Thousand Oaks Librarian

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Originally uploaded by tolrich7.

This morning we had another one of our computer/Internet classes. This one was on learning how to use Google more effectively. What we do is, we spend half the time giving a presentation and the other half allowing people to practice what they just learned. The classes have been extremely popular and they’re a lot of fun to teach. For more pics from our Google It! class, click on the pic above.

And here’s my half of the presentation…

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A few months ago, I created a Greasemonkey userscript that would allow someone to see whether or not the Thousand Oaks Library has a particular book while they’re browsing through Amazon.com. I think a lot of people like using Amazon to browse for books, so the idea is to make it very easy to see if your local library already has the books you’re interested in so you don’t have to pay for them. Other libraries have done it so it’s not an original idea. In fact, to develop the linky, I basically copied the AADL Amazon Linky created by the Superpatron. If you want to try it out, here’s how you can install it so it works on your Firefox browser. Let me know if you have problems getting it to work. Btw, it’s free!

1. First, download Greasemonkey from http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org. If you download it using Firefox, it should automatically install it.

2. Second, go to the following url to get the user script: http://www.umich.edu/~rkong/amazontollinky.user.js. The TOL Amazon Linky should be installed automatically if you already have greasemonkey installed.

3. Open up Amazon and search for a book title. Wait until the whole page loads and you should see a note that tells you whether or not the book is available at the TOL. If you click on that link, it will take you directly to the item record in the TOL online catalog.

Note: If you’re looking at the Amazon page for a book in paperback and the library only has it in hardcover, it will say that the book is not available at the library even though we really do have it. If you see this, I recommend that you also try clicking on the “hardcover” link in the “other formats” section. Most of our books are in hardcover. Also, this linky probably won’t work for most audiovisual materials.

Click here for an example of a public library that does a really great job of advertising their linky. Also, the instructions are great so if you can’t make sense of my brief instructions, it might help you to look at their page!

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Before I came out to Thousand Oaks, I lived in Ann Arbor, MI and I had the wonderful opportunity to work at the Ann Arbor District Library when they were rolling out their innovative website. It was great for me because I was exposed to so many new advances in how libraries are providing creative, new services to their communities. Well, the folks at the AADL have done it again! They just announced a whole new batch of features for their website, including the ability to rate, review, and tag items in their online catalog. For more details, take a look at their blog entry introducing the enhancements, their catalog page, and a blog kept by one of their key innovators, John Blyberg.

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Today is my last day at the conference. Up until now, I haven’t had the time to visit the exhibit hall so I reserved the entire morning to do that. It never ceases to amaze me how many companies have business interests in the world of libraries. A lot of people out there make money from providing services and products to libraries. I didn’t have time to carefully walk through the entire exhibit hall, but I did make sure that I visited several in particular. It was nice to talk to vendors directly about their products and services. It felt different from my previous conferences because I’m actually a librarian now instead of a student. I guess it makes sense that vendors would be more willing to talk to someone who actually works for a library than a student. Also, I went into the hall today with the goal of not picking up more free stuff than I could fit into the leftover space in my suitcase. I’m happy to say that I managed to meet my goal and still come away with some nice stuff

The only other event I attended before leaving for the airport was a discussion group sponsored by LAMA. The topic was “Minding the generation gap in libraries.” The room was packed with both library directors/supervisors and newer librarians not yet in management. A lot of interesting things came out of that discussion, but the most often repeated points centered on…

-the importance of respect amongst library staff members
-ways of changing library culture so change and forward movement is possible
-the importance of leaders to “set the tone” in order to change a library’s culture
-methods of mentoring newer librarians
-the idea that the reluctance to change and move forward in many librarians can’t always be attributed to the age of the librarian, since many older librarians are, in fact, open to change and excited about new directions for libraries
-the idea that the resistance to change is often times related to a fear that one won’t be able to learn a new skill or technology
-finally, the idea that the identifying common goals and working on projects together can help new and seasoned librarians bridge the so-called generation gap if there is one

One younger librarian spoke of her experience at her first library job and the resentment that a colleague of hers had towards her. She said that this resentment from her colleage made her work situation so unbearable that she ultimately left her organization to work elsewhere. It was nice to see so many directors and supervisors so interested in making their libraries a better work environment for both newer and seasoned librarians.

To wrap things up, I’d say that the ALA Midwinter 2007 conference was excellent. Seattle seems like a great city to live in and I had a great experience here. I especially enjoyed meeting so many interesting, friendly librarians from all over the country. Also, I was able to attend a lot of meetings, discussion groups, special events, receptions, etc. I feel like I learned more about how ALA runs and hopefully that will continue as I work on my Emerging Leaders project during the next 6 months. I’m already looking forward to attending the ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C.

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Today was another full day of meetings and discussions. I started things off by going to the RUSA-MARS (Machine Assisted Reference Services) All Committee meeting. Accorinding to their pamphlet, there are 11 committees in MARS and the members refer to themselves as martians Since I’m not yet on a MARS committee, I was allowed to just hop around and check out more than one committee. After spending some time with the Public Libraries committee, I joined the MERS (Management of Electronic Reference Services) committee. The MERS group spent most of their time discussing their current project, which is an evaluation of virtual reference services. They’re asking libraries to submit proposals to join a virtual poster session that will be mounted on a special ALA website before the ALA Annual 2007.

Afterwards, I went over to the RUSA-RSS (Reference Services Section) discussion group for public libraries. The discussion topics was “Trends in Reference and How They Are Shaping Services.” There were about 20-25 people there (split into two groups) and a lot of interesting topics were covered. It was a lot of fun to “talk shop” with other reference librarians. Most of the discussion focused on marketing library services and providing great customer service. A few librarians talked about customer service training sessions that all library staff were required to attend and it sounded like it really made a difference at those libraries. I know we did something like that at the AADL where Zingerman’s (the famous deli/restaurant in Ann Arbor) came to lead training sessions for staff. Other topics on the list of “trends in reference” include:

-the nature of reference queries has changed
-reference activity is shifting from the desk to one-on-one consultation with subject specialists
-increase in e-mail and phone referencel decrease in in-person reference
-virtual, chat, and IM reference
-web self-help (tutorials, etc.)
-marketing and branding of library services
-growing importance of partnerships (virtual services, sharing of materials, etc.)
-increased spending on electronic reference products
-library as the ‘third place’ (after home and work/school)

After that wrapped up, I ran over to meet a colleague and friend of my AADL days. It’s nice to be able to re-connect with fellow librarians at conferences I didn’t have time for lunch, because I had to run over to a meeting for my Emerging Leaders project. Since my project is sponsored by the PLA (Public Library Association), I was able to attend the PLA National Conference 2008 Program committee. It was an amazing experience! These librarians work tremendously hard to assess hundreds of conference program proposals and select about 130 programs that they think will be of interest and benefit to the public librarians who attend the national PLA conference. If you’ve ever been to a PLA conference, you know that the programs are great. Well, today I realized that these great conferences like ALA and PLA are only possible because a group of dedicated committee members work very hard to make sure things are great. The committee meeting was intense, fun, and enlightening. I mostly just sat and there and listened to all the discussions of the many program proposals. I learned a lot about the issues public libraries and librarians are facing. I came away feeling so good about the work that libraries do and the profession of public librarianship in general. Our EL project looks like it’s going to be focused on planning a program for the PLA conference…specifically something that will appeal to new librarians. I’m excited Btw, in case you want to take a look, the PLA blog is covering the Midwinter conference.

The next thing on my agenda was to get to the University of Michigan School of Information (UM-SI) alumni reception. I was hoping they would have some real food there because I was starving, but they ended up only having some cheese and crackers. I went to the “bar” to ask for some water and the bartender told me that a cup of bottled water would cost me $4.25! I said, “Uh, no thanks.” You would think that the school could spend a few bucks to pay for drinks for their guests (all alumni, most who paid mucho dollars to attend SI), but I guess that’s not how it works. The really sad thing is that I’m positive that I’ll soon get a letter from SI asking me to donate money. Still, it was good to see some old classmates and professors.

I ended my day getting some food and going to the Cinerama movie theater to watch “Dreamgirls.” I normally don’t like musicals (except “Moulin Rouge”) because I just don’t like seeing movie characters spontaneously burst out into song and dance, but I kinda liked this one. The performances were really good and the story was compelling. The theater was also a great place to see a movie. The screen, 90-foot-long, 30-foot-high screen, was beautiful. No matter how great home theater systems get, nothing will ever replace the experience of watching a great movie on the big screen. Click here if you want to read more about the cinerama technology.

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