Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

Pecha Kucha: 2.0 Top Tips
Jessica Sanchez, Nathan Flinchum, Jenny Novalis, Joe Murphy, and Madeline Kriescher

This session had 5 panelists competing to win for the best presentation. Each person got 6 minutes and 40 seconds for his or her presentation, with 20 seconds per slide. These are awfully fun

Jessica went first and talked about blogging. This is her first CIL conference. She showed a slide of the blog of the Grand Rapids Public Library. Blogs convey news to patrons, helps you get in touch with co-workers, and reach people who make financial decisions for your library. Blogger and WordPress and other sites are free and easy to use. Who is using blogs, and what are they using them for? President Obama's admininstration is blogging. He also has a Twitter Account (username: BarackObama). Public libraries are blogging as well. You can use WordPress to create a webpage too, not just a blog. The Ann Arbor District Library uses blogging to recommend books and other materials, update the community about library news, and they use tagging to aggregate related comments. Blogging for the staff is one way to cut down on FYI emails. She was asked to create a "blog of blogs" for her library – so she'd read through her feeds and create a "Daily Digest" with titles, authors, and links to the posts. If you have a blog and it's not catching on, evaluate your blog and ask your users what they want. When people comment, make sure you reply – if you don't, they will cease commenting. Tag your posts to help people find other information that is interesting to them. Blogging can be used in any library for any purpose. Tap the library world for help with blogging and tips and tricks for your software issues.

Nathan Flinchum went second and covered the social web. He started by noting that at one time we were all new to the web (n00bs). We need to think about our patrons and staff and what they feel like when they encounter Web 2.0 for the first time. There are common concerns – Why doesn't everything work the same way? There are too many sites! Do I need to sign up for each site separately? Library users and staff are using the web for something practical and learning organically. Using these tools on a consistent basis is what has made them important to us. Think about why you initially chose to use a particular tool. Something we were interersted in used the web as a tool. He calls this the "on ramp" to the Internet. These can be a single site or group of sites about a subject: movies, TV, books, etc. These sites are usually self-contained, have one set of tools and rules and skills. This makes their initial entry easy to handle. Ravelry is a social network for knitters with patterns, photos, advice, friends, and more. It's a social network based around a specific interest, and as such she is interested in having the 2.0 experience as a path to the information she wants. The skills are applicable, then, to other sites outside of their initial experience. He recommended Laconica, which lets you install a small instance of Twitter on your own API. Create a sealed off "sandbox" environment to teach 2.0 to staff or the public.Make it private, invite people, and make it a safe place for people to practice 2.0 skills. The fear of repercussions for their actions often stands in the way of people trying out new technology and media. If you give them this sealed off environment, they will be much more comfortable. He referred us to his website: Roanokepl.wetpaint.com.

Jenny Novalis was number three and talked about TechChat, which uses a wiki and technology demonstration programs to train people. Some of the topics include cell phones, digital cameras, printers, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, iPods, etc. The public often comes into the library trying to use these technologies, somewhat unsuccessfully, and stumble around. Their wiki provided an always-available resource where they can get access to help them remember how to do something from the class. They used similar wikis for both staff and public training. There is one "Tech Authority" at each branch who is responsible to help any user coming in with any technology problem. [Note from Sarah: I would not recommend this - I think that it's key that people are equally trained and that no one location relies on the skills and knowledge of one individual person. If a Library Assistant knows tech, but their colleague in the same job classification does not, the library has set up a situation of inevitable inequality, anger, resentment, unfair workload distribution, and other negative nasty things. All staff should be trained in what they need to know, equally, across the board. OK, end of rant.]. The staff wiki includes a lot of tech troubleshooting guides (wifi connections, setting up a projector, etc.). Staff felt more comfortable sharing their concerns on the wiki instead of going directly to Tech Support. Sharing their issues with each other, and helping each other, is a good learning process and takes away some workload from IT.

Joe Murphy was fourth and discussed mobile devices. Cell phones are what people are using – they are capable of many functions and are very popular. Every day, Joe exchanges about 400 text messages every day. He searches through SMS, and his favorite is not Google SMS, but Cha Cha. It's quick, it's people, and he loves it because it's not librarians. Using SMS for reference services at libraries is growing in popluarity. What technologies we use is not important, but the fact that we do it is very important. He believes that we will need to partner with outside organizations like Cha Cha to provide these services. SMS is great for searching the library catalog, the library website, and more. He can check his bank account via SMS and make changes, but that is not possible with library accounts. Mobile applications in the next year or two are essential for libraries to develop and offer consistently. He wants to be able to rate items, share reviews, and connect with community members. He wants mobile applications to mash up with each other. How to manage and maintain mobile applications is something reference librarians will have to engage in as creators and service providers. Do we authenticate? How? How do we market? How do we get to the people who want these services? He suggests having a CiL application, and applications that let you find and manipulate eResources, including sharing them.

Madeline Kriescher finished up the discussion by talking about her work in Denver at a Law Library that serves a 6 state area. Their aim was at the law clerks, not at the judges. They felt they had an image problem in the library. They wanted to be the high tech go-to resources. The Denver Public Library and the Harvard Law Library were two examples she gave as where she wanted to go with her Facebook page and the group she presented it to were hesitant. She emphasized, though, that it's a tool the clerks already use, it helps to reach a wider internal audience, meets the expectations of varied service, and changes attitudes of people about both the technology and the library. The drawbacks included some security risks in reaching a wider audience, plus that there would not be enough time for staff to work on it. The IT department was pretty much on board, but the Judges were giving her a hard time. A lot of the librarian were afraid of something new. Madeline then sent up a formal proposal for the Facebook page and it was accepted. Yay!

In the end, it was a close race but Joe Murphy won this year's Pecha Kucha. Congrats!

CIL2009

Web 2.x Training for Customers and Staff
Beth Tribe, Michael Sauers, and Bobbi Newman

Beth Tribe started by discussing some tips and tricks about public training (I missed this part of the session as I was unfortunately late coming back from lunch – sorry Beth!  I'm sure others have blogged it as well).

Michael Sauers talked about the implementation of the 23 Things program at his library. The program was very successful and the staff responded very positively to the opportunity to learn. At one point, Michael said "If you haven't done this program yet, go back and do it right away." I agree. 23 Things is not new now. It has become a one-stop-shop for basic Web 2.0 tools and learning. They did the program with Continuing Education credits, which is unusual. And he suggests that it's important to make sure that people write a minimum amount of words for CE credits. He suggested giong slowly, working with the staff one-on-one if necessary, and paring people up when they need help. Many school librarians participated, but the service was blocked in their workplaces. As a result, they were asked to do it at home. But due to union rules, some people could not do that work at home (it's the same with my library in San Jose).

Bobbi talked about staff and public training. A good quote: "The more familiar we are with something, the more ew like it. This is the mere exposure effect." She noted that with staff there is a baseline level of expectations for skills, but the same is not true with the public. Her library did 29 things, and got some interesting reactions from staff. Staff wanted more. So they created Learning 2.1. Staff had felt there were too many lessons, that they didn't have enough time to complete each week's task. Learning 2.1 was based on "microlessons" taking one hour only. They gave prizes all the way through. She noted that the dollar bin at Target and the dollar store are great places to get prizes. They were able to give away grand prizes for 2.0 and 2.1. 2.0 had MP3 players for everyone who completed the program. Same thing with 2.1 – another MP3 player for completion . The grand prize drawing for a digital camera was the ultimate win. One of their staff members now does a podcast with his daughter now. They had one library blog when the program started, and now they have four or five blogs. Staff kept sharing after the program was over and she believes that a real culture of learning has been cultivated in the library through these two programs. One of their problems her library has with training library customers is a lack of a training lab. They got a grant for a laptop cart and laptops for mobile classes in community spaces. The community wanted training on specific topics, so that's what they offered: using blogs, discovering new resources at the library, Facebook, online photo sharing with Flickr, internet safety. She discussed the problem of having students with very basic knowledge and very advanced knowledge on the topic being covered, and the importance of offering ideas and content that is appealing to both groups. After the training, most people walk out and don't think about it again. Few people follow up after the class with additional questions or needs. That is the opposite of what happens with staff training.

CIL2009

Social Network Profile Management
Greg Schwartz, Amanda Clay Powers, Michael Porter, and me

I had the honor of presenting with these three wonderful speakers about social network profiles.

Greg Schwartz went first. He started talking about identities online. It's not just about expression and reputation. It's about things you publish, services you access, things you buy. It all comes together to form your digital identity. Greg's first tip is to own your username. Get one and stick to it. Join the conversation. Develop your identity by letting people know who you are. Also, listen. Pay attention to what other people are saying about you. Keep track through RSS feeds for Twitter, Bloglines, etc. searches for your name. Finally – Be authentic!

Amanda Clay Powers followed up with discussions about her experiences teaching social networking throughout the state of Mississippi. Social networking is all about telling stories, which we've always done. Where do librarians enter into this picture? Creating and managing your identity on social networks is just like creating and managing information. Think of this as social metadata – information about ourselves. Think about all of the information that creating identities creates…we can help people manage their identities. Users are smothered by information coming out at them and what they're producing. She shared how her mother went to the library to go on Facebook for the first time. Librarians offered help, but she turned them down. She didn't think that librarians would know anything about Facebook. Teaching each other how to be healthy online is important. We can coach people how to use these tools appropriately so that they can develop the best possible online identity.

Then I spoke. My slides are up on Slidehsare. See the bottom of this post for access.

Michael Porter finished up the talk. Michael is always fun. Michael works for WebJunction and has been very involved in managing their online identity and interactions. He talked about the WebJunction site building process. As a community site for library staff it can function as an online resume of sorts for your professional identity. He also talked about how you can micromanage who sees which bits of info from your profile. Michael recommends doing things that are fun and laid back through your social networks, but still smart. Be creative, be fun, but be sensitive. Don't post nearly naked photos of yourself on MySpace (Michael gave an example from his own site). Share success stories on your social networking tools. Should you make fun of politicians, library figures, etc? Be tasteful, be careful, be smart.

We then opened it up to questions and comments from the audience. The first question came from a corporate librarian. She said her users didn't want their personal profiles merged with their professional profiles. Is that possible? Greg said that that is unlikely. The identities blend and merge, and as part of being authentic, you start wanting to talk about professional stuff in your personal space and vice versa and they bleed into each other. Greg says it's more authentic to realize that the two identities are one. Michael and I mentioned our similar experiences that you can't really keep the identities separate. You can do things privately under another name if you need to, to keep things private. Amanda talked about how it is a legacy issue – what you posted as a college student is still there as you become a part of the workforce. Another person pointed out that newcomers to social networks tend to post everything. Keep in mind that it's available for the whole world to see and know that you don't have to post everything in your life online. Keep private things private. The next person asked about the difference between creating personal profiles and professional profiles on these different sites. Amanda talked about how the changes to Facebook change how you spread out information to your users, and what they are seeing. Are you spamming them? Are you sending enough? The right stuff? Even though it's professional, for an institution, you still need to be personal in your nature. The last question was about cross-linking between profiles – how do your Flickr fans find your Facebook page? If you use a lifestreaming tool like FriendFeed to aggregate your different presences, that can help. But you should also cross-link between networks and presences. I also suggested that you link to all of your social networks from your Contact Us page. Michael also pointed out that you have to budget time for maintaining these sites. If you have 3 network presences, what does that mean you can't do in other areas? Amanda also mentioned the 2.0 Mississippi Summit, and this year's focus is on project planning and assessment.

CIL2009

Best of the Web
Aaron Schmidt

Aaron started the session by asking us all to talk to our neighbors about our favorite tools on the web. Nice touch! Then Aaron started with his quick and long list of favorites:

• Firefox: A great free browser. He mentioned several add-ons for Firefox like Smart Keywords: programming shortcuts for searching sites you often use. Also Greasemonkey which lets you extend the function of Firefox by adding bits of javascript in your browser. Customize Google lets you change displays. Better Gmail 2 lets you take out all the ads from Gmail's screens.
• Google Reader: Helvetica Reader improves the display and function of Gogle Reader
• Bookj City Jackets: cute little paper jackets marked with "fiction" or "favorites" (suggested for book displays at the library – good idea!)
• Wikipeda Commons: open source images to use for library promotional materials, websites, etc. Different licenses for attribution exist, so check what the requirements are before using something.
• Flickr Image Search: also a good way to find photos by doing an advanced search for items with a Creative Commons license.
• Pictobrowser: lets you enter in a Flickr URL and it will give you a piece of code to embed on the website and give you a slideshow. No coding involved, just copy and paste the code.
• Skitch: a screenshot tool, you can annotate screengrabs and easily upload things directly to Flickr from Skitch or post it to their site.
• Jing: works for Mac and Windows, screenshots but also lets you record screencasts. Records all of your actions, lets you upload your final product to their site or download the files as Flash files and host them locally.
• Screentoaster: a completely web-based screencasting tool.
• Vimeo: YouTube but cleaner and with "less insulting comments." An audience member said it was "artier." You can get accounts for free and customize the way your video displays. Vimeo also has a Whitehouse channel, just like YouTube. Aaron also recommends that we look at Vimeo's sign-up process, and try to make our library sign-ups just as easy.
• PostRank: put in your feed addresses and it will tell you which posts are more popular than others. Can help you measure what content is more popular and what should be dropped.
• CopyAndPaste.com: includes symbols and non-traditional characters that you can simply copy and paste into your blog posts, Word documents, etc.
• Today's Meet: creates a temporary online space where people can gather and chat.
• Doodle: a tool to help you schedule meetings online with others
• When Is Good: another tool to help you schedule meetings online
• LetMeGoogleThatForYou: lets you do a Google search and then gives you a tiny URL to access those results automatically. The link shows people accessing it the act of typing something into the search box, hitting search, and then displaying the following text: "Was that so hard?" A bit of a smart monkey tool to tease friends
• Color Lovers: designs and color combinations and color schemes that you can grab for your own site design
• TagCrowd: enter a URL or a block of text and pulls out relevant tags and makes a tag cloud
• Wordle: similar tool for creating a tag cloud.
• Qapture: a real-time aggregation of what's going on on Twitter.
• Search.Twitter.com: search for your library's name, see who's talking about the library then reply to people's posts and connect with them virtually.
• TweetDeck: monitors Twitter activiity, lets you search for terms, includes access to your replies, etc.
• Vyew: Free online webcasting tool. Share desktops, do video, have chat, do a PowerPoint, etc.
• Bacolicio.us: Run any webpage through this and it super-imposes a piece of bacon over the site
• WordPress theme called Thematic: a basic framework, clean and good code, easy to modify and adjust.
• TED talks: really expensive conference held in Monterey with scientists, computer people, business people, artists, etc. The stie includes talks on a variety of topics that can be inspiring or expose you to new ideas and connections.
• Google Voice: You can get a new phone number from Google, give it to people, and calls to that number will be routed to your phone, and all voicemail gets transcribed into text.
• Google Forms: create a web form easily with this tool and copy and paste the code into your own site, and the data goes to a Google Spreadsheet. Aaron has used it to create a quick and easy sign-up form for Summer Reading.
• Book Bag: www.lizania.com/bookbag.php a bag that is shaped like a book. Unzip it and it turns into a canvas bag.
• Net News Wire: Aaron's choice for an RSS reader, but it only works on Macs. Bah. An audience member says that Newsgator offers something similar for Windows.
• Prezi: make neat looking presentations using this web tool. Aaron says there is a steep learning curve, but thinks it's worth it.
• 280Slides: online tool for creating and sharing presentations.
• Lovely Charts: lets you create wireframes, flowcharts, organizational charts, network diagrams, anything.
• Typetester: enter some sample text, choose all of the CSS paramaters and it displays the results below. You can compare three different options at a time. You can then copy and paste the CSS you like into your stylesheet.
• A commercial from Lithuania that airs often and adavertises libraries. The basic point is that you must use the right toolf or the job, and the library is the place to get that information.

The audience then started sharing their favorite sites.

1. Evernote: lets you tag sites and put them in folders. Kind of like a combination of bookmarks and del.icio.us.
2. Zotero: a Firefox plug-in that lets you pull citations from your OPAC into Firefox.
3. WorldTimeServer.com: shows the current time anywhere in the world. Also offers a meeting planner.
4. Tadalist.com: helps you create lists of sites. Save lists that you use often (e.g. conference packing lists, holiday lists, etc.). You can share your lists via RSS. Archives the lists.
5. Hulu.com: movies online. Good when your library copies are checked out or damaged.
6. Toodledo: Site for temporary to-do lists, lets you annotate, tag, put them into folders,
7. SendUIt: Lets you upload a PDF or attachment and create a link and email that to people instead of emailing them the attachment itself.
8. EMic4All.com: lets you record audio in MP3.
9. Audacity: free audio editing software
10. LogMeIn.com: remote support for computers, once you put the client on you can select a remote group of computers to connect to. Offers a free version and a paid version.
11. DropBox: put a client on a PC or a Mac and put files up onto the virtual storage site and you get updated real-time from either computer. Good way to have access to files no matter where you are and what computer you are on.
12. Xobni: searches email, links to Facebook, etc.
13. Google Chrome: fast, works like Firefo, for PCs and Macs only, not Linux. Also supposed to be super-secure.

CIL2009

Tuesday Morning Keynote
Interview of Paul Holdengraber and Erik Boekesteijn

This session was broadcast live on Information Today's website to people all over the world, as well as to us here at CiL. Paul is the Director of Public Programs at NYPL. The session started with a showing of the Shanachie tour clip that included Paul's initial interview. Paul studied Law and Philosophy in Europe, and then went to New Jersey and was working on his dissertation in Comparative Literature. He taught for a while in college (Brooke Shields was one of Paul's pupils). He was a fellow at the Getty when it was still in Santa Monica. He was hired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His goal there was to bring people in to a daunting institution and to remove the barriers of authority that keep people out. He then employed the same ideas when he was then recruited to work for the New York Public Library. At first, he says, you feel small when entering NYPL. And that's OK, to be overwhelmed by the books, by the sheer volume of knowledge. But then getting beyond that and trying to learn and make your own contributions to the knowledge. The NYPL Director said he wanted Paul to "oxygenate" the library. Paul's interests are in changing and molding things, what we do in a place that is public (the library) to do something very private (read, research, etc.). He says he feels like he's created rock concert series at the library – through his work with the programming and cultural "intensity" at NYPL. We then saw some clips of some of the programs he's organized, including famous politicians, chefs, authors, musicians, film directors, etc. After the clips, Paul said that his favorite moments are meeting people before the interviews to discuss. Paul said that his mother said, about listening, "We have two ears and one mouth." Paul said is that it's key to be porous, to listen to interviewees and absorb their knowledge and spirit. They staged a semi-Dadaist opera at NYPL in the reading room (a place of normal quiet). He mentioned the oft-said library administration line "We at the library have never done this…", something that many of us hear in our jobs. One of Paul's mottos is that he never asks for permission, but only for forgiveness when necessary. Paul's instructions to "oxygenate" the library were a bit difficult to start. When he arrived, Paul told the Board of the Library that they needed to make the library irresistible. Initially he was in charge of "Public Educational Programs". He changed the name of the programs to "Live from the New York Public Library," a much more descriptive and less condescending name. He also changed the program time to the evening, to make it more accessible to more people. When he arrived, their email list had 500 people and it has risen to over 20,000 in response to his work. The age of attendees has changed incredibly in response to changing the type of programs being offered as well. He talked about a program with Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens being broadcast, attendees blogging, Tweeting, Flickr-ing, etc. many of the new programs. The online presence of the programs has raised considerably in importance and extensibility. he said he's very interested in the afterlife of a conversation. What happens to all of it? How does it continue to have a life? Using technology to capture conversations and continue them after the live event is amazing, says Paul. It increases the socialization of the topics, bringing people together. Paul says we need to be together in rooms for programs sometimes, that it changes the way people interact and how they experience an event. Paul said "the 52 million books are on the shelves. Wunderba! So what?" Paul says his goal is to take those books off the stacks, bring them into the forum, and deeply desire them. Paul says he can't imagine a world without books. Simply having a Kindle on the shelf isn't as enjoyable. Somehow we go from this very private experience of reading to a public manifestation through an event and then back to another private experience, following up on new knowledge from the event. Paul mentioned the library as a machine where you learn things, a repository, and where you use the web that makes sense for us and makes us focus on new discoveries. The library is a great place for opportunities during these hard economic times. People are at the library now more than ever. It is a haven. Public Programs is a way of opening up the home that Paul works in. A great quote from Paul toward the end of the session: "We have Facebook. I am interested in faces. We have homepages. I am interested in the physical nature of the home." He ended with an anecdote: Here's how Barack Obama found his community organizing job in Chicago. In 2005 he told American Libraries "People always mention libraries in terms of just sources for reading and research. But I probably would not be in Chicago would it not have been for NYPL….The librarian helped me find lists of organizations. One of them was the organization I then worked for in Chicago." To Paul, this exemplifies the importance of the public library in public life.

CIL2009

Blogs as Websites
Aaron Schmidt (Digital Initiatives Librarian for the D.C. Public Library)
Carol F. Garland (Director of the Sodus Free Library)
David Lisa (New Jersey State Library’s Adult & Urban Services Specialist)

Aaron started by talking about WordPress and presented 10 Reasons to Use WordPress.

1. It’s free. Downloading the software is free, and you have to put it on a server somewhere (perhaps by having it hosted on LISHost), which you can do relatively cheaply (so not totally free, but close).
2. Support. Because WP is open source, there is a large community built up around the software’s capabilities. WordPress’s forums contain many problems, glitches, and issues (search before you ask). There is a whole section in the forum about using blogs as content management systems.
3. Interaction. Readers can comment on different parts of your site. WP also uses trackbacks, which lets you see who is linking to your pages.
4. Search Engine Optimization. Search engine spiders like WP’s code, as it does other blogging software too, and indexes your content frequently and ranks you higher.
5. Less work. Using a blog is straightforward and you can use people who are volunteers or non-librarians to get your content online.
6. Easy. Put in a title. Put in some content. Edit it with a WYSIWYG editor if you want to make it fancy. Done. It’s just like sending an email. WordPress.com is a free service that hosts blogs, so you can experiment with it and learn a bit about it without downloading it yourself.
7. Themes. There are a number of pre-created themes to make your site look wonderful. It uses CSS, but you don’t need to know CSS to make your site look awesome. Thematic, K2, and Cutline are popular themes.
8. Widgets. WP offers many widgets that add content, features, and design elements to the site. Using a graphical interface, you can simply check off what you want and where you want it. There are also Plugins that let you enhance search engine optimization and other things.
9. Flexibility. Since WP is open source that works with a lot of other technologies, you can make it look quite different. The Collingswood Public Library in NJ, the Plymouth State University’s OPAC that is a WP blog behind the scenes, the Park County Library System, the North Plains Public Library (Aaron’s old library).
10. People. When you use blog software, your site is very usable compared to a static HTML page system.

Carol continued the session with her presentation about her library’s website at http://www.soduslibrary.org. Their old site had been done with FrontPage and only one staffperson knew how to update it. When that staffperson left, the site became quickly outdated in content and design. They chose to use Blogger because it is incredibly easy to use. It’s easy to learn, easy to set up, easy to adapt, easy to maintain, and easy to update. In literally a few minutes, you have a new site with easily-updated constantly-changing information. They hired a professional videographer to chronicle the library’s services and mission and posted that to their site. They use the blog to showcase their activities and events. The summer reading’s story hours and photos of it made a very interesting addition too (she uses Picassa for the photos). They created a sub-blog with a calendar of events for each month. She’s been using ArtVex.com as a place to get free images. She uses Google Pages as well, but that will be changing to Google Sites soon. They do little polls constantly on the sidebar of the site. They also use StatCounter.com to get info on the use of their site (free version lets you analyze the most recent 500 visits to your pages). She finds it incredibly easy if you don’t have a current site, need to get something up quickly, and have staff with limited expertise and technology skills.

David closed the session by talking about his library, the West Long Branch Public Library, using Blogger for their website. WLBPL is a member of a county consortia, but wanted to have its own separate website. In 2006 the website transitioned from a traditional site to a blog format. They really wanted the newest collection development info & news at the front of the page (easy with a blog). They found that patrons would come in asking for specific librarians that they saw author blog posts to thank them for their recommendations or other content. As such the staff ended up getting additional interactions with the public that might not have been possible otherwise. He emphasized that Blogger lets you create not only blog-format pages with backward-chronological entries, but static “regular” pages as well like their book club’s page. He emphasized the importance of the RSS feed for the content on the library's website. Almost every page has an RSS feed, which can be used by patrons to subscribe or to remix your own content and redisplay the RSS feeds' content in other pages.

CIL2009

Obstacle or Opportunity: It's Your Choice
Pam MacKellar (author of The Accidental Librarian

Ms. MacKellar began with a description of how in the early days of the interet, with good old Dialog, you had to be very careful about formulating searches so as not to waste money. She talked about how to make a difference in the library world. Her tips were to spread the word about:

• the basics of libraries and librarianship
• knowing your library's or organization's mission
• knowing your community's information needs
• planning
• design goals to meet community needs
• knowing where your library is going
• funding library projects with grants
• removing "barrier thinking"

That last one is the most important. Even if you have the rest of the items well in hand, barrier-moded thinking will prevent the library from going forward.

There are many obstacles that people traditionally list: being a small library, budget being too small, not having enough staff, being disadvantaged or underprivileged, staff not being tech experts, tech not being able to improve on current services, not having time to learn about or keep up with technology, "T says no," computers or networks being out of date, "it's not my job," etc….(her list was dozens of items long, and included in the printed conference proceedings and the last chapter in her new book).

When we see obstacles we tend to become less productive, become less excited about new ideas, become discouraged, go through the motions and disengage at work, atrophy, create a negative environment which in turn causes valuable staff members to quit, and the end result is that customers turn away – the library becomes a negative place for them. Negative marketing of the library can come in many forms: discouraged and negative staff, outdated or neglected software or hardware, neglected MySpace pages or wikis, negative signage, and technology that doesn't work. No wonder people don't want to come to the library! Also, often times if the boss has a negative attitude that filters down through the system and is more difficult to change than other negative staff members.

She spoke out vehemently about the "NO" signs that we have all over the library – get rid of them. One example was pathetic. The sign said "Book collection closed – No checking out." A consultant had apparently been brought in who said everything could be found online and to do away with the physical collection entirely. The sign made the front page of the local newspaper and resulted in some severely negative publicity. Reality is ever-changing. If something is a reality now (e.g. a very negative boss) it may not be a reality tomorrow. How we perceive reality is our choice and we can truly flip a negative into a positive opportunity.

Here are some examples of libraries seizing opportunities. The Aztec Public Library created a Digital Media Arts Program that is being funded by multiple sources as a teaching and mentoring program in creating 3D graphics, animation, and digital movies. The library director, Leanne Hathcock, partnered with many, many organizations and funders. Some of the library board members and town leaders said that "libraries don't do that" and did not support the project. She recommends staying committeed, being fearless, don't listen to criticism, and don't keep working on it until it's perfect – instead, just do it and see what happens.

The Martha Liebert Public Library was built with book donations. The books were donated from the community, the town gave $500, a local lumber company funded materials for the shelves, carpenters from public schools built the shelves, and members of the VFW painted the shelves. A smaller project, but an immediate one with a tangible result for all to see. She recommends knowing your community's needs, having a well thought out plan, being brave, sticking to it, and believing in yourself.

She offered five steps to changing your mind about negative obstacles:

1. Evaluate your own outlook: take some optimism tests (e.g. "Learned Optimism Test" from Dr. Martin Seligman, "Optimistic Movement Optimmism Test," "Psychology Today Optimism/Pessimism Test," etc.
2. Identify the problem: Ask yourself what negative thoughts about your work situation go through your mind regularly? What issues must you face to turn your attitude around? Write down one attitude you want to adjust or thought pattern you want to redirect and find out what resources you need to change.
3. Decide to change: Realize that your outlook is the result of choices you make, and not permanent if you don't want it to be. You can choose to change, but you cannot change someone else. People can only change if they want to themselves.
4. Develop a guiding principle: know what your purpose is and write it down. You will find technology that makes a difference when you keep that principle in mind.
5. Take action: Do something to support your guiding principle every day and work outside your comfort range. Change your vocabulary from negatives to positives.

Some additional tips to set yourself up for success: loosen up, spread the word about your successes, use free learning opportunities, and watch for new funding opportunities all the time.

In the question and answer session, someone mentioned Classroom 2.0, with tons of free tutorials and learning resources.

CIL2009

Tiny Libraries, Tiny Tech
Jessamyn West from Librarian.net
Heather Braum and Brenda Hough from NEKLS

Jessamyn started her talk by saying that her library offers the only public wifi within 15 miles. She also noted that because her town in rural Vermont doesn't have good cell phone service, her community doesn't text or use cell phones often. She showed 2008 statistics about who has broadband vs. dial-up access. About 10% of people still have dial-up. 55% of adults have broadband at home. Low-income folks especially do not have broadband. 19% of dial-up users said that nothing would convince them to get broadband. 14% of dial-up users and 24% in rural America said they'd get it if they could, but can't. And 27% of adult Americans are not internet users. Broadband and dial-up cost about the same now, but broadband is simply not available in some places. She discussed skill acquisition for new computer users – that you have to learn basics before you can jump to doing things on eBay. A lot of her libraries have only Gates Foundation computers, which limits their use somewhat. By and large, their users just want simple services to work, nothing fancy. Things that are free to use: web space, photo hosting, video hosting, blog software, some tech support, grant money with strings attached. She discussed the importance of residents finding government information online and how government is becoming increasingly wired (Obama's live online sessions, White House blog, etc.).

Heather and Brenda talked about the NEKLS talked about being innovative and "thinking outside the box." Building community through the library as a technology center is essential. A number of Kansas Libraries are using WordPress to host their websites. Smaller libraries had outdated websites that had been static for years, without any access to the back-end to make changes. Moving to WordPress allowed for additional features, increased access for updating, and more content (and accurate content) for the users. They showed some video clips of the libraries' websites and the library staff themselves talking about what they do with the websites and why they like them better on WordPress. Because the NEKLS libraries pooled their resources, they were able to implement Koha for their ILS. They showed us a number of clips of librarians talking about how they have volunteers or tech specialists come in to teach classes on eBay, GPS, etc. A 16 year-old on staff at the John C. Fremont District Library developed code for a time management software through the MaintainIT project.

CIL2009

I finished my first presentation for Computers in Libraries 2009, entitled "The 10 LOL Cat Laws of Web Services for Smaller and Underfunded Libraries."  I have posted the slides on Slideshare (thanks to the audience member who recommended using that).

CIL2009

Hi all!  Starting this Sunday I'm going on a week-long speaking trip to both Computers in Libraries in Washington, D.C. and to the Texas Library Association Conference in Houston.  Here's what I'm talking about:

Computers in Libraries

• March 30, 2009 – "I Wanna Be 2.0 Too!: Web Services for Underfunded LibrariesI Wanna Be 2.0 Too!: Web Services for Underfunded Libraries"
• March 31, 2009 – "Social Network Profile Management"
• April 1, 2009 – "Learning Solutions Through Technology"

Texas Library Association

• April 2, 2009 – "Keeping Up & Handling Information Overload" for the Texas Library Association

If you'll be at either conference, stop by and say hello.  I'd love to get the chance to meet new faces and give hugs to those faces I know and love already.  I have more speaking engagements coming up in the Spring and Fall.  See my About page for more on that.  Want me to present either live in-person or via webcast or podcast to your library?  I can do that   Just pop me an email.  We'll chat.