LJ feed debuts. Also, Friday miscellanea.

September 28, 2007 at 12:14 pm (Library 2.0, RSS, humor, memoir, nonfiction, professional development, reader's advisory, reviews)

Mission accomplished – LiveJournal users can now click here to add the feed.

This morning, several colleagues who are presenting at this year’s PaLA conference gave us a preview of their presentation, which is about using 2.0 technologies to promote readers’ advisory for teens. Since the teen patrons will someday be adult patrons, it’s really important to keep an eye on how they use technologies, and consider how adult services librarians will have to adapt. The section on podcasting was really useful, because apparently it really is easier than I thought. One more thing to try, in future posts.

Time’s a little short, however, so for now I’ll confine myself to a brief “Friday fun” review of Eric Idle’s The Greedy Bastard Diary. Penned during a three-month comedy tour of North America, Idle’s memoir serves up dry observations on comedy and touring, hilarious descriptions of what can–and does–go wrong on the road, and touching reminiscences of other Python troupe members. These disparate subjects are knitted together in a diary format, with short chapters that read quickly.

 Die-hard Monty Python fans are the target audience here, and readers unfamiliar with the troupe might be startled upon reading “The Philosopher’s Song” or “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for the first time. However, even complete neophytes will be charmed by passages like Idle’s description of watching the last leg of the Tour de France, or his many fond (yet still amusing) comments about his wife and children. Recommended as light weekend reading for those who don’t expect The Spanish Inquisition. See also PythOnline for more fun and hijinks.

A colleague has graciously agreed to give me a tour and overview of his collection areas, so it’s back into the fray we go.  Have a nice weekend, everybody!

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C’mon now, social (networking). Also, collaboration.

September 27, 2007 at 4:27 pm (Learning 2.0, Library 2.0, RSS, blogging, philosophizing, professional development)

At a colleague’s request, I’ve been trying to create a syndicated feed of this fine publication for LiveJournal. LJ is a lovely, albeit informal, social networking site (I maintain personal pages there), and the whole 2.0 experience is about going to where your readers are.   On top of that, LJ is home to many library, librarian, and library interest blogs and communities.  Alas, LJ does not support RSS 2.0 yet. Several of us have our heads together moodling with it, to see if we can find a workaround, which is also what 2.0 is about: sharing and collaborative learning.

Edited to add:  Workaround successful! 

I’ve noticed, thanks to the gems gleaned from my fine newsreader, that social networking has been discussed lately as a phenomenon for boomers and seniors, as well. Sites like Retroland (as seen on Learning 2.1) and the various services mentioned here indicate that there’s at least some interest in trying to expand social networking beyond its youthful image. This doesn’t surprise me. People of all ages want to connect with each other, and technology makes that easier. The key will probably lie in how it’s marketed. I know many people dislike that word, but it’s true – the substance of a thing may be excellent, but if it’s not pitched with appealing rhetoric, it won’t fly.

In other collaborative ventures, I’m being trained to take over chairpersonship of the CLP database selection committee. The word that comes to mind is “eek,” followed immediately by the phrase, “But huzzah!” Although the new flurry of problem-solving and responsibility appears fearsome at first blush, serving on the committee has been a great experience, and I know I’ll be working with a fabulous team.

So, dear readers, have any thoughts on collaboration, social networking, or databases? The inquiring alchemist wants to know!

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Library 2.0 in the local news. Also, a brief agenda.

September 26, 2007 at 9:55 am (Library 2.0, news, professional development, traditional library services)

Pittsburgh’s library services, both 2.0 and traditional, get a shout out this morning at Pop City. The photos are particularly excellent, as they really showcase what our spaces can do, and it’s great to read about the experiments the district librarians are performing! Lots to work with here.

Today’s to-do list includes:

  • virtual reference
  • assisting with interviews
  • desk work

It’s that second responsibility that seems awesome (in the original sense) at times – reading resumes and cover letters, and trying to help determine who would be a good fit for the team, is educational.  It also really fosters compassion for job applicants, and has inspired me to sign up as a resume reader / mock interview conductor at my alma mater.

Also, as promised, both documents I’ve been working on are ensconced in GoogleDocs, and ready for sharing, though not publication.  If you’d like to see these, let me know and I’ll shoot you an invite.

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Beginner Mind 2.0. Also, lured by the shiny.

September 25, 2007 at 12:33 pm (Learning 2.0, Library 2.0, news, personal, philosophizing)

Keeping up with the biblioblogosphere is tricky, so it’s nice when like-minded readers like Don share links from knowledgeable folks like Helene Blowers.  The presentation slides she provides have me wondering how we could structure a 2.0 learning program here.  If, as an organization, we encouraged people to play with the technology, blog openly, etc., we could go a long way toward coming up with a concept of what Library 2.0 would look like for our community and its needs.  Which is much more important than simply copying what anybody else has already done. 

If anyone has links to share from projects they’re working on, or professional blogs they keep, I’d love to show you off in the sidebar.  I’m not averse to personal blogs and projects, but professional would be better.   Making a good rhetorical case for why these services are important is crucial if we want to get staff and administrative buy-in, funding, etc. for 2.0 projects.

In other news, I am now completely addicted to GoogleDocs, and have amused my in-laws greatly by working on a presentation while in their company.  My mother-in-law has also graciously gifted me with a digital camera, so my ability to create a transparent library just multiplied by leaps and bounds.  Be very afraid.  I wonder, though – is it good to have tools that make it easier to be a workaholic?  Hm.

 Off to read, write, ruminate and create….

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A beautiful (and busy) day in the neighborhood.

September 24, 2007 at 1:44 pm (Library 2.0, blogging, web resources)

There’s a large school group in today, so for the sake of good service, I’ll be brief.  Today’s experiments consisted mainly of tinkering with two different projects in GoogleDocs , to see how it measures up for use in different kinds of tasks. 

For solo projects, like the LI session I’m preparing, its primary usefulness seems to be as an alternative to PowerPoint.  That’s not a complaint; flash drives are feather-light and portable, but why carry extra hardware if you don’t have to?  The fact that you can easily publish your presentations doesn’t hurt either.  Knowing that your work could be available for sharing and critique worldwebwide, with the click of a button, inspires higher quality work, I’m thinking.

 Where I can see GoogleDocs really coming in handy, though, is with the CLP blog planning and brainstorming.  I was originally going to create a new page here in WordPress, but the edit, sharing, and live chat functions in GDocs (dare I say GD?) make it a no-brainer for things like policy writing and blogging guidelines.

Both documents to follow sometime this week.  Nag me if I don’t have them up by Wednesday.  It helps. :)

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Soft like a pretzel. Also, first Friday book review.

September 21, 2007 at 10:23 am (Library 2.0, music, nonfiction, reader's advisory, reviews, traditional library services)

Part of the point of 2.0 is networking, so if you’ve found your way here via my e-mail invitation, welcome.  Feel free to comment, argue with me,  and suggest content!  One feature I hope to debut very soon is a prototype page of what an official CLP blog might look like.

 Fridays in the workshop are, I’ve decided, a great day for book reviews.  When I’m assigned a collection area, I’ll concentrate on non-fiction reviews from that subject.  Today, however, I’d like you to meet (or get reacquainted with) Studs Terkel.

And They All Sang is a collection of interviews with singers, composers, conductors, and other luminaries from the diverse world of 20th-century music. Readers who enjoyed Terkel’s eponymous Working will find the familiar interview format appealing, while music aficianados will relish the deeper insights and revelations from persons with whom they are already familiar. However, novices to the worlds of jazz, opera, and the like will also find this delightful because of its anecdotal style and welcoming presentation. Recommended for fans of all sounds and styles who enjoy non-fiction that reads like fiction.

And that’s all she wrote! Have an excellent weekend, everyone.

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IM redux. Also, “Under the Hood.”

September 20, 2007 at 2:53 pm (Library 2.0, news, web resources)

From the American Libraries Direct e-newsletter, the following offerings:

 First, Andrew Pace ponders VR and IM. As is usual these days in the blogosphere, the comments are just as interesting as the content, particularly the notion that IM should be looked at as a software tool. It’s a tool a lot of people are using, which is why I’m itching to playtest it here.

In other news, thank goodness for The Other Librarian, who’s given me (and many others, I’ll bet) a nice learning tool. Sometimes all the jargon does seem strange, but I imagine it’s like learning any foreign language – you just have to dive right in.

Back to the diving bell – see you tomorrow for the soft launch, and our first installment of Friday fun.

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del.icio.us. Also, ex cathedra?

September 19, 2007 at 5:59 pm (Library 2.0, philosophizing, traditional library services)

Spent a chunk of time today noodling with del.icio.us to see if it might be a useful way to organize the library’s reference links.  So far I’ve just created a basic list, but I plan to play with categories and hierarchies.  Just how to do that wasn’t immediately apparent to me, so I will have to look at it more closely tomorrow! Here’s an example, as provided by a helpful colleague.

Polling my colleagues for potential del.icio.us links led me to pondering print versus web references. So when a copy of Romanesque Cathedrals and Abbeys of France happened to skate across the reference desk, I went a-Googling.  A 30-minute search didn’t bring up anything like Aubert and Goubert’s comprehensive history, which includes an annotated list of 576 cathedrals, arranged geographically. Did I mention the floor plans?

To be fair, depending on how much a person wants to know about Romanesque architecture, sites like this or this might be perfectly fine. But it’s comforting to know that if I, or anybody else, ever wanted to know much, much more than the web could tell us, there’s still a print reference for it in my library.

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2.0: Benchmarking and ruminating

September 18, 2007 at 6:25 pm (Library 2.0, philosophizing, traditional library services, web resources)

I spent most of my first day meeting with different people with whom I’ll be working on the library’s website redesign.  The prospect of collaboratively deciding how to make our website more useful and accessible is really exciting!  Ask me again in a few weeks – just kidding.  It’s a useful, brain-stretching exercise to visualize what could be,  and try new things to see if they work.

Elsewhere in 2.0, I’ve carefully considered  Stephen Abram’s now-classic article on personal learning management. Although I’ve played with many of these technologies before, I’m planning to work down the list again and really examine how these technologies could be used in my library. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I have 15 minutes a day sometimes! But, of course, we all do. We need to be where our patrons are. And right now, most of the patrons in the room are intent on their computer screens.

Of course, there are also still plenty of  people sitting at long tables with bound journals and print reference books,  so I question whether the library is no longer a destination.  And I wonder whether the paradigm absolutely has to be either/or.  On any given day @ my library, there are lots of people there.  Some are using traditional library services; others have been spirited away to universes beyond by technology.  And, to me, that’s magical.  The library as a little something for everybody.  Of course, Pittsburgh’s population skews a little bit older. So, perhaps we’re in a special situation over here?

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Enter the alchemist

September 17, 2007 at 7:05 pm (introduction)

Here I am, somewhat late to the 2.0 party, but fashionably so, I hope!  This is my professional space for charting the learning curve on my brand new job – after three years of reader’s advisory service, I’ve taken a position that combines traditional reference work and explorations of 2.0 technology/apps.  Exciting stuff, hence my appropriation of the term “alchemist.”  Like the often-misunderstood scientists of yore, librarians meld a variety of elements to deliver, hopefully, a gold standard of service.  It’s our “great work,” and we are the last great generalists!

Wikipedia’s definition of the term may shed more light on my rationale – read it your ownself, and see how it serves.  Starting tomorrow, I’ll jump right into the “things I do all day” portion of the program.  And from there?  Well, just about anything could happen.

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