The Wiki Witch on ALA--Version 1.1

('cause I'm sure there will be a version 2.0)

What's here:

My highlights

My least favorite (and why)

Ideas pulled from ALA

Highlights--

1)  Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog:

AWESOME!!! 

We heard from Matt Gullett out of Charlotte-Mecklenburg on what they are working on over there.  It's cool, we knew it would be cool--they do cool things.  He talked about their Library 2.0 program and it's updated Library 2.1 program.  He also talked about their research into gaming in libraries, Imagine 2010, and their Technology Scholars Program.  For their scholars program, employees with a technological idea they think they can develop into something that would help the community, they get six monthes to work with the IT department to develop the idea into a workable program.  What a gift from the library!  Check out these links to learn more about Matt's program and what PLCML is doing.

explorediscoverplay.blogspot.com

mgullett.blogspot.com

plcmclearning.blogspot.com

librarybytes.com

youthtech.wordpress.com

Tom Peters from TAP Info Services talked about using Second Life in the library world.  This was pretty neat.  I've been meaning to play around with Second Life, but just haven't found the time.  This talk gave me more push to find the time.  I'm still not sure how well it would work for Durham County--I'm not sure we have the staff resources to use Second Life and get something out of it, I think someone on the staff should explore and we can't dismiss it automatically.  You can check it out at:

www.infoisland.org

John Blyberg, formerly of Ann Arbor and currently at Darien Library, talked about "The Social OPAC."  This was probably the most inspirational part of the talk.  John worked on am OPAC that used the same features of Amazon.com and LibraryThing to give our customers ownership over the catalog.  He believes this increase the chance of serendipity and adds value to our catalog.  This OPAC has tags, reviews, rating, and a place for comments.  You really have to check out the "card generator."  Check out parts of this talk at:

www.blyberg.net

 

www.blyberg.net/card-generator

Lastly, but certainly not least, was Meredith Farkas from VCU.  If you regularly read this wiki, you've already read some of her ideas.  A lot of the links off our "Other Research" pages are from her blog.  The many things she believes libraries can use the new social software sites for are: building a knowledge base like the community wiki like RocWiki (I really want to host something like this for Durham); for getting feedback like using a blog to post feedback on the suggestion box and using FaceBook or MySpace to respond to and solicit requests for library materials; for being more transparent (you will see the organization of this wiki change when the strategic plan roles out to help us be transparent in how well we meet our goals); and using wikis to do subject guides and bibliographies.  Read more of Meredith at:

meredithfarkas.wetpaint.com

2)  Ambassador Dennis Ross's talk at the Lexis-Nexis Breakfast.

Not so awesome as SCARY!!!  Ambassador Ross was an amazing speaker (thank you Lexix-Nexis for feeding me and to Lisa Norberg and UNC for winning the award that allowed me to go to the breakfast) with a clear message and a clear idea of how he wants to get the message out.  I'm going to do my part.  Read his new book Statecraft and expect the presidential candidates (of both parties) to clearer answer how they are going to practice their foreign policy.

 

3) Readers Advisory Off the Chain

This was inspiring.  David Wright from Seattle Public, Zane, Kelly Link, and Carrie Kania from HarperCollins talked about serving the lost twenty-something readers not generally served by the books reviewed in the New York Times and writing like that found in the New Yorker.  David talked about finding new voices for these readers, exploring older cult writers, and urban/street lit.  Zane, Kelly, and Carrie all answered questions.  HarperCollins gave away some books (Dishwasher by Pete Jordan is fabulous, thank you HarperCollins).  You can check them out at www.readersadvisoronline.com.  Get out there and get reading!

 

4) Last, but certainly not least, was the FOLUSA tea.

I got a signed book from Joyce Carol Oates and got to tell Frank Delaney I liked his specs.  Do I need to say more about the tea?  The authors were Oates, Delaney, Susan Vreeland, Eileen Gouge, and Markus Zusak.  FOLUSA pulled off something nearly impossible--not only were all FIVE of the speakers wonderful, but two of them had dreamy accents.

 

 

My Least Favorite Thing (and why):

Picking out highlights was hard--how to choose from so many wonderful moments.  Picking out my least favorite part of the weekend was easy:

The Preconference

When Jean, Autumn and I left on Thursday, I was pretty excited about the preconference.  It was on "extreme makeovers" of your library and, even though I'd heard it before, there was so much information I was glad to hear it again. 

Why was it disappointing?

1)  Queens is doing a massive remodel of 63 libraries.  It's a big job but--no matter how thick your New York accent is, a monotone voice is still hard to listen to for an hour and a half.

2)  The San Jose Way.  Dave Genesy came in November so I've had some time to think about this idea and it hit me on Friday at the preconference why it made me uncomfortable.  Dave (who is now at Redwood City) walked around our library and told us, in no uncertain terms, what we were doing wrong.  While I agree with a lot of it, I worry that it will encourage us to be lazy in our design and design a sort-of public library chain look.

I think a metaphor best explains why it makes me uncomforable.  Take a restaurant.  Chili's tastes and looks the same no matter where you are.  A Chili's in New York City looks and tastes like a Chili's in San Antonio, like a Chili's in San Fransisco, like a Chili's in Billings, Montana.  Maybe they put a picture of the local football team on the wall in place of some other kitsch, but it reflects nothing else about the local community the way a BBQ restaurant in Durham is different from one in Lexington, even if they are both in North Carolina.   As I was listening to the woman from San Jose talk about the "San Jose Way" all I could think about is not that we are turning into bookstores, but that we are turning into a chain.  It's easier to buy nice shelving, merchandise a little, buy bestsellers, and call ourselves done than to think and really work at making sure each and every library in the system reflects the needs and flavor of the community it serves.

 

Perhaps I'm over reacting to this, and I probably am a little, but I just think we have to be careful not to be come a public library chain or franchise.  I also think we may have it easier than a business.  Dave Gennesy warned us against sitting on our laurels enjoying the fact that people love libraries and want them to exists even if they never use them themselves.  It's true, we should sit on our laurels---BUT, we can use those laurels to take time a bookstore or other local business may not have at their disposal.  We are also more connected to the community (or at least we should be) and we can use those connections.  Or perhaps, to put it another way, since we are an arm of local government, we should strive to be as locally oriented as we can be.

 

Okay.  I'm off my soap box now.

 

Ideas from ALA

I got a tone of new ideas for DCL while wandering around DC.  It's hard to know where to begin and to know if I've remembered them all, so here they go:

1) Staff webpages.    We all know some of the patrons (many of the patrons?) have their favorite staff members.  Most of the time, it's a staff member they know has similar taste in books, always understand what question they mean to ask, etc.  Someone it's creepy and our personal space is invaded, but mostly it's friendly and part of the library community.  As I was listening to the folks from San Jose (yes, the same San Jose woman that inspired my tirade) talk about the library being about "relationships" rather than just about books anymore, I was thinking of how to inspire the friendly-type relationship.  Then, while listening to David Wright talk about "RA Off the Chain" and idea hit me--what is some staff (only those interested) had their own staff webpages off the DCL site.

 

I wasn't thinking of anything really personal, mostly I was thinking of using it as a Readers' Advisory tool.  Along with "staff picks," staff who were interested could post what they are reading or have read and a little annotation.  Or they could track the the reading process of their last 5 books, how they got from reading book A to reading book E.  Or, to make it a bit more personal, folks who have a Second Life avatar they use for library work could post the name and a picture of their avatar.

 

My page might have my name and the branch I work at.  Then I might put that I'm reading How to Seduce a Ghost because I the cover of How to Marry a Ghost caught my eye on the new books display on the third floor and I HATE starting in the middle of a series, even if you can.   Talking about How to Seduce a Ghost with another mystery reader I see at the library led me to check out Earl Stanley Garder, whose now next on my reading list.  A couple links to our catalog and I'm done.

 

Maybe it's not terribly interesting, but I wonder if the idea can be played with to really make people feel like the library is community (rather than librarian) owned, make the library feel more social, and make the scary librarians feel more human to our customers.

 

Later the same day...Maybe even better than our own page, check out this Scrapblog on books!

 

2) More wikis!  I mentioned above that I think the Library should host a wiki with information about living in Durham--like the RocWiki.  I also would love to see an readers' advisory wiki and subject guide wikis.  The RA wiki could work like a conversation with our patrons about books and not only would it encourage conversations between library staff and customers about books, but it would also help facilitate conversations between customer and customer about books.  As for the subject guide wikis, perhaps our ability to update our reference pages with change with a webmaster, but right now they are SOOO behind.  It's hard to change dead links or add new ones.  It's not a very dynamic site.  A wiki would help with that, and for our customers who really know a subject, they could post books on the bibs as well.  Also, we wouldn't have to rely on Angie to make bibs for everything.  If someone is looking for books on gardening in the south, we can print them the subject guide from the wiki, which might have some links and books.  As for time commitment, it's not that hard to manage a wiki.  It could be because this is a small wiki and posting have died down in the summer, but it's not a huge time commitment to look over the changes and make sure nothing inappropriate has been posted.  If something has been posted that shouldn't have been--it's really easy to fix.

 

3) At least one mixed fiction/nonfiction display.  We librarians do like to compartmentalize and sometimes I think we need to shake it up a bit.  For example, for a Valentines Day display, we could have romance novels, books on the history of diamonds, some books on making chocolate desserts, and some books on the lives of the saints.  It could totally bomb, but I think it would catch people's eye as they look to see how and why we tie seemingly unrelated books together.  This was also one of the suggestions at the RA workshops--trying to make some of your displays unpredictable.

 

I'm sure I had more, only I can't remember then right now--other than I really, really, really want the Ann Arbor catalog John Blyber worked on with its tagging and card generators.