(note: photo coming soon! Sorry to have taken so long!)
The auditorium for this year’s PLA keynote speaker was lit up like a Van Halen concert. Between the video screens, the blue and green roof lighting, and the lack of house lights, I felt like Diamond Dave was going to emerge from the curtain and start doing jump kicks on stage. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World author John Wood didn’t quite display the same level of physical acrobatics, but he commanded a groupie’s level of admiration by the time his keynote was over.
“World change starts with educated children.”
This quote, which Wood used to kick off his presentation, has been so patently obvious that we’ve all but overlooked it. What’s admirable about Wood is his effort to actually do something about it. By taking the GTD philosophy (or “GSD,” as voiced through his slightly bluer adjustment) and applying it to this sentiment, Wood has turned his organization Room to Read into one of the most efficient charities on the planet. It’s got me thinking about how much we can do to apply GTD to library work, and using the Room to Read principles to our interactions with the community. Is it possible to get things accomplished without the succumbing to the urge to hold one committee meeting after another? Can we trust our community stakeholders enough to use our resources to meet their goals on their terms? It’s a lot to think about, and really makes me wonder how we can strike up a balance between serving as a useful community partner while trusting our stakeholders with the autonomy to succeed. Thanks, John. I look forward to hearing more about your continued success.
If you’re like me, then you were no doubt blown away by the surprising events that occurred yesterday.
Pepsi paid $5.4 million dollars in which Justin Timberlake suffered various slapstick humiliations in order to advertise its latest contest. Among the prizes you can win are free downloads from Amazon’s mp3 store. In this seeming throwaway bit was the bombshell. Do you see it?
That’s right. Amazon.com is using “DRM-free” as a selling point. Which means that enough people understand what DRM means for them that Amazon* will spend $180000 to point out that its product does not have it.
Of course, this represents a complete 180 in relation to what they’re doing with the Kindle. Things, as our esteemed Mr. Abram would say, are afoot.
* (assuming they paid Pepsi for their share of the ad)
Clearly, the best dentist ever, as long as it comes with a good anesthesiologist.
I was originally going to post it for the amusement value, but it got me thinking. Not all tools (in libraries or otherwise) are used according to their intended purpose. Sometimes two features come together to provide to heretofore unimagined service.
Take the Firefox extension Book Burro, for example. This add-on pops up any time you visit a chosen commercial bookseller, such as Amazon or BN.com. You can check other libraries by choosing from a list, or by entering a ZIP code which will check against OpenWorldCat.
(A word to the wise: The add-on has a “blind spot” where it overlooks the area within the ZIP you enter. Use a neighboring ZIP to sidestep this glitch.)
This is great when you’re unsure of a book’s exact title, as Amazon’s slightly fuzzier search parameters can often put you on the right track. Find the item, click on Book Burro, and it will take you to the book’s listing in your ILS.
This is very nice, as I tend to use Amazon as a fail-safe in many of my searches. But what I didn’t realize was that it works within the “More Info” module within our own catalog. This enables us to price-check Amazon, as well as check availability at other nearby libraries.
Neither plugin new about the other, but when they came together, we discovered a new application for both. That’s a Karate Dentist, right there. And one that will save a lot of time spent searching for books.
Does your library have a Karate Dentist? What other sort of happy accidents have you found?
MPOW just had its staff in-service this past Friday, of which the Firefox presentation was a part. As the kick-off to the day’s events and the introduction to our director’s State of the Library address, my coworker and I made this video.
As you can see, it’s a sober-eyed look into the life of a busy library director, and the ways in which she’s integrated Web 2.0 technologies into her life. Enjoy!
Here are the slides from the presentation I did for the Staff in-service day at MPOW. Inside, I provide an overview of some of the basic features of the venerated Firefox, and go over a number of the extensions that I’ve found particularly useful in day-to-day library service. Many thanks to everyone for being such a great audience.
You can view the slides (via Google Docs) at this link. The handout is available (in .pdf) here.
Note to self: Must add more lolcats to next presentation.
I’m giving a presentation this morning on how libraries can take advantage of Web 2.0 software. In true “Define-Discover-Do” fashion as illustrated by the 10 Things, I’ll be providing an overview of Web 2.0, looking at 3 sites for libraries to consider (Meebo, MySpace, and Flickr), and providing some suggestions for getting staff and administration trained on this brave new online world.
You can see the presentation slides here. If I left anything out, or if you have any questions, please feel free to post a comment.
I spent the end of August working to set up IM Reference service at MPOW, and it’s safe to say that things have gone pretty well. We’ve started the service as a “soft rollout” with no outside promotion in the interest of giving staff some time to get up to speed. But patrons have discovered the service anyway, and we now have several regulars who IM us questions. Now that the Youth department has their page set up, we’re going to start promoting the service in earnest.
Which of course begs the question: what now? IM is a great way to build connections with new groups of patrons. Can you use it to do something more? I’d certainly like to think so.
One way of pushing things forward came via Lori Reed’s (from Charlotte Mecklenburg County, the originators of the Learning 2.0 model from which The 10 Things takes its inspiration) blog, where she cited the way the Bank of America website automatically pops up a chat window in case visitors need assistance. David Lee King from (Topeka & Shawnee County) took this idea and ran with it, adding a Meebo widget to his OPAC’s “oops, no results” page.
So basically, his library has taken one of the most consistently frustrating moments that patrons run into when searching for books, and turned it into a teaching opportunity. Way to go, David!
This is what I love about IM, as far as library service is concerned. It’s already in widespread use, so there’s very little training required. (Can you say that about the last database you purchased?) If someone sees an IM window, chances are they already know what to do with it. Even if they can’t, they can probably intuit what to do. As we look for further applications of this tool, let’s take advantage of its built-in cachet with a larger audience.
Shortly after my talk at Orland Park, I was fortunate enough to give a talk at the Palos Heights Public Library. Titled “Building Online Communities With Web 2.0,” I discussed a few of the ways libraries can use Instant Messaging, social networking, Flickr, and Del.icio.us to make their online services a bit more dynamic. Thanks again to everyone in attendance for your attention, your questions, and a great lunch.
Way back in August of this year, I did some Firefox-related proselytizing during an in-service at the Orland Park Public Library. This blog hadn’t been set up during that time, but I promised to post the slides once I had a dedicated space put together.
The link to the slideshow is here. The handout is also available, in .pdf form. Many thanks to everyone at Orland Park for being great hosts and a terrific audience.
Being a little more visually oriented, I’m currently using Netvibes for my RSS feeds. I like being able to see all new stories at a glance, as well as having a visual indicator of what I have and have not read.
Now I’m almost obsessive in checking my Netvibes page. Sometimes it gets me in trouble. Just yesterday, I noticed that the New York Times Book Review feed had an entry for their 10 best books of the year. They had published their longlist of 100 titles last week, and I was eager to see what made the final cut*. But when I clicked the link, the real page hadn’t been posted yet. Oh, the pitfalls of this modern technology!
But anyway. Before Netvibes came along, I had started a Bloglines account, but never seemed to make the jump from surfing individual pages and consistently checking my Bloglines page. Once I switched to Netvibes, that stopped being an issue. As they say, your mileage may vary.
* Bad year for me, as far as having read the supposed top books. I’ve only read one of the titles (Imperial Life in the Emerald City) on the list. That’s neither here nor there, as any list that snubs Junot Díaz is pretty much dead to me.
