldn't leave my job for the world, I love the job and the staff so much (and it helps that they love me back, too). I often reassure my supervisor (head of information services) as well as other staff at the library that the only way I would leave is for someone to pry the job from my cold dead fingers. And it's totally true.

I've also been asked if I'm holding out for full-time, or would rather have a full-time job elsewhere. My answer is: not really. While I wouldn't cry if RPL gave me more hours (with all the things I do with so few hours, imagine the stuff I could do with more!), as a part-time librarian I can continue to work and travel for the PLA Blog, as well as speaking and training engagements.

Cold. Dead. Fingers. I'm just saying. :)

7:03 PM | Permalink

February 16, 2006

Summer program theme: "Let the Games Begin!"

I just found out that the summer program theme at my library is going to be games. Games, games, games.

I'm the happiest librarian alive. Seriously, I am all sorts of giddy.

I'm thinking perhaps I might need to host a Shadowfist mini tourney or something here at the library. Or maybe a girl game night with multiple copies of Lunch Money. And I'm sure I'll be bringing in all sorts of stuff from home for displays and such.

I know the library is buying DDR and a game console for the open house on March 4... perhaps they'll do a DDR tourney over the summer, too.

So. Much. Love.

3:26 PM | Permalink

January 5, 2006

The "Running of the Patrons"

Everyone knows about the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. You may have heard of the Running of the Brides at Filene's Basement. But have you ever in your life heard of the Running of the Patrons in Reading, Massachusetts?

My library keeps the most recent 24 issues (I think, I'm not at the library right now) of any magazine we subscribe to in the Magazines and Newspapers section of the library on the first floor near the Information Desk. However, we keep another 2 (or so) years of copies in the basement near the Movies and CDs. All but the most recent copy of our magazines can be checked out just like our other items.

Every year, we purge our older magazines and newspapers in the basement. I've only been at Reading a little over six months, so I've never experienced the Running of the Patrons first-hand, but I've heard stories. People wait outside the library, much like shoppers waiting at the doors of retail stores at 4:30am on Black Friday, just to be one of the first to rummage and grab. It's all done in a first-come fashion, so if you snooze, you will lose. From what I've heard, everything goes, there's little left over, and it's pretty much chaos all around. There have even been small squabbles.

I just got the email stating that February 18 is this year's Running date. Luckily, I don't think this is the year we're giving away the 2004 stuff, which means that we have the Red Sox stuff for another year or two, at least (I think we even took all that stuff out so as not to lose it; we might be selling that stuff on eBay or keeping it or something). But I do know that the magazines that get stolen most often (Cooking Light in particular) go first and quickly.

I'm not working that Saturday, but I think I might go up, just to experience it for myself. And I'm *so* taking pictures.

6:07 PM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

I learned to fix stuff

Through a creative reorganizing of the desk schedule, I was able to attend a NMRLS workshop on Basic Book Repair yesterday. I wanted to take this class while I was at Simmons, but the class fills up quickly (I think the archives concentrators get dibs, too), so I never got a chance to. Honestly, I'm glad I got to take it this way, because it was free, and way more fun.

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, who is on staff at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, came in to teach the class (which was taught, lucky me, at Reading Public Library). After a quick tour of the University Products catalog and a brief overview of the bare minimum tools you need for a basic book repair kit (microspatula, bone folder, cork-backed straight edge, really sharp cutting edge, neutral pH glue, document tape), we dug right in.

Interesting things I learned about supplies include:

• Apparently, Elmer's glue is the work of the devil. It's way too acidic for books, and can cause damage in the long run. Best to invest in a neutral pH adhesive.


• You may think scotch tape is OK, but it's not. Scotch tape dries over time, discolors, and the adhesives are also, like the devil glue, to acidic. Even for magazines, document tape is better (although, really, you could use the "magic tape" found in tech services in a pinch for magazines, though you shouldn't use it on books at all, really.)


• Microspatulas are the most adorable things ever. And they're useful.


• If you use clear covers on your books (the kind you use to cover the jackets), don't use vinyl. Mylar or some polyacetate blend is best, since vinyl, over time, breaks down into bad things including hydrochloric acid, which is officially bad for books.

Things we weren't allowed to use:

• Scissors: If you've got a sharp cutting edge, a straight edge, and a cutting board, you should use those instead. You get better, even cuts that way.


• Rubber bands: If you really need to hold something together, cotton tape is best. Rubber bands can add variable amounts of tension that can fluctuate between not doing the job and harming the book, not to mention you could get popped in the eye with a dry rubber band that snaps or something like that.

The supply list for the class recommended that we all bring books in various states of disrepair (I mostly grabbed deacquisitioned Reading books off of the victim cart at the front of the room). For any task where we didn't have a book with a specific injury, we made one. This was particularly difficult for some people in the room. I thought it was pretty cool.

We used knitting needles and glue to repair loose spine hinges, document tape and japanese tissue to repair tears and torn out pages, glue, microspatulas, and bulldog clips to repair "bunged-up" book corners (that's official lingo, you know), and even buckram cloth to repair a spine. I kept all of my test subjects, and brought home my spine fix, a large print copy of Danielle Steele's Message from Nam.

The class was lots of fun. I sew, and I've always been a creatively crafty gal, so there was very little learning curve for me as long as the steps made sense. I really liked that Gregor emphasized that you should use the book to measure things instead of using rulers, since the book really gave you all the information you needed. And he made us all feel like we could do it. I'm totally going to put together a mending kit of the basics for my home library, and make the purchase list for Reading of the bare-bones supplies.

Aside from the actual hands-on, Gregor share lot's of other information. One note that might be of interest to reference purchasers is that while you may think that a hardcover book has a longer shelf life than a softcover book, they are both bound the same way, so the bindings have the same shelf life. From experience, I know that a hardcover reference book lives better on the shelf, since it does less of that weird bending and stands upright better, but at the same time, hardcover reference books can cost way more than their paperback counterparts, if they're even available. His advice: buy the paperback, and send it to a rebindering for a hardcover. The rebindering will do what's called a "double fan glue" on it, which makes the book more durable, then they'll add a better hard cover to it than the publisher would. From what I can tell, it would only really work well if you had a bulk order, but it could be less expensive in the long run in terms of the initial purchase cost and the future repair costs. You know, when you're not replacing them every few years anyway. Interesting advice.

The other bit he mentioned was a documentary called "SLOW FIRES: On the Preservation of the Human Record" by Terry Sanders and Freida Lee. I wasn't entirely paying attention (I was trying to remove the excess glue from a spine tab without getting it all over the book), but he mentioned something about books "burning from the inside" due to high levels of sulphuric acid used in book making (or as a by-product of deterioration of materials, or something). I'll be putting this movie on my request list.

If you can, take one of these classes, no matter where you work in the library. It's nice to know how to make the simple fixes, and you might learn other random, interesting stuff.

6:17 PM | Permalink

"If you want something done - ask a busy blogger."

A whole lot's been going on at work, and with NaNoWriMo and the holidays to contend with, I've gone almost completely LibraryTechtonics AWOL. On one hand it makes me sad; I've got a pile of things to blog, and I haven't had a moment to give them. On the other hand, I feel like different things in general life and at work (at Reading and for PLA) are falling into better place, so I think balance will return soon. If I can just keep from getting sick every time I go away from home, it would be much easier. (Both the husband and I came back from Thanksgiving with a bug. Hurray. Honest. I'm ecstatic.)

The title on this post was a line in an email from one of my fellow librarians at Reading. (Alas, while I've been super busy, I haven't really been good about getting back on the blogging horse. The irony!) One of the many fabulous things that's happened at work at Reading is that we've been able to get computers on the desks of all of the librarians. Yep, we each have our *own* computer. I opted out of the purchase, since I take my laptop to work everyday, and it seemed right by me to save the money on the extra computer.

The previous workroom setup was such that there were 3 shared computers running Windows 2000 (eewwww!) with horribly inefficient configurations, all sorts of infected with spyware and all sorts of other nonsense. I believe the funding came from the Foundation (hurray!) to acquire new computers for all of the reference librarians, the children's librarian, and an extra computer for any employee in the library to use.

What I found most interesting about the entire transition was the necessary changes to the environment that needed to be made so that each desk could accomodate a computer, monitor, and keyboard. Reading Public Library as a building was an elementary school once upon a time, so the rooms are big with outlets distributed sparingling along the walls, and each librarian has a large, old-school wooden desk. Everyone was very accustomed to working with books and piles on their desks, and then moving to the computer area to work on computery stuff.

With the shift came a big purge. *Huge* purge. People found things they thought they'd thrown away, or gave to someone else, or belonged to the person who had the desk before them. Everyone had to make space on their desks for these computers, and shift things from desks to shelves and such. They were happy to do it, though the task itself was daunting. Our custodians really earned their keep in that week!

Running extenstions and wires to the center of the room was interesting (better wiring will be taken care of at a later date), but otherwise, the installs were pretty painless. All of the computers are connected to the networked laserjet printer. It's like a real office. :)

I've always been playfully taunted by the gals at work about my desk. It's always so... empty. Tidy small piles, file folders in a thing on top of my desk, everything else in folders, a few trinkets to make my space festive, and a big, empty space where my laptop goes when I come in. So often the gals have apologized (or openly *not* apologized :D) for using my desk when I'm not in, because it was the only spare, clean space around.

My past experience in offices has always included a computer on the desk. When a computer lives on your desk, you either have a balance of workspace, paperspace, and digital space, or a hodge podge of organization. In any case, in order for me to set up my laptop and work efficiently in the few hours I have at Reading every week, it's got to be organized. Slowly, the other librarians are learning why and how I organize my space so sparingly now that they have the same issues to content with. It's interesting.

In any case, when we planned the transition, my boss Lorraine and I discussed how to back up the data on the ancient machines (without the luxury of CD writeable drives). The end result was to place everything in the My Documents folder on each machine, and then move those folders to one of the new machines (Rachel volunteered). However, we planned all this before I went to Monterey, and when Kathy asked me for her photos on Monday, I'd completely forgotten what we did with them. I asked about it yesterday, and was able to pop everything on the spare CD-RW disk I keep in my desk (I need to order some for the library next week), and left it on Kathy's desk, followed up by an email on how to use the Scanner and Camera Wizard on Windows XP to get the photos.

In another world, a 3-day turnaround is license for your supervisor to have a sit-down with you about your attentiveness to time-sensitive tasks. In the library, it's lightning fast. I'm still getting used to the difference. I kinda like it better this way. :D

In any case, Ruth, our director, is having an architect friend of hers come in and evaluate the workroom space for renovations, to give us some ideas. We're looking at the potential for new desks and workspaces, as well as renovated storage and better wiring. In the meantime, the librarians are having all sorts of fun setting up their new machines, and learning to really customize their digital workspace.

Corinne, our children's librarian, opted to make Firefox her new default browser because she'd never used it before, and she wanted to try something new. I love the people I work with, so willing to try new stuff! She was entirely new to the concept of news feeds, but being an intrepid librarian on a new internet adventure, she decided to try setting them up, and I got to help her figure out how to add RSS feeds to her Firefox toolbar (something, truth be told, I was only a little familiar with).

Some of the next steps in the library technology upgrade plan include adding an internal file server. Due to a complication in the old systems management model, which relied entirely on a Windows Active Server running in the basement connected to specific machines, we can't harvest that server for file fun until we finish reimaging the computers in the children's room (the new computer images make them stand-alone configurations on a shared physical network, on a separate VLAN from the staff computers, but not dependent on a server for permissions controls and whatnot). Hopefully we'll have the children's room computers set before Christmas, and maybe a file server as a present for the new year.

Long catch up posts are exhausting to write. I can only imagine what they're like to read. ;D

Action item: post more often. Check.

5:33 PM | Permalink

October 13, 2005

NaNoWriMo fun @ my library

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo (pronounced NA-no-WRI-mo) happens every year in November. Founded in 1999, the challenge put forth by NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel, from *scratch*, between midnight on November 1 and midnight on November 30.

It's utter literary insanity driven purely by word count. I was originally challenged to do it by my good friend Rick, and I've tried it 3 times since. The farthest I've ever gotten is 3,500 words, but hey, that leaves a whole lot of space for growth and progress.

Reading, Massachusetts is a community of avid readers. I figured perhaps this community of readers might have budding writers laying in wait for the right push in the right direction. So, I added a workshop to my fall schedule titled "Write a Novel in One Month!", mentioning NaNoWriMo and the library in the description, and hoped people would be interested.

The workshop had 6 signups, but 15 show ups, which is an awesome turnout for a windy, rainy day. I was pleasantly surprised, and had to actually give up my copy of the handout to have enough. The room was unseasonably warm, and with fans running I tried to give as comprehensive a lowdown on NaNoWriMo and the resources RPL would be offering for participants. And people were very interested.

The plan is to block off time in the Conference Room for Wrimo's to attend write-ins at the library, where everyone gets together to share in the delicious torture, or at least support each other through it. We're billing the library as an overall Wrimo-friendly space to all Wrimoers who can make it to the library, not just Reading patrons, whether or not we have a scheduled write-in (I'm making an effort to become a fixture on the NaNoWriMo site regional forums), since we allow food & drink, offer free wifi, and have tons of free parking. Of course, it helps that librarians are always on duty, and that a library is an awesome place for ideas and/or procrastinating.

Using the sign up sheet from the meeting, I put together an email mailing list, to share information about write-ins, writing and publishing resources, and nifty bits off of the NaNoWriMo forums that might be of interest. Even just at the workshop, patrons had ideas and recommendations for resources and tactics to get things going, which is exciting and encouraging.

I'd love to have a volunteer writing group facilitator come in for the write-ins to offer feedback, although I am bouncing around the possibility of asking a few people from the group to help out, instead.

I contacted the NaNoWriMo staff, because I wanted to know if I could alter the Participant Icon to say something like "NaNoWriMo-Friendly Library", and an awesome gent named Hyland replied exuberantly, saying that he'd have the designer come up with a logo specifically for libraries. So if your library would like to bill itself as a Wrimoer's paradise, keep an eye on the NaNoWriMo site for the new icon in the next week. There are also nifty NaNoWriMo signs you can print out and post in and around your library.

The next step? Hopefully to plan or be part of a north of Boston pre-NaNo meet up (there's already one scheduled for Boston Metro), so that we can discuss novel ideas and the art of pre-WriMo outlines. While you can't use a pre-fab writing piece for NaNoWriMo, you are allowed to use outlines and notes, within specific guidelines.

Since the number of participants usually decreases somewhat exponentially throughout November, I'm guessing we'll end up with 4 people by November 30. But you never know, and that doesn't mean it won't be worth trying. We might even end up coming out of NaNoWriMo with a regular writing group. Either way, we'll get people coming to our library.

10:04 PM | Permalink

WebJunction Presentation

To everyone who ended up here because of the WebJunction presentation on September 28, thank you very much for visiting, and I hope you enjoyed the presentation. A personal emergency prevented me from immediately posting the link to the stuff, but if you'd like to download my presentation, the handout I use in class, and other sundries related to the presentation, you can find that here.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to share, please feel free to email me.

8:17 PM | Permalink

August 10, 2005

First Geek Out Don't Freak Out class

I developed the "Geek Out Don't Freak Out" idea into a class for Reading Public Library as a way to give patrons hands-on help and experience with everyday technologies they own. We all know someone who has a camera phone but doesn't know how to get the pictures off of it, or someone who has a PDA but doesn't know the first thing about syncing. Since our library offers a whole host of computer classes that focus on the internet and software technologies, why not go to the next step, especially with mobile technologies that will soon become as ubiquitous and normal as the mobile phone.

Last nights class was on digital cameras, and only had 3 attendees (it was rescheduled due to AC problems in the library, and I didn't advertise for more sign-ups after the reschedule). It's actually a good thing that I only had 3 attendees, since we had a lot to cover and still keep it hands-on, although I think a larger group would mean being able to have them work in groups more easily, even with just one instructor.

I brought in my camera, one of the library's two cameras, and each attendee was to bring in their own camera and the manual. As it turns out, one of the attendees said that he'd never really read the manual before being prompted to hunt it down for the class. :D

I went over the basic anatomy of a camera, and encouraged people to ask questions and fiddle with their cameras as we went along, which they did. One attendee came to the class because she's shopping for a camera (she didn't have one with her, so she got to play with the library camera), so the hands-on playtime was helpful not only in picking one out, but knowing what to look for when she goes to Best Buy to play with the display models.

We didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, but this class was helpful to everyone mostly because they just wanted to know their way around their camera. After we played with settings, pushed all sorts of buttons, opened and shut little flap doors, and flipped through manuals, the attendees really had the sense that not matter what digital camera you have, you really can just turn it on, take a picture, and look a your picture or download it. The features were no longer intimidating, they became interesting toys to experiment with.

At the end, the woman shopping for a camera not only had a better sense of what to look for, but also a recommendation to check out the March 2005 issue of Consumer Reports down in Magazines & Newspapers (or, if it was out, the non-circulating copies in the Reference section) for reviews of cameras, image editing software, and printers, while the other two attendees (an older couple that comes to just about all of the classes we offer, I love them) went away with 2 on-shelf book recommendations and call numbers, which I was able to look up on my laptop in the meeting room using the library's wifi (I also need to look up something for her ILL).

I also came away with ways to make the class better (take more pictures so that the patrons can ask even more questions, have a recommended reading & web site list to hand out). And, best of all, people came to the library, and learned that we do have a clue about technology and their needs.

I'm looking forward to the next GODFO session, which I'll probably do on camera phones. That'll be interesting, since I don't own a camera phone, and don't intend to, so I'll need to do some research. Any recommendations on resources?

10:18 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2005

Odd reversal of shushing

It's very warm in the library this evening. Our air conditioning is out *again*, but our custodial staff has been excellent about keeping us as comfortable as possible with rented portable units, and keeping us posted on the status of the fix (the town is in charge of that bit). Currently, it's 86.5 degrees and humid here at the Information Desk, but somehow it's all relatively tolerable. (We're closing tomorrow, due to the predicted severe heat.)

With the heat comes a certain level of general insanity. Patrons, staff, computers, everything just goes a bit wonky, slightly askew, or all-out mental. The staff is ever courteous and patient, and we all end up being a bit more entertaining than usual. Not a bad way to be when you're in a generally bad way.

A man came in with five children, looking for the spiggot so that his daughter, a member of the local Girl Scout troop, could water our plants and flowers. While Kathy, one of the other fabulous reffers, was searching for the spig (none of us knows where it is), while the five kids in tow were hanging about in the library.

All the while, they whispered and shushed each other.

No joke. And not like they were making fun or anything, like they really meant to be very quiet in the library. Even the man spoke to me in a whisper, despite the fact that I spoke to him at a normal volume.

Two of the children, the man mentioned to me as the kids trompsed up the stairs to the Children's Room, were from Florida, and his three kids were so *proud* of their library, they wanted to give the Florida kids a tour. So sweet, it makes your teeth hurt. But in the good way.

7:40 PM | Permalink

July 22, 2005

My library is now Flickr-tastic!

One of the initiatives that our new director at Reading Public Library has made clear is that she wants the public to see more pictures of the library, the staff, the events, the fun. As part of the Tech Plan madness, an assessment will be made of the current web site, which will include ways that we can best integrate photos without disrupting useability.

In the meantime, we have tons of photos, and we need a place to store them. And, well, I have a Flickr account, and I love it, so I gave the library one of the freebie accounts I received as a gift for being a beta member. Amy, one of the Reference librarians (who is also a Teen Librarian), had already set up a free account, and giving the free subscription to the library was a no-brainer.

So far, the account does have some photos in it, but very few of them are tagged or have proper descriptions and the like. I'm doing a presentation at the next Reference meeting about the service, so that everyone knows how to log in, upload files, tag and describe photos, and play with some of the sharing features.

Out of curiousity, I did a person search for "library" on Flickr, to see how many other libraries have accounts. I knew I'd find lots of librarians on there, and I was pleased to find a good number of libraries using the service. I'm contemplating a writing a bit on Flickr, and how public libraries are having fun with it. If you're ever looking for a place to donate some money (if your library doesn't have and has no interest in a Flickr account), consider sponsoring a Pro account for a library already on Flickr.

8:12 AM | Permalink

July 15, 2005

A camera and three new computers

I've been all sorts of tech happy at work lately.

My library needed a new digital camera, or, rather, a second digital camera. I did some research, taking into consideration the skills of the staff, price, size, useability, and decided on a model of the Kodak EasyShare. I must say, I didn't want to like the Kodak EasyShare (my second choice was a Canon PowerShot, nicer quality but not nearly as easy to use), but it really was the easiest one to use, and that was my primary concern. I barely need to train anyone on how to use it (the entire staff can borrow the cameras for use, so it needs to serve a wide user base), the print under the buttons is nice and large so that hardly anyone needs to take off their glasses to read it, and when you change the settings the LCD screen tells you what that setting does. The camera came in last week, and I think the staff will like it once they start using it (the necessary accessories are coming in a separate order). The quality of the pictures is just right for the web and for newsletters, which is really what the library needs.

The library also needed image editing software, which I researched at the same time as the camera, and decided on Ulead PhotoImpact. Not only are the features robust without being overwhelming (can't you imagine a digital imaging novice being overwhelmed by Photoshop?), it was significantly less expensive. The icing on the cake on this was the support, especially the Ulead Learning Center for the software, including video tutorials and tips and tricks, all in an English that a new user can understand. If any of the photos taken with the Kodak EasyShare need to be tweaked, it's easily done with this software. I'll still need to do some training on the software, but it's rather intuitive overall. I'm contemplating a copy for myself, since I can't afford to upgrade my copy of Photoshop.

But wait, there's more!

As part of the tech plan that I'm developing for the library, I'm making an effort to create more uniform computer configurations that allow for more freedom of use by the patron to make it as close to a "normal" computing environment as possible, but easy security and configuration control on the library end. I know, it sounds like a fairy tale. However, I did manage to coordinate something very close to library computer nirvana.

We started with a computer with a default install of Windows XP, as an "image" machine, a template configuration for all of the other computers. The first step in configuration consistency is operating system. The existing machines will be upgraded from Windows 95 to Windows XP, which is long overdue, and the new machines already have the newer operating system installed.

We chucked WinU, a Windows-based button interface program, in favor of an HTML page with similar buttons, supplemented with buttons in the Public Browser toolbar to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. A newer version of Microsoft Office will be installed, and other software programs of use to patrons (IM clients, a good freeware HTML editor, Firefox with added extensions to supplement Public Browser, and some other stuff) will be installed. Access to the Control Panel is disabled for the public user, which will help prevent too much futzing with the configuration.

To keep everything functioning happily, and to make maintenance easier, we'll be installing a program called Deep Freeze on all of the machines. Basically, Deep Freeze allows you to reset the computer to it's initial configuration by restarting the machine. Someone download a virus? Or change the settings on something? Just restart the machine, and it's like it never happened.

After a host of other configuration changes were made, we installed this image configuration onto three public computers, and set them up in the wilds of the library, one in the computer lab, the other two in the Reference room. Eventually, all of the computers in the Computer Lab and in the Reference room will have the same configuration.

The computers have been up since yesterday, and from what I hear, the patrons find the new image inviting, and they really dig using them. The nice thing about such a small rollout is that these machines are essentially guinea pigs, so that we can troubleshoot any issues that patrons or staff have with the computers before launching the image on more machines.

Documentation of all this is another story for another post or two or five. Due to fiscal year fun and whatnot, some things need to happen before we have an official tech plan for the library, and while that's a little crazy and unorthodox, it's not like we're operating entirely without a net. We've got a plan, we're all on the same page logistically and philosophically, and the documentation is being worked on in tandem, which is better than nothing.

Overall, I'm very happy with things so far. OK, that's a serious understatement. I'm ecstatic. It's ridiculous how fabulously things are going, even as hectic as it all is. More to come!

4:40 PM | Permalink

June 13, 2005

Too hot at my library

The air conditioning at Reading Public Library is busted (I think it has been since the end of last summer), and steps were taken to fix the issue before it got hot. Despite all the forethought and preemptive action, the library A/C unit is still busted, and the new unit which was s'posed to arrive last Monday is still on a truck somewhere.

Our director, Ruth Urell, did arrange with our custodial staff to have several portable standing A/C units brought in in the interim, even before we found out that the library's central unit would not arrive on time. However, the portable units, try as they may, couldn't compete with this heat. Extra units would brought in to supplement the original set, and window units were installed where possible, given that the building is an old school, and isn't quite equipped for window units.

Ruth also had Nancy, the awesome secretary of the library, go out and buy us fresh cut fruit, lemonade, juice, ice pops and other frozen treats, to help keep us all going. It was funny answering reference questions with a melting ice pop in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other! We did manage to stay open all of our hours through Friday, but come my Saturday shift, we closed 2 hours early because of the heat. Today the library opened at 9am, and closed at 11am. We'll be playing the rest of our hours by ear until the A/C is fixed.

Even with the heat and the madness, we all came to work, we all did our best, and the patrons blessed our hearts for it every time they spoke to us. Ruth has had our backs the entire way, and really did make every effort to plan for and take care of the yuck ahead of time.

Yet another reason why I love my library, even in all this heat.

11:49 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2005

Tossing around an idea for NaNoWriMo

I'm a firm believer that It's never too early to start planning when I get an idea, or to run the idea by other people. And while I haven't run this by my boss yet, I think it might be a hit.

I was talking about how much I love my job with my SO the other day, especially how open my library is to new ideas. And out of nowhere, I got this idea: NaNoWriMo @ my library.

See, I've tried to complete NaNoWriMo twice now, and while every year I get closer to 50,000 words, I never get to the end. Most of the groups I participated in were for the greater Boston area, and while that does encompass a large area around Boston, the areas nearer to Boston seem to be more of a hotbed of activity for events, write-ins, and the like than the outer reaches, like, say, Reading.

One of the major characteristics of my library is that we're in a community of readers. Any reports and research studies on how Americans aren't reading as much as they used to just don't seem to take the Town of Reading into consideration, because just from my experiences working the information desk, I seriously think Reading would blow the curve. My curiousity is thus: is a huge community of readers potentially a community of writers? And what better place to have write-ins and writing reference sources on hand than a library that allows food and beverages, and has a super staff?

So I'm thinking that I may propose some sort of NaNoWriMo coordination of stuff at my library in November. We could get copies of the book about surviving NaNoWriMo, highlight NaNoWriMo authors who have been published, offer a display of helpful writing books, organize write-ins, and offer classes that might help people with writing and staying focused. After all, the point of NaNoWriMo is not to write the most fabulous novel ever, it's to get to the 50,000 word mark, so anyone can give it a try. I may not go so far as becoming a regional coordinator, since that's way more than I can handle and still *work*, but I'm thinking these other ideas are nifty.

For all I know, with the fabulousness of my library, it may have already been done ;). Either way, I'll definitely hit the "Writing Groups In Your Library: Models for Facilitation" session hosted by PLA at ALA in Chicago.

4:29 PM | Permalink

My first class at Reading Public Library

I was nervous. It's true. And I'm sure for those of you who know me, it's hard to believe. Freakish even.

The first time I taught a class as an O-fficial librarian, I was teaching kids at Watertown Public Library about building web pages and playing with news aggregators. It was definitely a different crowd, and there's a different style to take with the ferret-like attention span of a tween actually choosing to take a class and learn something on their own time, and not because they have to. There was some concern on my part to see if I could hold their attention, but not too much.

Last night, I taught my first class at Reading Public Library, in my first real official position as a real librarian. As corny as it sounds, I was overwhelmed by the love of it all, of being able to do so much of the librarian stuff I'd been looking forward to. I had prepared my handout and my notes like I was giving an oral dissertation, even though I had planned my classes so that I could give a really easy one first, just to get my feet wet.

It was a small class, 3 people (the lab only seats 6 individuals, 12 people if you double up), on the entirely unsexy subject of using the library catalog. Everyone was impressed by the handout (I'm such a cheese whiz about that kinda stuff), and very pleased at how I'd tailored the class to everyone's questions and needs, making it flexible enough for everyone to learn as much as they can.

Best of all, I had *fun*. Teaching patrons how to use the library catalog was almost like giving away trade secrets (even though I know full well that it's not). One patron was thrilled with being able to search for items in her native language of French using the *advanced* features, another was happy to know that she could receive her hold notifications in email, and the third was impressed with the power a PIN for a library account can offer a patron in mastering their library item fate. No one got frustrated, everyone worked through their mistakes and got right back on track. And I got to pimp the library like nobody's business.

I've got 3 other classes on tap for this month, one on using the internet to research and plan vacations (or just be an armchair tourist), one on job hunting online, and one on how to get your own free email and use it. My plan is to take Jessamyn's presentation style sheet, make my handouts into HTML presentations which can be nicely printed out, and put them on the library web site. That way, people in the classes can follow along on screen, and patrons who can't or don't want to come to the classes can use them as tutorials at their leisure. These presentations will be the seed content for a sort of "community continuing education" section of the site, where I can list classes at other places nearby, and point to useful online education resources.

So yeah, I'm loving the teaching part of my job, way more than I anticipated.

10:31 AM | Permalink

April 22, 2005

Small project completed: Virtual Tour

I'm working on a few different projects for Somerville Public Library, and one of them is finally complete and live. Two different virtual tours of the library had been created for SPL in the past, but neither was quite complete enough to serve the purpose of showing patrons around. So I merged the two, edited the content and feedback form, updated the maps, added a few new pages, and formatted the tour to match the rest of the site (as it exists now, anyway, since we're working on the redesign), and voila, new tour.

The site redesign is going slowly, but well. There have been some requests for different new functions on the site, which I've decided to incorporate into a phase of the redesign instead of working on as individual projects. I'm in the middle of surveys of the staff, with a patron survey forthcoming, so if anyone has any recommendations or examples of surveys (especially multiple-choice surveys) about web sites for patrons, I'd appreciate any tips you could offer. There's a creative brief, project planning documentation, and the rest of a schedule to complete, plus a few content management systems to fully evaluate. The planning always takes the longest, and involves the most work, but it's totally worth it.

One of these days I'll do a series on technology project planning for libraries. :)

1:35 PM | Permalink

April 21, 2005

Off The Shelf interview

Read my interview for my library's newsletter Off The Shelf, which is published weekly using Blogger, is always chock full o' interesting stuff, and has it's own Atom feed.

4:24 PM | Permalink

April 11, 2005

First day at Reading PL post-shift musings

My first day at work was *excellent*. When I first came in, there was a lovely bouquet of flowers on my desk, with a festive and colorful sign that said, "Welcome Andrea", and I really felt like I finally found the right place to work. I almost didn't want to come home at the end of my shift. It was such a busy day, and I learned so much about my new place of employ, it's hard to sort it all out into words.

My fellow coworkers are smart, friendly, and fun, and the general policy of the library is to do anything to help the patron feel satisified. Working the information (reference) desk for a few hours, I learned that the Reading PL way of reference is very comprehensive and friendly, and I like it. For instance, if a patron calls to see if something is on the shelf for pickup, we check to make sure it's there even if the catalog says it is, and if a patron needs to find something, we come out from behind the desk to help.

Interesting things that Reading PL lends out to its patrons:

• Art: Yes, if you see it on the walls and like it, you can indeed check it out and hang it in your home using your library card. There are bins on the lower level that contain more art for you to choose from.


• Canvas bags: They have a stash of canvas bags that are bar-coded using little retail-like tags, so if you have a ton of borrowed items to take home, you can carry them, then return the bags when you're done.

Each day of my training, I'm scheduled to spend time with each department to get to know who they are and what they do. Today, I got a comprehensive tour of the local collection room, which is just next to the reference desk, where Dateline filmed a some segments for a Reading cold case story. The collection actually includes historic and recent information, so along with vital records on birth, death, and marriage, there are plans for new construction projects and copies of the most recent and proposed budgets for the town.

It's a lot to take in, but I'm loving it.

7:19 PM | Permalink

First day at Reading PL pre-shift musings

Today is my first day as a part-time reference librarian at Reading Public Library in Reading, MA. It's amazing, really. I haven't even gotten there yet, and I've already got lots to write about.

I stopped off at the library on Friday just to peruse the reference collection in my own time and get a feel for the new digs. I got a quick tour of the staff areas that I didn't see during the interview tour, and got to see my desk and mailbox. I have a *desk* and a *mailbox* (I'm so easy :D). As I understand it, I won't be spending too much time at my desk :D, but it's cool all the same. They also gave me a 128MB jump drive secure, which will come in handy moving between computers at work.

It's quite the exciting time at Reading. The new director just started, MLA is around the corner and the staff is going to do quite a bit of presenting, everyone's gearing up for the summer program, and they consider me starting there as part of that excitement. I'm still trying to get my head around it.

As I understand it, I'll be able to talk quite a bit about my job on my blog. So you'll be able to read about the interesting stuff I'm doing at work here on LibraryTechtonics, and I'll be able to post about interesting programming and presentations over on the PLA Blog.

I'm sure I'll have more to say after my first shift today (I'm working extra hours this week for training). It's all very keen and exciting.

9:35 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2005

PLA Blog fun

It is indeed true, Steven M. Cohen and I are the official co-managers of the PLA Blog. What started out as a library conference blogging adventure will now serve as an ongoing online venue for information for the Public Libraries Association and public libraries all over.

Steven is at Texas Library Association annual conference this week, so you can expect posts from the conference, while I'll be working on news bits and maintenancy stuff.

As a big kickoff for the PLA Blog, we are looking for information about National Library Week programs at public libraries. Got something going on? Let us know.

3:16 PM | Permalink

March 22, 2005

The job search is *finally* fruitful

It is true, I have accepted a job offer.

Before heading to Computers in Libraries, I had an interview with Reading (Mass.) Public Library for a part-time reference position. I enjoyed the interview a great deal, and really felt like the mission, organizational culture, community support, and smart staff of the library would be a perfect fit. So when I got the offer call while I was at CIL, I was totally stoked.

I weighed out my options and realized that even though my original goal when I graduated last May was to find a full-time professional position, a lot has changed since then. I'm consulting and enjoying it, even though that's not what I originally set out to do, I'm blogging quite a bit, which has bred in me a greater interest in writing, and I'm growing more interested in presenting at conferences every day. A full-time job, even with generous time off and professional development benefits would not necessarily offer everything I need to make my current professional lifestyle sustainable.

And with an awesome library like RPL offering me a job, my gut told me it was right. So pending a city-mandated physical, I'll start at RPL mid-April. Yay!

7:34 PM | Permalink

March 9, 2005

So what *have* I been doing with myself

Entries have been sparse lately, but with good reason. Things have been picking up in my neck of the woods, and it's all very exciting.

I'll start by saying I'm gainfully underemployed, so I'm not really making any money on what I'm doing. But I seem to have veered in the library consultant direction of things. My business card does, after all, state "Librarian-for-hire" as my title.

I'm still volunteering for Somerville Public, which is going quite swimmingly. I'm just finishing up a simple virtual tour of the library, and planning a web site project for them. Just hanging out with the librarians has been interesting, enlightening, educational, and cool, so doing the tech work is really gravy, as well as excellent resume fodder.

Knowledge inForm, a competitive intelligence and market research training and consulting firm formed by a past professor of mine and her colleague, has taken me in as an intern. I'll be helping with developing content and services, as well as researching technology issues and solutions for the company. And, well, any other interesting projects they have lying around for me. They have a wonderful, innovative business concept on their hands, comprised of three tiers: publications, training, and consulting. I'm hoping to contribute to their success.

Today I spent some time tweaking the navigation for the PLA Blog, as well as setting up an email form and an archive of the ALA Midwinter 2005 blog posts. The blog is driven by Blogger, which is a nice, simple software to use, but the flip side is that it's a bit limited in it's archival capacities, so event archives need to be done by hand, and posts can't be automatically queried by author. But hey, the blog is up and running, and it's hopping with activity from the PLA Spring Symposium, so you should definitely check it out. I'm hoping to do more work with the PLA Blog in the near future.

So when I'm not spinning plates on sticks, I'm updating my blog, or hunting for the ever-elusive paid library position. I do have an interview coming up on Friday that I'm very excited about, and one the day after I return from Computers in Libraries, so things may be looking up in that respect. I'm hoping to find a position that will allow me to keep up with my consulting work, but will give me enough hours to help me establish my reference librarian street cred. Overall, though, I think the path that I followed to this point has served me well, however unconventional it may be. I'll definitely be prolific during Computers in Libraries, and as my new work-style smooths out, you'll see a lot more of me here, too.

10:51 PM | Permalink

January 11, 2005

Volunteering @ my library

Several months back, I sent an email to the director at Somerville Public Library with my resume attached, offering my skills for any volunteer work she may have available. A few weeks later I received an email from the director, saying she'd circulate my resume and see what the departments might need me to do. In December I received a project proposal from the library.

Tomorrow I have my first meeting on a project involving some rearranging and updating of the library's web site, as well as training staff members on using Dreamweaver and creating process flow for the long-term health of the site.

This, in my mind, is very keen.

Hopefully I'll be able to talk them into letting me shadow the reference librarians or work circ as a volunteer, too.

4:20 PM | Permalink

8 months and still looking for work

The librarian employment market meme is making the rounds again, thanks to an editorial published in the Boston Globe and responses to it.

I don't normally blog specifics of my job hunt, but I think a little background will clarify my perspective. Granted, the Boston metro area is a saturated market, so part of me not being able to find a job is my fault for not wanting to move. Simmons is the ALA-accredited library science program in New England, which means there are tons of library school students hunting for pre-pro work, nevermind the graduates who decide to stay in the area who didn't have a library job while in school.

I was one of those students. I worked an assistantship that paid my tuition in the technology lab of my program, as well as taking the role of president of the student association, all of which I thought was a good idea at the time. I thought that developing leadership, management, customer service, organzational culture, instruction, and reference skills while I was in school, while really learning the stuff I needed to work within the profession, attending conferences, and aggressively networking, would make me a well-rounded entry-level librarian candidate upon graduation, just ripe for a position in today's evolving library. I've got the library knowledge, as well as tons of transferrable skills from my past life, and chutzpah, to do anything that's handed to me. As a bonus, any employer looking to "promote diversity" would find my hispanic ethnicity a plus. Oh, hey, don't forget my complete adoration for the profession.

However, all this training and potential hasn't yielded anything yet. My fellow students, as well as professors and other people associated with my program, assured me I was *infinitely* hireable, and I was doing everything right. But while transferrable skills and excellent schooling are fabulous, librarians want people who have worked in libraries with *specific* library experiences. Libraries are essentially hiring from within the profession, or within their organizations, if they're hiring at all. So flooding the market with more people, especially those with non-library experiences and backgrounds, is a bad idea. Right?

Meanwhile, ALA is hosting a day-long session at the Midwinter meeting on recruiting more people to the profession. Reading over the program, it looks like a day-long cheerleading fest on ushering more people into library school, and not just paraprofessionals who already work in libraries who would benefit from degrees. It feels like another bit of ALA propaganda, as Dorothea put it. ALA also continues to publish the propaganda stats to their site, as Jessamyn has pointed out.

I'm not bashing ALA, I'm being honest about my disappointment and irritation with ALA's approach on this issue. After all, the American Library Association is here to "provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all" (emphasis mine), and that's a noble cause. I'm hip to that, it's part of why I got my degree. I just think ALA needs to sit down and have a long, honest talk with itself about whether it's really providing the leadership necessary to promote and improve conditions for current librarians, 20 years or 8 months into the profession, by continuing to aggressively recruit based on the damned lies that are the statistics. Besides, there are enough unemployed new librarian bloggers out there that are refuting the ALA statistics that it just doesn't look good.

Honestly, I think that the recruitment discussion should move away from numbers and towards a more selective approach focused on the quality and demeanor of recruits. Too many people ran to library school in the poor economy based on those stats just for a job, not for the love of the job, and library schools take their money and graduate them. Schools really need to be more selective, and that needs to be a larger part of the ALA accredidation process and recommendations.

ALA should also focus on encouraging schools to aggressively pursue pre- and post-grad employment placement, as well as better integration of practicums and internships into curricula, to help current graduate students get the experience they need, because I don't buy the "well, it's not our problem you can find a job, you should have researched the profession better" excuse from schools. Library and information science programs are the birthplace of the next generation of librarians, and they should know better. Encouraging and offering incentives to libraries to consider recent graduates in paraprofessional new hire positions would also be a nice move on the part of ALA.

That said, I'm joining the resounding chorus of unemployed librarians by asking ALA's recruitment initiative to stop turning the current librarians against ALA and to, please, stop hurting librarians.

11:43 AM | Permalink

October 26, 2004

Contributing Member: Future Librarian Dot Com

Thanks to a post on the Library Grrrls livejournal community, I found out that the Future Librarian Dot Com site was looking for contributing members. I sent in an application, and got approved, so I'll be writing articles for and responding to bulletin board posts from newbie librarians, recent grads, grad students, and those contemplating grad school. If you fit into any of these categories, or an experience librarian wanting to know what's going on with the NextGen librarians, stop by the site.

Cool. :)

3:24 PM | Permalink

October 15, 2004

More on the NextGen librarian hiring freeze

A while back, the Confessions of a Mad Librarian posted the remarks of Mark Wilcox on "Why I am not going to hire you", where Wilcox offered an insider's look to why someone might not get hired to work in an academic library. The gist seemed to be that academic institutions place the blame predominantly on the candidate for, say, not having experience, not explaining why and how their skills are transferrable, not being published, and more. No matter that your program didn't teach you enough, or give you good direction, it was up to you to make your experience work for your career.

Honestly, I think that MLS programs have the world to do with how many new librarians are out there, the calibur of students they accept and turn out, and the kinds of training they offer, including what they tell students about what to expect upon graduation. MLS programs are essential to the process of becoming a librarian, and I think that it comes with a good deal of responsibility to help mold the profession with the best candidates possible, the best education possible, and the truth, especially in such a crucial point of evolution in the profession. Nevermind the fact that we pay a pretty penny for that degree, the knowledge, and the professional standing it affords us. We should get our money's worth, instead of admonishments from prospective employers.

The Mad Librarian posted another bit on the $64,000 question of "why are so many of the young ones unemployed?" with a Library Journal article "What We Really Want". The article definitely hits the soft spot of unemployed new MLS-holders everywhere in pointing out that all we want to do is get out there and use our skills, and it seems that institutions, while they are worried about the "graying" of the profession, are not "putting their money where their mouth is." There is the acknowledgement that hey, if you wanted to go into librarianship, you shouldn't have just bought into the 4-color glossy rhetoric of school brochures and promising statistics of jobs in droves, but at the same time, much of the professional literature was putting out the same hype.

Here's the bit that had the greatest affect on me:

No matter our age or year of graduation, we're all members of an evolving profession that needs the input of all its members to thrive. If NextGens are driven away by lack of job opportunities and advancement, or lack of interest in their ideas and input, then who will lead our institutions and organizations in ten years? In 20?

For those who have been paying attention, NextGens' concerns are laid out, loud and clear. Who is going to step up to the plate and respond?

My question to add to that is: Will there even be a profession without the help (note that I said "help", not "takeover") of NextGens who have the skills in technology and new ideas to really help the profession evolve to meet the needs of the new age of users?

2:53 PM | Permalink

September 26, 2004

Librarian/information professional temp agencies

As I've been searching for a job over the past four months, I've been finding more and more librarian and information professional temporary and job placement agencies.

I've known about, and registered with, Wontawk since before I started at Simmons (I found them when I was researching the masters program). They're based out of New York, but they also do placements in Boston, and they seem to be branching out to Chicago and other cities. They handle temp, temp-to-perm, and permanent placements.

I found out about InfoCurrent through their postings on the Special Libraries Association Job Index. They have locations in Washington, DC and New York City, but they place librarians, archivists, catalogers, records managers, indexers and more in many parts of the country. Most of the postings they have for the Boston area so far are for experienced business types, but they will keep your resume on file if anything comes up that suits your talents. InfoCurrent offers searchable listings as well as nifty tools such as a Salary Wizard, links to professional associations and continuing education information. They also place temp, temp-to-perm, or direct hire.

A very new player to the field is BiblioTemps, which specifically services central Massachusetts. Run by the Central Massachusetts Regional Library System -- very cool and innovative, a library system helping librarians find work, focusing on temp work -- BiblioTemps "will provide an essential service to members while developing an alternative source of funds to support ongoing services." They offer great resources for libraries looking for temps, including a map of their service area and necessary forms, and information for temps, like guidelines, timesheets, and a directory of Massachusetts libraries.

My most recent discovery is Library Associates. Their name recently started popping up in the LISJobs.com listings. Job listings on the site seem to indicate that they have national coverage, and that their coverage of positions is really broad, including "Fortune 500 corporations, law firms, libraries, government agencies, museums, archives and other organizations" for librarians, database managers, catalogers, and more. As a temp, you can register online through a *long*, but comprehensive, form. Off-site services are also available for clients who wish to outsource their projects, so you could be assigned an at-home project.

Quite the crop of librarian placement agencies. LISCareer.com recently posted an excellent article on the merits and downsides of temping as a librarian. If anyone has had any experiences with any of these companies, good or bad, let me know.

9:55 PM | Permalink

September 17, 2004

*Finally*

I was just IMing with Jessamyn about this yesterday. I was trying to figure out a way to create a scrape feed of the MLIN Job Listings page. The way that the listings are set up, it's difficult to figure out what the URL of the content in the frame that actually contains the listings, and it's impossible to link to individual listings.

With the email I was writing to them about it sitting in my Drafts folder, MLIN has revealed their new RSS feed for their job listings. No more trying to hack a feed, no more using URL change notifier emails to try to keep track. There's even a little description of what the feed is, and how to read it. Brilliant. :)

Now if they could just work on the interface a bit, and get it out of the frameset, it'd be one step closer to perfect.

5:00 PM | Permalink

September 9, 2004

Hey, I might get a job!

I've been unpacking (which feels like a losing battle so far) since September 1, and decided today was "send out five resumes if it doesn't kill me first" day. I managed to get out four, which isn't too shabby, considering that two of the resumes I sent out resulted in same-day calls for interviews, one tomorrow, one on Monday.

While I had an *excellent* informational interview/lunch with the folks at BC's O'Neill Library in July, and they were most excited to keep in touch with me for their impending openings this month, I have been trying to keep my job search alive all the same. And the work is paying off.

I also got a really good lead from a friend of mine on a position at a community college library here in Massachusetts. This got me thinking about a conversation I had with my friend Jon about community colleges. He had to leave Wesleyan (my undergrad alma mater) on academic probation, and take classes elsewhere before he could return, so he went to community college. One of the marked differences he noticed in the community college environment was that the professors were way more focused on the students, as opposed to professors at private and public institutions, who tend to be more focused on their research projects and grant funding. In speaking with other friends who have had the community college experience, they note that students seemed to be more focused and serious about their studies, either because even the lower price was still a huge investment for them, or they were coming from a different stage in life than the typical college student, or something not standard to the "college is where you kinda screw around and find yourself" routine. The libraries also seem to see more traffic, and are taken quite seriously by students and faculty alike. Reaching back into my LiveJournal archives, my write-up from Nelinet 2003 includes some pretty progressive stuff coming out of the Mt. Wachusett Community College Library. While community college is seen as a lower rung for higher education, it's probably an even better deal overall. So I'm considering community colleges very highly for employment options.

There is hope for the weary. Who knew.

12:17 AM | Permalink

August 4, 2004

OLP update

The Our Lady of the Presentation library is shaping up quite nicely. I negotiated a ~$4,000 donation of reference books (with a few fiction items thrown in) for the collection, which updates the collection a great deal. Jen and I spent two days this week sorting the shelves -- which were previously organized by subject and shelved three deep in some places -- into keepers and deselecteds, and organizing them such that the teachers can come through and check for items they'd really like us to keep.

We also rearranged the book cases so that the room looks like a library when you first walk in. Since the room is also used by the chess club, we wanted the library area to be what you see when you first walk in, then to have the tables and chairs further into the room. Hopefully we can get some large, clear plastic containers to hold the games and things like headphones, to keep them all tidy.

A festive throw rug we picked up from Target in the library area of the room will complete the look. Perhaps, if there's time, we'll repaint the bookshelves (since we'll need to move the books around again after the teachers pick and choose to put them in cataloged order).

We've accomplished a whole lot, and I feel like we're really making progress. Granted, there's a whole other room of books we haven't dealt with, and we need to make decisions about the catalog, but that's the fun of plans, they can come in phases. :D

6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 30, 2004

Score one for OLP!

My project for Our Lady of Presentation, a parochial elementary school in Brighton, has taken an excellent turn.

This is a great example of how networking can get you what you need, and how spiffy cool it is for the profession for librarians to be talking to other librarians just in general.

As I mentioned, I taught my last workshop at Watertown last night, and after the workshop, I was chatting with the YA librarian about my progress in my job search. That led in to my work on this volunteer project to help overhaul this school library, and how I'm researching an option to lease the reference items we need. Turns out Watertown is preparing for a major renovation, and moving to a temporary location, just as they are weeding in different departments, including YA. She proceeded to show me the weed cart, and all the stuff she's basically been giving away, with all the leftovers going to the library book sale.

I am getting a World Book set, 2003 edition, and a bunch of other fabulous reference sets and items for *free*. This is just too cool. I told the project director about the score, and she's *stoked*. This not only helps us achieve our September deadline of having a basic library in place for the new school year, but gives us more time to think about our collection development policy and options more carefully.

Yay!

2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Final YA workshop

Last night was my last workshop at Watertown Free Public Library, teaching kids about the basics of web development, and at the same time a bit about layout and design.

Backup for Background: I was a web developer in a past life, which means that designers, who understood color, design, layout, composition, all that sort of professional designer stuff, gave me layered Photoshop files, and I basically built HTML code from the pretty pictures, and cut image files to plug in to the code. I, however, am not a pretty pictures gal (note the simple layout and design of my blog). I'm big on less is more, partly because my design kung fu is not pro, and partly because I only use design elements as appropriate.

However, understanding using the right tool for the job -- design element appropriateness -- is inextricably attached to learning good HTML and XHTML coding. Sure, you could have the craziest, most beautiful Escher drawing you've ever seen as a background image, because you can use an image as the background to your site, but it may not make the page very legible, and therefore pretty much unusable. So I had a lot of fun sneaking little bits of "just because you know how to do it doesn't mean it really *works*" into the workshop. And the coolest part is that the kids were getting it, telling me about examples of bad design they've seen on the web, asking me "how do they get like that" and how to avoid doing that themselves.

The other fun thing about last night was the style of the workshop. We only had two kids last night, and it was nice to be back in the tech lab style of teaching, where everything is based on what the students already know, really want to learn, and more individualized question answering. I had a rough lesson plan for each workshop, but with young adults, or with anyone for that matter, keeping it flexible when it comes to teaching hands-on tech really makes it easier and more fun. The best way of learning HTML in particular, I find, is learning by doing. One hour was not really enough time, but most of what we covered was very much the "try it and see what it does" approach, focusing on having the kids really think about the code, and what it does, and asking them questions that made them logically think about how to modify the code to do other things. Subversive training in critical thinking. It was quite spiffy.

Overall, I think we covered a lot more than blogs and web design in the classes I taught. The first blog workshop covered how to create a blog, but also how to keep your information private on the web, and the concept of current information as key to site freshness. We covered some search concepts, as well as the fact that blogs can be searched for information of interest, and how to use the free Bloglines aggregator to do both. Kids then applied some of the search skills in looking for images for their web sites in the third workshop on setting up a simple web site, and we covered a little copyright without sounding too boring. Last night was heavy hands-on with the code, but included many of these elements in the notion of planning before you build, finding the information you need, and knowing what to do with it on your site.

I love it when things converge so conveniently. In information, it often does. :)

6:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 17, 2004

A trend in technical services positions

I'm looking at a lot of job listings these days. So as not to limit myself, I'm looking at just about everything, to get a sense of the market, and what different jobs entail.

When I was in library school, they taught me that technical services doesn't mean what everyone thinks. Most non-library people hear "technical services" and think computers and support, but in a library, technical services houses cataloging, acquisitions, and sometimes repairs and other related services.

The trend I'm seeing is that more and more technical services roles entail an element of the technical as in technology, especially in terms of the liaision role to the institutions Office of Information Technology (OIT). Many technical services positions include responsibilities such as being the OIT contact point for the library, handling the computers in the library, dealing with technology rollout issues in the library. I can see, in a way, how this can be, since technical services is the home of the catalog in a library, where it is fed and cared for by trained professionals. And, well, a catalog is a big database, and databases run on computers, you get the drift.

While this is a good start, I s'pose, in a library, I'm not sure that technology liaison work should really stay in technical services. In discussing this issue while I was in school, I continually postulated that librarianship needs a new type of librarian: the technology project manager. A librarian who can understand and take into the consideration the needs of not only the catalog, but the user experience, both staff and patron, and then successful communicate that to OIT, and negotiate technology issues on that ground.

See, in my mind, leaving the job only in technical services can imply several things, depending on the politics. It might mean that reference, access services, and the like don't have an equal vote. Or, alternately, it puts tech services in a funny place of having to go to bat for those other departments, with or without their input, depending on that particular person, while keeping their own department out of harm's way. On a certain level, I think it could imply that only the technical services people understand the technology bits, when it's every librarian's job to be as technical as possible. Sherrie Bergman from Bowdoin did tell me there's no such thing as too technical.

Interesting trend, all the same. I wonder where it will head...

Now I'm finding myself attracted to these technical services positions, with absolutely no interest in the cataloging, acquisition, and processing parts, and only being interested in the OIT liaison part, and, on occasion, the portion of the job that allows you to work with collection development and electronic resource vendors. Also an interesting trend for a librarian-for-hire who wants, deep down inside, to be a reference librarian...

8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 15, 2004

Teens, teaching, and continuing ed

Tonight's blog workshop at Watertown Public went way better than the first one, I think. Teens are way more fickle than adults, so you really need to build a repoire with them for it to work, and I think I'm getting the hang of it.

All the same, the teen scene is not my bag. Caery, the YA librarian, is very happy with my work thus far, and has added me to her file of people to keep around. As much as she knows I loathe the notion of working with kids, she's given my name to the children's librarian, just in case I'd want to do some workshops for them, as well. She loves how I am with kids. Somehow, I can be good with them, but not like them all the same.

I think it's just a people-reading thing. With teens, I don't get super interested if they aren't super interested, and I don't try to be too enthusiastic in the weird adult "I'm here to help" way. Of course, the fact that I'm 4'11" and don't wear a suit everyday does sort of put me more on their level, in a sense. Every kid I've worked with in that library so far has guessed my age around 19, and genuinely thought I was a college student. Hah! They are too kind...

This all kinda feeds into the continuing education conversation I had with Dean Cloonan. We were talking about my career plan, and she mentioned that she'd really like for me to teach Simmons GSLIS Continuing Education classes in the spring of 2005. I can't imagine myself as a "teacher" in front of a class of paying students. I can, however, imagine myself as a librarian helping people learn stuff. Jody Walker, who runs CE, gave me the list of courses that have not been offered yet, and there's lots of good tech stuff on there.

Maybe I'll teach a class on what's involved with setting up a library blog, soup to nuts, planning, process, funding, the whole nine. "Library blogs" was a suggestion in the list. Or, perhaps a course on the truth of graphic novels, how they're not all porn. Maybe I'll try on a hybrid online/in-person class, to take the edge off being in front of a group of people as an authoritative learning source for 3-6 hours. But yeah, I'm hip to the teaching thing, I think it's super keen that the Dean asked me to.

10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 1, 2004

heh, i taught teens

*imported from lj*

tonights workshop went well, i think. 6 kids signed up, 4 kids showed up, everyone was like a bunch of wet ferrets with no place to dry off, all scatterbrained and "come help *me* right now". it was as expected, and very good, in my estimation.

i went in with the whole hands-on approach, knowing they'd just want to set up shop and do stuff. and so they did. we tried to cover some official stuff amidst the madness. when they were filling out the form to start their blogger accounts, i mentioned that they should use their last name, and they could do one better by using a nickname. when they were writing their first posts, i mentioned that they should try to come up with a theme, or just start writing, but not to give any of their information away, and to not post their email address, since comments take care of people contacting you. all in all, it was hands on and crazy, as most teen scenes are. clayton was really helpful as the second set of hands wrangling the unruly young adults, and echoing my info down the line of computers. thanx clayton!

kelly, the YA librarian, mentioned that i had a "good temperament for this age group", and that i did a very good job. she then mentioned that a children's librarian position was opening up, and jested about me doing story time. i made a face, and she laughed. we all had a good time. i left a note on the reference librarian's desk saying i wanted to do blog and rss workshops for grownups. we'll see what happens...

9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

insanity in serenity

*imported from lj*

so i'm trying to get a cover letter out today (my application for a job was requested by a contact, woo hoo!), finalize my lesson plan for tonight's blog workshop at watertown public, and wrangle emails, after a 5 hour saga with my computer yesterday wrecked my evening.

i hate cover letters. i know, i say that all the time. i wrote a really good one the other day in about 20 mins, and poured over it with my SO, who said it was really, really good on first read, for about an hour and got it just perfect. today the SO is at work, and not at my copy reading disposal, and i can't seem to get my head together enough to write this very simple thing.

but i got this nifty Loop Guru CD from the library, and the music is quite pleasing. i'll hafta find more of their stuff, to see if it's just as cool. it's cute to watch my little gir dressed as a puppy pic dance to the music as i type! :D

ok, ok, back to the cover letter. focus, grasshopper!

1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 28, 2004

volunteer work day 1

i began my work as a volunteer on a project to revamp a catholic school library today, and it was very interesting and productive. the school's collection has not been evaluated or maintained in some time, not since the librarian was hired to be a 6th grade teacher. since then, parent volunteers have been working on organizing and shelving, which is better than nothing, but at this point, it needs a full overhaul by qualified professionals. we barely made a dent today, but the plan is to beef up the reference stuff for the preK-6ers in the building, since the school has an excellent relationship with a branch of the public library is across the street, which will be their most excellent resource for more in-depth research.

today 4 of us spent 2 hours making heads or tails of the reference items in the collection. there were 2 copies of world book, one from the 50's, the other from 1986, i believe, plus an old funk & wagnall's and an old encyclopedia americana, with an assortment of old atlases, dictionaries, quotations books, and other items, including their very own copy of the encyclopedia of catholicism which we deemed salvageable because it included stuff from vatican II. the more stuff we pulled off the shelves, the more we found. shelving hasn't really been done in a while, and for the books which are shelved, most of them are shelved 3 deep. it's a huge project.

the plan going forward is to figure out what in the reference pile we want to keep or replace with newer copies, and figure out if any of the older stuff is worth anything to collectors or someone, in order to make some money instead of throwing them away. there's no budget for this project, so we're doing what we can to recycle what we have however possible. since the library still has a card catalog, we figured the best way to deal with the rest of the stuff was to create a MARC-friendly spreadsheet to store really simple info like the title, author, publisher, date, and ISBN/ISSN, if we can get it, and enter the data from the cards. that way, as we pull books off the shelves, we can check them against the list, and be able to keep track of what we keep and what we weed. with that portion of the data entry done, i'll be able to easily import that data into a digital catalog of our choosing. using OCLC we can look up more info on the books, and figure out shelf numbers, and perhaps hand off the fleshing out of the records to a gslis student.

yes, we have lots of plans for this. it's nifty. in the meantime, we breath in dust and suffer for our art to help kids have a happy library resource. erin brought up the idea of getting read posters and the like on the walls, and jen seconded the notion. so yeah, we're "rebuilding" a collection, collection development policy and all, and trying to make the library a happy, inviting place to be.

now on to my excel spreadsheet and price research madness. :)

2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 17, 2004

teaching some workshops

last night i finalized some plans for teaching some teen workshops on blogging and web design at the watertown free public library in july. pretty nifty stuff. clayton, a friend of mine from simmons, works in the teen department, and approached me about teaching the blog sessions and helping with the web design sessions, and apparently they want me to do more in the future. so yeah, i might have some sort of ongoing gig with watertown, if these workshops go well.

in developing the workshops, we've taken into consideration teaching internet safety, including how to protect your identity, and yourself, online, and we have some guidelines in the works that we'll be handing out to all of the kids. we'll also be talking about the differences between a blog and a site (and how they can work together, if you want them to), and the importance of keeping content fresh. steven, i hope it's ok if i heist some of your stuff. ;D

in the meantime, the job hunt continues. at least i'm keeping myself busy and upgrading my resumes at the same time. :)

9:41 AM | Permalink