Thousand Oaks Librarian

The Bears are going to the Super Bowl! “Super Bowl Shuffle” anyone?

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After the OCLC event ended, I attended an open meeting for the PLA Technology Committee. I’m not a member yet, but they were very nice in allowing me to sit in and participate. The chair is Bill Ptacek, director of the King County Library, and there were about 10 others present. They covered a lot of topics and got a lot accomplished. The discussion was good throughout and I found myself very engaged in the whole thing. The first order of business involved figuring out what topics to add/revise/delete from the PLA Tech Notes list. This is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in libraries and technology. Also, the discussion about the open-source ILS, Evergreen, was especially interesting. LJ had an article about it in their recent December issue and here’s another article. It’ll be very exciting if this really takes off and libraries across the country start using it. Oh, and I also heard of groovix for the first time…very cool stuff.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with the folks from APALA (Asian Pacific American Librarians Association). I’m not a member of this group yet, either, but one of their board members whom I met during the EL dinner reception invited me to join them today and I’m really glad I did. We started off at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in the International District (aka Chinatown) in Seattle. It’s the only pan-Asian museum in the entire country and they do a really nice job with their exhibits. We followed that with a tour of the International District led by a man who’s known as “Uncle Bob” in Seattle. He’s known as the unofficial mayor of the International District and has spent most of his life fighting for the people there. You can read more about him in this article. Uncle Bob was hilarious and very knowledgable. We ended the day with an incredible feast at a Chinese restaurant. Yum!

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After breakfast, I went over to the OCLC-sponsored event, “Social Networking–Best Practices for Libraries. The speaker panel included Jenny Levine and David Lee King, the authors of two blogs I’ve been visiting for awhile now. It also included Lisa Janicke-Hinchliffe from the U of Illinois. FYI, Jenny Levine has also blogged her notes from this event.

The starting point for the discussion was the question, “How do we apply social networking technology and websites to libraries?”

David Lee King began by talking about his two current social networking projects. The first involves building the digital branch for his library. He talked about the distinction between physical space and digital space and how his library is trying to expand their services digitally rather than physically. He emphasized the need to ask how digital services will help the library customers. His second project is to change management with the IT dept. The traditional way of thinking for library IT departments is to “protect the fort” but this needs to change so IT empowers the staff and users. He then went on to highlight a few things to remember when planning a social networking project, including:

1. Planning the project: Don’t plan to death, move quickly. Start with the end result, don’t just say, hey, let’s start a blog! but ask how it will improve services to the customer. Figure out who will do the work. Make sure it’s customer-focused.
2. Training the staff: This is a necessity. Focus on two things (details and end results–how this serves and benefits customers). Train often management group too.
3. Inviting participation: Need at least two people. Need staff and customers. Why not invite customers to participate? Two ways to do this: passive and active. Active means actually asking people to comment and give feedback.
4. Top-down and bottom-up: Admin and front-line staff need to get it, support it, embrace it, do it, use it, sell it, manage it, fund it…

Jenny Levine also said some interesting things. She began by asking for a show of hands for people who have used or heard of ALA’s online communities (maybe 4 people raised their hand). She said that ALA has made a decision to improve social networking services. ALA is getting better at blogs, wikis, etc. She also talked about herself as a social networking user. A couple of years ago she started using flickr.com. She doesn’t know why she uses it, but it’s fun and she connects to other people in a way that she didn’t before. She also said that she doesn’t understand facebook, but she started using it and she’s having fun. The bottom line is that these things are fun. She also said that information comes to you now, you don’t have to go to it anymore. Kids IM now to do their homework and even gaming is a very social phenomenon (people participate, watch, cheer, etc). There are interesting opportunities for libraries if we just spot them (e.g., Ann Arbor parents on Yahoo group. 875 parents in A2 that connect to each other sending about 500 messages a month. Libraries also need to find where our people/community is and then go there (e.g., del.icio.us, social bookmarking could be used for recommended websites from librarians. Before we would have just put these links on the library’s website, but now we can go out and put it in places where people already are.

A question and answer session followed the presentations. Here are the key things I took away from this part:
- David: you need two things: Compelling content and awareness. You need to have good stuff so people come back and you need to market your new social networking services!!!
- Jenny: Becoming part of someone’s trusted social network is a good thing, even if we’re not the first place people turn to with a question (libraries have never been the first option, even before google)
- Lisa: smarter to take the stance to push google and the library instead of library, not google
- David: don’t try to compete with google. You’ll lose because they already have a global audience. Libraries should focus on keeping it local and serving their community.
- David: Libraries should try things out and play with new stuff. We shouldn’t feel the need to wait until we’re sure that something is popular or will be popular. If something fails and ends up not being benefiting the community, then at least the library staff has tried something new and learned something. Bottomline: Libraries should play!!!
- The AADL came up a lot. Jenny mentioned that AADL has 10 IT staff members who know how to program. That’s why they do cool stuff.

The final comment for each of the panelists focused on their collective belief that libraries should experiment, explore, play!
- David: Meet with your staff, take back what you learned, and figure out if you want to do something.
- Lisa: Play! All of us who are working in this area are having a great deal of fun because there’s really a lot of very focused play. Engage in playful exploration.
- Jenny: Institutionalize play. One of the reasons google turns out things so fast is because they have a mandate that google staff devotes a huge percentage of their time to play around with their own ideas. ALA is institutionalizing play dates where everyone just joins together and plays around with stuff like SL. If you don’t take the time to look up from your desk and see what’s coming, you won’t be involved. One of the reasons we lost so much to google, because we didn’t see it coming.

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I got an early start today with a 7am breakfast given by H.W. Wilson. I appreciate the free breakfast, but I wish it didn’t have to require me to get up before sunrise! H.W. Wilson gave a short 15 minute presentation on some of their new products for 2007, but let’s face it, most of us were there primarily for the chance to win a video iPod (bad news…I didn’t win it). I did, however, learn about their new electronic resource called Reference Shelf Plus. It basically offers the well-known print series in electronic form. Looks nice, but I would want to compare it to CQ Researcher, which the TOL already has. I wish they would have announced improvements to the interface for Biography Reference Bank, but alas, they did not. I’m still hoping we can add Biography Resource Center to replace it.

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Well, it’s Friday night and I’m back at my hotel to relax before heading out to a reception/dinner. I basically spent the entire day at the Seattle Public Library for the Emerging Leaders activities. This morning I got up early and went to the convention center to pick up my badge holder, program guides, and some other paperwork that I have yet to look at carefully. I thought to myself, “The accumulation of ’stuff’ has begun!” My bag got heavier immediately and, judging from my past experiences at library conferences, I know it will only get heavier as the days pass by!

After picking up my “stuff” at the conference center, I began walking over to the Seattle Public Library on 5th Ave. I didn’t even look at the map closely to see how to get there exactly since I figured that I would instantly recognize the unique building. After seeing it, I must say that it is one of the most amazing, striking buildings I’ve ever seen in my entire life! Although I didn’t have time to take a tour, I saw enough of the exterior and interior to come away impressed! I’m not sure how easy it is to use as a library user, though. I remember reading about how simple things like signs to restrooms were not part of the design plans, which goes to tell you something. If people can’t figure out how to get around your building and find what they want quickly and easily, it doesn’t really matter how “cool” the building looks.

Anyways, the Emerging Leaders event lasted the entire morning and afternoon, though we were briefly interrupted by a fire alarm. All of us had to evacuate the building and stand outside for about 15 minutes. It wasn’t a big deal. When we got back, the major activity for most of the day was a 2-part presentation given by Maureen Sullivan. She highlighted five leadership practices (1. challenge the process, 2. inspire shared vision, 3. enable others to act, 4. model the way, and 5. encourage the heart) and tips on how to best work on a project team. As far as leadership goes, two key points that I took away from the presentation are: 1. leaders need to question the status quo and suggest new approaches and 2. the key to leadership is buidling relationships with people based on honesty and authenticity. Overall, she presented some good, useful information, but I also think a lot of what leadership is all about is common sense (i.e., leaders lead by example and find value in others).

In addition to the presentations given, I met my project team and I can tell they’re all going to be very easy to work with. Everyone seemed laid back but extremely committed and talented as well. There are 6 of us, including myself, two librarians from Missouri, one from Skokie (IL), one from Maryland, and one from Darien (CT). For the next 6 months, we’ll be working on assessing project proposals for the PLA National Conference in 2008. I’m looking forward to it.

What else?….There was a reception afterwards for the Emerging Leaders and there were a lot of leaders from ALA there. I met Susan Hildreth, the State Librarian of California and the President of PLA, and she struck me as very kind and down-to-earth. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to meet her again and work with her in the future.

One last thing…after the reception I took the bus back to the hotel. While we were waiting to depart, someone on the bus yelled out, “So, what’s gonna win the Caldecott?” There was silence from the others on the bus, so he joked, “Capt. Underpants?” Then someone said, “No, a picture book!” To which the first librarian replied,” Oh, okay, the Newbury then!” So then he asks, “Who’s gonna win the Academy Award?” Several people started responding and we had a little mini-discussion about Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep and the film, the Queen. For some reason, people were just more willing to offer their thoughts on movies than books. The man joked, “I thought this was ALA! I ask who’s gonna win the Caldecott and there’s silence. I ask who’s gonna win the Academy Award and there’s [mimicking conversation about movies]!” Everyone on the bus started laughing. Then, later on in the bus ride, for some strange reason a group of librarians started singing, “The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round…” Librarians can be very goofy.

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