Massachusetts Library Association Conference Reports

Social Software & Intellectual Freedom

2009-05-10T14:26:00.004-04:00

Presented by Jessamyn West.

I find Jessamyn West's sessions entertaining and extremely informative. She has graciously posted her slides and links on her website: http://www.librarian.net/talks/mla2009/

Social networking defined:
1. Online location.
2. User can create a profile (unique to you).
3. User can build a network and link to others (friends). For examples, Flickr – levels of privacy. Wikipedia – profile page, not really a social site but network around topics. Delicious – bookmarks of friends.

Why are social networks like Facebook so popular? Facebooks 200 million users.

Free
No install, no download
Attractive for those who don’t have resources
It’s social. People collaborate.
"Get laid or get paid." Can meet people for a variety of ways.
Anticipation is the thing rather than the thing itself.
It’s where there friends are.
College age people are on Facebook.

The father of social network analysis research, Stanley Milgram, created the notion of 6 degrees of separation.

The spying problem – for profit companies house content. Achilles hill of social networking is privacy. Datamining and background snooping could possibly occur.

ALA’s intellectual freedom champion, Judith Krug, help draft ALA’s quote on intelectual freedom. Libraries take your privacy seriously.

Shall or deep? You can’t get information back. It is our responsibility (librarians) to inform of possible intelectual freedom infringement if teaching patrons how to use social networks.

Opting in vs opt out. Why do for profit companies make it so difficult? How many libraries have a privacy policy for catalog? View Cornell Library’s privacy policy.

Who owns the data? IM going through a different server. Google toolbar.

Computer can do new things with data. We can determine who you are by how you search (AOL fiasco).

Data types: personal, relational/transactional, behavioral.

Policy: take users’ experience into consideration, we allow vs we disallow. Moderation is okay and doesn’t make you a censor. Responsive=good; reactive=bad. It doesn’t make you a censor for guiding users how they should communicate in forum settings.

Millie Gonzalez, Reference and Electronic Resources Librarian, Framingham State College

Graphic Novels Creator Panel

2009-05-09T15:56:00.003-04:00

The Creator Panel offered an open look into the inspirations and histories of five great comics creators:
Dave Roman, Stan Sakai, Chris Schweizer, Gail Simone, and Raina Telgemeier. Here are some industry-related points that were covered in the discussion:
What is the difference between working freelance and working with a large publisher?
It's easier to acquire an audience when you're writing for a publisher using a title or characters which have already been established, but you're stuck without the creative control you'd have on your own. Most creators seem to be happier with a project in which they retain the bulk of the creative control or create totally on their own. When collaborating, it's best when the writer and the artist know each others' styles a bit before starting so that they can work with each others' strengths.
What audience do you write for?
Stan Sakai started writing Usago Yojimbo for a readership of one: himself. But he gets letters from five year olds to grandparents. Chris Schweizer said he writes for all ages, but is conscious that kids read his work. He said, “there needs to be enough to show that the villain is actually villainous and the protagonist is in peril. I try to make it appropriate for all ages, but I don't feel it's necessary to shy away from those things.” Gail Simone finds that approaching difficult topics in work aimed at kids is a benefit of the medium, “I don't believe in talking down to kids. I think this is one reason why kids went over to manga, because they don't do that.”
Dave Roman talked about the difficulty of appealing to kids when creating a kids magazine, like Nickelodeon Magazine. “When I self-publish I can do whatever I want and write for myself, but the more you meet readers, the more conscious you become of the readers.”
Raina Telgemeier started writing about her own experiences aimed at younger readers but quickly found that some topics, like her having her teeth knocked out when she was eleven, have a universal appeal that a lot of readers can relate to.
How does one get into the system if you can't draw?
The most important part is to write a lot and get yourself noticed. Gail Simone began with a weekly column which developed into a greater project, which led to her being asked to write Simpsons comics.
The process is hard work, but the important thing is to persevere.
Have you ever read a novel and thought “this would make a kick-ass comic book?”
The consensus was that the transition from comic book to a different art form can be good, but the same doesn't really go for moving towards a comic book medium.

Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library

State of the Industry Panel

2009-05-09T15:33:00.003-04:00

This panel, moderated by Robin Brenner, consisted of a diverse set of experts in the comics and graphic novel industry including innovative publishers, national distributors and expert bloggers discussing what's going on in the market and what's happening in the comics scene:

Dave Roman: Associate Editor, Nickelodeon Magazine
John Shableski: Diamond Book Distributors
Ali T. Kokmen: marketing Manager, Random House Publishing Group/Del Rey manga
Calista Brill: Editor, First Second.
Brigid Alverson: Freelance journalist, blogger for mangaBlog, editor-in-chief of Good Comics For Kids (School Library Journal) and Digital Strips

I've transcribed the panel as best I could below:

What do you see thats coming up or new things you've noticed in terms of who's reading, what they're looking for and whats exciting? What should we be looking for for our various artists?
Ali: One that just came to me, we are seeing a whole bunch more of webcomics being done created for the “interwebs” which is great. Theres an increasing numbers of publishers being approached for webcomics and that's an interesting phenomenon that started in a void and is coming back to the publishing industry.
Dave: a lot of that content is content that was already published for free on the internet and people have already been exposed to it on the internet so by the time the artist comes out, the readers have already been introduced to it.
John: When you come in with a million viewers per month, your audience is already there when you publish.
Brigid: While webcomics are free, what's not free is comics on other platforms like the iPod. Supposedly apple is coming out with a “kindle-killer” tablet which will make comics easier to access.

How would we advocate for something to be put in a format that could be put on our shelves?
John: Make publishers aware of the need.
Calista: I'd love an email from a librarian saying “we have X number of patrons interested in this certain thing...”
Ali: At Del Ray and Random House, we've experimented with prose novels and gave away the first volumes for free to see how it went. Whats pretty clear ISN”T happening is that it's stifling sales. Giving it away for free encourages people to pursue it further.
John: Dave's with Nick and he and Chris did a survey online about graphic novels, but kids don't recognize that term. But when you talk about the titles, they're interested and want to talk about it. They just see it as a normal book.

It feels like publishers hear a lot from fans and booksellers, but where do librarians fit in and how do we make sure we're heard in a useful way that isn't overwhelming?
Calista: At First Second, librarians in the market are an enormous part of our business focus. We attend a lot of cons, we try to involve ourselves in the library world as much as we'd like libraries to involve themselves in our world. But an easy way to get your voice heard is to start a blog. There are a lot of blogs in several industries that present themselves as a representative of their community. It's also useful to have this outreach from the libraries at conferences.
Ali: in terms of “where do librarians fall in grand scheme of things” As such a tiny part of the huge company that is Random House, I can't really speak for everything, but often the Del Rey manga website, there are forms through which anyone can send feedback, and I read them all. All is taken under advisement. Librarians have been so important to us for graphic novels and manga.
Dave: Comics always been a small manageable industry. It's always been easy to reach out or go to cons and meet people. In other publishing industries, there's a wall of staff keeping people from the powers that be, but most comics organizations are just a few people and it's easy to reach them.
John: We wouldn't be here without librarians. When graphic novels were first coming out, it was thought that comic stores would be the first place they'd be sold, but Librarians came forward and were so passionate about what was being done...
Dave: Libraries really made the difference in expanding the genre. When I first started publishing, comics were mostly sold in comic shops. The bookstores weren't carrying them yet and it was before graphic novels. If a publisher wanted to put out a book but you couldn't get it into a comic shop, that was a deal breaker. Librarians helped expand that. Books that weren't being sold in comic shops were being picked up by librarians and marketed to a different audience. Now girls and kids are reading them more and we're able to sell enough copies to make more things worth publishing.

How do we say what we want? It feels like we've been trying to communicate for a long time and it's taken a while for a response. What do we need to know about how the system works?
Ali: If someone gives you a perfect graphic novel today, how long does it take to run?
Calista: Something like 16 months for color, 8 months for black and white... If there's something that we decide that people need to be reading RIGHT NOW, what “right now” means is that we decide in January and it's out in September. That said, trends don't move that fast either and we're not in the business of picking up on every trend out there. One thing I have observed is the gap in the market for 5-7 year olds. There are submissions for terrific middle grade tween and YA books and the world could not be fuller of richness for them, but anything from 5-7 there's silence. I'm grateful for teen books, but there's so much less for this age group.
Dave: There's no market for it. There seems to be no publishers who want to make books for that age. In the comics industry, saying you want to make comics for kids is like saying “I don't want to sell the book.” You have to say it's for “all ages” because if you say it's for kids, bookstores won't buy it.
Calista: in the world of children's publishing, saying “all ages” is an anathema, it's poison for the book. It's much harder to sell books for all ages in the traditional publishing market.
Dave: cartoonists have a hard time working around that. What makes it hard is that the biggest success stories buck that. Jeff Smith (the creator of Bone) REFUSES to say that he made the book for kids. John: This generation of the comics industry thought that comics should be sold in comic shops, of which there's only 3500, but once they started selling to libraries they realized the greater potential; there's over a million of them.
Brigid: There's almost two different cultures here; traditional comic book culture and the book culture. Comics are small and disposable and you buy them certain places and they're floppy, but I'm thinking of Tiny Titans and it's not that at all.
Dave: The comics thing is huge. We did comics for kids and we found that we had to choose titles that were already there. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is one of the few that were successful without a TV show. Pokemon, Naruto, they're popular because they have a TV show. It was hard to make a kids comic that's an original story that nobody's heard of; you might only sell 500 copies.

Is there any possibility for large print graphic novels?:
Calista: On a practical level, there's an issue of efficiency. Comics aren't necessarily the most efficient way of telling a story, just in terms of the space they take up. There has to be some compromise to tell the story and not take 400 pages to do it. Its something we think about on the production end...

Librarians don't like to withhold anything and there's a lot of debate between which ratings are useful and which are not. What do you think of age ratings?
Ali: If publishers agreed on some form of self-censorship with someone to submit our material, that would be terrifying. It would take so much time and so long to process.
John: There doesn't need to be a label on the book because you will discourage kids, if it says 5-8 and there's a boy who's 12, he won't read it. It's hard for retailers and catalogers when buying them though, to determine who the target is for the books. The publishers need to help librarians figure out where the book belongs on the shelf so they don't get hurt later. It's important to be able to defend the book's place in its particular section at the library.
Calista: I think it's funny that publishers think they have any idea who the intended audience is. We put “adult” in the catalog but not on the books... With graphic novels, the things that are put out for teens, there's no way could be put on a screen. There's content issues in what you can show, they're very different from print publishers...
Ali: There are quantifiable measures you could take for a prose novel. Those are useful tools, but there's not an analogous tool for graphic novels. I just think that the way of taking in that information is different.
Brigid: My daughters are 14-16 and they started reading manga when they were 9, and when I saw it I thought “Manga! that's porn!” and I snatched it away. I read a lot of comics growing up, and when I started reading their manga I realized that it's the same sort of story type.
Ali: Check out http://www.mangablog.net !
Brigid: Other parents come to me about it. Other things about the ratings, kids always rate up. My kids watched PG13 when they were 10 and now they're on to R rated movies. Manga ratings are incredibly conservative and that's fine, but there's nothing there that they're not already seeing on TV. But if you take a book like Fruits Basket and one like Peach Girl and they look alike. As much as everyone hates ratings and they do have flaws in them, they're useful for parents.
Dave: Prose books have the advantage of being hard to read as opposed to comics. You can describe horrific violent illegal activity in prose, but you actually have to read it. With GN its like “There's nipples! There's a panty shot on that page!”
John: The editor is becoming more and more important. You don't want the creator to be chained to the story; the editor might ask “Is that gratuitous?” and unless they can explain why it's important, they might go back and take something out. The great thing about this format is that you can see if its dishonest or disingenuous in any way. It's more important for this format than it is for typical prose.
Calista: Eediting these books is important, especially for younger readers. There's some stuff you would imagine being an issue but things like lettering, text, how hard you want the reader to have to work to read it. It's a skill set you have to learn by screwing up again and again, which is when feedback is useful.
Dave: I don't think ratings are something the comics world is ready to deal with. Nick is coming out with an Iron Man cartoon and they wanted me to put it in the Nickelodeon magazine. Google Iron Man comic and the first thing that comes up is IM surrounded by strippers and he's doing blow in Vegas. I think SuperHero comics are drug dealers. They lure you in with Tiny Titans but they really want you to be reading Dark Knight. It's hard for kids to understand “this is YOUR Iron Man and this is OUR Iron Man. Your Batman, OUR batman.”
With age range, you said that people read up. Some pub will intentionally market things for teens or kids won't read them.
Calista: when I was at Disney, the worst thing you could do is try to do a younger version of something at the same time as an older cause you kill the older audience.
Ali: A huge factor for publishers is the great divide for age buyers. Kids readers used to want regular comics so publishers are highly motivated to make something not look like a kids book... Now there's more stuff that might straddle the line.
Dave: It's not only a censorship thing, it's a marketing thing. If comics sell 5,000 it's huge. Anything you did to cut off the audience is potentially alienating people.

Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library

Friday Lunch Business Meeting

2009-05-09T14:00:00.002-04:00

12:00-1:15 Friday, May 8 Friday Lunch Business Meeting

Richard Callaghan had a few parting words before handing the reigns to his successor, Susan McAlister. Richard thanked everyone for making a difficult year more tolerable and manageable. Richard also thanked the MLA planning committee for all their hard work. Special thanks was given to Michael Colford, Gianna Gifford and Ellen Keane. It is evident from everyone at the conference that their hard work is more than greatly appreciated. I, too, would like to thank them for all their hard work in putting together a successful and meaningful conference. Richard talked about his agenda for the past year. Last summer Richard devised his agenda before he quickly realized the agenda was already set for him. Richard recalled the battle with question #1 (remember it?!) Relive the challenge here. A large groan gave way through the dining room in recognition of the challenges of the ballot proposal. If question 1 wasn’t enough, Richard reminded us of the challenges faced by the tanking economy.

Nora Blake stepped to the lectern to offer her thanks for being allowed to serve as Treasurer for the past year. She enjoyed every moment of it and hoped she could be of service again at some point in the near future.

Gerry Deyermond highlighted the success of the paralibrian programs, including workshops sponsored by the Paralibrian Section, such as “Manage Up!”

Robert Maier, MBLC Rep., stepped to the lectern to offer his many thanks, including special thanks to Richard for reminding us all of the challenges of question 1 and battling an ailing economy. Rob also thanked libraries around the state for their hard work and encouraged all to be vigilant of the challenges to come over the next year. In preparation, Rob encouraged all to be active advocates for their library and community.

Richard took the helm for one final stand (Richard’s last stand). Richard presented Susan with a gavel and stepped aside while Susan offered her promise to let us all finish our lunch and enjoy the great weather. (btw, the chicken was excellent!)

State of the Comics Industry 2009

2009-05-08T21:25:00.002-04:00

Panelists: Calista Brill (acquisitions from First Second), Brigid Alverson (Editor for Good Comics for Kids), Ali T. Kokmen (marketing manager for Random House Publishing Group), Dave Roman (associate editor at Nickelodeon Magazine), John Shableski (sales manager for Diamond Book Distributors)

What are some trends?

Web comics. Originally published for free on the web but republished in print. When titles come out in print, they have a built-in fan base. Pre-existing comics are going on the web for free. Comics formated for Kindle or Apple device (like Kindle) will charge.

How can librarians help publishers of graphic novels?

Publishers would love to get feedback from librarians on what to publish (like which web comics should go to print). Publishers are trying different models – like giving some titles for free first to get fan base.

How do librarians fit into this industry?

Librarians are part of the business focus. Calista suggests librarians create a blog for publishers to notice them. Network with publishers via trade shows and conferences. Go to comics convention. Librarians have been important to manga category. Publishers rely on independent book sellers and librarians as their “boots on the ground”. Relationships with librarians have been very close. Librarians were first to act upon opportunity to introduce the graphic novel format. Librarians understand the genre. Roman claims that the graphic novel industry is hard to break in. New audiences do not necessarily go to comics shops but rather get their comics in the library.

There is a huge demand from kids. How do publishers meet demand?

The production and planning process is slow (many years to turn out novels). Calista sees submissions for tween and YA but not for 5-7 or 6-8 year olds (huge gap). Roman claims comics shops won’t order if comics target younger set even though billed as for all ages. Calista claims publishers cannot sell graphic novels classified for all ages but rather prefers classifying by age groupings.

Roman claims that comics for younger kids will likely sell more if associated with licensed package. Pre-existing franchises sell well (like Disney). Cartoon Network is doing the groundwork. Difficult to sell a comic with original story geared to the younger set with out the licensing pre-work all ready done.

Kokmen claims that publishers take a great deal of time to classify books by age range. For kids, age rating can discourage them from picking certain books. The rating system works well for cataloguers, and acquisitions librarians. There is always the dilemma of where to place graphic novels on the shelf. Sometimes all of the novels are grouped together even though age range varies. Calista believes that publishers are doing their best relating to age grouping. Sometimes, novels are inaccuarately categorized because of images of brief sensuality or violence.

Brigid claimed that initially manga got a bad reputation as pornography because at the very beginning these types were of the first to come out of Japan. The graphics in adult titles at first glance look very similar to titles geared for a younger audience so there might be confusion.

Publishers need feedback from users – do they prefer small type or do they prefer oversized books? Roman stated that your favorite character as a kid might not be the same as the current iteration (many versions of Batman, Superman). Calista recounts that the industry has had success for graphic novels for younger readers from other countries (like from France – Tiny Titans).

Millie Gonzalez, Reference and Electronic Resources Librarian, Framingham State College

Graphic Novels 101

2009-05-08T20:14:00.003-04:00

Presentation by John Shableski, Sales Manager for Diamond Book Distributors and Robin Brenner, teen librarian – Brookline Public Library

John Shableski, who became misty-eyed when talking about how libraries have helped the comic book industry, provided a brief history of comic books and graphic novels. Robin Brenner gave him cat ears to wear for the presentation because apparently cat ears are popular in conferences and in manga culture.

Colonial Era. Ben Franklin communicates through pictures and words (i.e. “Join or Die.”)

Late 1800s Literacy in America. Mark Twain publishes: The Innocents Abroad

1895 Yellow Journalism and New Kind of Literacy. “Yellow Kid” character wore a t-shirt that featured social commentary

1920-1930 Comic Books and Superheroes. Comic strips and comic books took off; Dick Tracy emerged.

1938 Action Comics. Birth of Superman.

1940 The Cold War, Manga and the Library Bill of Rights. Sci-fi and horror comics gain momemtum while superhero comics become not as popular. Manga emerges with elements of Disney and western influence. In 1948, the Library Bill of Rights was written.

1950s The Seduction of the Innocent and the CCA. Dr. Federic Werham, who wrote the book The Seduction of the Innocent, is credited for the comic book industry’s decline. He blamed the industry as a contributing factor to juvenile delinquency. The industry counteredwith the Comics Code Authority in 1957. DC and Marvel Comics wrote the code which advocated for less violence and gore. Self serving because they were promoting their comics (i.e. superheroes rather than vampire storylines).

1960 Mad Gets Even. Stan Lee (creator of many comics like X-Men ) wrote comics when he was 19. Mad Magazine was created. Other comic emerge outside of the Marvel stable and go underground. These alternative comics sold at head shops.

1980s Great expectations. The industry rebounds with critically acclaimed Watchmen, Sandman, Maus, The Dark Knight Returns.

1990s A Collectors Paradise, Bone, Emerging Voices and the Arrival of Manga. More of an industry for collectors emerged where limited edition runs of comics with sophisticated artwork and high glossy paper dominated the landscape. Superman got killed. Manga got traction with the Internet withPokemon and Naruto helping.

2000 New Age and the Library Market. Not quite a mature industry. Comic book industry is evolving with support from libraries, popular culture. It’s finding a new audience. Web comics become popular.

Robin Brenner, teen librarian, took over the second half of the session. She wore a beautiful kimono and said that it is a customary to dress up in costumes when attending mango conferences. Her half of the session was to address basic issues concerning graphic novels encountered by librarians. Brenner organized the graphic novel track - kudos!

Graphic novels are a type of format not a genre. Within that format are various genres. In her library, graphic novels represent 45% of circulating titles within her teen collection.

To understand the relevance of comics books and graphic novels, Brenner advocates reading manga. She acknowledges that reading manga takes some time to understand the format.

Fortunately there are many venues for librarians to read reviews of graphic novels: Booklist, Library Journal, Voice of Youth Advocates, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, LJ Graphic Novel Xpress Online, Good Comics for Kids (blog) on School Library Journal, and Graphic Novel Reporter. She also also reads many Internet sites because some don’t have word count restricion and also provide value.

Age ratings/age range assigned by publishers areproblematic. No standards and consistency to the way publishers assign age ranges. Contrary to western publishers, manga publishers do a better job of rating.
Brenner advocates working with cataloguers to make it easier for patrons to find books. She recommends grouping by titles and by style (i.e. manga, western). These titles you need to generally reinforce binding. These titles you can label by color to group via age range. Brenner organizes non-fiction graphic novels by Dewey call numbers.

Millie Gonzalez, Reference and Electronic Resources Librarian, Framingham State College

MLA Book Cart Drill Team

2009-05-08T16:54:00.002-04:00

Pink cowboy hats, gold top hats, batman costumes, Shania Twain. That's right, its time for the Book Cart Drill Team. Mo Willems emceed the event with an abundance of excitement and enthusiasm and the acts themselves were incredible. There were three libraries competing and each of them put on an excellent performance. From the costumes to the music selection to the physical movement and stunts, this was an incredibly exciting event.

The awards were:
Biggest Wow Factor: Plymouth
Best Decorations: Methuen
Third Place: Methuen
Second Place: Andover
First Place: Plymouth

Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library

Get With the Program! Teaching, Programs and Hands-On Demonstrations Using Comics

2009-05-08T15:41:00.004-04:00

Both Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) and Chris Schweizer (Crogan's Vengeance) create comics based on events in history and tell the story of the time from the point of view of a unique character; Schweizer's is a young boy and Sakai's is a samurai rabbit. Both say that they don't write for a kids market; Schweizer says he writes for an adult market and Sakai says he writes for himself. Despite this, both create comics with strong youth appeal.

The panel started with Chris Schweizer explaining how comics can help build vocabulary and reading comprehension for young readers. There is something inviting about comics that make them more attractive to kids than traditional prose. Even complex comics can be more interesting for kids to read and are less difficult to comprehend than their prose cousins, despite the advanced vocabulary and plot complexities.

On the surface, comics seem more fun, but it's a strong mode of storytelling defined by forcible exercises in logical deduction. Between two comic panels, the reader must logically conclude the events that are not seen. It's a classic example of Occam's Razor: the reader assumes the least complex and most likely explanation for things not visually presented in the story.
Schweizer noted, “I don't try to age down my vocabulary or sentence structure; I'm confident that readers will be able to discern the clues from the context.” He made the point that through the juxtaposition of words and pictures, comics have the potential to make unfamiliar words accessible due to the contest in which they are read.

Classic adventure books of 19th and 20th century, which were devoured by young boys, are shockingly complex reads today. As pleasure reads, they take a lot of conscious effort. Those same stories in the form of comic adaptations can be a staple for understanding canonical literature classics.

Schweizer's own comics highlight historical facts and showcase how various time periods relate to each other. He noted that kids often look at history as having very clear specific rights and wrongs, so his goal is to show multiple sides of different historical issues.

The best part Chris's presentation was hearing him read several pages of his comic in full voice actor mode. I think he managed to create a different voice with unique accenting for about ten different pirate characters in addition to sound effects.

In the second half of the program, Stan Sakai discussed the process of bringing historic fact into the creation of unique characters.

Sakai's early interest in comics and samurai movies led to creating his comic Usagi Yojimbo. Comics gave him a love for reading and he wanted to incorporate the two into a single art form and thus became a freelance cartoonist.

Usagi's adventures take place in 17th century Japan which is a time of turmoil in Japan and a very turbulent time in history. Sakai explained that Usagi is a character run story. One strong female character in Usagi Yojimbo, a body guard to a young lord in Japan, was based on the wife of a real historical character who, while her samurai husband was dying at her side, jumped on her horse, charged forward, and cut off the opposing general's head. Another character was inspired by a character in Japanese pop culture: a blind swordsman whose amazing sense of hearing led him to be very precise with a sword. The character in the comic is a Samurai whose strength comes from his strong sense of smell.

Stan finished his discussion with a quick comic sketch of what one attendee did on the way to the MLA conference. In the span of a few minutes, Sakai created a full paneled comic page that was clever and detailed.

Chris Schweizer's next book, Crogan's March, based on the French Foreign Legion, will be out in October. Stan Sakai's full color graphic novel, Usagi Yojimbo: Yokai will be out in November.

Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library

How Can I Afford Retirement? Boomers, Libraries and Investor Education

2009-05-08T15:21:00.003-04:00

How Do I Afford Retirement
Boomers, Libraries, and Investor Education
presented by the BPL
Carol Greenfield
Laura Pattison
Cynthia Sullivan

Grant funded project.

Background
Libraries as resources for baby boomers, objective financial information
Investor proctor Trust funding, investor education fr your community, how can I afford retirement

Goals:
1- provide people age 50-0 with access to non commercial impartial information on which to base soind retirement investment decisions
2- to facilitate greater understanding by people 5o-70 of their retirement finances and the risk that their resources will be jeopardizes by appropriate decisions
3-to create a repricale model for Investor Education @ your Library that specifficall adresses the financial management of people ages 5-70

Project Components
Multi-faceted Educational Program
4 part investor education series focused on the theme of "You can do it"
each event includes:
topical presentation by an expert
reference librarian briefing on lbrary resources
small grooup peer facilitated discussion
Q & A session with panel of experts

So Far So Good
developed a pilot curriculum at Central Library in spring 2008
Branch roll out bean fall 2008
Well attened, well received

Keys to Success
Partnerships
Programs
Publicity
Protection

Partnerships
FPA-MA Consumer Awarness Group- provides fianancial experts as speakers and for Q & A
Investor Protestion Trust- for general guidence and coordination with hte Investor Protection in your community.
Massachusetts Scuritties Division for vetting of spekers and advisory role in ensuring strict standards
Advisory group for guidence on all aspects especially program development and publicity

Library partnerships
trusted information source
development of resource lists
collection development
library briefing at Session
Particiption in Q & A

Development of resource Lists
Discussion and resource Guide for each session
Focus n current publications and "classics"
selected print and online resources
collection development

Website
Resource guide web listings, easily abvailable
"selected Business website by subject" (retiirement)
revelent topics e.g. Broke check, Investor protection, Jobs for older adults
creation of web pages for www. affordretirement.bpl.org

Program Curriculum
Session 1- taking the Mystery out of Retirement Planing
Session 2- Closing the Gap: Investment and Expense Stratigies-Evenfor late Starters
Session 3- Investing Wisely to Avoid the fiancial Rick of Longer Life Expecatncy
Session 4- Protecting you investments- The Best Defense is a wise and Safe Investor

Additional Online Session
US Department of Labor- online worksheets for "taking the Mystery Out Of retirement Planning"
Social Security administration- online SS Estimete
Kirstein Business Branch-BPL Online resources

This progam is expanding to other Massahsusets Libraries , Washington DC, Jacksonville, FL, Arkansas ad Minnisotta

For more informtion: affordretirement @bpl.org
617-859-2241

Sessions are stand alone however build on each other
Takes 2-3 months, sessions are 2-3 weeks apart for about 2.5 hours

Genre Blocks: Urban Fantasy

2009-05-08T14:04:00.005-04:00

Genre Blocks brings together a librarian and an author to discuss specific genres from two deeply involved but different perspectives. Kim Harrison, author of The Hollows series, teamed up with librarian Leanne Ellis to discuss Urban Fantasy.

The conference program quotes Wikipedia's explanation of Urban Fantasy as “a subset of contemporary fantasy, consisting of magical novels and stories set in contemporary, real-world, urban settings -- as opposed to traditional fantasy set in wholly imaginary landscapes.”

Urban Fantasy comes in two flavors. In an open setting, magic or paranormal events are commonly accepted, as in Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels. In a closed setting, magical powers or creatures are concealed, as in Harry Potter or Twilight.

A common trait of Urban Fantasy is a first person female protagonist. These characters frequently, to quote Ellis, “kick ass and don't take any lip.”

As the name indicates, the stories are set in urban locales. The culture of that urban area sets the tone for the story and offers a unique way of presenting situations and conflicts. Supernatural creatures may come in many shades of good and evil and distinctions between each side may be subtle. Leanne Ellis noted that in more modern novels, the protagonist has a strong sense of good vs. evil and right vs. wrong and faces the perilous challenge of deciding between the two.

The genre comprises a cornucopia of supernatural creatures from vampires and werewolves to faeries and sprites. Different authors may have different ways of presenting the worlds they create, but any paranormal system has its own set of rules. Even when those rules don't go hand in hand with traditional rules (for example, vampires that come out in the sunshine and sparkle), a good author will provide the reader with what they need to believe that their system works.

Ellis gave readers advisory suggestions for the genre: readers who enjoy fiction that possesses a magical or mythic view of reality, like Alice Hoffman's books, might make a comfortable shift to Urban Fantasy if they can appreciate a well built fantasy story as well. Similarly, books that combine mystery, sexual tension, and humor like Janet Evanovich's series may be a good introduction to Urban Fantasy which prises those same elements.

Ellis provided a long list of recommended reading, which I will omit, but the names that seemed to come up the most were:
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (this was essentially the first book in the genre and is essential reading for the genre)
Borderland by Terry Windling
The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher

Two resources for the genre that Ellis recommends are Romantic Times, which reviews romances but has a section devoted to Urban Fantasy; and the website Urban Fantasyland : http://urbanfantasyland.com/

During the second half of the panel, Ellis interviewed Kim Harrison about her books, which I transcribed as best I could below:

Where did Rachel come from?
Desperation. It started as short story and took over. I wasn't big on urban fantasy at time and when I was writing it, I thought it should be fantasy... I had no idea Urban Fantasy would explode like it has. I just brought it together in a way that worked for me... I fell in love with the characters. It was something magical, but with the girl next door.

Did you come up with Rachel and work the world around her or did the world come first?
I used to think the world came first, but as I watched my writing style develop, I realized that it's the character that comes first. I just start with a name and an attitude, put them in a situation and see how they react. It's like when you sit down with a person for the first time, you get to know them and go from there. It's definitely the character that comes first.

As you write, do you find you go places you didn't think you'd go?
My writing style is based around the plot. I will spend two weeks writing out the plot, then write the dialog from there. But I never write out the relationships. The relationships evolve on their own... which can get me in trouble because at page 200 some of the little things don't work out and I have to re-write my plot.

Why vampires and werewolves, why did you include those beings?
A lot of that came from early reading; I loved the Sci Fi greats and things like The Blue Book of Fairy Tales, The Red Book of Fairy Tales, and The Brown Book of Fairy Tales. They were huge and I felt good when I was reading them. It was often the same fairy tale told different ways. Another influence was Ray Bradbury. He wrote about monsters in one book and they were right downtown. I read it and thought to myself, “How powerful, as a writer.” I try to bring the monsters in. I don't see them as vampires, I see them as the dark side of us.

Audience Q+A:

Do you ever get feedback from the Wiccan community?
I used to get quite a bit when the books first came out. Most were along the lines of “are you Wiccan?” and “Where do you get your research?” I'm not Wiccan, but I've learned from the Wiccan community who has contacted me that lot of my magic is organized the same way that Wicca is, which I found kind of interesting.

You're very popular in prison libraries, possibly due to six inch heels on the cover. You don't handle covers i assume?
No no. Actually, the majority of my readership is female between the ages of 19-45. Because of the cover design, male readership is growing by leaps and bounds. I get a lot of firemen and a lot of cops as well.

What started the Clint Eastwood connection?
I really like characters that CE plays, especially in his westerns. A loner coming in that can take care of town's problems but not necessarily eager to do so. But he does so in a just way, though not necessarily legally... I like that kind of character. Another reason is marketability. If a reader goes into a bookstore and asks for “that urban fantasy book with the blue cover” it's not much help, so if they tag onto the fact that it's got a Clint Eastwood title, it's easier for readers to get the book they're after.

Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library

Speak up! Speak out!

2009-05-08T13:56:00.003-04:00

Dodie Gaudet
Bibliographic and Technical services
CMRLS

Some People fear public speaking more than death

" Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain" Ralph Waldo Emerson

Preparation:
What do you want to accomplish?

Know the situation, the audience, the environment
Why are my listeners here?
What do they expect?

Do more research than you need
Helps build your interest in the topic
Helps build your confidence in knowledge of the topic
Allows you to choose the best/strongest material
Good foundation for Q&A

Use 3 x 5 cards

3 parts to Speech/Presentation
Opening-tell them what you're going to tell them
get listeners attention
Establish your credentials and why youcare about ths topic
Give the listener a reason for listening
Involve the audience
Body-tell them
Remember people can re-read but cannot re hear
Stick to 3-4 major points because people can't remember more hat that
transition from 1 point to another logically
be simple honest and clear
Speak with integrity and passion
eliminate jargon
paint picture with words
give specific example; tell a story
be relevant; speak to listeners wants and needs
use gimmicks judiciously consider all learning styles: visual, auditory, kinesthetic

Closing-Tell them what you told them
end with advance notice
emphasize main ideas
end with conviction
end on time

Rehearse
visualize yourself giving the speech
visualize being successful
rehearse aloud 4 times- do 1 rehearsals close to the time of your talk-try to rehearse at same time of day you will be giving talk because energy level will be te same.
familiarize rather than memorize
visualize being successful
breathe gently and deeply

Overcoming Nervousness
be prepared know your materil, know you audience, practice
accentuate the positive
repeat affirmation
visualize being successful
breathe gently and deeply
Take care of your body
stay hydrated
avoid milk
avoid caffeine and alcohol
avoid overeating before speaking
eat a banana-lots of potassium- smooths out muscle contractions
be well rested
stay in good physical and mental health
arrive early and converse with audience members before the presentation so you'll have friends in the audience
If all of these fail- think about the worst thing that cold happen if your greatest fer is realized
brain freeze- index card
heckler-
unexpected question- be prepared know your stuff take a moment to think
something unbuttoned, unzipped- fist double check- of turn it around and make a joke about it
start off on wrong foot-too fast etc.- take a breath, try to think about what cold happen ad fix it beforehand.

Presentation
Stride up to the podium with confidence; avoid the lectern if possible

Podium-stand on a podium on a stage
Lectern-stand behind

Face- create rapport with the audience with a open face
smile, yur voice will follow your faces lead
make eye contact with audience, dwell on individuals rather than sweep around room
use appropriate facial expressions
Body
stand comfortably, but erect; sternum up- (make believe you have a rod going straight up you back from sternum to head.
walk around
let your bod move
the larger the audience the larger the gestures

Voice
pay attention to volume, rate, diction pitch ( if you talk softer, people pay attention)
vary emphasis and tone
pause for effect just before and after important points
repeat an important word or phrase
eliminate ahs and ums and other oral ticks
bite your tongue if your mouth gets dry

Use props when appropriate (Powerpoint, article, animal, etc)
use them effectively
practice with them
practice with a microphone

Handouts
give out in beginning so audience can take notes especially if informational

Dont spend time apologizing to your listeners
neve say yu are not prepared
acknowlede any problems that happen an continue.

WATCH THE AUDIENCE FOR SIGNALS; IF YOU ARE LOSING THEM MAKE A CHANGE OR END YOUR TALK.

Q & As- friendly

pause and think
repeat the question so everyone hears question, and understand questions
if yu don't know. say so
if possible get back to he to the peson
bekind to the asker, even if the questin is silly

Q & As- Hostile
pause and think
stay calm
DON'T repeat he question
DON'T get ddefensive
DONT repeat any negative words or phrases
Stress the psitive not the negative

Books n Public speakig
Carnigie, Dale Public Speaking and influency men inbusiness New York
Association Press 1935

Cook, Jeff scott The elelments of speechwriting and public speaking New York Macmillion 1989

Lustberg, Arch Winning when it really counts: quick easy stratigies for success in any speaking situation, New York Simon & Schuster 1988

websites:
www.tostmasters.org
Blogs:
Presenttion Zen
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen
Articles:
The Toastmasters august 1999, Chambers, Cindy Podurgal, Anything wort doing is worth doing badly

Stone Readers: Digital Librarians in the Cemeteries

2009-05-08T13:43:00.004-04:00

Friday 2:00pm
Stone Readers: Digital Librarians in the Cemeteries
Presenters: Jim Keenan & Kathy Meagher - Billerica Library Website (presentation on homepage - Monday)

Digital projects are a way to share unique collections while helping to physically preserve the originals.

This session discusses the Billerica Library Cemetery and Vital Records project:
How it was conceived, how it was carried out, where it is now, where it may be going next.

"Who the hell is Sheila Shea" is an actual epitaph on a gravestone in Billerica.

What can we learn in order to do our own local projects?

Origins...Greg & Kathy (local history librarian)-their ideas, trials and perils. They were trying to find a small cemetery in the woods behind some railroad tracks to catalog. They were almost hit by a train, devoured by bugs and vanquished by heat, but they finally found the cemeteries and used a digital camera to take pictures of gravestones and copied epitaphs into notebooks as exactly as possible. It was the first of many cemeteries that they would visit.

Some Terms...Digital Project - data stored in a database that people can access, Digital Object - consists of digital image and metadata, Metadata - information describing a digital object (who owned it and made it, where is it now, what size is it, etc...).

Types of Projects...projects to share widely and projects to preserve and share locally (example of archival scanning for a collection of collapsible lanterns at the highest possible resolution, without concern for sharing the images on the Internet).

In his resources links there will be information about how to build a bed for book scanning (cheaper than buying one).

Types of Digitized Materials...Books, pictures, maps, video, audio & metadata (don't need to limit your possibilities to just books).

Digital Resource Creation...Scanning originals, converting paper data into electronic data, creating objects out of composite materials, why? to share.

Creating exhibitions...Special occasion digital exhibition, "permanent" digital collections (for instance all the cemeteries, gravestones, epitaphs in Billerica with maps, metadata, etc... for research purposes), revolving collections, special purpose exhibitions.

Storytelling...to highlight features of the history of your locality and the people who lived there. An example is 1816 - the year without a summer or the Flu pandemic of 1918. Vital records can help tell the story.

Toothaker dies in prison...he had bragged about using reverse witch craft on a witch...and was later imprissoned. He was the only male healer accused of witchcraft and he was from Billerica. His family was buried in a small cemetery. Toothaker's wife Mary was later accused of witchcraft. She claimed that she made a deal with the devil to protect her from Indian raiders when she was interrogated. She was safely in prison when several homesteads near her home were attacked. Her testimony is digitized and available to read.

What you need...needs change based upon the type of project you are doing, but there will always be these four: people (interested enough to take on the project), time, software (Billerica project used Excel Spreadsheets) and hardware. You also need local support (library director, community, etc...).

Planning a project...The Cemeteries and Vital Records Project...the first surveys, there were no maps, if you find there are no existing resources, don't be afraid to be the one who creates them.

Local Involvement...the historical society, town cemetery department, boy scouts and data entry volunteers.

First Results...rough hand drawn maps and notes, photographs, transcriptions, the "archival" binders (organized information to correspond to maps).

Publicizing and Popularizing...begin telling your stories and sharing your data as quickly as you can. When people start getting excited about something they want to get involved.

Digital Commonwealth will host your collections and link to them. Digital Treasures is another resource focused on central and western MA. You can also share metadata - creating a static repository to share OAI compliant metadata.

Fundamental Checklist...Plan to start small (the journey can be the destination), Work on paper then on computers, Organize your labor, Publish early - publish often - incremental growth is good, Identify your software learning needs (spreadsheet, web page creation, database), Identify your hardware needs (scanner, camera, recorder, video, web site, server), Do It!

DIY Session 2

2009-05-08T10:48:00.007-04:00

Friday 10:45 AM
Do-It-Yourself: Blogging for Libraries
Panel: Karen Mellor, Jennifer Varney, Maryanne

Blogging for Libraries - Karen Mellor

A blog is.... a content management system, it can be syndicated (RSS), searchable, web-based (virtually) no tech skills required, interactive, free!

Why blog? Empower your staff by allowing them to publish in real time (without webmaster/support). The power of RSS feeds, they can be aggregated. It is a marketing and public relations tool (community and funding sources can see what is happening at your library). Virtual library (24/7). You can also use one to document a project or to share/store information.

Who is blogging? Visit Blogging Libraries Wiki or LISNews 10 Library Blogs to Read in 2009. Canton Public Library, Michigan using a blog as a website. Darien Public Library is using blogs to open a dialogue with the community. Iowa City PL is using a blog for Teens (fun with media). The Librarian's Brain: Fun with WordPress.

Blog hosting services...Blogger is very, very, easy to use. WordPress offers many useful tools like categories, statistics of use, etc...

Karen demonstrated how easy and flexible it is to use Wordpress to blog. She created a blog in 2 minutes with a blog title and a first posting. Next she added a new page (useful if you are using it as a website) with information about the library's hours/information. Then she created a link for the new page of library hours/information and gave it a category (About The Library). The link to the new page appeared on the right hand side of the front page of the blog. Themes can be used to change the appearance of the blog.

There are lots of useful plug-ins, and Karen recommends using the Kismet plug-in for eliminating spam sent to your blog. She demonstrated how she is using her Delicious links to feed them directly to a blog's sidebar.

Developing Your Blog...have a purpose, content and writing guidelines, comment guidelines - Free Range Librarian, brand your blog with a catchy name, frequency of posts, transparency - authorship, institutional connection, contact information, disclaimer (Rhodarian), editorial process (group blogs), blogging etiquette (give credit where credit is due).

Writing Tips...Keep posts brief, make writing accessible, develop a personality and be consistent, check your facts (spelling and cite sources), don't delete your posts correct them, read other blogs for inspiration.

Market Your Blog...publicize within the library/community, add links to website, feature in your newsletter, add to bookmarks-flyers-signature files, use the web!

The next speaker on the panel, Jennifer Varney, introduced us to RSS...

Newsreaders will bring the stuff on the web to you. Examples include Bloglines, Google Reader, My Yahoo, and Newsgator Online.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication", site provide a feed from their page and you can tell your newsreader to gather these feeds from the site's you want to keep up with.

RSS feeds contain site content (text, audio, video), metadata, xml.

How to use RSS: Easy!

Step1 - choose a reader (Google Reader)

Step 2 - subscribe to your favorites via Google Reader (Click on Add a Subscription: Add the URL of the feed, search for the feed, or search for topics that interest you) or find a site and subscribe via a site (Click on Add to Google Reader or copy and paste the url of the xml page into Google Reader). Be careful when subscribing to "bundles" the number of feeds can be overwhelming, you may want to subscribe to just a couple of feeds within the bundle.

Step 3 - browse and read all in one place (Google Reader)

Step 4 - organize your feeds (rename, put into folders, create folders, unsubscribe, very similar to E-mail)

Why do this? Professional development, alerting service (monitor topics of patron interest), collection development.

Tips for using RSS - review your feeds daily, file and flag for follow-up, weed, limit and organize your feeds. Offer RSS feeds on your blogs, website, catalogs, etc...

Maryanne showed how to create a Facebook page for your Library...

Have to create a profile on Facebook (but it does not have to be public to have a Facebook page).
From the Facebook homepage click on the link to creating a page for businesses. The web form is easy to fill out and once you have completed it you must either create your profile or login to your already existing profile.

Now that you have a page...upload a picture, add your basic information (year that you were founded) and detailed information (website, overview, mission statement, products you offer) you can fill in as much as you want, get the word out (suggest to friends feature, put your Facebook info. on website and blog, publicity).

Examples of how it is being used well...Belmont (NH) High - librarian is interacting with students (giving them tips, etc...), Assabet Valley HS, Northfield-Mount Hermon (private school), Beamon Memorial Public Library, West Boylston - to communicate about events, share photos, advocating for the library, WPI - Gordon Library - advertising services, meet the staff videos, etc..., Regional Library Systems - communication with librarians, job postings, etc...

Send updates to your fans...use this feature to notify your fans.

Update your Facebook and Website at the same time to keep information synchronized/current!

Work/Llfe: Finding the Balance

2009-05-08T10:34:00.004-04:00

Marsha Kline Pruett PhD MSE Smith college School for Social Work

Quality time is a myth- can't schedule time to spend with child, but some times listing to a problem in the car on the way to school is valuable.

Work & family stress contributes to mental illness

Quality childcare is a high stress problem for parents. Most infants/toddlers/prescholers are not getting quality childcare

Working parents lament: why didn't any one tell me...
it would be this hard...
it's scary to know so little about what you are doing...
you're on your own a lot... at home mom's left beind-get into work force late maybe when kids need mom more
'there's this life and deathness to it'...
it can be incredibly joyful...
fathers and mothers...

Good working parenting at any age
sensitivity to children's needs-teen years hardest
make children feel adored/valued-listen, talk, share
sustain strong values- find own way- let them find out who they are
Discipline- to teach
affirm uniqueness/expect competence
promote education as process
be an abiding presence- what ever comes
safeguard rituals and routines- don't change traditions

Working vs. Parenting: the bottom line
woman are happier when working 20-25 hours/week

Our Towns ten
1969- 60% childrens lives with breadwinner dads and stay at home mons
25% Marriages ended in divorce
40% moms with prescoolers are working
94% of 3 yr olds and 815 4 yr olds are not in preschool

today..
30% of kids with breadwinner dads/stay at home moms
41% marriages end in divorce
300% increase in single moms
62% of moms with preschoolers work outside home
63% kids under 5 in childcare

technology has changed and we can stay connected 24/7- always on

Moms spend as much time with their kids as 40 yers ago

Families eat out more not at home for ease and smplicity

Differnt cultures have different socialization values.43% work stay/home delimma- moderate to severe stress about weather should stay home or work.
parents have changed; older, more vigilent, overworked, multitaskers, with fewer kids.. are they more competent?

Kids whose Dads are more involved are at ease with both boy and girl friends.
men who are involed wit ids are healthier, less likley to die early, less heartattacks and are happier. Dads who bond right away with their babies are less likey to abuse child.
Men need to practice childrens routines and women still need to be gatekeepers and make sure they do it.

Coparent

Getting Rid of the Reference Desk

2009-05-08T10:01:00.009-04:00

10:45-12:00 Friday, May 8 Getting Rid of the Reference Desk

Speakers: Kate Sheehan, Head of knowledge and Innovation Innovation Services, Darien Library; Gretchen Hams, Head of Children’s Services Darien Library; Frank Baudino, Head of Information Services, Northwest Missouri State University; Lori Mardis, Information Librarian, Owens Library, Northwest Missouri State University

Frank Baudino, Head of Information Services, Northwest Missouri State University; Lori Mardis, Information Librarian, Owens Library, Northwest Missouri State University

Many libraries are considering getting rid of the reference desk. This is coming full circle here at the conference. This workshop reminds me of Scott Bennett's "History of paradigm change." The idea of eliminating the reference desk meshes with the theme of reconfiguring the way we think about the library and the way we think about the idea of library as service. Salem State College has tossed around this idea while working with architects on the design of our new library. With more academic libraries considering the information commons, a change in reference services seems to make sense. Let's see what our speakers have to say about it.

Check out the "Getting Rid of the Reference Desk" presentation here: Owens Library Presentations

Frank Baudino thinks of getting rid of the reference desk as another arm of instruction at the library. Frank cites a decline in reference questions as part of the rationale for getting rid of the reference desk. Frank felt that there was a need to roll with current trends. If there was a decline in reference questions, the librarians clearly were not offering the service they were capable of offering. At the same time as a decline in reference questions, there was a steady increase in the demand for library instruction, a demand for online library instruction, and an increase in the use of library web pages. Frank stresses that it takes a lot of work to develop relationships with faculty, to assist in instruction initiatives with faculty, and to have time to perform all the other duties required of an information/instruction librarian.

Frank cites statistics that showed an increase in the use of the library web page as part of the rationale for a new model. This became an opportunity to target these web-based users. Frank also cited the loss of a professional librarian position (a position the library never got back), which taxed staffing. An increase in web page use (resulting in loss of foot traffic to the reference desk), loss of staffing, and an increase in the number of instruction classes facilitated a shift in the way traditional reference was viewed. These observations are neither good nor bad--it is what it is (thanks BB--go Pats!).

Frank explains that his library (Northwest Missouri State University Library) had paraprofessionals working at the reference desk. If students needed additional in-depth research help, the paraprofessionals would refer the student to the on-call professional librarian.

Some of the things Frank's library was considering was a change of signage to support the reference scheme they were devising. Frank also talked about the desire to market the reference consultation model (more to come from Lori). Frank says his library never followed the chat reference model, but looked toward other areas to supplement the loss of the traditional reference desk.
Frank explains that his library finally settled on the one-stop-shopping model. I like one-stop-shopping, but what exactly does this mean for the library? Keep reading!

Most of the reference librarians were for doing something different. The trouble was getting personnel in other areas on board with the new reference model. Frank developed a task force with librarians and support staff in order to look at the problem. The task force felt that reference should be offered in some way. There needed to be a way to train students, devise appropriate hours for service. There was also a a logistical recasting of how staff would refer in-depth questions to professional librarians for consultations.

Enter Lori.

Lori explains that the reference desk was merged with the circulation desk to create a Library services desk. The library settled on a model that used students and paraprofessionals at the Library Service Desk. the students and paraprofessionals were trained to identify when a professional librarian should be consulted. Generally speaking, Lori says anything beyond ready reference requires consultation. The professional librarians carried hand talkies (whatever they might be called) to communicate with service desk staff.

Lori says that the staff at the Library Services Desk (a combination of the traditional circulation desk and ready reference desk) was encouraged to have a discussion about the question to decide whether to send the student to a professional librarian. Part of the discussion takes place between paraprofessional staff and students at the desk and the professional librarian. Lori says her library uses walkie-talkies. Lori says she takes the walkie-talkie around with her. If Lori is contacted via talkie at an inappropriate time (during a meeting), she can defer the "call" to another professional librarian. I am a little weary about the talkie. Lori explains that the professional librarians are only on call for three hour intervals (part of a rotation) and not on-call after hours except by choice.

Lori says the librarians put the web page to good use by developing an in-house "Ask A Librarian" feature on their website with links to all of the librarian's photos and job titles. This encourages students to contact a librarian they might have worked with in the past. Take a look at the library website here: B.D. Owens Library

The library web page was reconfigured to reflect the new reference model. There was an increase in tutorials and a concentration on each subject area to help students (not coming to a reference desk) to better find what they are looking for.
Because the librarians were not sitting at a reference desk, they were able to concentrate on planning and developing other initiatives, most notably their work on instruction classes. Spending more time on planning instruction classes led to more comprehensive and in-depth consultations with students--and faculty; the quality of service increased exponentially.

A couple of quick questions asked at the lecture:

Why not pursue chat?

An audience member asked why they did not explore chat reference and Lori explained that chat would still mean being tied to the desk and would defeat the point of re-purposing the new reference model.

How many librarians do you have?

7

Is that a large number?

No. We need the extra staff for subject areas.

How do you analyze the traffic to your subject guides posted on the library web-page?

We use google analytics. Otherwise we get feedback from students and faculty after presenting the sites in classes.

e-mail Lori and Frank with additional questions: lmardis@nwmissouri.edu; baudino@nwmissouri.edu

Beyond the Book: Voice of Audiobooks

2009-05-08T09:25:00.007-04:00

8:30-9:45 Friday, May 8 Beyond the Book: Voice of Audiobooks

Speakers: Mary Burkey, Teacher-Librarian, Olentangy Liberty School District, Columbus, Ohio; Johnny Heller, Narrator, Recorded Books

Mary Burkey, Teacher-Librarian, Olentangy Liberty School District, Columbus, Ohio

I'm a big fan of audiobooks. I usually hit the audiobook section first at my local library. I am eager to hear about the voice behind the books. Mary gives some background information. With all due respect to Mary, we are really waiting to hear the voice and passion behind audiobooks--Johnny Heller. Read on!

Mary Burkey began by exclaiming that she is an audiobook evangelist. Audio literature has its roots in oral storytelling. Mary talks about the stigma of listening to audiobooks. Many believe audiobooks are for those who can't handle the real thing.

Mary has a blog: http://audiobooker.booklistonline.com where she often highlights free downloads. Right now you can get "Pendragon" for free.

Why do we listen to audiobooks? We love to hear the story. Many parents think kids are cheating by listening to the audiobook version. Mary says there are now workbooks that accompany the audiobook. Kids must be actively listening. There is still a strong language component that Mary says helps with language development and vocabulary. Audiobooks helps Mary with her speech.

Mary also talks about how easy it is for her to listen to audiobooks while being very active. She explains that people she knows use audiobooks when they are exercising or playing video games. Learning how to listen is an art, and even while listening on the move, listening slows down, too.

The interpretation of the book is enhanced. Mary remembers details of listening to audiobooks, even details such as where she was and if in her car, where her car was located. Listening has great power. Even NPR understands this, as evident in "Driveway Moments", a collection of captivating stories. Who among us can honestly say they have never been captivated by the telling of a story.

Booklist, booklinks (school setting), horn book (small but good section), audiofile magazine (online at www.audiofilemagazine.com) offers great reviews and listings of audiobooks.

Johnny Heller, Narrator, Recorded Books
Johnny is currently working on a young adult book. He is, evidently, something of a stand-up comedian. If you have never listened to Johnny narrate a book, you should check one out. I cannot do justice to the power of his voice in dictating the ebb and flow of a story.

Johnny says that when he reads in the studio, he reads from xerox copies, not the book. Johnny also saves parts of the copies that offer a great opportunity to read to audiences such as ours. Johnny read excerpts from a children's book, a YA book, and an adult book. I must say Johnny's voice is electric! I've listened to him many times on recordings from Recorded Books. Johnny represents one of the main reasons why listening to audiobooks is so fascinating: it can be absolutely entertaining and funny, especially with the acting and inflection of the reader.
Johnny began by reading from "Hey, New Kid!", chapter 2: "Little dork that couldn't." He then read from "Al Capone does my shirts", chapter five, to be exact. He then read an excerpt from "Marley and Me." Marley and Me, Johnny explains, is one of his favorite books. With time left, Johnny decides to read from Dave Barry.

Johnny answered a few questions you might find interesting. He says he reads for three hour stretches in the studio. He explains that it is important for him to read the book first to make sure the voice is correct and pronunciation is observed. Mary jumps in to explain that part of critical listening is to pick up on accents. Johnny does his homework to get some inflection, pronunciation and accents correctly.

Find out more about Johnny Heller here: Johnny Heller

Listen to Johnny at audiofilemagazine

As a special treat Johnny read from "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar." Am I spoiled, or what? What a treat! I couldn't stop laughing!!

Check out the session handout and suggested title lists available online. Here it is again: Audiobook blog

Happy listening audiobook fans!!!

21 Examples of 21st Century Libraries

2009-05-08T08:45:00.043-04:00

Speakers: Kim Bolan Cullin, Library Consultant; Rob Cullin, Founder, Evanced Solutions. Bolan and Cullin are authors of Technology Made Simple.
I left another session to catch some of this (why do these conflicts always happen - you want to be in two three sessions at the same time, must be that our MLA planners did a good job choosing topics), and I did not see anyone blogging, so I'll try to blog a little, and post a link the presenter (Kimberly Bolan) promissed.

1st topic: spaces. Kimberly spoke about how library spaces have changed or need to change as our libraries change.
2nd topic: green library.

Concepts: browsable library, good signage and way finding; flexible library - lightweight yet durable chairs, tables, stacks on casters); small meeting, study, quiet rooms; separate teen libraries, with their own activity space; "Zoned" children's spaces (by developmental stages) - different size furniture, etc.

9: Signage: needs to be planned in advance, but can leave some signage for a few month later when you see the use patterns. Flexible signage: make it easy to change, e.g. painted detail signs would be easier to change; digital signage.

10: Happiness Cycle: put the customer first, and you'll be happy too.

Be more business minded: balance community needs with library mission. Suggested that libraries can charge for some things (Rob Cullin).

11: New staff models: hire for attitude. Libraries hire people people: you need to love people more than you like books to be a good library staff member.

12: Food, phones and fun: do not ban cell phones, ask to put them on silent, have a cell phone booth. Healthy snacks in vending machines. Regarding noise: think about zoning - create a quiet zone, a community talking spot where youput a sign " by entering this area you agree that people can talk to you".

13: Multi-age Governance: teens on library boards; adult advisory boards.
14: More "Liberal" Meeting Space Policies. Open the meeting spaces for private and for profit groups and charge a modest fee, especially if your meeting space is underutilized.
Services:
15: Demise of the big service desk.
16: Customer convenience: one stop shopping - a vending machine for office supplies - pencils, pens etc; drive through holds pick-up or ATM style pick-up, locker systems. An audience member suggested mail (regional centers used to). Drive - through coffee draws people into the library.
17: Collaboration, Outreach and Partnership. Bring library service to schools, Wii to a senior center, etc.
Technology:
18: Supported Self Service. Self check helped by staff.
19: Virtual Spaces. Web.2 is dynamic. Reviews in the catalog (if your ILS is not offering it, try Chili Fresh).
20: Rethinking Tradition. How you lay out computers (collaborative computers), think about circulating laptops at your library, put a flat panel screens for information, sound domes instead of headphones.
21: Advanced Communication. Need faster communication method among staff, especially in a bigger building. Reach out using a Face book page, Twitter.

Ramsey County Library (MN), Maplewood branch implemented most of those changes, and their use increased very substantially.

indielibrarian.blogspot.com

librarybuildingconsultants.com

Public Workstation Sanity

2009-05-08T08:33:00.003-04:00

Friday 8:30 AM
Public Workstation Sanity: Approaches to Managing Time and Patrons at Public Workstations
Panel: Jim Keenan, Bernadette, Ira

There will be a link to many resources posted on the Billerica Library Website on Monday (including contact information for panel members)!

Jim began by providing us with an overview of the issues and public workstation environment. He also mentioned that the panel is not advocating for any particular solution, but presenting a variety of solutions that may or may not work for your institution. Each community/institution has different needs.

3 Management Areas: Time, Print & Computer

Who can use the public workstations? How long can they use them? How can the library exert control during patron sessions.

Time Management Solutions: PC Reservation (Envisionware), Pharos, Patron Access Management Xerox, CASSIE, Librarica, CybraryN, Time Limit Mngr. (Open Source).

Print Management Solutions: Managing printers, print jobs, payment. Additional printing issues include coin machines and contract services.

Computer Management Solutions: Who can do what with the machines and when (can they download clients, change computer settings, etc...)? Different settings for patrons, administrators, automatic system processes.

CM Solutions - Products: SteadyState, Microsoft; DeepFreeze; Clean Slate, Fortres; Windows Policy Editor; CompuGard, Centurion; Fortres 101, Fortres; Trust-No-Exe, Beyond Logic; Userful.

Issues Mentioned:
How do we protect our computers and users (IE will save usernames/passwords for the remainder of the day when set to remember them for 0 days - Firefox has a setting that will not remember them)?

Integrating your systems: Getting everything to play nice (can't update anti-virus software at night if computers shut down). New version of Office (07) with file formats that are not backward compatible, and there are some combinations of software that do not work together (Roxio and DeepFreeze).

Pros & Cons of Open Source: It's free, tech expertise requirements, potential lack of support, possible additional system requirements (Linux instead of MS Windows).

Issues in Software Deployment: Do I have the expertise to install myself or will I need to pay for technical expertise? How much dedicated staff time? Consultants needed? Are there extra initial costs for setup?

Ira began by discussing... her experience and the evolution of computer management.

Her library took the technical experience of the library staff into account when selecting a CM Solution. Decided upon Userful and went from 5 computers in the library to 15 computers in the Reference and YA areas alone!

The Time Management has been great. They are using thin clients (5 PCs to a server), and the Linux operating system (required for Userful) and Open Office software are used on the computers.

Use notification of print costs to patrons to decrease the amount of lost fees (not using a Print Management system yet). Send messages to patrons when necessary (can send a message to teens that are being loud during busy times). Login to a webpage in the morning to manage the computers (it will show you if a computer has been dropped from the network and needs attention, usually caused by a loose cable or a similarly simple problem).

The library is allowing users to have an hour on the computers (staff can add time/decrease time as necessary). They use guest passes for people that are visiting (change the numbers periodically to avoid abuse). Some annoyance from the technically savvy people that are forced to use OpenOffice, but you can save in MS formats and OpenOffice has been accepted well by most people.

All computers can access the library catalog without the use of a library card. Computers turn on early and the anti-virus software updates automatically.

Userful trainer came and installed the system (headquartered in Alberta, Canada) and provided 2 days of training (it cost approx. $2,100), they have 4-5 servers and approx 31 public computers at a cost from Userful of approx. $33,000 for 3 years.

Problems: floppy disks not available on thin clients (purchased a USB connection-Floppy Drive to alleviate issue), Teens cannot access iTunes to download music, their older library has electrical infrastructure issues.

At Bernadette's library... she was asked to figure out how to install a print management system (OCS - Output Control Services) that had already been purchased by a library. There turned out to be issues with the system requirements not being met by some computers on their network.

Bernadette's library then installed PC Reservation on top of the print management system. Patrons were allowed to use the computers for 1-1.5 hours a day (twice per day), and the staff provided extra time to people for valid reason (completing tests, etc...).

Some nice features include being able to send messages to patrons via the system (people congregating around a computer and being loud) and PC Reservation shuts computers down at the end of the day automatically. Jim's library, Billerica, also uses PC Reservation for time management.

PC Reservation can be set to reboot after each session (this will delete usernames/passwords and help to protect patron privacy), but beware how old your machines are and how long they take to reboot.

Group Policy Editor is being used at Bernadette's library for security. Public Web Browser is another product that is similar to using the Group Policy Editor.

Partnerships that Work: Tikatok, Drop-in Science, and Community Learning Too

2009-05-07T21:38:00.006-04:00

Wednesday May 6 2009 10:45-12:00pm

Boston Public Library (BPL) Director of Partnerships and Communications, (and 2009 Library Journal rising star), Koren Stembridge facilitated a panel to discuss the benefits of community partnerships and to highlight three from the BPL. The BPL has over 100 different types of partnerships going on at any given time. Most of these are neighborhood specific and can range from creating murals, to raised garden beds, to festivals. This session focused more on system-wide partnerships. But first....

Why partnerships?

Partnerships double our ability to reach outside of our own institutions to those who can help us.
As the technological landscape has become more participatory, it stands to reason that users now expect to participate more in our libraries.
The tough economic climate provides an excellent opportunity for libraries to serve as a port in the economic storm by providing career support, increased programs for kids and stress relief. The evidence so far supports this, as use at BPL is increasing. Overall use has gone up 10% every month for the last year and card signup has increased by 33% in the last year.

Before entering into a partnership, your institution should ask the "Five W's" (who-what-where-when-why), Some of these questions may include:

Why

Does it add value to your institution?
Does the partnership fill a need?

What

Programs
Services
Giveaways
Fundraisers

Who

Schools
City departments
Individuals
Vendors. Yes even vendors.

When

Timing is everything. Partnerships have an ideal time. Strategize for the maximum impact

Where

Onsite vs offsite? Benefits to both.

Whatever you decide to do, think outside the box. However don't work outside the capacity of your organization. Don't partner with orgs that don't support the core values of your library. Use a partnership checklist. (available at the back). Be hands-on.

The following examples work for the BPL, but could easily scaled back for a smaller institution.

Tikatok Books

Tikatok Books is a primarily web-based 2.0 community where kids can write, illustrate, share and publish their own high quality hard, softcover or digital "print on demand" books. Tikatok works with BPL and other libraries to create a flexible online and offline program to help kids write books. A couple weeks later, the kids have the books in their hands!

Libraries are perfect environments for bookmaking activity, as they provide an environment where childrens librarians are enthusiastic and highly skilled at stimulating cretivity and patrons are education-focused.

Drop-in Science

Beverly Nadeau, Boston public schools science elementary science specialist, gave an overview of how Drop-in Science works. Drop-in Science is a grant-funded program that provides easy-to-create youth explorations in science kits. These kits provide materials to create objects that educate students about scientific concepts. Objects such as a mini-catapult, a thumb piano, or a mini-wind turbine. The lessons associated with the kits fit into the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks as well as MCAS tests. After the lesson, the kids get to keep the item. Lessons revolve around Physical Science (Chemistry and Physics) for grades 3-5. The best part is that each kit comes with a manual designed for a non-science person. So anyone can learn.

Melisa Baily, from the BPL talked about how successful the program has become. Students at BPL, which has a large percentage of Latino and African-American students has been a huge success. Instructions included to use when assembling kits with kids. Having helpers is good as well. Pairing little kids with older people helps as well.

Benefits: A whole different group of kids are coming in to work with the kids. Word of mouth is positive. Appeals to boys. Not in school, which appeals. Kids love being able to take the projects home and share with family and friends.

Countdown to Kindergarten

Krystal Beaulieu spoke about the Countdown to Kindergarten program whose mission is to enhance early learning opportunities for pre-k kids. The program was started 10 years ago to ease the transition to kindergarten from pre-school, home, or wherever. The program benefits kids and parents by explaining the process of choosing a kindergarten and how to prepare for kindergarten.

The program includes:

Workshop for spanish speaking families.
Info to parents to help in choosing a school.
Working with the Boston Children's Museum on a Countdown to kindergarden night. Such a sucess that it was turned into a permanent group.
Transition activities such as

Talk, Read Play: A guide to help parents work with their kids to reach developmental milestones.
Play to Learn: Free facilitated, structured play times.

The whole process takes place over the course of a year. CTK works with libraries to have kindergarden days. Teachers from neighborhood schools come to the events. Programming includes pennant making, face-painting, physical activities, and a parade to a local business. Kids can also sign up for library cards at the library events. Working with the library makes sense as they share the core learning values of the program.

Sherry Eskin from the Honan-Allston Branch of BPL talked about how the program works from the perspective of a library. Because the shirts that kids need to attend all CTK events are only available at BPL branches it brings people into the library that might not otherwise come. The shirts are displayed in the library. Info on the program is available in 8 different languages. The event shows that the library is a place for community gathering, and fun.

The 2009 PARA Awards

2009-05-07T17:34:00.001-04:00

The Paralibrarian Section of MLA announced their annual awards at their workshop this morning. They give two awards each year, Paralibrarian of the Year and Paralibrarian Advocate of the Year. Denise Faucher presented the following awards:

Paralibrarian of the Year

There were 21 nominees this year. Denise shared the names of the nominees and a bit of information about each person from their nomination, and gave them certificates.

Claudette Bright, of the Boston Public Library, whittles away at the backlog cheerfully

Laurel Cannon, of the Boston Public Library, has created wonderful connections with teens. They come in to hug her!

Julio Chang, of the Boston Public Library IT department, is a “hidden gem” who puts the “help” in helpdesk

Melissa Chase, of Bourne Public Library, started a Rock and Read program – 5 local rock bands raised funds for the library

Cecilia Darling, of the Maxwell Library at Bridgewater State College, has worked hard supervising students while her supverisor was out on vacation.
Maryann Dastoli, of the Pittsfield School System Elementary Libraries, takes an annual trip to Tennessee for the National Storytelling Festival and shares new ideas.

Betty Emery runs the Supplemental Deposit Collection for the Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System, and creates close relationships with library vendors.

Barbara Diamond Goldin, of the Easthampton Library, provides outstanding patron services despite many constraints.

Deborah Jankowski, of the Taconic High School Library, is re-cataloging the entire library while it is being weeded.

Barbara Lorentzen, of the Jonathan Bourne Public Library, brings in her own materials to repair books the old-fashioned way – with spine webbing and glue.

Hannele Minsk, who works in tech services at the Kingston Public Library, created and ran a teen advisory board for 3 years.

Jacqueline Mushinski, of the Gordon Library at WPI, loves to do audio and video editing, and has created podcasts and vodcasts for the library’s website.

Judith Poulin, of Easthampton Elementary, served as Grand Marshall of the Easthampton Elementary vocabulary parade – three years after she retired!

Susan Robert , of the Blanding Public Library in Rehoboth, organized her town’s first town-wide read.

Susan Shaffer, of the Forbes Library in Northampton, always goes above and beyond to help patrons and other staff members.

Rusty Shaw , of the Wheeler Memorial Library, proved that no patron request is beyond her consideration - she processes and circulates knitting needles!

Joan Sterns, of the Worcester Public Library, meets regularly with other librarians and paralibrarians in her area to discuss the preservation of valuable items in the collection.

Donna Tappin, of the Tahanto Middle School Library, is a powerhouse of information and very user-focused, patient, and kind.

Mary Ellen West, of the Maxwell Library at Bridgewater State College, has the motto “we can do it and we can prove it”.

Kendrah White, of the Temple Israel Library in Boston, always has an “above and beyond” attitude and always goes the extra mile to help patrons or share ideas in the library.

Nancy Wilson, of Becket Atheneum works 10+ volunteer hours a week at the library so the staff can offer programming beyond what their budget allows.

Betty Emery is the 2009 Paralibrarian of the Year. Her nominators said that she creates collections of highest quality for the Northeast Region’s Supplemental Deposit Collection, which is housed at the Merrimac Public Library. She seeks out and creates excellent relationships with vendors. Betty is professional, with great attitude, and is always looking for ways to increase circulation. She sends funny, engaging emails to libraries, using fun themes like holidays, sports, or seasonal topics. Last year she even wrote a script and acted it out for the NMRLS Executive Board. Her efforts have increased circulation of the collection by 36%. She plans an annual Open House at the library for the collection, and makes sure everyone leaves with gifts provided by vendors. She maintains a diverse, robust, current collection for NMRLS members. The nominator said Betty took on the task of managing the collection and hasn’t looked back.

Betty commented that she hoped this award is a reflection on the Supplemental Deposit Collection and its impact on smaller libraries in the Northeast Region. She says she started the job 5 years ago, looking for a challenge and something fun. The challenge continues and so does the fun!

Paralibrarian Advocate of the Year

This award is given to a director, supervisor, or paralibrarian who understands the value of paralibrarians in libraries, and works to increase opportunities for paralibrarians.

There were 5 nominations this year:

Susan Babb

Carolyne Longworth

Leslie Todd

Michael Somers

Michael Colford

The 2009 Paralibrarian Advocate of the Year is Susan Babb. Susan’s nominator pointed out that Susan always holds paralibrarians in the forefront of her work at the Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System. She teaches workshops specifically for paralibrarians, and makes sure they are represented in all aspects of services provided by the Region. She has worked with the Paralibrarian Section on creating a mission and vision, on the creation of the Book Cart Drill Team Competition, and many other projects. She is a role model for librarians in her Region and across the state. Susan is a supporter, mentor, and friend, who has truly changed lives of those around her.

Drill Teams Rock!

2009-05-07T16:56:00.003-04:00

"Sex trumps Violence!" said children's author Mo Willems as he handed out first place to the team that "sexed it up" for the 2nd Annual Massachusetts Book Cart Drill Championships.
In their pink cowgirl duds, the Plymouth library staff, strutted their stuff to "I feel like a woman". The competition was close with the costumed Batman characters of Andover springing their Demco carts into action. And although they took bronze, Methuen sparkled in golden tophats. Demco generously donates gift certificates for their products to the winning libraries and promotes the Book Cart Drill Teams throughout the country. The "Nationals" will be held in Chicago this year at the annual American Library Association Conference in July.

MassAnswers Users Group Meeting

2009-05-07T15:52:00.004-04:00

The "hot" news from OCLCs Susan McGlamery was that ALL Massachusetts Libraries can add a Qwidget for QuestionPoint on their web sites. Question Point is the software behind MassAnswers. But how does the average Massachusetts Library without an OCLC account for QuestionPoint get the codes to add this helpful widget? A call to your regional tech guru should be a first contact. For details on how to set up Qwidget, go to

http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/help/en/admin/ad_forms_qwidget_setup.html

Installing a Qwidget within a website seems to be the best advertising for MassAnswers because it allows a direct link to QuestionPoint and presents a chatbox.

When you add the Qwidget (QuestionPoint widget) on your library web pages, patrons can easily enter your service. The patron simply sends a message through the Qwidget if chat is available and it goes directly to the MassAnswersQuestionPoint.

OCLC is working on software to allow texting and facbook inquiries to go directly to QuestionPoint, so more patrons will be arriving via web-based services.

The Users Group Meeting was also the venue for the MassAnswers Administrative Team to present reports on usage from academic representative Julie Jersyk and public library representative Eleanor Sathan. Monthly reports show that usage is up, but in addition to encouraging libraries to add a Qwidget to website, it was suggestedthat libraries spread the word by speaking to civic groups.

An interesting statistic from the public library reports was the percentage of questions: 10-24% received between 9 PM and 8 AM.13 minutes average length of questions.

Michael Colford of the Boston Public Library discussed top priorities, including funding issues, which may be changing in this economy.

Speakers: Michael Colford, Regional Administrator, Boston Regional Library System; Julie Jersyk, Coordinator of Reference Services, Northeastern University; Susan Mc-Glamery, Director of QuestionPoint Programs, OCLC; Eleanor Sathan, Coordinator of Reference Services and Regional Reference Librarian, Memorial Hall Library, Andover

Avoiding Déjà Vu All over again: Sustainable Approaches for Managing Academic Library Websites.

2009-05-07T15:22:00.003-04:00

Avoiding Déjà Vu All over again: Sustainable Approaches for Managing Academic Library Websites.

Academic librarians

Speakers: Kelcy Shepherd, Digital Interfaces Librarian, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries; Gary Atwood, Reference Librarian, Springfield College

Most librarians who are charged with website management are accidental webmasters. They've learned as they've gone along, but get trapped into a redevelopment cycle as the library's web gets stale.

Presenters commended the audience for their vigorous participation.

At UMass many committees and task forces have been responsible. Now they have a content management person who manages Cascading Style Sheet and makes new designs. There's a programmer / systems manager who is responsible for all library technology. There is also a Web advisory committee which is a working group, assignments are given out, they do usability studies, construct Web best practices guidelines which are maintained on a committee wiki.

Questionnaire distributed as discussion starter.

Who is responsible for administering/updating your website? Webmaster? Web team? Other?
How much authority do you have to make changes to your website? None (someone else approves) Some (edit content but no adding new stuff), Masters of domain.
Does your web site have a specific purpose /mission statement Yes, No
Are there design/style guidelines that spell out how the web site should look? Yes, No
Is the library website a part of a larger institutional website (college, school, town)? Yes No
If yes, does the administrator of the institutional we site have control over your web site. Yes No
How would you rate the software you use to administer/update your site? Just right (easy to use, has all you need), OK (you figured out the basics, but the advanced stuff requires more training), Where's the manual (difficult to use, more sophisticated than what you need)

Think about your library website. Ask What is the purpose of the website -- Ask Who is the audience. Then

Think carefully about choosing a content management system. UMass Amherst uses

Silverstripe. http://www.silverstripe.com/ Many colleges use Drupal which was a little too tech heavy. There are some quirks that require workarounds.

It is a good idea to do usability testing. Others' eyes can be helpful.

Kathy Shepherd can be emailed kshepher@libary.umass.edu if you would like to receive UMass' Best Practices Guidelines and the Website Mission Statement which is kept on the committee wiki.

Brenda

19th Biennial MLA Public Relations Awards

2009-05-07T15:12:00.003-04:00

The Public Relations Awards Ceremony honors the best public relations materials from
Massachusetts libraries, as chosen by a panel of distinguished judges.

The event was well attended and flowed efficiently, which is all that can really be asked of an award ceremony. There were many awards given in a myriad of categories, but the most rewarding part of the ceremony was the atmosphere.

As each award winner approached the stage, their pride in their profession and passion for library service was evident. After the ceremony, attendees took every opportunity to congratulate the winners; the mutual support amongst library professionals was palpable. Given the economic climate, it is especially heartening to be surrounded by such positivity.

The ceremony was presented by Co-Chairs of Massachusetts Library Association Public Relations Committee, Laurie Lessner (SAILS) and Greg Pronevitz (NEMRLS).

There were far more awards than would be reasonable to report here, but within a week MLA will post the winners of each category, photos, and a model press release for libraries who won awards on their website:
http://www.masslib.org/PRAward09

Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library

Creating Informed Library Spaces Through User-Focused Discovery and Assessment

2009-05-07T14:30:00.002-04:00

Creating Informed Library Spaces Through User-Focused Discovery and Assessment

The Georgia Tech Library has created two award-winning commons spaces and is in the final design process for a third commons. With each project, the Library has continued to refine its methods of incorporating user input in designing spaces and then assessing the effectiveness of those designs. The transparent and inclusive nature of this process has won praise and has helped create spaces that truly meet the evolving needs of end users.

Speaker: Bob Fox is the Associate Director for Public and Administrative Services at Georgia Tech University

The library already had two award winning commons. The new area is open 24/5 Sunday through Friday. Some features: Multimedia studio, productivity clusters with 85 workstations, collaborative computing, a rehearsal studio, a presentation area with fliptop tables on wheels which can be configured for collaboration or to maximize available space. No set furniture, even in the theatre area. Even soft seating has wheels.

Reference is in the East Commons now. Circulation desk moved over to the tower. Librarians assigned to this area are a little more software and hardware savvy. There's a training boot camp for library assistants. . 10pm-2am are peak times of use.

Library West Commons and Multimedia studio.

Examples of engagement:

They have been engaging their students on Facebook Georgia Tech Library http://www.facebook.com/pages/Atlanta-GA/Georgia-Tech-Library/8264471191 We're working on a visual identity for the library. We'd like your feedback. http://forums.library.gatech.edu/viewforum.php?f=11

Make your mark on the GT Library!

We need your help. The George Tech Library is looking for a visual identity. Send us your original sketches, graphics, logos, symbols, or any other ideas that can be used online, in print, and in the Library...

They have a student advisory board of 8-10 students. They try to recruit student leaders. Current board members can nominate their sucessors. They meet twice a week.

They are reluctant to put up online survey because students hate to be interrupted with popups. Though here's one http://librarycommons.gatech.edu/

During construction, they keep students up to date on availability

Real-time availability map:

LWC:

Available: 82

In-use: 3

Unavailable: 4

LEC:

Available: 21

In-use: 15

Unavailable: 0

The held about 30 focus groups

The Georgia Tech website has a number of planning documents available including Herman Miller case study overhead grid system and focus groups. http://librarycommons.gatech.edu/about/documents.php

After the spaces are used, they did yearly then longitudinal observational studies. 4 times per day to document where students were and if they were using a laptop or mobile device. Students did a DVD chronicling the development of the commons area zones.

They relocated IT help into the library resource center and more students used the area, brought in their laptops etc. than when the help desk was located over in IT. Usage is up and collaboration is alive and well at Georgia Tech.

Brenda

How the Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work

2009-05-07T14:03:00.005-04:00

Thursday 2:00 PM
How the Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work
Presenters: Beth McNeil & Barbara Preece

Change is a commitment to work and an ongoing process (for everyone)...

The presenters created a Communication Toolbox (exercise) to help analyze self and environment, and to work towards sustainable change. Adapted from Kegan, Robert and Lahey, Lisa Laskow. How the way we talk can change the way we work: seven languages for transformation.

Think of the number of times people walked out of a meeting with completely different perspectives about the discussion and outcomes of the meeting, or about the assumptions that you have made based upon the events that transpired.

Attendees shared their New Year's Resolutions, work related resolutions, as examples of how we want to affect change. How do we stop complaining and move towards making changes and commitments?

Examples of complaints from the audience...how do we accept different work styles, bullying in the workplace, bringing personal expectations into the workplace, entrenchment among librarians that do not want to change, lack of acceptance of changing realities.

Pay attention to the complaints because they are about things we care about. Finding someone to complain to is a helpful release, but it does not create change.

Communication Toolbox Exercise...
Language of Blame...What is your complaint (i.e. I disagree with my director about the direction of reference services at the library)? Next, change your complaint into a statement of commitment (i.e. I am committed to a high level reference services.)

This first part shows what people care about most and to what they are most committed.

Language of Personal Responsibility...Current state (what is holding you back) - What I'm doing or not that prevents my commitment from being fully realized. Who - What individuals are involved in this process?

Competing Commitment (i.e. not fighting a losing battle) - I may also be committed to... Big Assumption (i.e. I cannot convince them of the legitimacy of my perspective) - I assume that if...

Often there is the "dreaded changing of the work flow", people are really afraid that if they change the work flow that the level of service will decline. They are resistant to change out of a commitment to what they perceive as already being a high level of service.

1st Action - I will test my assumption by (i.e. I will give them the responsibility, but they may not be experienced enough)...Outcome - What happened when I tested my assumption (i.e. I showed them how to do it, they are capable, and it is saving me time.).

Parable of the Abeleen Paradox... Four adults sitting on a porch in hot temps near Abeleen, TX. A married couple and their parents, a suggestion is made to drive to Abeleen for lunch, they go in a non-air conditioned car, have a terrible lunch, and return cranky. They then learn that none of them wanted to go in the first place, who should have communicated about this and why?

From the Audience...a greater commitment to continuing to try and make changes.

Black belt librarians: dealing with challenging patrons

2009-05-07T14:01:00.004-04:00

More pictures are on flickr.

2-3:15 PM, Meeting Room 2, Thursday, 5/7

Warren Graham is a security professional who works with "the reality impaired".

"How to walk up to a perfect stranger and tell them to knock it off while protecting your safety" is the main topic today.

His background is in the library in Charlotte, NC. The old building, which closed in the 90s, had all sorts of security problems, including childhood assault in the bathroom. Private security firms failed so the director hired Warren.

"If you do not deny access to people who are destroying the library you are denying patrons to your regular patrons.... Just because its a public library doesn't give you license to build a fire in the middle of the floor.... Don't let the inmates run the assylum, you have a right to a safe workplace.... You deserve to be treated as the professional you are. Its not right not to feel empowered not to tolerate abuse.... It's way past time in the library world to start making patrons more responsible for their behavior."

Solid and simple is better than over-intellectualized meetings full of pontifications that go nowhere. Thick security manuals that say nothing are useless. They should be lean and simple.

Everyone has to be trained properly.

Rules have to be enforced consistently by everyone.

Everyone has to be treated the same. The same consequences have to apply to everyone.

3 things that make a security program effective:

1. Must have simple, strait forward rules for library use.

Examples of stupid rules "no prostitution", "Causing intentional alarm by indecent exposure".

One rule every library should have: Any behavior that is disruptive to library use it not allowed. This rule can replace TONS of other rules.

Problem patrons are only 1-2% of library patrons but most of these hard line behavior problems only understand a hard line.

Administration has to back up staff. There are always exceptions but that should be rare.

2. Consistency is critical - between staff, branches, everywhere.

3. Always apply rules based upon BEHAVIOR not APPEARANCE.

Be careful with loose talk around the library. People listen and observe all the time. "These street people... these banking yuppies from hell.... these Satan's spawn... that little monkey on acid - one more time and that kid's out" DON'T SAY THESE THINGS!

How to tell someone NO:

1. Approach with a confident frame of mind.

Most people comply if you approach them correctly. Its not about confrontation its about communication. Its not policing, its advising patrons as to what's not allowed in the library. Relax when you go up to a patron. Too tense and you'll over-react. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

2. Start nice and you can get tougher if you have to. You can't come on too strong and then ease off.

Whenever approach someone for the first time, usually for something minor start "I don't you didn't see the sign, but............." or "I know you didn't know, but.....". This gives the patrons an out so they don't feel like an absolute idiot. Make sure they know you're giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Stop saying sorry. Just say "I know you didn't know". Apologizing opens the topic up to conversation and conflict.

Do not be a helicopter librarian. Tell them, thank them, then move on. Check back in a few minutes to make sure things are ok. Don't just stand there and hover.

3. When you approach people, exercise prudent caution.

Blend this together with confidence. Confidently cautious and cautiously confident. Whenever telling someone NO, keep any barrier you can between you and that patron. Don't even give up chairs, floor plants, desks, book carts, any barrier is good.

Don't forget about personal space. A stressed out, upset, or disturbed person is even more sensitive about personal space. Close enough to touch is too close. Never touch anyone except in self-defense.

If someone is sleeping and you need to check on them, go up, stay on the other side of the table ad ask if the patron is ok - express concern for their health. Don't assume they are hearing impaired just because they are asleep. You don't want to startle them and give them cause to explode. If they are still asleep, lightly tap the table - but be gentle, with a head on a table it will be amplified. If you still can't wake someone up, call 911.

WHENEVER you tell someone no, do not immediately turn your back. No matter how nice they have been, you don't want to put yourself in that vulnerable of a position. Appearances mean NOTHING when it comes to trouble. Be slick about walking away - look at your watch as you walk away to keep them in the corner of their eye, turn around and scan the room as if looking towards something else, be discrete and don't come off as obviously watching them, but don't let them out of your sight until you're safely away.

4. It doesn't matter if you're telling someone no or not, whenever you discover drunk or otherwise chemically incapacitated, they need to go. Smelling booze is not the same, its when they are obviously drunk or high that its time to call 911 and for that person to go.

Regardless of outside conditions, other patrons don't want incapacitated patrons around. No one is harmless when under the influence.

5. Everyone has to tell someone NO sooner or later. Someone is going to take exception. The experienced behavior problem knows that if they can upset you they can control you. Don't let them break your mental rhythm.

Tell someone no and only three things can happen:
a. they comply
b. they leave
c. they say no they won't comply and won't leave - and you have a plan for how to deal with this as well.

6. Never argue with a patron.

A lot of people are very good at pointless arguments. Don't engage. If they keep on trying to wear you down they are being disruptive and need to leave.

Sooner or later you will be accused of some sort of bias. Everyone can come in, but everyone has to follow the same rules. The person you're saying no to could be a victim of past bias. Most of the time, they just want to throw you off. Just treat everyone the same and stay on topic. Don't respond to accusations of bias.

Teen areas are GREAT. When you want to be a destination of choice for youth, remember:
most kids are good kids
most problems with kids are caused by STAFF fears, problems, and dislikes
even big kids are still kids with kid fears and insecurities. They don't want to let people know they are afraid and say silly things to hide this.

Actively manage the room - acknowledge teens, make sure they're doing ok. Be casual and relaxed. Some kids need extra warnings but all the same, disruptive behavior is not acceptable from anyone and adults have a right to use the library as well.

7. Never go outside with a behavior problem.

The front door is the limit. Once outside people feel emboldened to do things they wouldn't consider inside. Standing just outside the doorway is ok if you need to get a license plate number for example, but stay in the doorway. Stay cool and stand guard over yourself. Do not chase thieves out of the library.

8. Before you go and correct someone's behavior, make sure you have the right person.

There's an ocean of difference between suspicion and guilt. You have to be aware of something happening. Then just keep communicating with people in house, share suspicions, be PATIENT and sooner rather than later you'll figure out what's going on.

The single most important thing to take from this session:

Awareness is the best security tool. Ultimately your safety is in your own hands.

Practice 30/30/30. For the next 30 days stop every 30 minutes and look around for 30 seconds. This will heighten your intuition and help raise your guard.

No matter how small your community, if there's one village idiot, he WILL come to your library. Be prepared. Have a plan. Your security plan is just as important as your circulation procedures.

Warren's website: www.blackbeltlibrarians.com

Q&A:

When the alarm goes off on the security system, you must respond every time. Refine your guidelines so you know how to react when you catch someone. Theft of library materials is a serious matter. Treat it as such. Say: "When the alarm goes off I just need to check. Its probably our fault and we didn't deactivate something."

When the kids go outside they all stand in the foyer and block traffic into the library. Just open the front door and go out a few feet. Its best to go with someone or have someone watch you even then.

Genre Blocks: The Short Story

2009-05-07T14:00:00.003-04:00

The second Genre Block panel of the day does not actually concern a genre.

Library Consultant Diane Young is here with short story author Simon Van Booy. Simon began by giving a beautiful reading of a story from his first collection the Secret Lives of People In Love.

Simon prefers the short story form for its "decadence".

When asked how he knows when one of his stories is complete, Simon responds that he continues to work on them as long as the stories are "still breathing". He actually had to fight the urge to make a correction to the story he read to begin the session.

One audience members asked if short stories require the author to have full fleshed out characters in mind or if an impression of those characters is enough. Simon requires fully imagined characters for his work.

Simon resists the urge to revisit characters, although he has been known to insert them as background characters. Also in his latest collection, Love Begins In Winter, one story focuses on the descendant of a previous protagonist.

Simon writes poetry as well, but most as "an emotional release". He is clearly a far greater fan of the short story form.

An audience member asks why short stories are not on the radar of many people. Simon wonders if they need some better marketing. He once met someone who avoided the form because they felt all short stories need to be depressing, and clearly that's not the case.

One person has found that people in their library enjoy novels for the sense of escapism, and the concentration found in short stories do not provide them the same level of immersion.

On the other hand WMRLS rep Jan Resnick feels that the narrower focus of short stories have produced works that have affected her far more deeply than most novels.

Michael Colford has found that author's who manage to gain a reputation as a short story writer can build a decent audience, but that the mid-list authors often fail to do so. He has likewise found little success for anthology collections (outside of the year's best...).

Only one audience member has led a discussion on a single short story, although one other person did cover a full collection.

Simon teaches as well and has only been able to use short stories for discussion in his classes, albeit primarily because a full reading can be fit into a single class. His best students have been at-risk students. They have a strong desire to be in class and "haven't been ruined by literary criticism". He had particular success with a discussion based around Guy De Maupassant's the Necklace.

From Diane's handout: "the modern short story presents a fragment of life; its climax involves a fleeting moment of revelation".

Next time someone comes up to you for reader's advisory, hand them a copy of the New Yorker.

Focusing on short stories works great for spinning off writers' groups.

Many short story writers (Chekov and Raymond Carver notably) are forced to write for quantity in order to make a living. When Carver won the Genius grant he said his stories would probably start growing longer accordingly.

Another audience member has a brilliant idea for using a bar metaphor to promote short stories, with the stories as shots.

Another great idea, include short stories with orders at any library's with cafes.

In closing Simon was responsible for what is far and away the best line of the conference: "If a novel is like a marriage and a short story is like dating, then what is poetry?"

Mo Willems

2009-05-07T13:54:00.004-04:00

2:00-3:15 Mo Willems

Speaker: #1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity.

Mo Willems Homepage

The Mo I did not know . . .Mo was a writer for Sesame Street and won 6 Emmys. Mo is also working on a musical based on his Knuffle Bunny book. Mo, a rather dynamic speaker, started his lecture with a story. Mo did a rendition of the three little pigs. Mo stated at the end that he would never create a book around the three pigs story. The audience must create the meaning of his story.

Mo says that for a picture book to be successful it must be incomprehensible. With the three little pigs, everyone can picture what will happen and has preconceived notions of the story. Mo mixed up the story and the ending, but makes the point that he wants everyone to get out of his picture books what they want to get out of it.

Mo talks about readers not wanting a relationship with the author, but a relationship with the characters. Mo wants to make sure he is not present in the story. He wants to create an emotional placement with the characters, as in "Where the Wild Things Are" the reader does not notice the characters getting larger and larger. If you do notice, the author/illustrator has failed.

Mo also talks about manipulating the reader into the rhythm of the story by playing with the words and the length of the phrasing on each page. Mo leads into a discussion about one of the rules for his books: all of his books must have characters that can be drawn by a five year old. Mo wants children to feel like they can infringe on his copyright. Mo takes a moment to pass out paper to the audience to practice drawing like a five year old using basic shapes and concepts. Mo even makes "kiddy" noises while he draws indicating how much fun he is having, "honk, honk!" Mo draws a pigeon with everyone in the audience, imploring all to show him their picture. Mo points out the fact that every pigeon is different. Mo talks about the traditions of cartooning as a combination of English and American caricature and Japanese calligraphy.

One member of the audience asked how Mo came up with the name von hooby dooby. Mo uses the phrase for things he forgets.
Mo reflects on his third grade art teacher who threw all of his drawings away. When Mo went to high school his third grade teacher had taken a job at the high school, so Mo never took another art class. Mo got a Bachelors degree in film, but tells all that anyone can become an illustrator: it is the desire that is most important of all.
Mo explains that he got his first book published in 5 years—it was rejected by 74 million publishers. All the publishers said the book was unusual. The last publisher thought the books unusual nature was a good thing and decided to publish it. Don’t worry about getting published, work on being superlative and someone will find you.
One of the most intriguing stories Mo relates is when he was a child he wrote a letter to Charles Schulz asking if he could have his job when he dies. Mo waited for years for a response, until not long ago Charles Schulz passed away. Mo was talking to his father and mentioned, "Remember when I wrote that letter to Charles Schulz?" Mo's father responded, "Yeah, we should have sent that letter." Mo relates that it is a very Charlie Brown moment. Mo, of course, thought the letter had been sent and was disappointed to learn he waited for naught.

Mo ends his talk with the world's worst poem. Mo does a lot of traveling and reflected on a lousy ditty in the bathroom of a hotel that communicates the power of the word, however bad, even the word discourages the stealing of towels.

Here is a blog of some of Mo's doodlings: Doodle blog

HELP! I'm so STRESSED!

2009-05-07T11:42:00.005-04:00

11:30-12:45; Meeting Room 4

This session started with everyone filling out a self-assessment of their personal stress level that was designed to measure personal vulnerability to stress.

Stress is a function of events, attitude, and behavior. We can most control attitude. There are many physical reaction we experience when under stress. Its very hard for our bodies to manage all these experiences. There are also emotion and cognitive effects. Recognizing the effects stress have on you is a good way to clue into the need for stress management. Standard stressors include: work., family/relationships, finances, changing schedules, illness, substance abuse, care taking others, need to be "perfect", and loneliness. Its ok to be good enough. Defining what good enough means can help a lot to reduce unrealistic expectations. The audience also contributed the following as stressors: school, loss of significant people in your life, moving, seasons (winter), work transitions, media / news (turn it off!), keeping up with technology (and just keeping up in general), housework (laundry, home maintenance, etc.), daily little things (catching a train, keeping track of your keys...), noise, technology failures, and guilt ("one of the more useless emotions there is, throw it all out!").

What gets in the way of stress management? Never enough time, caring for others, isolation, poor diet, too little exercise, keeping score (why aren't they doing their share while I'm doing so much?), loss of perspective (you have to continually prioritize), drinking too much, too little sleep. The audience contributed: ever increasing work loads, shrinking work forces / layoffs, and feeling constantly overloaded to the point of inertia setting in (give yourself permission to ignore stress), and feeling that we have to be connected electronically 24/7,

A useful tool - do only one thing at a time - when eating, just eat, don't do anything else. Meditation also works for several people. Taking a FIVE minute break can be very helpful. Its very short and can make a great difference.

Laura doesn't have internet at home and has "trained" all her friends to call her if they need her outside work hours.

Its important to establish a personal support network. Potential sources include: family, friends, community, work network, and professional help. An audience member expressed discomfort with co-workers sharing too much personal information. Laura addressed this with the need to establish limits and acknowledged that this can be a tricky environment. Another audience member talked about the role spiritual and religious groups can play as part of a support network.

Skills to cope:
Logistics: planning, organizing, communicating, setting limits, delegating, establishing support.
Physical: breathing, stretching, visualization, meditation, progressive relaxation.
Other important skills include: establishing time limits for activities and conversations, redirecting conversations to clarify what role you are filling, managing interruptions ("give me five minutes" be or "lets schedule a time to discuss this"), using visual displays to indicate availability (green/red door hangers for free/busy so can close door and indicate ability to be interrupted or not), setting specific agendas, and holding regular meetings to conduct specific types of conversations that don't need to happen immediately.

"You have a right to set a limit to what you are doing."

An instant piece of control can be obtained through some physical tools. Daily meditation allows the brain to have a chance to detox and changes Laura's ability to manage stress. Just breathing and slowing down your heart rate is powerful. Daily meditation develops the ability to instantly enter a meditative state.

The audience was led through a progressive relaxation exercise. They sat straight, put feet flat on the floor, closed their eyes, and relaxed with heavy hands. Laura talked people through thinking about their body, starting with the top of the head, through the temples, the eyes, paying attention to breathing, relaxing the brow, going down to the cheeks, lips, nose, and this relaxes your entire head. Laura continued to talk the audience through relaxing their shoulders, back, and on down through their feet to the floor. This went on for approximately 5 minutes. It ended with each person being encouraged to take three breathes and open their eyes. She described this as a "body scan" and encouraged everyone to do this at any time they felt stress.

Manage Up!

2009-05-07T11:21:00.002-04:00

11:30-12:45 Thursday, May 7, 2009 Manage Up!

Speaker: Diane Young, Library Consultant (Itinerant Librarian for the Mass Lib Association)

Diane offers an interactive workshop on how to manage your boss, or rather, how to convince your boss to say yes. There is always a superior and a subordinate. The superior, however, always has the upper hand. Even if you have a really great boss, you will always hit a wall in getting what you want/need. Diane stresses that every human being is fallible. Diane states that there are 8 things/steps to consider in communicating with your boss. Diane created an acronym--"INTREPID"--but it does not quite translate below as she lists the points out of order.

1. Issues

What are your boss's favorite issues? What is your boss excited about? What is it that your boss talks about or is passionate about? Diane opened this question up to the audience. Responses included furniture, degrees, databases and workshops. How do we know what our boss is interested in? The audience stated that they talk to co-workers, talked to their boss at meetings, saw initiatives their boss was working on.

2. Pressures

What are the pressures on your boss? Some responses include budgeting challenges, negotiating licensing with vendors, personality conflicts and faculty relationships.

3. Ramifications

How does your idea affect other divisions? The budget? The customers?
On member of the audience talked about her trouble in getting new stacks for the children's room. She is conscious of taking money away from others. She sees the problem: the stacks are dangerous, when will they be fixed. Another audience member discussed the challenges of getting a wiki for the children's room to document schedules and usage.

4. Non-threatening

How can you make your idea non-threatening? Incremental? No cost? Can you do it for a trial without including a cost? Diane thinks this is pretty straightforward. The problem, as one audeience member states, is that many people find any idea that is different as threatening.

5. Dignity

How will you respect your boss's dignity? How can you make your boss look good and feel good? Be mindful of your boss's image and feelings. Diane suggests that it wouldn't hurt to appear deferential by considering how a proposal or idea could help your boss's image

6. Empathy

The operative word is empathy. Praise upward. Diane uses the example of your boss laying off a staff member and acknowledging the difficulty of the situation. Empathy makes your boss listen, too.

7. Information

How does your boss like to receive information? Diane had a boss who interpreted Meyers-Briggs test results to effectively communicate with staff, respecting the way staff wanted to interact based on the Meyers-Briggs test results.
Diane also urges us to understand if our boss is a detail-oriented person or a big-picture oriented person.

8. Timing

Is your boss casual or strict about his time used? So how should you use time communicating your idea? This sort of falls under Information and the way your boss would like to communicate.

Diane then issues an assignment and gets the room to break down into different groups. Given an idea, a boss's issue, pressure, and preference for communication and timing, Diane invites groups to consider what they will say. What medium will each group use to convey the message? When will each group say it?

Each group presented one or two clever things they would say to their boss. One group proposed dropping the idea like a bombshell and letting their boss think about it for awhile before coming back to it.

Another group proposed the use of a wiki as being able to better serve the community to align with their boss's interest in serving the community. Another group made a case for allowing beverages in the library to minimize staffing problems at the circulation desk because there is less policing and more attention at the desk. Such a proposal would capitalize on their boss's predilection for organization and simple solutions.

Diane, of course, says to think before you leap. I guess we should add that it is important think about your boss before you leap. Maybe you can just try leaping on your boss--figuratively speaking. Give it a try!

Getting Ready for RDA: What You Need to Know

2009-05-07T11:10:00.007-04:00

Barbara Tillett has returned to MLA (she presented on RDA and FRBR two years ago) to discuss how libraries can prepare themselves for the implementation of RDA.

RDA began in 1997 at the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR in Toronto. AACR was faulted for lacking guiding principles, for muddling the difference between content and carriers, for lacking a logical structure, and for being insufficient for internationalization.

RDA is designed for use within a digital world, both in the sense that it can be used as an online product and that the records resulting from it will be usable in digital environments. RDA will be a flexible, international standard designed primarily for library usage.

Technology has brought about great changes in the cataloging world that RDA has had to address. Catalogs are no longer isolated, they require round the clock, global access and integration with a wider environment of bibliographic data. Catalogs will likely use a cloud computing model in the near future.

RDA will be based around FRBR, and thus item data can be linked in many useful ways. Related works can be linked and subject relationships can be established.

Representatives from the RDA project team have met with members of the Dublin Core, IEEE/LOB and Semantic Web communities to ensure compatability with those environments.

RDA will follow international principals established by IFLA:

Convenience of User
Representation
Common Usage
Accuracy
Sufficiency and Necessity
Significance
Economy
Consistency and Standardization
Integration
Defensible, Not Arbitrary

RDA will also follow the principle of representation, "Take what you see, accept what you get".

There are many changes between RDA and AACR2, for instance the rule of 3 will now be optional and abbreviations will be discouraged. RDA will new terminology, distancing it from terms that can be traced back to card catalogs (i.e. headings will now be access points). Authority control can be tailed by individual institutions to their needs (i.e. change the default language from english). RDA will make a distinction between content, media and carrier types, with media types possibly fading away in the future once more sophisticated systems are developed.

The hope is that the new element model of RDA, which shares much with the various online metadata communities, will prove to be far more relevant to information retrieval needs than that of AACR2.

RDA will only be available on the web, the ALA has not exhibited interest in publishing the finalized standard. They will however host the document on their servers in a format somewhat similar to that of catalogers' desktop. The service will allow users to annotate and flag passeges within the document, and these can be shared with other users if desired. Users will be able to customize much of the functionality in their personal, portable profiles.

One of the nicer features is that users may create workflow documents for their staff that will link to the relevant passeges within the RDA document. These workflows can then be shared between users.

These online features are still in the prototype stage.

The designers of RDA envision its being incorporated with the various ILS systems, however ALA publishing has not had those conversations with the necessary vendors yet.

New MARC fields have been suggested to allow for the inclusion of new RDA fields (i.e. 336-338 for content, media and carrier types). Individuals must check with their ILS vendors to ensure that these changes will be made to their systems.

It will not be required to update non-RDA records, but there are certain changes that could be glaring if these changes are not enacted (notably spelling out abbreviations).

The publisher will launch the first release of RDA in late '09 or early '10. At that point LC, NAL, and NLM will begin testing. The British Library, the Library of Canada, and the National Library of Australia will also implement RDA in 2010 and share their experiences.

The US test will last 9 to 10 months, and will involve roughly 20 organizations, plus the three national libraries creating a base set of 25 records using both RDA and their current standard. The results and recommendations of this test will be widely shared and everyone is encouraged to follow the testers methodology throughout the process.

Information Literacy Showcase: Effective Practices from Public, Academic, and School Libraries

2009-05-07T10:20:00.002-04:00

Information Literacy Showcase: Effective Practices from Public, Academic, and School Libraries

Looking for new ideas to build or enhance the information literacy program at your library? During this session, panelists will share examples of teaching and learning strategies and technologies that have been successful with key library audiences, such as young adults, college freshmen, and senior citizens. Stop by the Teaching and Learning Center afterwards to meet the panelists and learn more about their programs.

Moderator: Kelly Jo Woodside, Information Literacy Librarian, Simmons College. Panelists : Sara Marks of Fitchburg State, Julie Krass Westwood Schools, Daniel Barbour Shrewsbury Public Library, Matthew Jaquith Springfield Public Library.

Jaquith

Springfield Public Library Reference. Formerly @ Brown.

Information Literacy is the a competency find, decipher, manage and share information in our society. Adapted from ODLIS : Online dictionary for library and information science by Joan Reitz. See http://lu.com/odlis/about.cfm

Also from ODLIS: Media Literacy defined: The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms (print, audio, film/video, Internet, etc.) based on an informed, critical understanding of the nature of mass media, the techniques used by producers of media, and the impact of those techniques on the individual and society. An interdisciplinary field, media literacy has evolved as a necessary response to the complex, pervasive, ever-changing electronic communication environment of the 21st century. Click here to connect to the homepage of the Center for Media Literacy. Compare with information literacy.

Classes @ SPL http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/hitech.html

Why should public libraries teach information literacy? Information is a society need. People have different levels of need. Spectrum of literacy topics: Information literacy - He does a readers' advisory class using novelist - using OPACs etc to find materials using relevancy, bibliographic instruction - database use, Many classes at Springfield focus on basic computer literacy- there's a typing class a word, excel, powerpoint classes usually 2 session, 90minutes each, folder management. typing class has been very popular. media literacy- browsing, searching in many areas to find actually useful information.

Barbour - Shrewsbury PL http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/department/division.php?fDD=17-53

Uses his communication and marketing background to attract YAs

Some of his fun programs for grades 5-12: scavenger hunts (treasure hunts, haunted house themes), races. Teens hate bookgroups, Kings and Queens Grant teaching how to write. Natalie Perkins lead groups. She's has written First Daughter serues. Filmed them reading what they have written, then kids vote on the library blog. Shrewsbury PL checks out games. After the games were in the library, book circulation actually increased 25%. They have an IMLS grant which provides a shuttle service from the Middle School. They have a SPLAT advisory team. They have a manga collection development group which recommends books for purchase. They use Tutor.com to offer online tutoring.

Krass - Information Literacy in the Elementary School Libary. Westwood Schools.

She recommends starting early. Kindergartners learn the difference between fiction and non-fiction through readalouds. They play a fiction came. Children make up something fictional. She uses rhythm and a little song: Numbers mean nonfiction. She recommends the Jenkins book Actual size (Jenkins, Steve. Actual Size. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. ) with a document camera.

First Grade children learn sections in the library- Easy, etc. ; Children collaborate to create a table of contents for nonfiction; learning about favorite authors. She uses picture Icons to create an easy bibliography.

Marks Fitchburg State College Library

See her bookmarks at http://delicious.com/librarygurl/mla09

Sara's opinion: College students don't spend their time using traditional research methods. They crave interactivity and online access. Collaborative knowledge is growing. Librarians should quit fighting Wikipedia because this is a battle that will ultimately not be won. Better to teach how to evaluate materials critically. Eventually, collaborative wiki types of information will be mainstream as the value of collective knowledge becomes the norm in many fields.

LibGuides http://www.springshare.com/libguides/

LibGuides concentrate on ACCESS, feature media, accessible

Statistics available from LibGuide, have just added Google Analytics, so there will be more.

Very good support from folks who know libraries, hosted by LibGuides. Library A la Carte. Free, but you have to have very good resident IT tech support.

Cost for LibGuides. At $900/year, nothing pays better.

Their cost for Academic Search Premier $.27/search, Credo $.40/search, Libguides $.04/search.

After implementing, there was a slight increase in database use and a notable increase in Academic OneFile.

Ask a Librarian makes a live Meebo chat connection on the right sidebar, there's a twitter aspect

They have the ability to use delicious and digg, but they don't use

They have embedded a quick opac search widget.

Most popular, blackboard Libguide - There is a tour of the library on YouTube which is embedded.

They add Libguides to Blackboard.

BROWSE http://fsc.libguides.com/browse.php

Outcomes and rubrics for information literacy are there. http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=6334

Crime on Television is a Libguide. http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=23758

Web 2.0 Brownbag series http://fsc.libguides.com/web20

Blackboard LibGuide http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=2346 includes a video college tour which is on Youtube.

Source citations http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=4896

Advanced Research methods. http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=37164

ALA Let's talk about it Discussion series is on a libguide http://fsc.libguides.com/LTAI involves the community as well as the college.

- Brenda

Booktalking 10 Ways

2009-05-07T10:05:00.006-04:00

Donna Johns, librarian at Newton North High School, is reaching teens 'One Teen At a Time." There are many ways to make booktalks more exciting and Donna shared these ways with a large audience on Thursday morning at 9:30 am in Ballroom B. Using PowerPoint, Donna used twenty slides and her own voice to give us an twenty-second booktalks. Each booktalk focused on one image which created visual interest.

Booktalking 10 Ways:

Keep It To Twenty Seconds
Scaffold for Different Kinds of Readers (non-fiction and magazine readers are readers, too!
Differentiate Instruction
Podcast It! (Gcast.com, etc.)
Blog It!
Create Master Booklists (using Library Thing or Shelfari)
Online Book Clubs and Discussions (Dear Reader, etc.)
Use Wikis (to build a collaborative community - PBWorks.com or WebPaint.com)
Build Book Trailers (throw some slides into imovie, add text and an audio track)
Enrich Your Displays (use great items such as a toast with books in it)

If you have questions for Donna, you can email her at mamasigs126@gmail.com

Donnas has two blogs: Looking for a Good Book? and Libraries4Teens.

"Next Generation" Cataloging and Metadata Creation Pilot

2009-05-07T09:39:00.004-04:00

Maureen Huss and Renee Register are here to discuss the need to create new models for metadata creation. The traditional model has been a collaborative model in which professional catalogers create records and they trickle up to the OCLC database. But the reduction in professional catalogers, the increase in system generated records, and the prevalence of web based data has challenged this model.

The metadata chain begins with that produced by publishers. This prepublication information then influences the purchasing decisions of libraries, retailers, and consumers. Publisher's have their own systems for creating this data, that are not always compatible with those of the library world. This metadata evolves over time as each item comes closer to publication.

This information is then shared with various wholesalers (Ingram, B&T), retailers (Amazon) and aggregators (Bowker), who add their own data and their own systems of managing that information. These vendors then build their services around this data, often trying to find ways to create added value. By the time an item reaches the post-publication phase information for item can come from a multitude of sources. Amazon uses an algorithm that cherry pick from amongst these sources to produce their own records. Vendors have a very strong need for proper metadata, if errors occur then their customers will be unable to find items.

ONIX is the international standard for metadata management within the book industry. Now any standard is only as good as the way it is used (yes this applies to MARC). The book industry has created a series of best practices documents in an effort to maintain an ONIX standard.

Libraries need data in MARC format, and thus many library wholesalers maintain a separate database in order to cater to their customers. Their services are usually proprietary, and thus OCLC has attempted to open up Worldcat to vendor records, but it is unlikely that they will ever capture everything.

MARC exists outside of the metadata stream of publishers. MARC records also tend to be far more static than publisher information, which can change with each printing and can be added too easier (i.e. in cases of books winning awards).

Renee and Maureen's project is an attempt to streamline the data creation process and allow ONIX data to be interopperable with MARC data. Both formats can benefit from one another. Similarly the project seeks to establish links between BISAC and DDC, but not necessarily through a straight mapping.

Publisher data often includes useful data such as awards won, publisher links, and biographical data that have typically been considered extraneous to MARC records. However, MARC can benefit greatly from pulling that data into its environment.

A straight ONIX to MARC mapping can create a basic record. Many books are simply republications of prior works, and OCLC hopes to use FRBR work information to identify information from older editions that can then be reused.

OCLC's DDC/BISAC terminology service can double as a authority service for those standards.

OCLC has partnered with:

Phoenix Public Library

Ohio State University Libraries

Chicago Public Library

MIT Libraries

Ingram Book Group

Princeton University Press

Hachette Book Group

Taylor & Francis

The pilot project began in January, 2008 and will wrap up this Spring. In addition to the pilot OCLC has processed a test file for a major publisher, has processed over 3 million records for a major retailer, processed a sample file for LC CIP and commissioned a study on the metadata life cycle. The results of the study will be available by the end of May.

In March OCLC hosted a publisher and librarian symposium for the purpose of discussing their joint metadata needs. They hope to continue hosting this symposium on an annual basis.

Libraries and Learning: A History of Paradigm Change

2009-05-07T09:38:00.005-04:00

9:30-10:45 May 7, 2009 Libraries and Learning: A History of Paradigm Change

Scott Bennett is Yale University Librarian Emeritus. Check out more information at: www.libraryspaceplanning.com

Mr.Bennett began discussing three revolutions in communications technology that have created paradigms in library space. All three dictate paradigms of library design: (1) reader-centered design/paradigm, (2) book centered design/paradigm, and (3)learning-centered paradigm (end of book-centered design).

The reader-centered paradigm can be seen in many traditional libraries that were designed to affirm the unity of readers and books. Books were in close proximity to the reader, and spaces were open and conducive to study and reading. The spaces were not dominated by shelving. see Yale University Library

The book-centered paradigm showcases a library overrun with book stacks, as books were central to the idea of a library building. An example of this is the main library, University of Illinois. Check these out on flickr: Uillinois

Scott talks about the end of the book-centered paradigm (learning-centered paradigm) as informing new library spaces and perhaps a flexible model for design in libraries. The tipping point came in the early 1990s through the early 2000s with the design and introduction of Journal Storage with the likes of JSTOR. With electronic resources came a shift in spatial relationships between students and the library. New study spaces are required and this clearly signaled the end of the book-centered paradigm. This paradigm clearly points to the information commons model. The Vogel Library, Wartburg College employs an information commons, but the planning process asked: what do we want to happen in this building? The answer: "We want to make learning happen." With this answer, the Vogel Library incorporates space on the third floor of the library with no print material, moving away from the model of book-centered design. The idea, as reported by Mr. Bennett, is that studying equates to learning. Learning is controlled, described as a transformative moment in which students WANT to learn. Scott uses the term "metacognition", or the ability to orchestrate ones learning. It is also referred to as "intentional learning." It employs an end rather than a means.

These are certainly lofty goals for a library--designing for intentional learning, as Scott relates. New design has the intention of fostering intentional learning. Autonomous learning has rarely been a goal in designing a new library space. Group study spaces, cafes, learning spaces do not comprise intentional learning spaces. The element of participation and community are required for contributing to the space and the intention of learning.

We need to think like educators rather than like service providers. the book-centered design is geared toward information. We no longer "support" students, but instead actively participate in the education process by making education intentional.

Make the library as a cheap place on campus for students to take control of their learning. Take advantage of the revolutionary moment employing a learning-centered paradigm in which education and learning are intentional, not peripheral. The librarian must not act as supporting architects in assisting the student, but as primary architects in designing the students.

A systematic understanding of learning informs our ideas of design for a library. It is clear that traditional methods of design of space will produce poor returns on investment in physical library space.

To borrow Scott's words from a statement on his website: "I believe that, properly done, library space design situates information in the social context of learning. This synergistic situating of information and learning is the core function of a bricks and mortar library, and it aligns both the library and its building with the basic educational mission of the college or university."

Essentially we are talking about a future of flexibility in library design. It seems that the new model of library design is like technology: it is everywhere and nowhere. In any case, it changes our notions of the way things "should be".

MassCat's move to open source software: An update

2009-05-07T09:33:00.011-04:00

9:30-10:45 AM, Thursday, May 7, Meeting Room 5
More pictures available on flickr.

Nora Blake's Powerpoint presentation will be posted later.

MassCat has around 90 libraries, mostly schools, that pool resources and are ot a part of the other library networks in the state.

It started live full force with Koha in the fall of 2008 with over 1,200,000 holdings. They signed with LibLime to partner in the migration. They had to break down the existing catalog into individual files for each member library. To distinguish each library they had to add prefixes onto each barcode. Because they didn't want every library to have to replace their barcodes the searching by barcode requires filters and/or keyword searching.

The catalog started with over 625,000 records, but many were duplicates and it was not as clean as they would have liked because of how things had to be broken down by library.

Why Open Source? They had a direct influence on the development of the software and benefited from the work lots of other people are also doing to develop it.

They chose Koha after looking at Evergreen. Koha's OPAC was more attractive, had an integrated serials management system, a clean staff interface, was entirely web-based (no software downloads for clients). Looking forward to a 3.2 release this summer.

Link to OPAC: masscat.kohalibrary.com

Currently, can't search a group within a group. To scope a search to a specific library's collection, each library has a unique URL from which they can broaden they search. They working on developing more sophisticated searches defined by geographical areas - likely to be a drop down search option.

Nora would prefer a larger font in the OPAC, but this is fairly easily changed by browser customization. Book jacket covers come for free - using Amazon. The downside is it just searches by ISBN and grabs the first result. Sometimes this returns no image.

The main page has a "lists" tab and the public lists display all the public lists, they currently can't be limited to just one library's. Patrons can create private lists. (Lists are for bibliographies).

Students are using the comments attached to books. To create a comment you have to login and they're reviewed by library staff before they are posted.

For holds, the pickup location can be changed from the location of the owning library, but in this network this is not often done. Notification of when holds are available for pickup is an opt-in email notification system. This can also be controlled from the staff side. Libraries can also create event notifications and use the same email system to send these out. With the addition of another company, text messaging can also be added into this system. Masscat is looking into doing this next year.

The staff interface has a news section on the home page which is used for communication with the participating libraries. A current problem: management of holds that can not be filled is not really working - if a library can't fill a hold they mark it as such, but it just sits in their hold queue. There are work-arounds that libraries are using, but an integrated solution is hopefully in development.

Under Circulation reports there are two holds links: a queue and "to pull". The "to pull" is not what it sounds like and will hopefully go away with the next release.

You can load images for patrons to associate with their account, individually or in a batch.

In the 3.2 release they are working on audible clues, especially helpful when on the front line for flags - such as fines, notes, etc.

A big shift: the system automatically emails overdue notices. If no email address is associated with a patron's account an email is sent to the library's email address. This presents some logistical issues in the schools and has required that they change their workflows a bit.

A tool that MassCat created was a shortcut to a z39.50 search. This search was available before but buried. This is in addition to the three primary types of searching: basic, advanced, and catalog. When you execute a z39.50 search you get a pop up window that lets you refine your search and check off the libraries whose collection you want to search. Member libraries have discontinued their OCLC accounts as a cost savings, but Nora still has one and can use it to look beyond the libraries in the list. Once an acceptable record is found via a z39.50 search its just one click to import the MARC record.

They've found that Koha has a lot of development still to do and a lot of what they expected wasn't actually there, at least not in a usable form. It works, but there are areas, especially around holds, that still need a lot of work. Its complicated because a lot of libraries are using it as a Union catalog and aren't actually using it as a live system - so it can't display real time status for their items.

They had expected a faster new release cycle than what is typically provided from proprietary vendors, but so far, this hasn't been the case. However, bug fixes and improvements are made "fairly frequently". Another big difference is that since its open source, the faults are much more widely known - there's nothing to be gained by hiding them.

The Koha community elects a "release management". The entire process for how improvements are agreed upon to include in a release isn't clear. Its done in committee meetings and Nora is confident that the improvements that she's made will be included in the next release. LibLime is the tech support that MassCat has contracted with. Some local public libraries have tried using Koha alone. It would require a lot more staff and time to do it without LibLime. Nora said she would need to hire at least one more staff person with a more technical skill set were they to consider going it alone.

There a lot of supporting email lists and web sites that are in the powerpoint presentation which will be linked to once its online.

They did not find training material that would work for their needs, so they created their own.

The virtual catalog is in development and MassCat is waiting to see how this develops to find out how they can work together.

Reporting: there's a lot of "out of the box" reports in addition to the ability to create customized sql reports. On the Koha wiki community members are sharing their sql reports so others can benefit.

In summary: its much better than what was before. The transition wasn't easy and "not the BEST thing we've ever done" but Nora's happy with it and believes most of the contributing libraries are as well and they're certainly sticking with it.

The World Is Not Flat: Information Literacy in 3D

2009-05-07T09:33:00.009-04:00

Thursday 9:30 AM
The World Is Not Flat: Information Literacy in 3D
Elizabeth B. Thomsen - Presentation on her blog

Elizabeth started by bringing us to Google Maps and the website Shorpy. Google Maps has a street view feature that is available for many cities and areas. People are using it when researching to rent an apartment, taking a trip, a neighborhood, and more.

You can create your own maps, take your photographs and upload them to the map with a placemarker. It will automatically translate to Google Earth (which must be downloaded to a robust computer and the program uses significant bandwidth). Google Earth has to be installed on your computers for patrons to use it.

Elizabeth mentioned the idea of using this as a readers advisory tool, add books to places that are significant to the plot (you can view images of the areas).

We explored Google Earth's satallite imagery, even the ability to see images from the past (i.e. see pictures of Beijing as they prepared for the Olympics, New Orleans Pre- & Post-Katrina).
Change the time of day in a location to see when the sun sets. 3D building layers will show you amazing images of buildings.

Google Sketchup is the software used to create the 3D buildings... that can be found using Google Earth. An easy to use program for creating 3D objects (buildings, robots, etc...), take a look in the Google 3D Warehouse to see what people have done. You can download images and use Google Sketchup to make changes. See what a giant silo next to Fenway Park would look like, or take a look at the Boston Public Library! There are tutorials and books about how to use Google Sketchup available so that you can get started. We viewed a video tutorial created by a child and uploaded to YouTube.

Another amazing thing that can be done is take photographs to use as "skins" or surfaces for 3D models, creating very realistic 3D images. Check out Faneuil Hall in Boston on Google Earth - 3D Building Layers to get an idea of how this is being used.

Elizabeth brought us to a YouTube video of Sketchy Physics Examples. This could be a great tool for helping teach kids and adults about spatial relationships, etc... Google for Educators - Project Spectrum shows the creations of children that have Autism.

People have mapped information and history (i.e. Jack Kerouac)...

A popular theme on the web now is "old school" 3D objects - models (i.e. pinhole cameras, automobiles, etc..) in PDF Format. Low-tech magazine has a guide to things popular in the 1800's that can be created with paper as 3D objects.

3D Printers are now being used... (down t0 $5,000) by artists, jewelry makers, business - rapid proto-typing, etc... Remember how expensive scanners and printers used to be, and what they are today...

YouTube has a video of a 3D printing demonstration so that you can see how these printers work. Company called Shapeways that allows you to design a 3D object, upload it, and they will print it for you. These prices are coming into range of the average consumer. You can create 3D objects using a "wizard" type of feature to use as gifts, etc...

From the audience...how does copyright relate to this creation of 3D content? People can protect their copyright, but if you add it to the Google 3D Warehouse or Shapeways it is as though you are releasing it for public use.

Collection Development Leads to Staff Development

2009-05-07T09:12:00.012-04:00

While the Oak Park Illinois Public Library's 2005 collection development project targeted a specific underserved library population, the lessons learned from their workshop can be used by any library. The important message is that a fully researched, implemented and evaluated collection development project can transform lives of staff AND patrons. The customer service philosophies and the impact can be effective to all library staffs.

First, there are barriers to library service that affect many populations. What are barriers? They are "anything that gets in the way of providing great customer serive at the library." (Lori Pullam.) Secondly, we must welcome library users of all groups and make them feel comfortable even if they don't live in our community. Thirdly, we must reflect – users must see themselves in our library. Last, we must service – library users must find what they were looking for.

The presenters of the workshop, Collection Development Leads to Staff Development, were Oak Park librarians Bleue Benton, Collection Development Manager and Sharon Grimm, Communications Coordinator of the Oak Park Public Library. They led us through the steps of their project, a $3000 LSTA grant focused on developing a collection for the transgendered. Their toolkit can be found on the library website. It includes their extensive self-study report, publicity samples and a $200 Transgender bookshelf that is affordable for all libraries.

The 4.5 square mile community of Oak Park is located eight miles west of downtown Chicago and is nationally recognized for its commitment to diversity and its outstanding architecture. The Oak Park Public Library has Special Collections on a number of subjects that have a notable connection to Oak Park : Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Carol Shields, Gilman Lane and Grant Manson. An additional collection, the Transgender Resource Collection was funded with the help of a grant provided by the Illinois State Library. This project has enabled the library to offer circulating materials that serve, welcome, and reflect transgender people.

"As anticipated by our grant application, this project led us to look carefully at our existing practices, procedures, and policies for employing, serving, and welcoming transgender people." The Oak Park Public Library also sponsored programming, created publicity, and conducted staff awareness workshops with funds from its operating budget." From the Oak Park Public Library website.

Getting Beyond the Great Idea: Getting Buy-In and Doing Effective Training for New Technology

2009-05-07T08:36:00.008-04:00

Thursday 8:30 AM
Getting Beyond the Great Idea: Getting Buy-In and Doing Effective Training for New Technology
Jenica P. Rogers-Urbanek - Blog with Presentation Link

Understanding people is the number one concern.

Jenica began by discussing the hallmarks of web 2.0 such as creativity, spontaneity, individualism and a do it yourself basis. Even though Web 2.0 projects are often individual/DIY they need a leader. A convincing plan is needed to implement 2.0 and to convince people.

Think about why are you doing the web 2.0 project? Look to your mission and goals, not at just what other people are doing "Me-Too-ism".

What is your project plan? Who do you need behind you to accomplish the web 2.0 project? You don't need everyone, just identify the necessary people. Get your ducks in a row.

Plan for success (what will you do if it wildly succeeds?), Write it down (document the process for guidance and future use), Assess the project (what is going well and what isn't? what data will you collect and analyze?), Plan for Failure (be open to criticism and be willing to make appropriate changes).

Avoid "Truthiness" (Stephen Colbert) - Don't rely on what you believe in your gut without regards for facts.

Have reasonable expectations, look for achievable goals, understand your institution and stakeholders.

Consider your stakeholders... information preferences (do they like soundbites, charts, graphs, research articles, case studies, self-guided research, conversation, seeing something in action?). What motivates your stakeholders? Maslows hierarchy of needs: physiological (ignore this one), safety (job security), belonging, esteem, self-actualization. What terrifies your stakeholders? Maslow again: physiological (ignore this one), safety (do they fear for their jobs or future or society), belonging (does your project threaten their community), esteem (is your project going to negatively impact their confidence and sense of achievement), self-actualization (does the project restrict their creativity or conflict with their personal philosophy).

Now convince them... focus on mission, goals, and your plans, offer them information in a comfortable format, address their expected motivations, address their expectations, be ready to think. Be an evangelist (but be the good kind)! And if it fails, let other people speak for you (maybe they need to hear it from somebody else).

Jump off the cliff and be ready to fail...training is your parachute. Individualized does not equal self propelled and easy does not equal intuitive. Training can lead to a soft landing, leads to confidence, and it must never stop.

Teach in multiple ways: show and tell, hands on workshops, and one on one help. Teach by example and teach it over again. Provide relevant learning experiences: teach a wiki by using it for a brainstorm project, hold a committee meeting using IM to teach Meebo, use skype the next time you need to use the phone, use a blog for an internal project. Combine training with daily tasks!

Still not learning? Encourage reluctant learners by convincing them this is a work product (not training), credit staff with success in the project when they learn something new, consider time saving - replace an existing task rather than adding a new one.

In Conclusion... Project must be relevant to mission, goals, goals are relevant to stakeholders, be sure your training your stakeholders on relevant tasks, it must make sense.

Jenica created an internal staff wiki for communication (search the wiki instead of flipping through pages of staff book!). Initially used a wiki for an evaluation of reference databases, instituted it as the committee chair, and people had to use it to make their feedback known.

Audience questions led to...observe your staff's response to training to see what queues they are giving you about their learning styles, level of acceptance, social dynamics (who has who's ear) etc... Listen to people's stories.

Getting Beyond the Great Idea

2009-05-07T08:29:00.006-04:00

8:30-9:30 May 7, 2009 Getting Beyond the Great Idea: Getting Buy-in and Doing Effective Training for New Technology Projects

Speaker: Jenica P. Rogers-Urbanek, Collection Development
Coordinator and Technical Services Team Leader, College Libraries at the State University of New York in
Potsdam

Jenica's title is listed as: librarian, project manager, superhero. She'll probably take over the world someday.

Check out Jenica's blog here: rogersurbanek

Jenica talks about approaching technology in a way that is carefully conceived and proposed to include as many people as possible. It is difficult getting everyone on board with any idea, never mind how difficult it is to get staff to buy-in to new technological initiatives. Jenica talks about the importance of relevancy in getting a project accepted and utilized.

Creativity, spontaneity, individualism, easy information sharing are hallmarks of web 2.0--but all projects need leaders to succeed. Someone has to be the first person to jump off the cliff. Doing it yourself can be really hard. In order to be a leader you have to have a plan. Technology needs a plan to be convincing. Understand why you are doing it--technology project. Look to your mission, know your goals (what are you hoping to achieve), never send out technology looking for a problem. "Everybody has a blog" is looking for a problem. There is no plan inherent in the reason, nor does it create content for the blog. Jenica also advises avoiding the "uncritical Me-Too-ism." Jenica uses the iPhone as an example of wanting technology because they are cool--plays video games. Me-Too-ism means "me too, me too!" The me too attitude will not convince others that they need to get on oard.

Jenica also advises librarians to have a project plan. What duck-like things do you need to line up? Which other people do you need to line up? What support do you need from other ducks? Who do you need to convince and what kind of alliances/collaborations need to be created to make your idea a reality.

To instill confidence in a project, Jenica suggests outlining a (1)plan for success. She then suggests we (2)write down the process for the future, (3)assess the project, and (4)plan for failure. Writing down the project illustrates a seriousness and motivation for pursuing the project in addition to acting as a safeguard if you get sidetracked. Regardless of how prepared you are, with technology--any project for that matter--we must plan for the possibility of failure. There are so many different variables in accounting for success that failure is always a possibility.

However you share your information, avoid "truthiness." (see Stephen Colbert) Have reasonable expectations for participation, look for achievable results and, above all, understand your stakeholders. **Remember, it's about the PEOPLE!

Jenica offers suggestions for understanding stakeholders in the process of the project. She asks, what motivates your stakeholders? Jenica suggests considering Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Consider physiological (breathing and eating), safety (job security), belonging (being part of a community), esteem, and self-actualization (creativity and sense of play) as motivating factors. This could, of course, work as a sense of terror and not help as motivating factors. Does the proposal threaten the sense of community, does the proposal reduce their sense of confidence.

Jenica says that with cautions in mind, it is time to convince people of your project. (1) Focus on your mission, (2) offer them information in a comfortable, effective format, (3) address their expected motivations, and (4) address their expected fears. Be an evangelist, but find a balance between passion, energy and excitement. Don't shriek! If you fail in your pursuits, be humble. You might not be the right voice to speak out. Maybe someone else can articulate the idea better. No one to fold 'em, Jenica says. Use your failure as training. training, Jenica says, is your parachute. Your training is never over. Jenica says that it is not only training for your proposal that is valuable, but the proposed training for any technological initiative to help an initiative get off the ground, especially if people are apprehensive about accepting a proposal. Do a show-and-tell session, do hands on workshops and one-on-one private sessions. Teach by example and ensure that training will not stop after one session.

Jenica also cautions us to provide relevant learning experiences. This applies to any educational experience. This informs the relevancy of training sessions and using effective training tools for training use on wikis, meebo, skype, or a blog. Hands-on learning is effective for students and can certainly be helpful for colleagues and staff. It is also helpful to encourage the value of the product as a work product (makes them effective workers). It is also important to credit staff with success when a project is learned and utilized.

The bottom line is if you want a plan to get off the ground, Jenica continually stresses the importance of relevancy. Be RELEVANT! Relevancy informs the probability of success since this appeals to people's sense of need and want. As a last advice, Jenica says to be a good listener. Pay attention and pick up on the cues. Notice who responds and who doesn't. A good listener is a key to understanding needs, fears, pitfalls, and recipes for success. Good luck!

Community Content On LIbraryThing

2009-05-07T08:24:00.006-04:00

I'm very very pleased to have been able to introduce Tim's talk this morning. The first of three sessions today presented by the Technical Services Section.

Tim is the creator of LibraryThing, which he views as a repository of social cataloging, which he sees as something that will be of increasing importance to libraries and which will make allow them to remain competitive.

The Social Cataloging Library

Personal Cataloging: LibraryThing's primary focus allowing users to catalog their own collections. Records can be pulled in from 690 sources throughout the world via Z39.50, although most users pull in records from Amazon. Once the record is brought in users are allowed to modify their personal record as they see fit, including adding tags and reviews.

On top of the standard pieces of cataloging data LT allows users to include shared, common knowledge about the items, such as important characters and locations from the book.

Implicit Social Cataloging: Useful information generated by pooling the knowledge of individual users without them taking an active role in the process. LT creates tagclouds, recommendations, and can guess if a user will like a particular book based off this data. This information can also be used for fun, such as the brilliant unsuggester (fans of Kant will probably not enjoy Confessions of a Shopoholic).

The most important aspect of implicit social cataloging is the collection of tagging. LT houses the largest collection of bibliographic tags. It's important to note that tags are only useful in very large numbers. Searching by tags can produce some excellent results (chick lit is a wonderful search that library catalogs are incapable of, with "love stories" and "man woman relationships" being the closest subject heading). Tags can also be combined in very useful ways. Romance fans don't care about the general term, they want to find western romance, paranormal romance, or historical romance.

William Gibson's novel Neuromancer is an excellent example. The book is the defining work of cyberpunk, and in LT it is tagged according. However, LCSH labels it as "Computer hackers--fiction" and "information super highway--fiction".

Tagging allows for subject to be revisited in ways catalogers are incapable of. "Chick Lit" didn't come into popular use until after many of the books within its cannon were published, which is likely the only time when those books would have passed through the hands of a cataloger.

Tags are not always better than authorized subject headings and the two should work together.

Navel Gazing/Self Expression/exhibitionism, voyeurism: LT users love to learn about themselves, and the service generates many personal statistics for people to explore, such as personal tag and author clouds, retrospectives of assigned ratings and reviews, and various collection statistics.

Sharing: Users routinely upload files such as author photos and cover images both for their own uses and to enhance the entire community. Users have uploading a million covers to date. LT requires users to have copyright permission to post images

LT has recently begun a book giveaway program in which anyone can give away free books, some in exchange for reviews. Many publishers also regularly contribute galley copies to the community, 100's a month, again in exchange for reviews.

Social Networking: LT actively pushes its social networking features. Besides the standard friends and forums (Librarians Who LibraryThing is the largest group, but still only 1% of the LT user base) features of many sites LT promotes ways to discover new friends, or at least interesting libraries. Each profile page prominently displays links to the collections of those users with the most whose libraries are most similar, weighted for libraries sharing particularly rare items.

LibraryThing Local maps book related sites and events input by users.

Explicit Social Cataloging: When users intentionally collaborate on cataloging. LT makes it easy for users to combine/separate different editions of the same work, in a similar way to the FRBR model. Members do this about 10,000 times a day. Most people do activities like this for themselves, but their are communities of users who do altruistic cataloging for fun.

Common Knowledge is also available for author records. User have added education backgrounds, agents, editors, places lived, and many more chunks of data to the database. All of this information is then searchable. Series information is particularly useful, "no other catalog has had more Star Wars geek knowledge put into it".

Collaborative Cataloging: A group has cataloged the library of Dr. Horrible, based on one shot from the cult film. Many libraries of famous figures have been cataloged. Users can friend the Library of John Adams and then link to the marginalia he wrote that is available via the BPL. Users spent over a year cataloging the over 7,000 books of Ernest Hemmingway. The Legacy Libraries project has been taken over by the I See Dead People's Books group, and there's a great podcast available focusing on the project.

LT has organized a number of cataloging flash mobs, to quickly catalog libraries as a charitable project.

The Open Shelves Classification project is an attempt to create a new, open, classification system without many of the problems of Dewey. However, it has proven very hard to get so many bibliophiles to agree to anything and the project is not going well, largely due to communication problems.

Altruism is what makes this all work.

Libraries are behind on social cataloging. Vendors want to sell us "features". Worldcat is clamping down on data and it is problematic that while librarians may think otherwise, patrons are not familiar with the service.

LT data is available to libraries via their LibraryThing for Libraries service, which will work with the OPACs offered by many vendors. C/WMars, NOBLE and Simmons take advantage of this service. Stats have shown that LT tags are clicked on by patrons more frequently than subject headings within OPACs using the feature.

Focusing on the Big Picture: Using Community needs assessments to enhance reference services.

2009-05-06T16:49:00.001-04:00

Focusing on the Big Picture: Using Community needs assessments to enhance reference services.
A community needs identifies the requirements and desires of a population through direct communication with the stakeholders. By collaborating with the library's constituencies, librarians can gain a deeper understanding of what their user population needs and what types of resources and tools for discovery will be most appreciated (and used!). Learn about theory and strategy for community needs assessments, and ways that libraries can benefit from them.

Speakers: Heather McCann, Reference Coordinator, Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lana Thelen, College Librarian, Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.
McCann
Need to define community first of course. Assessment should focus on what they community values. Assessments could be focus groups, interviews, surveys. Assessments can tell you a lot about how users communicate and where they go to get information.
Cutting back? users can tell planners what services are essential.
Use assessment tools to assess an initiative you've given. After a program, website change.
Ask what kind of services they would like to have. Users can surprise you.
Types of assessments:
Interviews and Focus Groups: Advantage: simple to plan, personal communication may net you good feedback. Disadvantage: Takes time, needs interviewing expertise
Community forum: Advantage: Lots of information in a short time. Disadvantage: Hard to round up attendees, lots of planning, food etc. Vocal people can hog the air time. Good facilitator needed, especially if there's a controversial issue.
Surveys: Advantage: Qualitative and Quantitative information lends itself to analysis. Disadvantage: Takes a lot of skill to construct understandable questions to elicit good responses.
Here's a good one on Community Assessment which includes constructing and analyzing the data: See the booklets. http://nnlm.gov/pnr/training/CommunityAssessment.html

Analyzing the data
Identify themes, assess validity, express your findings, develop an action plan, collaborate with others, implement, then reevaluate the results.
It is critical to have several people involved in planning and implementing the assessment to avoid bias and to collect valid, useful information.
Brenda

Focusing on the Big Picture

2009-05-06T16:03:00.006-04:00

Wednesday 4 PM
Focusing on the Big Picture: Using community needs assessments to enhance reference services
Presenters: Heather McCann & Lana Thelen

What is a community needs assessment? It is a means to assess forms, opinions, needs of a community.

Why do it? To help determine resource allocation (what are they actually going to use? this is even more important with shrinking budgets/staff time), evaluation of program effectiveness, empowers community to play an active role.

When is a good time for a CNA?

Group discussions... The presenters had us break up into groups to discuss community assessment activities that we have engaged in at our libraries. They also asked us to identify communities/groups that our libraries serve and we would like to conduct a CNA to learn more about. I found that the person next to me was also using SurveyMonkey to create surveys and gather information from their community (Zoomerang is another web tool for creating surveys).

Before you begin...describe your community, what do you want to know, and set up a timeline for the CNA.

Strategies for collecting info...What methods will work for you and your community (time, budget, most effective for your community), interviews/focus groups, surveys (paper/electronic), community forums/public meeting. Offering an incentive for taking a survey, coming to a forum, etc... can lead to greater participation (prizes, food, etc...).

Evaluating, Implementing, and Reevaluating...analyze the data, identify themes (what keeps coming up?), assess their validity (is there bias?), write up your findings, develop an action plan, collaborate (what other organizations exist in the community that provide services or complementary programs), release it, reevaluate the results.

CNAs are labor intensive projects but they lead to more efficient budgets, use of our time and resources, and more support from the community. Share your findings with the library world and local community!

Let the community know how the information was used to improve library services (i.e. expanded the spanish language collection by %50).

In regards to public library reference services, a CNA can help determine information needs (subject areas) and types of resources that should be available (pathfinders, ready reference, etc...).

Writers Live! Libraries Bringing Authors and Readers Together

2009-05-06T15:59:00.006-04:00

Wednesday May 6, 2009 4:00pm-5:15pm

A very informed and frank panel discussion of how to bring writers, known and unknown to your library and to make it work!

Virgina Stanley Director of Library Marketing for HarperCollins started us off with these tips.

There are many ways to spread the word. For your first author event, start small with local authors. The bigger the author the bigger the expectations. Chapple Langemack has written a great book on how to host author events.
One of the best ways to stay in contact with patrons is to collect email addresses. http://www.constantcontact.com is a great way to create a database of patrons to email, especially if an event happens last minute. In some cases this has tripled attendance at events.
Don't expect to get the big names if you've never done an event before. Star small. Possibly with a local author. Get to know your audience.

Judy Cooper, coordinator for Public Programs at Pratt County Library in Baltimore had this to say:

Although it may be easier to get authors to larger cities, it might be worthwhile to make partnerships with people at the larger city libraries to funnel authors to smaller libraries. A followup comment from the audience was that often times in big cities, there is a lot of competition for people's attention. Something that might fail in a large city might do really well in a small city where there is less going on.
http://www.programminglibrarian.org. is a great resource for programming library events.
Why should libraries host library programs? It is very important to connect readers to writers and would-be writers to writers.
A successful author program must happen with other institutions in the community such as a college, the ACLU, whatever.
Programs help sell books! A writers series is very good PR for your library.
Bookstores are not competitors. It's good to work with a local bookstore to sell books at an author event.
Before you call a publisher, have an idea for an event. Describe your community and why the event will be sucessfull. Know what will work in your community.

Talia Sherer, Library Marketing Director from Macmillan.

Who is the target audience? How well do you know your patrons and what they are reading? What kind of events do local bookstores host? Are they successful? Do research.
Work with speakers bureaus. It can't just be you alone. Everyone on staff needs to be in on it and excited about the program.
Sometimes panels of authors from different genres can attract a wider range of interested readers.
Get in contact with a publisher to discuss possible collaborations.
Go on websites and ask to recieve seasonal catalogs to see authors tours, addresses, etc. Some authors can be contacted directly.
In New Caanan, CT, author events are videotaped and circulated in the library collection.

Audience comments

Academic Librarian. Felt it was difficult to get people to come to events in an academic setting, even with a wonderful lineup. Virginia suggested programming events with more of a popular cultural appeal. Students won't go out at night to learn, they want to be entertained.

Public Librarian. Sometimes regular times and events can build up an audience. At their library they hold book events every Monday morning and there is a regular crowd.

Q: How do libraries find out about book tours?

A:No easy source. Get in touch way ahead of time. Book tours are usually booked a year in advance. Develop relationships with library marketing people at publishing houses. Don't be discouraged. Don't give up. Keep coming back and something will eventually work out.

Links

harpercollinscatalogs.com for "up to the minute" catalog info.

librarylovefest.com Virginia's blog

talia.shererATmacmillan.com

virginia.stanleyATharpercollins.com

Designing Green Buildings

2009-05-06T15:58:00.006-04:00

4:00-5:15 Designing Green Buildings

Speakers: Anne Larsen, Director for Facilities Planning and Technology, Hunter College Libraries; Marcia Gross, Library Director, North Adams Public Library; Ken Best, Architect, Drummy, Rosane and Anderson

Anne Larsen brief Bio

Anne began her talk by communicating her passion for Green design. Any library project, regardless of size, can become LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. The words "Green" and "Sustainability" have become buzz words, in fact, they have become sexy. Anne, however, is appalled at what passes for 'Green' today. Building a Green library is the best thing you can do for your community and your library. There are members of the building committee who will advocate those sexy features of the green building.

You should sweat the little stuff because some members will not think about certain issues that pertain to green technologies. Anne gives the example of considering non-toxic finishes for the children's room, electric hand dryers over towels in the bathroom, or motion lighting that might not be needed or desired in all areas as some areas need lighting all the time.

Anne asks us to consider if we would use toxic materials in building a library. Her point is that we do not consider how many items are made of toxic material, such as anything with Scotchguard. What Anne proposes is that we get advice in pursuing sustainable design. We need "Green" consultants since there is too much to know on our own, and too much to know to depend on an architect.

Even lighting should be considered by experts. Lighting is directly linked to waste, energy and the environment. Anne does, however, warn that we must be willing to make compromises. Not all buildings can have a vegetative roof. Not all green initiatives need to be used in the building. The idea is to make good decisions, but make decisions that work. Collaboration is also key to good, sustainable design. LEED is not easy to obtain, especially a higher level (Silver, Gold, Platinum) but a goal all libraries should strive to achieve.

Marcia Gross, Library Director, North Adams Public Library
Information on North Adams Public Library achieving LEED certification

Marcia discussed the difficulties of turning the North Adams Public Library from an energy inefficient building into a LEED building.

Building project began in 1999 when NAPL hired an architect for the preliminary design. In 2002 NAPL made a design to go green. The decision came when someone proposed putting air conditioning on the roof of the library. This was universally thought to be unacceptable because of a Bed and Breakfast next door, and a middle school across the street. Geothermal heating and cooling was considered as an alternative. It was then decided to become USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) LEED certified.

NAPL decided to go green to reep economic benefits. Marcia also wanted a safe library and reduce the impact of the library on the environment. NAPL is on the state and national records of historic sites. LEED can help get recognition, but more importantly, it can be done while maintaining historical importance.

The NAPL consulted on geothermal and photovoltaic power as forms of renewable energy. What will all this cost? Marcia says Design costs =.5%, Documentation and fees =.7% (about $8,000-$70,000), Commissioning = 1% of the overall cost.
Not every aspect is LEED certified. Marcia says the toilets are low water usage, but not LEED recognized, as are the parking lot lights. This is in line with what Anne was saying about choosing what is important for you, but proceed to make as many changes to green as possible.

Article on NAPL with pictures and discussion can be found here: Green Building case Studies

Most impressive of all is that 100% rehabilitation of the original building: the entire existing shell was kept intact. 50% of materials were diverted from the landfill. Even the exterior brownstone was recycled by turning it over to an artist to build "fireplaces" for display around the library. Even the staircase was sold for reuse (sold on e-bay).

Ken Best, Architect, Drummy, Rosane and Anderson

Ken explains that there were some hurdles to the design. Everybody was new to the LEED community. In the design community there was a lack of sharing. Inexperience with LEED became challenging in unearthing how to proceed.
There were some basic strategies. LEED does seem to favor (or find prevalence and relevance) in urban sites. NAPL with the help of Ken decided on geothermal heating and cooling, photovoltaic panels and overall energy efficiency. The LEED initiative still maintained the beauty of the building, confirmed in an interior photo that Ken paused and ruminated over.

This type of project requires special organization. There is a different design process--integrated design. These factors include a building committee, the architect (one who can work on LEED projects), landscape architects, engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical), a cost estimator (especially on a limited budget), and a commissioning agent. The earlier you make decisions in the design phase, the less money you will have to pay since there will be less cost impact required for design changes.

Public Involvement is important, too. There are many people who are knowledgeable and passionate about green design. Public education is important. It is important to hold seminars on green design. Possible topics might include: native plants, animal habitats, energy efficiency, storm water management, and reduce, reuse and recycle. Some people might not understand the importance of green design, or understand the costs. Talking points help get the public involved and gives them an opportunity to relate to the larger picture of green initiatives.

Regardless of what you are trying to achieve, or which LEED rating you want to acquire, aim high. Templates are required for LEED points. Not all the points will be accepted in determining your LEED rating. Some templates include descriptions of diverted construction waste, a diverted material description, recycling hauler and location, and procedures for monitoring flow of materials. The trouble is that these documents are lengthy and hard to keep track of. A material may impact many areas of the checklist. Windows, for example, may include recycled content, manufactured and harvested within 500 miles, energy efficiency, solar heating, daylighting and views, low VOC sealants and controlability of systems. Because of the complicated procedures required for installing new technologies there should be a commissioning agent to make sure everything is working properly. Especially when it comes to pumps, items and works could potentially be installed improperly.

Other things to consider include modeling systems such as computer modeling to see what models of design would increase energy efficiency to enhance points received from LEED board. Daylight modeling, acoustic analysis, and paperless paperwork to reduce the carbon footprint.

Needless to say, LEED certification process is not easy. In fact, it is time consuming, tough and is more expensive than traditional methods of construction. Ken explains that it is worth every minute and the effort it takes to achieve. LEED certification will pay for itself many times over. I am surely interested and hope more libraries pursue it, but I can see how it can easily consume your routine. It takes a strong commitment and that commitment should come from every level, at every stage.

Information on USGBC

The Novel World of Digital Storytelling

2009-05-06T15:56:00.006-04:00

Elizabeth Thomsen is here to discuss the various ways in which internet technologies have affected the ways in which stories are told and used.

She has decided to start with a look at fanfiction, which she sees as having a lot in common with oral story telling traditions. Fanfiction (fan created stories building off of the works of others) originated in the 1800's with fans of Sherlock Holmes. Clubs were formed to share stories and friends would mail them to one another. Fanfiction is particularly popular based around material that is episodic in nature. Nowadays fanfiction is being written about Star Wars, Harry Potter, Twilight, etc... and much of this is posted online.

There are many reoccuring story types within fanfic such as crossovers (i.e.Harry Potter meets Star Wars) and alternate universes (what if Harry Potter died?). Much of fanfiction is based around perceived subtext in the source material, this is especially seen in slash fiction (i.e. Kirk/Spock).

Fanfic communities can be very large and provide a sizeable fanbase for aspiring writers with far more potential for useful feedback than many other outlets.

This all of course poses some serious copyright issues. Some authors embrace the fanfiction community, but many distance themselves out of fear of potentially stealing a fan's idea for a future novel. Anne McCaffrey has written a fanfiction guide for her Pern series.

Fanfiction is not limited to writing, there's a large number of fanfiction videos available (a Law and Order: SVU clip from YouTube is shown).

The Internet has also brought about a resurgence in serial narratives, webcomics in particular have taken advantage of this, with Brian Fies' Mom's Cancer sited as an example (sadly the webcomic has not been available since the finished story was published in book form). Mom's Cancer is also notable for being a story that came about via a blog.

Anonymous Lawyer is another blogger who made the jump to book form. But what is interesting in this instance is that the author discovered that his blog posts did not work when placed in a book form. In fact the Lawyer wound up thinking of the blog as a place to practice the character's voice, and then used that experience for his novel. Many others have begun to do similar exercises by creating things like (unsanctioned) facebook pages for fictional characters. This has opened up new possibilities for non-linear storytelling, somewhat similar to what can be found in many video games.

Somewhat similar to this is the new trend for parts of stories to occur outside of their original books. The Diary of Samuel Pepys has been converted into a blog, with additional material (weather widgets) provided from historical sources.

In Japan a new form has developed out of cell phone txt messaging. School age (largely girls) have begun writing stories on their cell phones, many by non-readers. Quite a few of these have become best sellers in Japan, despite the view of many that they are lowbrow ("worse than our chick lit novels").

Hemmingway has inspired a large number of projects based around the idea of creating 6 word stories. A collection of community generated six word memoirs has been published, and Flickr has a group dedicated to creating six word stories around various images.

Protagonize is a great platform for collaborative storytelling, that's fun for both kids and adults. People have also begun to use twitter for storytelling, and have written a guide to the form.

Machinima (digital puppetry) are stories produced using video games (and second life) to produce videos. Essentially "hijacking the game" in order to tell your own story. This how to Machinima, made in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is highly recommended. Many games have their own build in cameras, and for ones without them free software is available to provide this feature. Machinima adaptations have also been made for many public domain works (particularly ones featuring castles).

Elizabeth is particularly supportive of oral history projects that various people have put together using various Internet technologies. The best ones tend to be recordings of specific tasks (thanks to @infogdss29 for the link), particularly as many people can feel uncomfortable relating their own histories and having such an outlet can make things easier.

Opening stories to public discourse throughout their development can have a huge effect on the finished tales. Charles Dickens "the first blogger" wrote in a similar way, publishing his novels as serials while holding public readings.

Anyone interested in easy to produce video should check out the flip video camera on display at the technology petting zoo in the vendor area.

More information on everything discussed during this presentation can be found on Elizabeth's blog.

Experts Share Top Technology Trends in Massachusetts

2009-05-06T15:29:00.002-04:00

Experts Share Top Technology Trends in Massachusetts
Speakers: Emily Alling, Coordinator, Learning Commons and Undergraduate Library Services, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Scot Colford, Web Services Manager, Boston Public Library; Paige Eaton Davis, Assistant User Services Librarian, Minuteman Library Network; Megan Fox, Associate Director for Technology and Special Projects, Simmons College Libraries; Scott Kehoe, Consultant, Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System; Rick Levine, Technical Specialist, Central Massachusetts Regional Library System; Bonnie Peirce, Head of Children's Services, Dover Town Library; Amelia Peloquin, Independent Consultant;Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager, North of Boston Library Exchange; Vicki Wright, Library Teacher, Silver Lake Regional Middle School.
Alling:
Should be a trend RSS has been around but patrons don't seem to be too interested.
Trend. Assisting patrons in saving materials and information in non-traditional media. Storyboarding, video, etc.
Discovery tools. Library Thing CWMars. Aquabrowser. Next Gen tools: Primo Federated Search engines. Serials Solutions has a new product.
Licensing terms, knowing your rights. OCLC has taken away the Marc record. What is available ethically and legally
Sustainability. Open source software. Libraries should start investing in technology savvy librarians and IT support for customization. Sharing of technical services. New job descriptions: Librarians who can publish, archive, use Library 2.0 applications.
People are tweeting: using Masslib09
Colford
iPhone and mobile devices. Microsoft Surface has a tabletop computing platform. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

Words have become objects. Word cloud art.
Slides are old tech. prezi.com Sign up for a free account and make some presentations. You throw all of your ideal onto a desktop.
Bumptop.com shrink your desktop icons, make them bigger. Toss them around.

Davis
Mobile devices.
New access snaptell http://www.snaptell.com/ is a free download takes a picture of an item.
2 dimensional barcodes. Phone takes a picture of barcode. Example http://www.barcodeman.com/faq/2dbarcode.gif Get nutritional information
Tellme - http://www.tellme.com/ ask for weather, get a text message.

Shazam - who's singing, what song
Location interaction, Gesture interaction turn the
GI Compass mode tilt mode lets you look around.
Transcoding for languages.
Dictionaries, Refworks, Worldcat testing mobil. III has AirPac for the iPhone.
Washington DC library has a libraryApp for mobile devices.
Mobile search. Find a fact. RedSox you get last game, chunks
Spoken/Voice search on Google. It learns your voice and your accent.

SMS Text Search. Google Text. Yahoo Text. Text to call 7:1
Texting being used for digital reference services.
Simmons Library you can send your call number from the OPAC to your mobile device.

Megan Fox, Simmons
Photo story http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.mspx
Moodle uses multimedia. Simmons uses successfully.

Clickers in class getting ubiquitous. Tablets for write upon.
http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/How_to/Incorporate_technology/clickers/peer_instructions.html

Levine
Business Phone Information 800-Goog411
Disturbing trend: Balkanization of technology. Everything will be "out there" cloud searching / cloud computing may save information seekers and organize.
Another disturbing one: Proprietary interests. Apple empire - you buy an iPhone, you are hooked into other products, If you buy a Kindle you will buy all your books from Amazon.

Davis
Libraries are slow in implementing "Library 2.0" Librarians are way behind the patrons. Patrons already out there on Facebook, Twitter. Library service old model: Come to the library, the library supplies. Now information finding is more interactive. Users expect an attractive, fun, friendly, engaging library website. Personalize your website, invite interaction, allow ratings, tagging, reviews.

Darien Library in CT http://www.darienlibrary.org/catalog using personal tags. People can tag in natural language. Put a Meebo Me widget on your catalog when ASK LIBRARIAN comes up for missing or damaged material. http://www.meebome.com/
Plymouth State Library can send call number to cellphone. Their catalog is Scriblio http://www.flickr.com/photos/users_lib/2750656935/

Peloquin
Twitter Oprah does it, so it's "arrived."

Pierce
Mobile platforms and QR codes. First used for tracking parts QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). Code generator http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Open organization of knowledge.
Location

Thomsen
There is a Facebook boom. Allows people to put pictures, recipes, game scores, info. No need for flicker here, delicious there, blog there. Problem that all these photos and recipes are not out there for public search.

Digital storytelling.
3D applications like google earth
Self promotion. People are creating their personal BRANDS.
Visual searching is growing.
Facial recognition.
Geocoding. You can embed geographical coordinates into your photos, so you can put a photo into a map

Scott Kehoe http://www.nmrls.org/ce/stt/ was not able to present in person, however, he points to his tech tips page.
-- Brenda

Whining in Harmony

2009-05-06T14:45:00.003-04:00

Everybody's a baby about something, you know?

"Don't tell me that the shine is shining. I don't care because I'm too busy whining!"

Bill Harley began the Jordan-Miller Storytelling Program presentation with song. (Wednesday, 1:00 pm.) Either we tell stories ... or we want to. Either we sing ... or we want to. And "story and song are just part of what culture is" claims Bill Harley, because "they are expressions of being human and using the tools we have as humans to express ourselves."

In A Hero With a Thousand Faces, Bill Campbell tells us that it is the same story, the 'hero myth' over and over again. Think Star Wars, Wrinkle In Time, Wizard of Oz. Someone is called away to a different world, he/she passes a test and brings it home.

These were some of the stories and philosophies Bill Harley shared with his audience. He was brought up in a home of books, having a mother who wrote for My Weekly Reader and a father who edited law books. He began his love affair with poetry when he became bored and looked through his own home library and began reciting Robert Services, The Creation of Sam McGee. And so began a career of storytelling and The Ballad of Dirty Joe.

Out upon the briny deep where the wild and wet winds blow,
There sailed a cruel and evil man, the pirate Dirty Joe.
He sailed upon the scummiest craft that ever left the docks
He roamed the world and seven seas in search of dirty socks.

You can read the entire ballad on Bill's website. You can read the picture book, as well.

Storytelling is not rocket science. It is getting near the listener with the story and pictures in our head. He recommends a book called Ten Twelve Tales by Celia Barker Lottridge. Rhyme, rhythm and repetition are all very important ingredients for storytelling. We can all do it if we just relax and tell the story starting with the small ones.

You can read Bill's blog or visit his website.

Library Construction: Notes from the Field & Designing for the Future

2009-05-06T14:30:00.005-04:00

10:45-12:00 Library Construction: Notes From the Field & Designing for the Future

Carol Mahoney, Director of the Greenwich Library, Greenwich, CT began discussing her notes from the field. She encourages librarians to stay in the field. Do not depend on the ‘experts’ to do the job. The library building project from concept to completion depends on the librarians’ input. There needs to be a common ground for understanding needs of the library. Who understands the library better than the library staff. Carol stresses the importance of befriending the community. Make the Clerk of Works/Project Manager and other members of the community, such as the Fire Chief, your best friends.

Carol stresses the importance of creating a library building plan and considering important features in the plan.

Carol suggests that a director, and librarians, should learn how to read architectural plans. Consider elements such as acoustics in the library, ADA issues, bathrooms (how many and where should they be located). Building committees should be well informed and libraries should develop a good relationship with building inspectors. Other elements to consider include custodial closets, deliveries (do you want all deliveries rolling on the new carpet?), ergonomics, furnishings (can you move the tables and chairs with ease?). Have the landscaping as part of the project. Have a professional photographer take interior and exterior shots of the library before it gets ruined. The library should also start thinking about signage early and do not allow staff areas to be reduced as you will regret it later. Equipment closets should be on every floor with air vents in the door. Main computer rooms should be air-conditioned with very good ventilation. It is a great motivator to take staff and others on tours when the building is complete.

As Carol exclaims, “Make it work, right from the beginning!”

Leslie Morrissey, Library Director of Falmouth Public Library
Leslie completed construction of the Falmouth Public Library ten years after its inception. Leslie reminds the audience that the construction funding is the equivalent of a political campaign. Town meetings are important in beginning the funding process. Tours for Selectmen and Town Administration, attend precinct meetings, prepare attractive handouts, enlist positive speakers, and be prepared for questions. Leslie also encourages libraries to hit the ballot box through campaign committees, lawn signs, phone campaigns, local cable TV shows, presentations at community events and letters to the editor.

Ms. Morrissey cautions the audience not to go it alone. Have Friends and Trustees help with political campaigns. Have them help with organizing fund raising drives. Establish or employee the assistance of a Building Committee and the Town Administration, the latter for managing finances and the support of project publicity. Seek the input of the library staff and take them through the construction project periodically.

When the project is under way, hire a professional mover and remember that you have a project manager and architect to help with the process and assist in the library’s interests. Leslie showed some photos of the new library.

Check out some photos of FPL here: Falmouth Public Library, Photos

Architect J. Stewart Roberts of the newly named Johnson Roberts Associates
Pros and Cons of renovations and additions
Pros:
Serving the community and saving a part of the community
Maintain the historic identity of the library/community

Cons:
Renovations is not necessarily less expensive than building new
Renovations and additions may result in less efficient and larger plan than new construction—and possibly more costly
Newer buildings can be more difficult to renovate than older buildings
Difficult to provide barrier free access, HVAC systems may not be as efficient, hiding mechanical systems may not be as efficient.
There are, however, many cases of successful renovations and additions. The Springfield, MA 16 acres branch library is an example of a successful addition, merging a power plant feel with a Victorian home concept.
New projects provide an opportunity for better use of energy and green technologies. The cons of new construction include what to do with the old building.
Whether to renovate/add or build a new comes down to how efficient the library is in planning and considering its needs and options.

Charlie Van Voorhis, Principal, Durland Van Voorhis Architects
“Designing for the future, connecting to the past. How to connect to the past?”

Putting the past to work
Problems to solve:
Space constraints, modern mechanical systems, lighting and power distribution, accessibility improvements, future growth, generating political support, coping with technological change, managing costs.

Understand building organization, form/shape, proportion, circulation, and scale. Charlie invites us to understand what we are dealing with in order to make informed decisions about appropriate ways to proceed. By and large renovation is cheaper than a new building. With proper planning and consideration, the old and the new can be merged into a beautiful union. Sometimes older buildings have a great sense of space and can be great for reading rooms, but they might not work for staffing needs. Features such as a circulation desk can be merged with new renovation design to suggest and point to the new design while maintaining its historic identity.
When considering whether to construct a new building it should be decided how the use of space is employed in current and future plans. It is also possible to reuse features of the old library such as some fixtures or windows, or even furniture, when investing in the future while maintaining the identity of the past.

Charlie reiterates that utilizing the past while looking toward the future depends greatly on meshing the past with the old with what works for you and the library, engaging the community in identity but considering the needs of the building and the future.

Asperger's Syndrome: A View From Within Libraries

2009-05-06T14:24:00.018-04:00

9:00am-10:30am Wednesday May 6, 2009.

Jean Stern from the Asperger's Association of New England (AANE) delivered a fascinating workshop with practical advice for librarians on dealing with patrons who have Asperger Syndrome, or as they refer to themselves, Aspies. AANE is a non-profit organization created to promote awareness of Aspergers and provide support for people with Asperger's and their families. Jean's background is in early childhood education. She is an educational consultant in Connectucut and Massachusetts. AANE supports young and adult people with Asperger's.

Jean's program began with some definitions of Asperger's Syndrome (AS). She preferred to use the definition of Steven Shore , a noted author with AS. Steven is author of the books Beyond the Wall: Personal Experiences with Autism and Asperger Syndrome, and Understanding Autism for Dummies. His definition of AS describes the world of the "neurotypicals" (people without AS) and their "circular" experience of the world, where everyday things run smoothly along the edge of a circle. People with Asperger's, on the other hand, experience the world as a polygon, with bumps around the circle.

Asperger's is a neuro-developmental disorder that affects several areas of development where skills mask difficulties. They should be seen through a neurological rather than a psychological lens. People with AS have heightened or reduced senses. Jean compared this to a neurotypical who is sprayed by a skunk. We might react by running away or screaming. This can be how people with AS react to everyday encounters such as loud music, smelly perfume, or bad breath. People with AS have major problems with space. They do not understand differences in touch (playful, aggressive, congratulatory, etc). They do not know or understand other people's point of view. Their own view is the only way they see the world.

Some of the tell tale signs of Asperger's are:

May not make eye contact.
May stay alone.
May not know to stop talking. Good intent. Not necessarily socially aware.
May make comments out of context.
May follow routines and always sit in the same place
Minds have massive problems organizing. The world is chaos to them. They will cling to sameness.

Librarians should make people with Aspergers feel more comfortable. They do not learn by exposure to others as most of us do, they need direct instruction. The goal of this session was to "get inside the head" of someone with Asperger's. Jean gave some concrete ideas for how librarians can interact with people with AS.

People with AS don't know "hidden library behavior". Be explicit with instruction. They will need support from you.
They know what's in their head, not what's in your head.
Do not assume disrespect or negative intent. Give them the facts.
Use rules, not discussion of feelings if there is a behavior to change.
Help them problem-solve.
Provide visual schedules, maps of library, lists of supplies, samples, list expectations, upcoming events, etc.
Clarify essential vs non-essential info.
Use specific and simple language. People with AS will take everything you say literally. Use language like "put the card under the scanner" rather than "scan to check out".
Only give oral directions one at a time or write them down for more than one direction.
Script and practice alternatives for ineffective choices

Libraries can be a haven for people with AS. They are quiet, have an orderly system, encourage reading, allow routines and systems, have lots of personal space and natural light. Libraries are a place where people with AS can obtain facts about their interests. Librarians should learn about and encourage the interests of their AS patrons. These interests can turn into careers.

A question from the audience that is likely to be commonplace was about dealing with disruptive AS patrons. This person has dealt with the parent of an AS child at her library only to get a defensive reaction from the parent. Jean said to ask the question "how do we get to yes"? Negotiate with the adult in a positive way. Additionally make a plan before disruptions occur. Create an environment to prevent outbursts using some of the strategies discussed above.

Some ASD facts...

Community for Disease Control data confirms that 1 in 50 8 yr olds surveyed in 2000 and 2002 have ASD.
Many people with AS are unemployable due to their lack of traditional social skills.
People with AS love reading. They would rather read that interact. Reading is a safe haven.
Fluorescent lights are bothersome to people with AS. They notice the flicker that we don't. They prefer natural light.
Actor Dan Aykroyd has been diagnosed with Asperger's

For more info contact Jean Stern, M.Ed. Director of Children's Services at Asperger's Association of New England 85 Main St. Suite 101, Watertown MA 02472 617.393.3824 jean.sternATaane.org

Author Panel II: Different Ways to tell stories

2009-05-06T13:52:00.010-04:00

More pictures on flickr

Storytelling - its everywhere!

Lynda Barry has a new book "What it is". Its based upon an idea she got in a college painting class" image is different than thinking. Think of your first phone number. Now think of one from three numbers ago. It feels different and good to remember the first one. When you get a really good book, you slow down before the end, when its over, you stop and look at it - you don't just put it down. Then the book contains an image for you. Images are all about mental health. She's really interested in images, stories, how people deal with objects - that's what her new book is about. "Librarians saved my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I've seen the way you quietly slip a book to someone, I've seen your actions."

Thrity Umrigar switched from journalism to teaching 13 years ago. Her new book "The weight of heaven: selected memories of an Indian childhood" tells the story of an American couple in their 30s who've just lost their 7 year old son. They're from Ann Arbor and have been living outside Bombay for about 16 months when it opens. 4 months after their son's death the husband is asked to open a new branch in India and off they go. "India turns out to be nobodies wallpaper". The wife thinks a change of local will help them heal and salvage their marriage but finds a country that asserts itself into their lives in two ways. The husband is drawn to their housekeeper's 9 year old son and becomes obsessed. The American company he works for, Herbal Solutions, has just purchased significant acerage in India for cultivating a tree that treats diabetes. The local people are not happy with the exporting of this resource and how its being owned. The message is all about how things we haven't dealt with come back to us later.

Lynda wrote her first novel in 10 days. The next she took 10 years to write "because the computer had a delete button". Then she started writing books by making books from construction paper, and then she progressed to a paint brush - and that took nine months. When combining pictures and words, she thinks there's a completely different story that's told with our hands than when we use electronic means. Thats why she really likes to mix them. Images are not decoration, they serve an absolute biological function. If you can't draw, go home and create a hand print turkey - try it, you'll feel better!

Jump from journalism to fiction? Why?
Fiction can tell you the truth. Journalism gives you the facts, or really, opinion any more. Thrity didn't grow up with artists around her but knew since age 5 that she always wanted to be a writer and "took a shortcut" by becoming a journalist. She realized people always considered journalism a poor cousin of literature so she tried to create journalism that read like literature. In that sense, it wasn't a huge leap into writing fiction. She was happy to help other people tell stories but got to a point where she wanted to tell her own stories. She really likes telling emotional, psychological truths about how we function in the world. The need to tell stories is what makes us human. Even when you're telling the truth you're writing fiction. Even memoirs are acts of creation, creating your own persona.

Lynda once had a friend with a real imaginary friend (hers was an imaginary imaginary friend) She new it was real because it had a dumb name - Sprinkles, and she could only talk to it through a fan (sorry you missed the demonstration). She also gets lost reading cereal boxes.

Thrity entered a sad alternate reality while writing this book. There was something about this subject matter, the frequency that couple's loose children, and its possible someone in this situaiotn could pick up her book so she felt a great responsibility. Her greatest concern: the book had to be emotionally honest. Its a weird subjectivity / objectivity that she enters when she writes things close to her own experiences. She hates stories of happy childhoods, because childhood, for everyone, is hard. How did she know what the grief would be like? She just thought about it and was able to feel it.

Lynda's faux naive style isn't faux. Its really hard for her and she's tried everything else she can think of, but how she creates is just her - and "it takes a lot of nerve".

The wife (Ellie) in Thirty's book makes two good choices. She's "made large" by what's happened and becomes much more sensitive to the world around her. The husband (Frank) has the opposite reaction and closes down, becoming a very bitter person. Ellie embraces India and Frank tries to force American values onto it - and fails badly. We all start life with a vision of what we want to be when we grow up, what the world should look like. Thrity wanted a life filled with music, fresh flowers, good friends. She feels incredibly lucky. For all the difficulties in her childhood she's also had a lot of love, especially from her extended family - aunts & uncles.

Lynd knew in third grade all about pioneers - esp. Lewis & Clark and she wanted to be one. Once you decide what an image is, the form you give it is up to you. She's clearly become a metaphorical pioneer. She got a good break because someone mis-interpreted her strip and yelled at her, and then someone else who hated the yeller started printing her strip on the back page just to spite the editor.

Thrity doesn't speak for the huge, complicated, complex country of India - and no one person ever could. She doesn't tell stories about India, but does include parts of India in her novels.

Mashups: Graphic novel is a term not liked by any cartoonists that Lynda likes. However, its necessary so they can be sold. Comics, alternative comics, punk comics, hippie punk comics, no graphic novels - and not Lady Chatterlies Lover - a true GRAPHIC novel. On Amazon her book is classified as science fiction! She edited a collection of "best of" graphic novels and was amazed at all the rules - after they were applied it was just depressed guys with headaches writing about their sex lives. She LOVES the reluctant reader award - thats who she wants to reach.

If Thrity wrote a graphic novel she doesn't know what it would look like.

The floor asked Lynda for her influences: Dr. Seuss. She wanted to be what he was. She didn't know what he was, he's classified as a graphic novelist - a faux naive artist. She liked R. Crumb - terrified by his stories which she found when she was 12.

Thrity was influenced by Salman Rushdie - loves the ambition and audacity of his writing. She didn't read a single Indian writer until just before leaving India for the US at age 20. Her first was Midnight's Children. She also was influenced by Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf - dazzling language and amazing grasp of human psychology.

Lynda: All a writer does is hold images a little longer than the rest of us, capturing places & moments, what's around us, to the right & the left.

Lynda's favorite thing to do is teach. She does it very DIY - tickets on ebay, do workshops anywhere - Bars, yoga studios.... She was just at Manitowoc high school teaching and really got excited by the girls there who are really into Manga. They have a graphic novel collection at their library and loves how libraries are opening this portal for girls. In her class, if a cellphone goes off the owner has to buy her a shot of whiskey.

Thrity teaches creative writing courses and her students are often taking their only writing course. She sees her primary role as all about teaching PASSION. She likes to play the "holy fool" - she teaches touching, feeling, sentimental existence.

Thrity finds the future of journalism very frightening. It's insane to consider a democracy without newspapers - who else will hold the politicians accountable? She subscribes to the NYTimes as an act of charity - she reads it online everyday and sees buying newspapers as a moral issue that we need to push.

Lynda's most reliable source of income is selling stuff on ebay. She used to be carried in "alternative" papers across the country but now that job is gone. The loss of physical papers is a real loss.

People always think Lynda's books are for kids - but they have really mature subject matter. She doesn't think they are a good thing to give to kids / teens. If they find it on their own that's another thing altogether.

Fee copies to be signed by the authors were provided at the end.

Pictures will be added to this post later today.

Massachusetts Experts Share Top Technology Trends

2009-05-06T13:46:00.011-04:00

Wednesday 1:45 PM
Massachusetts Experts Share Top Technology Trends
Panel: Emily Alling, Scot Colford, Megan Davis, Vicki Wright, Rick Levine, Paige Eaton Davis, Amelia Peloquin, Bonnie Peirce, Elizabeth Thomsen, Scott Kehoe.

Emily Alling's Top Tech Trends - Helping people store information in non-traditional formats (multi-media, posters, etc...), More intuitive catalogs and interfaces (Aquabrowser) to help people find stuff, Federated Search Engines (WorldCat Local, etc...), Sustainability (Open Source Software, investing in people with tech skills, collaboration, etc...).

Scot Colford's Top Tech Trends - iPhone and portable devices, Microsoft Surface, Project Information Literacy - words flow through video in different spatial orientations as objects, words become objects, prezi.com is a way to create online presentations (get rid of powerpoint!), bumptop.com is a desktop overlay that creates a 3-D environment, IRC channel for the conference.

Megan Davis' Top Tech Trends - Mobile Content, Mobile Market, Mobile Services. 57% of mobile users (SMS or Internet), Visual Access allows you to take a picture of items/barcodes and get information (Movie Reviews and Times, Nutritional Information off a Mcdonald's wrapper, etc...), Audio Interactions (Shazam allows you to hold up your phone to a song and get artist/song name), Location (find the nearest Starbucks), Gesture Interactions instead of traditional navigation (turn the device to get landscape view, move the device to see a different view, etc...), Transcoded, Most Necessary content is what Mobile Web Pages display (Search, Library Events, Catalog, etc...), library vendors are beginning to offer mobile services, Washington DC Library - Library App, Mobile Search - offering specific relevant information, Spoken/Search, SMS/Text Search (Cha Cha, Yahoo, etc...), Libraries are texting to communicate with users, Send via Text Message.

Vicki Wright's Top Tech Trends - Instruction with multi-media because students believe that technology makes school more interesting. Using technology like online classrooms, smartboards/tablets and clickers allows for creativity, collaboration, and innovation by students. Clickers are used for quizzes and provide immediate feedback about how well the students understand the lesson. This is a fast and powerful evaluation tool for teachers!

Rick Levine's Top Tech Trends - 1-800-GOOGLE-411 to get information. Google indexing audio content with this service to create a database. Discussed the issue of proprietary rights for technology devices. Companies are restricting users to buying only their content for their devices (Amazon Kindle can only purchase Amazon books). Cloud computing - google docs allows people to access their content from anywhere.

Paige Eaton Davis' Top Tech Trends - To implement library 2.0 we need to go to where our patrons are online (Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, etc..). Library 2.0 is information becoming interactive and coming from all directions. Catalogs and websites need to be attractive, fun, friendly and engaging, we need to keep up with current web "fashion". Let users participate through tagging, ratings and reviews (Darien Public Library). Add a Meebo widget to the "not found" screen of the catalog so that people will talk to a librarian and get help. We lose patrons when they don't find what they are looking. Let people bookmark to the catalog from where they are on the web (YouTube, Facebook, etc...).

Amelia Peloquin's Top Tech Trends- Twitter is another way for library's to reach out to people where they are. It does pose boundary issues for librarians and public servants. What are librarians perspectives about these issues?

Bonnie Peirce's Top Tech Trends - What are you building? Mobile platforms are the future. Technological and cultural advances are tied together, QR codes in physical locations to use technology to learn about spaces, and free is only as good as what you follow up with. Deliver information to people where they are.

Elizabeth Thomsen's Top Tech Trends - Social networking trends like Facebook are centralizing our web experience. The worry is what will happen as we contribute to these "gated communities" rather than the open web. Blogging, 3D, ruthless self promotion and managing your personal brand, piles of information available to the public, visual interfaces - objects, visual search, geo-coding (information embedded in image files expands their usefulness).

Scott Kehoe's Blog - Scott couldn't be at the conference so here is a link to his blog.

Generation 4.0

2009-05-06T13:29:00.010-04:00

Margaret Lourie's presentation is focusing on the interactions between the four active generations currently working in libraries:

Traditionalists/Silent Generation
Baby Boomers (sometimes split into early and late Boomers)
Generation X
Generation Y/Millenials

A generation is defined as a group of people of roughly the same age. Their shared experienced tend to both bond them with one another, and distance them from those of other generations. Research has shown that each generation tends to have its own worldview, and that these views do not get outgrown.

Sociologist have traditionally marked generations about 20 years apart, but this standard is no longer of value. On one side of the equation the length of time between when one generation gives birth to the next has increased, while on the other the time between shifting world views has decreased.

For older generations organizations had a top-down, very hierarchical structure with elders filling the top positions. This has largely been done away with, with many people having supervisors younger than them.

There are many cuspers, those born on the dividing line between generations. These people tend to have characterists of both generations and tend to be more capable of bridging the generation gap than others.

It must be noted that many characteristics from one generation will shape those of the next.

Traditionalists: 1925-1942; products of WWII, fiscally conservative, have faith in institutions, patriotic. At work they like order and well defined rules, and may be uncomfortable around new technology and improper language. They are accustomed to people working their way up the organizational ladder over time, and thus tended to stay with a single job over their careers. They want to feel valued and appreciated at work.

Baby Boomers: In late 40's to mid 60's; products of age of political turmoil. The act of work is an anchor and source of satisfaction. They have a distrust of authority and tend to be competitive, status is critical. They prefer a structured environment that they have input into.

Generation X: 1961-1981; Eclectic, skeptical, high adaptive, independent, multi-taskers (or as some in the audience said just people with short attention spans). Think work ought to be fun.

Generation Y: 1982-; work well with teams, enjoy challenges, want work to be worthwhile, impatient, comfortable with the speed of change, expect respect. At work they want responsibility and to be noticed by their bosses.

Some quick points as the time begins to run out:

There is a perception that the younger generations are weaker than their elders because they have not been tested under situations as dire as those their elders found themselves in.

The toys people use are generational, but the need to have them crosses all generations.

The growth of e-mail has stagnated.

"Anything invented after the age of 35 is against the natural order"--Douglas Adams

Generation Y is currently the largest group of library users.

Margaret can be contacted for a copy of the presentation slides.

Technology Petting Zoo!

2009-05-06T10:50:00.002-04:00

The Technology Petting Zoo at MLA features a variety of gadgets of interest to you and your patrons . If you've never seen an iPhone, want to compare the Sony eBook to the Kindle, or are thinking about jumping on the podcasting bandwagon; come to the Zoo. If you're wondering about the devices your patrons may bring into your library to plug into your library computers, come to the Zoo. Check out these gadgets and more in a comfortable, non-threatening atmosphere. Get demos of Web 2.0 applications like del.icio.us, Flickr, Blogger, PBWiki, and more! Create an avatar, sign up for Twitter, and play a game on a DS handheld. Nothing bites or induces allergies - we promise! It's all happening at the Zoo! Handouts will be available online at http://mlaconference.pbworks.com/Petting+Zoo.

The Technology Petting Zoo will be open during Exhibit Hall Hours:

WEDNESDAY MAY 6: 12:45pm-4:30pm

THURSDAY MAY 7: 8:00am-12:00pm; 12:45-4:30pm

FRIDAY MAY 8: 8:00am-12:00pm; 12:45-4:30pm

Gadgets to pet:

Cultivating Creative Adult Programming

2009-05-06T10:43:00.009-04:00

Wednesday 10:45AM
Cultivating Creative Adult Programming
Presenters: Nate Hill (Brooklyn Public Library - Bushwick Branch Library in New York, NY), Mandy McGee & Monica Harris (Oak Park Public Library in Oak Park IL)

Nate Hill started the presentation by discussing some of the programs happening at the Bushwick Branch Library. He attended a book reading at a local store and introduced himself to start a dialogue with people at the event. From his outreach effort book readings were brought to the library and a shelf of recommended reading materials was created by the attendees and library users.

Using information from their local history collection they created a website and event: "Past, Present, Future of Food: Bushwick, Brooklyn". People came to the library to share their experiences on the topic of local foods and gardening. A google groups page resulted from the event and it is a thriving venue for people to continue sharing their experiences online.

Nate found a blog entry for the business, Zappos, and discovered many great aspects that translate to libraries like providing a tour to each new patron, empowering employees to be spokespersons (at Zappos employees are required to open a Twitter account!), flattening the hierarchy, etc...

20's and 30's programming and services at the library were then discussed by, Mandy McGee... Begin by identifying why you are targeting your audience (20's & 30's coming to storytimes but not adult programs) and why they are important. Assess your audience (focus groups, surveys, drop-in forums) to gather information and use an enthusiastic staff member to lead the effort.

The OPPL decided to create a non-traditional book group based upon the need for 20's & 30's programming. They decided to hold the book discussion group out of the library to places where the audience already was gathering - local bars in the community of course! Held the book discussions after work (8pm), in a relaxed environment, access to food & drink, etc...

Two things were identified as important... size of establishment/ability to host large number of attendees (bar with a separate functions room) & choosing the best books. They picked titles that they had read and knew would be good for discussion. Simple is sometimes better, you don't necessarily have to bring in a local author or have a theme.

Started using an online social website to complement the physical meetings. GoodReads is used to take the discussion beyond the meetings, event notifications are sent through the site, and it allows people to share other reading interests, etc... Also started a blog, used Wordpress and incorporated a clean design, easy navigation, and visual appealing interface. It allows people to make comments (they are moderated), search the library catalog, etc... Some web 2.0 tools turned out to be unnecessary such as a Pro Flickr Account. It is important to not be afraid to admit when something isn't working.

Off-shoots of the book discussion program... were discussed by Teen Librarian, Monica Harris. They wanted to offer something after hours that was interesting and exotic! Decided to use National Gaming Day to create a "Hi - Lo Tech" Gaming Event incorporating Wii games, board games, DJs - Music, and 80's themed snacks. Used tournaments (Scrabble & Mario Kart) and open play for the event, other games included Big Brain Academy, Guitar Hero & Rock Band - very popular, etc... and people brought their own games. Offered some small prizes and home made trophies for the tournaments.

Local media - newspaper with a blog promoted the event. They had a volunteer with graphic design experience develop a special poster for the event. There were only 4 people from the book group that attended of about 70 attendees. This was a way to bring a different type of programming to the target audience.

The next event...was a pop culture trivia night, "Hop on Pop". Small groups of people as teams, used Google Slideshow to create the quiz, and a facilitator ran the event. There were small prizes and trophies offered at the event. Used YouTube Clips, Audio Clips, etc... to spice up the trivia.

Lessons Learned...Guitar Hero and Rock Band were very popular and future events focused on these games will be organized. Trivia Night was a lot of work but simpler options are available (using Trivia Pursuit Cards). These programs can bring staff together and allow them to incorporate their interests.

More ideas for 20's & 30's programs... speed dating in the stacks or romantic self help (apparently very popular in Australian Libraries), open mic nights (poetry), sponsor a scavenger hunt, live band karaoke, Wiimbeldon (Wii Sports - Golf), after hours board game night, financial literacy, buying your first home, resume help and entry-level job fairs, mock interview opportunity, intro. to wedding planning, sustainability and organic gardening, crafts and do-it-yourself (use websites to find ideas: i.e craftster.org), project runway competition (1 hour to construct an outfit for a model), Top Chef competition, photoshop/podcasting/e-business, interior design for small spaces, book swap, bring in a popular author, walking tour of community, and more.

Some Audience Questions...What about staffing the library for after hours events? Get board approval and it can be more expensive to meet security and staffing levels for after hours events. Sometimes people volunteer for the event and events happen infrequently to allow for extra expenditure, planning, and work that goes into events. How do you promote the events? Facebook page, blog, website, submit to local newspapers/media, postcards and flyers at popular locations in the community, etc... Are you attracting other groups than your targeting audience? Yes, but is small numbers and people have not been turned away.

MBLC Grant process and the Building Process

2009-05-06T10:25:00.002-04:00

MBLC Grant process and the Building Process
Patience Jackson and Rosemary Waltos,
Much information is found on the MBLC's web pages:
The Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program: State Construction Funds For Public Libraries http://mblc.state.ma.us/grants/construction/program/construction.php
MBLC also sponsors a good peer to peer email list.
http://mblc.state.ma.us/grants/construction/list/index.php

Patience Jackson, MBLC's Building Consultant.
MBLC, since 1985 has funded over 200 construction projects. Bolton, Mashpee, Dudley, Cambridge are currently under construction. The state share is generally 35% to 60% of the funding. Falmouth finished, Northboro, Mattapan.
Building Program must be prepared by the Library Director. Plan needs to encompass the next 20 years.
Site plan, a detailed schematic with renderings of the final project are required. The budget must be prepared independent of the auditor. Eligible items include: Architect consultant, demolition, repairs to old building Project funding 35 -40% Funding cannot include such items as landscaping. Reviewers include MBLC, an architect, Massachusetts librarians who have had successful building program, and a board member.

New construction typically increases circulation 21-40% Attendance usually increases 90%, Reference traffic 22% Adult program attendance more than doubles.

Rosemary Waltos. MBLC Small Libraries Consultant, speaking about Planning and Design Grants and the Green Building program.
For libraries in hardship categories and for those serving under 10,000 population.
Meant to assist libraries in putting together a Building program, hiring architect, site recommendations, prepare site plan and schematic design. Also assist in hiring a cost estimator. No plans for a future grant round.

Green Libraries. Environmentally responsible, healthy public meeting place and cost effective sustainability. LEED certification is a goal for green libraries. See LEED 2009 for New Construction and Major Renovation Project Scorecard. www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=5719

Author Panel 1: Conference Co-Chair's Favorites

2009-05-06T10:10:00.020-04:00

There's an impressive crowd for the second panel of the day. There have been author panels at MLA for a few years now, and they've unofficially been chosen for being people the conference chairs liked. Well this year that standard was formalized with Michael Colford selecting World Fantasy Award wining author Patricia A. McKillip and Gianna Gifford picking Edgar award winner Laurie R. King (sadly all of Ellen Keane's favorites are dead).

The presentation is being run by Library Journal editor Barbara Hoffert, who says she will stick to asking "the big questions". First up, do each of the author's feel restricted by the genre labels associated with them? Neither of the authors felt terribly restricted, and Patricia mentioned she would like to try something outside of fantasy, but that it is probably what she is best at, although in her novel Winter Rose she butted up against the inherent story structure of fantasy, which prevented her from utilizing the nebulous ending she had intended.

Next question, we seem to be in a period of particularly high interest in fantastic literature, is that a sign of the times or merely happenstance? Laurie feels that in troubling times people prefer stories with firmer structures, which genres tend to lend themselves too. There's also an argument to be made for the need for escapism in times of stress (i.e. Tolkein writing as a product of WWI). Authors are occasionally defensive of escapism, but Laurie prefers to embrace that.

Laurie came to writing "like many writers in her genre" as a second career, albeit after being a life long reader and library user. She cannot imagine not writing for herself, but potentially writing for the sake of others. Patricia on the other hand wrote her first story at age 14 and had published 3 books by the time she completed her Master's degree. However, she also takes a more practical view of her career, namely that an awful lot of the reason for her career is simply to pay the mortgage.

Laurie has difficulty writing the novels featuring the same characters consecutively, needing to vary the voices in her head.

My favorite line of the panel came from Laurie King, "I write with a great deal of authority when I lie". She's had fans come up to her saying they recognized fictional locations from her Mary Russel books, more frequently than those that actually exist.

Patricia's fantasy environments tend to grow fairly organically, one in particular was inspired by a painting she encountered at a Worldcon. The hardest world she's created is one she's still working on (and has been for the last three years). The details of this world have had a tendency to overshadow the narrative. All the world's she creates need to fulfill some personal need within her in order to have any vitality.

Some more good lines from Laurie "I don't find Poirot, Poe or Mrs. Dalloway terribly sexy and Mary Russel is essentially Holmes". "[The Holmes stories] are adult stories of a man driven by his sense of justice".

Patricia feels that epic or high fantasy is defined by a character that has been, to quote Barbara, "forged in the fire" and that character must be victorious by the dictates of the genre. Laurie's crime fiction also follows this dictate, partly because she feels the hero's journey of making order from chaos is critical to her novels, but also because she "doesn't have time for depressing stories".

Laurie is probably the only person to graduate from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in theology to make a living off her degree. Patricia has never felt inclined to incorporate such theological themes in her stories.

Library Journal has picked up on the large crossover between adult and YA novels and has a new column 35 going on 13, thus Barbara is curious what the author's feel regarding the dividing line between the audiences. Is the line permeable? Do author's need to gain an awareness of that line? Laurie's answer: yes.

Laurie feels that all book categories (both genre labels and age appropriate guidelines) are artificial, simply being ways to tell store clerks where to shelve each book. Patricia has one book that she envisioned as an adult novel that was published as YA, which just goes to show the somewhat arbitrary distinction.

And with that the discussion is turned over to questions from the audience:

Neither author has a clear method of keeping track of their stories during the writing process. Both Laurie and Patricia have their own head space for their writing mode and tend not to have organization problems (although Laurie also says she is not an organized writer).

The characters and demands of each story govern their construction.

Neither author shares their drafts with anyone besides their editor (and in Patricia's case her agent).

Gianna had to ask Laurie about her take on Holmes and if she had any difficulty separating him from the image of Basil Rathbone. Laurie is more of a Jeremy Brett fan, but is looking forward to Robert Downey Jr.'s upcoming movie. She has no problem with the idea of her stories being filmed, but knows of other authors who feel that films have taken away their characters.

New writers should attend writers' workshops and conferences to find agents. Also occasionally manuscripts are found in slush piles.

Michael asked about the importance of flawed characters. Patricia feels that such characters are integral in fantasy. All of Laurie's characters "are perfect", but she does feel that flaws can contribute to more well rounded characters. This works the other way too, villains need to have a sympathetic side.

Laurie views her Mary Russel books as an open ended series and has no long term direction in mind. Her Martinelli books are also open ended, but she doesn't view the series of being nearly as numerous, because the Russel fan are more violent (she can never kill Mary).

Who are there favorite authors and what one question would you ask them? Laurie would ask Peter Dickinson why aren't you still writing adult novels? Patricia is a huge fan of P.G. Wodehouse but goes through so many books there's not a particular favorite. She would ask all of them "how did you do that?"

Patricia somewhat arbitrarily makes the decision to write a world closer to reality in many of her novels. In one case she chose that setting because she felt a longing for the Oregon coast at the time.

Laurie is attracted to historical fiction for its ability to actually reflect the present and see it anew.

Laurie was not published in Brittain for roughly 4 years because of questions regarding Sherlock Holmes' status in the public domain.

Both authors will be signing in the vendor hall when it opens later today.

Resonant Leadership

2009-05-06T09:17:00.009-04:00

"When the best leader's work is done the people say, "We did it ourselves'." Lao-Tzu

"Management is about coping with complexity ... Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change ... What leaders really do is prepare organizations for change and help them (people) cope as they struggle through it." John

"The most important personal traits a leader can bring to any kind of change effort are imagination, conviction, passion, and confidence in others." Rosabeth Moss Kanter

"The leader's job, after all, is not to provide energy but to release it from others." Frances Hesselbein, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute and past Chief Executive Office of the Girl Scouts of America

Leadership as a process of encouraging and inspiring others in our lives.

Maureen Sullivan has

more than twenty five years of experience as a consultant on organization development, strategic planning, leadership development, introducing and managing organizational change, organization and work redesign, establishment of staff development and learning programs for today's workplace, creating a work environment that supports diversity, revision of position classification and compensation systems, and the identification and development of competencies

.

Although she resides in Maryland, Maureen welcomes the chance to come to Massachusetts to lead many leadership and library-related management workshops, symposiums and trainings. Once again she returns to MLA and Resonant Leadership.

Maureen's advice: Spend more time listening than speaking – repeat what you have heard and paraphrase. Good leaders know themselves, they know understand and appreciate their followers. Recognize leadership to be a relationship with with those followers. Leaders are authentic and they look toward the future. They are resilient and they engage others in creating and moving toward a vision. You must remain open to learning to be an effective leader. Select three of your strengths – things that you do well and work on those.

Maureen's workshops are always potent and useful. There are many resources on the web that cite her articles and philosophies. In this particular workshop we focused on Resonant Leadership and the principles of the authors of books, Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion by Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee and Becoming a Resonant Leader: Develop Your Emotional Intelligence, Renew Your Relationships, Sustain Your Effectiveness by Richard E. Boyatzis, Fran Johnston, and Annie McKee. Their mentor and colleague is none other than Warren Bennis, author of "The Seven Ages of the Leader."

Maureen stresses these practices for leadership development at your library:
1. Focus on leadership development as a key initiative within the library. Make it a clear priority.
2. Connect and align the leadership development program with the larger change initiatives in the library.
3. Take a broad view of who will have the ability to lead. Be careful not to prejudge potential too early.
4. Create opportunities for potential leaders to interact with effective, more experienced leaders.
5. Identify meaning and challenging projects and assignments that will challenge and stretch potential leaders.
6. Ensure that the current formal leaders in the library are held accountable for effective leadership. Insist that their leadership practice matches the espoused leadership philosophy and values of the library.
7. Make the process as transparent as possible.
8. Recognize the different stages in leadership development.
9. Remain alert to complex and challenging situations. Put managers and potential leaders in those situations.
10. Make your leadership development program one that is based upon an action-learning model.
11. Establish a mentoring program.
12. Expect current leaders to take an active role. Develop their own teachable point of view, i.e. their view of what it takes to be successful in their organization and what it takes to lead others. Create a dynamic story to convey this.
13. Lastly, create a learning culture within the library.

Library Construction: What You Need to Know

2009-05-06T08:56:00.003-04:00

9-10:30

Marjorie Judd, Library Building Consultant
Alex Cohen, Aaron Cohen Associates Ltd.
Richard Marks, President, Daedalus Projects
Dale Caldwell, Lead Project Manager, Skanska USA Building Inc.

Library facility planning in light of rapidly changing collections and patron needs while embracing collaborative spaces and adaptive learning environments.

Marjorie began this part of the presentation by discussing the Library Building Program and its importance in the library building process.

In 1985 Marjorie, the new director of the Middleboro Public Library was told she needed to renovate the library. Marjorie immediately hit the books and did some studies to prepare.
Marjorie addressed the all important question when considering a building project: What comes first in preparing? Self Education and Needs Assessment are the most important phases in considering a building project.

1. Self Education—Director and Trustees
• Go to as many people as possible, including natural allies of the library: historical society, garden club—as many people who could have a say in the final project
• Go to appropriate workshops
• Consult with MBLC Building consultant

2. Needs Assessment (Assess the library’s needs)
• Update the library’s long range plan
• Do a study of the community
• Create and implement surveys
• Do studies of the existing building

What’s wrong with the library? What’s good about the library? What does dream library look like? What are some political hurdles that might impede construction?

Look at reports—long range plans, surveys, studies and try to digest all the data. Measure in-house items at the library such as collection development, the number of computers, collection size, and seats. What corrections should be made? Make a detailed outline and go over it with the director. Write a draft based on observations. Give to library administration to go over page by page. Make sure everyone is comfortable with document set to deliver to whomever (grant board, funding institution, etc.)
Create a lovable space—responsible and perpetually relevant.

Alex Cohen from Aaron Cohen Associates

Look at building designs in addition to as many papers you have examining the library and its needs. A Library building starts with Needs Assessment. What does community need? What services are you delivering? Can the site hold what the community needs? Small communities make it difficult to move a library. Begin by looking at adjacency.

Visual Scan Space Audit=What is the library of the future? Walk around the library and look at the spaces. Use LibQUAL and Visual Scan together to assess ways to improve space dysfunction.

Look at collection, seating and staff—three variables as Alex reminds us. Use the three variables as aggregates of the total square footage. Library programming comprises more than 50% of patron seating, where years ago the library space was used for about 70% of the collection. The present/future model of the library means that it is moving toward a more patron-oriented space.

Alex encourages the audience to develop block diagrams to size service requirements into different phases, phase one and phase two. Make sure that people see right off the bat where the investment is placed. Example of Cohen and Associates work featured in last month’s edition of American Libraries for work in Lane, OH. Lane Public Library, at Cohen’s suggestion, took out a massive circulation desk located in the middle of the reading room to open up the room and enliven the facility. No one wants to read around the circulation desk. It is important to think about space, such as whether people are willing to have their back to people passing behind them; it can be a little disconcerting.

Alex also explains the importance of academic bubbles (Building Program Blocks) to get the size and relation of services and needs right. Are there areas weighing the library down? The idea is to take highlights out of the written reports and studies and break the library down visually.

What does it cost to build the library of tomorrow? How do you get the most out of every dollar? How do you know the budget will hold from concept to completion?

Richard Marks, president, Daedalus Projects

Richard gives a perspective on how to get the library built. Richard emphasizes the importance of the Owner’s Project Manager—OPM (Other People’s Money, as he likes to call it)—The role of the OPM is to spend that $$ wisely. The owner, Richard reminds us, is the top of the food change (follow the money=owner=most important person).
The OPM makes sure the contractor is doing their job. The contractor is looking out for themselves. They want to make money doing the job. Project Manager on the other hand pushes the contractor to do what is in the best interest of the owner.
The OPM should be hired before the architect. The OPM helps sift through and organize the information, including the cost of the project and the making of a budget.

Even though the OPM is incredibly important for maintaining the cost and integrity of the project, they do not know the culture of the town. Living and working in town, residents know best for offering input. The OPM does not know the value and needs of the community; they arrive to manage the project, not dictate what should be built.

Value Engineering

Richard reiterates the importance of what is known as Value Engineering, a sort of reality check so that the design phase remains within budget. Value engineering does not mean changing nice carpet to cheap carpet, but rather getting more bang for your buck. The OPM is on site every day to make sure the bones of the project are right. It is important to remember that it is not easy to fix leaks or tear out wall if there are major construction mistakes along the way. The OPM ensures the construction is done right and done right the first time. Remember, it is easy to paint a wall but not so easy to rip apart a building littered with major structural errors.
Dale Caldwell, Lead Project Manager, Skanska USA Building Inc.

Dale Caldwell, presenting with Richard Marks, stressed a couple of main points about the construction process
Cost control
Cost control is the most important pre-construction function of any project, which includes:
• Careful study of site conditions
• Develop detailed project budget
• Conduct value engineering
• Evaluate materials and life cycle system costs
• Perform detailed drawing and specifications

Schedule control
The construction schedule is incredibly important. Time does equate to money. The prices of materials are changing almost daily. Deflation has hit rock bottom, but it won’t stay that way for long.
Project Budget
Includes all costs associated with the budget to make sure everything is in line and accounted for.
It is a good idea to map out a project budget as a game plan. Every decision leads to another; everything is linked.

Check out the ALA link for organizing and managing your library construction project
ALA Library Construction
And tips for surviving library construction from LJ.com

Technical Services Annual Meeting with David Lee King: Mashups - Mixing It Up

2009-05-06T08:51:00.023-04:00

Good morning everyone. Day two of this year's conference is starting off with an excellent breakfast put on by the Technical Services Section, drawing a decent sized crowd of early arrivals.

Outgoing section chair Cecile Bianco kicked things off by voting in the new slate of officers:

Chair: Jennifer Forgit, Pembroke Public Library

Vice Chair/Chair Elect: Alyssa Freden, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts

Secretary: Heather Stone, New England College of Optometry

Member-at-Large (term expires June 2010): Jeremy Goldstein, Berkshire Athenaeum (W00t!)

Member-at-Large (Term expires June 2011): Demaris Chapin-Berner, University of Massachusetts Darmouth

Membership Chair: Lois Bacon, EBSCO

Past Chair: Cecile Bianco, UMASS: Worcestor

The slate was voted in unanimously, at which point Jennifer Forgit took the podium to introduce the newly created TSS Wiki. Anyone who would like to participate in the wiki should contact Jennifer.

That ends the meeting portion of the section and now it's on to David Lee King's discussion of mash-ups.

Mash-ups are whenever you combine two different things. We are all familiar with non-technical mash-ups, some examples given are sporks, s'mores, and of course the duck-billed platypus.

The basic idea of such mash-ups have been embraced by the technical community, creating plenty of opportunities. One common way of producing these is via api's (application

programing interfaces) which allow developers to have access to some of the code of sites such as twitter and flickr, and then build off of that.

A simpler method of creating such a mash-up is embedding, simply taking a piece from one site and placing it on another. Many sites such, most prominently YouTube, make this a very easy prospect. Widgets are a similar method of embedding information from various sites, often via a chunk of java script provided by the site the material in question originated from. David's site contains examples of widgets from Flickr, YouTube, and LibraryThing.

On YouTube, one creative auteur (whose name starts with a K, but which David can't remember) has created a song by combing various videos available through the service.

Many sites have utilized google maps to create such things as weather maps, real estate maps, and geospacial information for Flickr photos.

The popular service Twitter has also produced a large number of mash-ups. Portwiture for example will search Flickr for photos the can illustrate the contents of your posts. You can also create widgets that will display posts on specific topics (i.e. all that are tagged #masslib09).

David's library, the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, has used many such mash-ups to enhance their website. Thus they are able to share their presences on Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, YouTube, Flickr and other services, and use these to connect with many patrons they wouldn't otherwise interact with. Their site also uses various mash-ups to add Easter-Eggs to their site, such as a graphic tied to a weather report, enhancing user experiences by ensuring each visit will offer a new experience.

The Topeka library also has an intranet site solely for staff use, which connects staff twitter and blog accounts.

Some other libraries doing interesting work with mash-ups on their sites include Hennepin County, the Ann Arbor Distric Library, and the Danbury public library.

So far we have just looked at the staff side to mash-ups, but they also provide huge opportunities for patron participation, by allowing them to create their own content. These sorts of projects can range from simply opening up your site to public comments to what Topeka did by offering a claymation workshop for children and then posting their finished products to YouTube.

Many of these opportunities involve the creation of library "outposts" that exist outside of the library's website. Topeka's YouTube channel includes a number of recorded book reviews from teens, one of which has been viewed 1,500 times! They also have a twitter feed, which is actively watched by local media outlets and other city organizations.

The next step is to mash-up libraries with their communities, which means leaving our buildings. A bookmobile is a mash-up.

You can set up "vanity feeds", alerts that monitor the Internet for mentions of your library. These open up many opportunities to then respond to your community in places you never would have thought of. Many comments picked up from this expanded community provided valuable insights that have influenced Topeka's current strategic plan.

Library sites should add experiences. It's one thing to come to the library and get stuff, it's quite another to then be able to discuss that stuff within a larger community and bond with the library.

This presentation will be online later, in an embeddable format.

Tech Services Annual Meeting

2009-05-06T08:38:00.027-04:00

Wednesday: 9am
Technical Services Annual Meeting
Speaker: David Lee King

The general business portion of the MLA - Technical Services Section began with the approval of last year's minutes and voting on the slate. The Chair, Jennifer Forgit, Pembroke Public Library demonstrated the section's exciting new wiki for sharing information (by-laws, etc...). You can request access to the PB Works wiki by contacting Jennifer, and you can begin practicing using the wiki by navigating to the "sandbox" page.

David Lee King's Presentation -
Climbing out of the box: Mashing up our Community

What is a mashup - it is combining two things to create something new. Some non-techy examples of mashups are: Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Platypus, Smores, Spork, etc..

People are using tools such as API, RSS, XML, SOAP, by hand to create mashups. Examples of some APIs include GoogleMaps, Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc...

Some tools that you can use to creat mashups... include Yahoo Pipes, Dapper, embedding videos in your website from YouTube, Widgetbox to create a badge. David's blog incorporates mashups like widgets (videos badge from blip.tv, Library Thing, Flickr), Google Ads, Amazon. Other mashups that he uses are Google Reader (RSS Aggregator), Netvibes (customizable personal webpage), Dropbox (virtual storage), etc...

Mashups on the web...WikiCrimes, Trulia, Flickrvision, Twitter Trends Aggregator - Twopular, Helveti-tweet, Portwiture, Amazon (book recommendations, etc...), YouTube, Wikipedia (example: several authors contributing to the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library entry),

Mashups are fun and useful... RSS feeds are bringing content from other sources to the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library's website. A Meebo widget is used for the Ask A Librarian service on the website, and they are using Google Maps to display a map of their bookmobile stops! Another cool thing that the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library is doing is combining physical displays (like Travel Books) with digital displays (online Travel Guide of recommended books, websites, etc...), to create a mashup of the real and virtual.

Today's events, library photos, and social media websites (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube Channel, etc..) are being mashed into their website. His Library made a Facebook App for their catalog, to bring a catalog search to their Facebook Page.

What are other libraries doing with mashups...Hennepin County Library is using RSS feeds in their catalog, allowing patrons to comment and contribute content to the catalog, etc... Ann Arbor District Library is allowing for tagging by patrons, RSS feeds, customers that checked out this item also checked out..., their catalog is an early version of SOPAC. Darien Library is doing many similar types of things.

Poke holes in the box with patron participation...like using patron comments on the website, David's library is allowing Teens to create content (moderated) for their website. This is being done outside of the website as well, such as at the library's social media web pages like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube (weekly marketing video, book reviews, etc...) - a junior high student's book review/talk was viewed 1,500 times (great results to include in library statistics and reports)!

Go outside the building to market services... Traditional examples include using their book mobile to advertise, a community forum about the library's services (70 attendees at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library's forum!), librarians going to locations outside the library (coffee shops, etc...). You can also use technology creatively to monitor and respond to what people are saying about your library "vanity feeds" using RSS Feeds/Aggregator like Google Reader, Technorati, etc...

David believes the librarian is the product and we should be marketing ourselves. An example of this is letting patrons "friend" the librarian and not a brand/library on social networking sites. It is about marketing librarians and not just "the stuff" at the library!

The Tough Decisions

2009-05-05T23:08:00.003-04:00

Michael Colford, Conference Co-Chair for this week's events, with a look at tomorrow's kick-off day of the 2009 MLA Conference, "Renew, Refresh, Sustain." After an inspiring pre-conference on Advocacy, we're expecting an eager crowd, raring to go early tomorrow morning. But with the likes of David Lee King, Patricia A. McKillip, Laurie R. King, Maureen Sullivan, Thrity Umrigar, Bill Harley, Sarah Beth Durst, Lynda Barry, Bill Harley, and Elizabeth Thomsen among the many competing interests, what should you make sure you see?

Well, I can't really help you with that one. Fortunately we've got things nicely arranged in tracks, so if you're interested in Books & Reading, you'll want to catch The Publisher Round-Up and Book Buzz, Author Panel 1: Conference Co-Chair's Favorites (which I highly recommend), Author Panel 2: Different Ways of Storytelling, and Writers Live! Libraries Bringing Authors and Readers Together. Similarly, if your library is starting to think of (or in the midst of) a building project, you'll want to spend the day immersed in the Library Construction: What You Need to Know track. Of course, how can you go wrong when Massachusetts Experts (Ten of them!) Share Top Technology Trends or Becoming a Resonant Leader with Maureen Sullivan? You're just lucky this blog is here, because if you have to miss a program, some diligent blogger will be sure to report in right here with all the salient points of the program you have to miss.

Of course, if you're really lucky, you have a ticket to tomorrow night's sold out dinner at the D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, and conversation with Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Michael Cunningham. The bus leaves at 5:30 in front of the Convention Center. If you're not lucky, you can at least join the fun after dinner at the President's Reception and the Youth Services Section's Annual Gaming Night. See you tomorrow!

OMG! UR N IRC!

2009-05-05T16:59:00.004-04:00

An experimental IRC (Internet relay chat) channel has been set up for this MLA conference. It's for folks who are interested and want to play around with "backchannel" chat.

Server: chat.freenode.net (Either the standard port 6667 or the alternate port 8000 should work.)
Channel: #mla2009

The channel may be logged, so don't say anything in the chat room what you wouldn't want to be heard saying in the halls of the conference center. Stop by and say hello.

If you don't already have an IRC client, there are several options available at no cost.

If you have Pidgin or Trillian installed, they both provide IRC access.
If you use Firefox, the Chatzilla add-on is an option.
Colloquy is a good choice for Mac users.
If you can't install a client, or if you just want to try it out, connect through the web at Mibbit.com (IRC: Freenode, Nick: pick a name, Channel: #mla2009)

Finally, #mla2009 is meant to be an informal and social environment. Keep in mind that the discussion isn't limited to libraries, and could cover a lot of ground. Have fun with it.