it's great, but what's it for?

This was a fun week, as you may guess, I like to read. I read everything, my home is a paper collection, I can't walk by a pamphlet without grabbing it or a newspaper about anything. So, to have to read articles, that were short and interesting and distracting from Dora's Halloween was a great assignment.

I have very much enjoyed learning about all these tools and some of them are so cool. I can see them being used as staff to make our job easier and more efficient(like delicious). Knowledge is important to help our patrons do what they need to do, and some of them would love this stuff too.

I liked that the articles kept in mind that many of our patrons do not wish to go near a computer and only do so when they seem to have no choice(like printing off boarding passes for a flight or posting a picture to sell a truck). I spend so much time introducing people to a computer and how to use a mouse and what is GOOGLE? type questions, and while this is fun, often I am alone on the floor and the phone is ringing and the line up is starting and I am running back and forth and not doing a good teaching job. We have had some good computer workshops, but maybe we need a one hour workshop on how to use a computer, and perhaps in different German dialects as well. So many organizations, governments and businesses are saying to people, just check the website, well that's not good. You may as well tell a lot of people to just go away, they can't or won't check a website and who can blame them It's a new language and if someone told me I couldn't apply for a loan or a passport or whatever unless I could fill it out in Mandarin, I'd be sunk and frustrated. Small town and village life is different, we have patrons that don't have phones, either for financial or cultural reasons, to expect them to renew their books on line is far fetched when they are not on a high speed route and don't even have a telephone line. They love us because their holds are already on the counter when they come up..(Oh, I saw you walk in), or because we told them that the new Nora Roberts is coming out, (Can we add you to the list?)We can not be a great library and make it difficult for patrons who are not computer literate or even interested to use our services. That being said, a couple of the articles mentioned that good service to some people is being invisible. I understand that, I love self service(except at the grocery store), and younger users are used to being able to do things themselves. They are the ones that we need to change to suit while still keeping the integrity of our present services for our established clientele.

Lisa had a blog for summer reading, a perfect use of the technology and a way to keep the older kids intrigued. If we get them hooked now at 11 or 12, maybe we can keep them with a teen blog or online book club or something. One thing I have been thinking, is that with 10 branches, often one would be enough. There is not time or need for each branch to do this stuff. Either HQ staff or one children's librarian or another staff member with an interest and time could be responsible for a teen or tween or YA blog and keep it up to date and moving. Sure, other staff would contribute, but we don't have the time to put into this at every large or small branch. I know there are people in our organization who love young adult literature and would be thrilled to connect with them. Then when the blog takes off, a semi annual open house in various branches could let everyone meet. It could start with the Forest of Reading awards with the older kids and get people talking that way. Well, that was longer than I expected and I have so much more to rant about...

I would personally like a quick way to find out what's new, whether it be an adult blog and a juvenile blog with lists of new additions or some other 2.0 way of getting the word out that we have it! Some patrons want to be emailed with storytime registration information and a simple email newsletter might be a great way to start, it would come right to you without signing up for any new services.

A couple of days later...while we need to be aware of Library 2.0, we also need to be aware that people may not want us to use it. It is great for the pockets of people that want us to be current and part of the future, but we can't forget the large part of our demographic that loves the present or even prefers the past. Even answering machines scare them. My Old Order Mennonite friends who babysit my daughter have a memo sent out from their church on how to manage voice mail machines posted by their phone. My mother in law lives in fear of her debit card, scared some day she will be forced to use it. Even if a survey were to show that a majority of people are ready, there will be some for which Home Library Service, paperbacks and phone calls is their only comfort zone and they are our loyal patrons too.

I have felt that I have been complaining a lot in this blog and maybe I am just tired-since my husband and 3 year old are plotting against me so I don't get much sleep, but I don't mean too. All this stuff is so terrific and I feel privileged that I am able to understand some of it, use a lot of it and take advantage of so many great opportunities afforded to me. Still I need a place to keep track of what I've read, what I want to read, and a secret password/username box.

technorati

As Dora the Explorer plays in the background, again, I spent my morning exploring technorati. I like using the search box the best. I could type in what I wanted plus the word Canada and get only a dozen blogs for most of my entries. I like small lists.

Then I searched Waterloo region and found the One Book One community blog, which was cool, because I actually found something interesting and familiar using such a huge tool.

Well, Dora needs my help, I see Swiper!

It is delicious!

Love delicious, but I can't be bothered to remember where the .'s go.

What a great idea, wish I had had it last year when I switched computers, then when the hard drive crashed after three weeks with a new computer(which they replaced, but not the fly in fishing trip favourites that we had).

It also would be good for work, when I move around the Woolwich branches, there are a few websites that would come in handy at each branch-also when new staff computers arrived. It's really neat that it is social, and I will explore that more later, but simply the storage option is such a blessing.

I can see it definitely being useful for staff, and a service we could tell patrons that use the internet at our libraries about, esp. the ones that come in when their internet is down. Even if we were able to share bookmarks with each other it would be great, I know there is so much knowledge in the branches already.

The dreaded question, "I want to research my family tree, where do I start?"-well, some websites handy of whereever you do that at would be handy, as well as the physical reference section.

I am going to ponder wonderful ways that delicious could work for us, and then get to technorati another day.

a ham caught with some spam

I've been following Carol's blog and last week kept getting a warning that her blog was under investigation. I didn't report her, but I noticed the link, FLAG BLOG and it is easy to report a blog for doing whatever is objectionable. It would be easy for a rookie to get stuck in something and end up reporting an upstanding blog for spamming and that's just something else to look out for. Whoever the blogger people are would take a while to investigate and clear it up. It would be a shame for an organizations blog to be detoured in this way, but I guess if it was checked almost daily, it would work out okay. Although it did provide us with something really interesting to talk about at work the next few days. Who was it that said library staff are subversive?

If there were another Harry Potter!

Facebook would be cool if there were another Potter phenomena, there could have been discussions, countdowns, polls all on a RWL page, and we could read the cataloguing process leading to the middle of the night delivery to branches before opening. Like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Hmm, does he have a page? What's he doing now?

what's that old green thing in my library bag?

So, it would be cool to have a facebook page to create buzz about a big event, maybe word on the street or family literacy day or something for YAs, but the worry would be having to watch it constantly so it didn't get usurped into another agenda. How do we know it is authentic out there anyways? Someone planned my __th high school reunion UGH! this summer via facebook and some people went, lots like chatting about barely related stuff though. For people my age, only a few are on facebook, so though it was an easy way to communicate, it was not the most useful, but for 20 somethings or younger, it is necessary. My neighbour got a facebook account for her birthday now that she is a teenager, something she has been waiting for like a driver's license or pierced ears in my day!

I'm glad to know about library thing and it would suit people I know and meet at the library. A few of them....mostly though, our most regular patrons are still trying to figure out using a debit card or a photocopier, so to ask them to store books on an online account is a bit far fetched. It looks like a fun time waster I want to go back to. Not to be a cynic, talk to me in a year and I may have hundreds of books on there, but a pad and paper would be just as good to me, to keep track of my favourites. Once again, it is so useful to have an understanding of the concept for those times when I would need inspiration or to share it with a patron who loves this stuff and wants to have a midnight book club in their pjs with folks from around the world.

Now that we can download novels onto an mp3 player and listen to them anywhere, and not even need to "visit" a library, I can see the challenge is to remain relevant to the next generation. Sites like this can bridge the gap between paper readers and modern technoreaders. I heard that in the 80s though, that books would be dead by the turn of the century and so far, not even close! That bookdrop on Tuesdays is so full, we need two carts in the juvenile department alone, people are really reading in my town!


Now I should check the assignment to see if I answered any of the questions or just droned on a little soapbox once again. :) Cheers for now.
Don't forget to vote all you Tuesday night library keepers!

Feed me!

Okay, so now I have lots of newsfeeds. I wonder if they are ones I really wanted, or did I just want to get my homework done? Hmm....it will be fun to follow the other blogs and I think as I start looking for feeds on sites I am interested in, the content will better suit me. I did find it difficult to find feeds that seemed interesting to me, but then perhaps I am not the target market for these things? The search tools did not suit me, and I eventually gave up. My email is not used much nowadays, so maybe some feeds will make me feel less e-lonely. Most of my mail comes through facebook and from people I knew in the 80s.

I love the idea of having these feeds, but I might find them annoying if they all come at once. I also am having password overload -is there a book where I could put them all -and my usernames are scattered throughout my brain too. The other day I forgot my bank card number, which is a tragedy for me, that's my number one number and I couldn't figure it out at a store. I had to go to the Elmira bank machine(the scene of most of my interac crimes) and use my kinesthetic memory to figure it out. My brain forgot, my finger knew.


We could easily add these to the elmlib email address and wouldn't everyone be pleased! Add to the many emails we get already. You know what I would love though, is a feed attached to Lois' desk(or whoever) that says....I just added this new book or DVD to the catalogue, place your hold now before anyone else finds out! The other day I checked for a DVD I wanted and it wasn't there one day and the next it was, and I was tenth in line! As I sit dreaming, I wonder if I could get a feed saying that someone cancelled in the popular Thursday morning storytime and get that one spot left right away. Or a feed from a publisher's press releases advertising a popular author's next novel. Hey, maybe we should ask a library page or two to be on the Web 2.0 committee(they won't need the course, they are born knowing these things), since they are the people that use these tools and would be impressed that the library wanted to involve youth and young adults. It would give us some authenticity and a built in focus group. Now, Sunday, here I come, full of news and dreaming of bacon.