where's the party?

Many of us are getting ready for ALA in California, but I've got something coming up a tad more quickly that's keeping me from settling on any ALA plans. I'll be in Dublin, OH next week along with some of my WebJunction colleagues for a face-to-face meeting with our community partners. The purpose of our meeting is to train partners on the use of our new platform at WJ, and we're excited to further (and finally) show it off to everyone, not to mention having them get in there and start playing with things themselves. I say finally because we had to push off a partner preview period in order to, well, get a few things in order before showing it off. Surprises abound, let me tell you, anytime you're planning and implementing a major platform switch-a-roo.

I feel a little like a party hostess getting ready for guests (who've been asked to come a few weeks later). Online facilitation often feels like party hosting. But the stakes are higher now that anticipation is mounting *and* we'll all be together for the first time since last June, not to mention a few more additions to our partner group. I am in constant amazement of my colleagues here at WJ and all the hard work they've all done to make sure the meeting and all its preparations are a complete success.

At this meeting we expect to show off improved functionality the new site brings both to WJ members and admins. This includes enhanced personalization, professional networking, and ease-of-use. Contributions can take place in-line right from the page after a member is logged in (right now we use a separate, back-end content management system). Pages can be tagged and bookmarked, friends and groups will form, surfacing more relevant content based on your interests. Altogether, we think we're onto a much more engaging experience for members. On the admin side we'll show off easier management of content, courses, and users, and well as the ability to better message groups, control access to private resources, and track member engagement. What's more, our course catalog will be much improved, with Mac accessible 'just in time' course content offered in a much more blended online learning environment. All around, we're excited to hear what our partners think of the work we've done on the platform so far, and look forward to working with them over the coming months to get ready to show it off to everyone who'll be visiting and using the new version of WJ coming later this year. Woot! Woot!

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? With George

April was a blur of speaking engagements, meetings, budget crunch time at OCLC, and a bad case of bronchitis for the long-suffering Joyce. And May is going to make me wish for the good old days of April.

While it was a blur, some wonderful moments stand out from April's speaking engagements:

• The discussion with the archivist in Oklahoma about how far we need to go make special collections accessible and useful for the public
• Speaking at the Small and Rural Libraries conference in Columbus, with an audience that included all the other speakers, such as Steve Coffman, Glen Holt, Leslie Holt, Rivkah Sass, Denise Davis, and Blane Dessy---sort of like singing karaoke in front of Jose Carreras
• Hearing the question come up again at the Library of Virginia about how public librarians can work more effectively with classroom teachers to improve services to students. Someone should offer a large cash prize to the person who can develop a scalable, effective solution to that conundrum.
• And the beautiful setting and excellent discussion at the annual meeting of the Academic Libraries Section of the Kentucky Library Association in Cumberland Falls State Resort Park
  

My only May speaking engagement got canceled, but this month, the IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellows are in residence here in Dublin. My colleagues Nancy Lensenmayer and Susan Saggio are the brains and the brawn behind this project, but I get to go along on some of the field trips. Photos of our trip to DC, including the Library of Congress and the Folger Shakespeare Library are here.

Also, this month includes meetings of Members Council, the OCLC regional service providers, the WebJunction Advisory Committee, and two more trips out of town with the Fellows.

BlueShirtNation.com

There's an excellent article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal about how Best Buy's internal social networking application (BlueShirtNation.com) resulted in some very positive unexpected consequences for the electronics chain, including increased employee retention and participation in the 401k plan. According to the login page, BlueShirt Nation is "the place we go to talk about stuff. To connect with each other. To make stuff."

So how could this apply in a library setting? A similar internal network could feed information throughout the library on what is popular, what is or isn't working, policies that might need review...in other words, all the stuff that the front line staff can see that administrators might not.

Blue Screen of Death

I had it this morning.
On the new computer.


Happily preparing for ALA antics. There will be a blogger salon, hands-on play with WorldCat social tools workshops, a somewhat offbeat game show (complete with prizes) and much, much more.
And I just booked my flights. Oh, the anticipation of it all. Wha Hoo!

Google working on images

Today I was randomly looking for chamber of commerce signs online. You know--the decal ones that people used to put on their storefront windows. Maybe they still do. But they aren't taking photos of them...at least from my 2 minute search. But what did come up was interesting--the Google Image Labeler.
It's basically a game that you can play, to tag images with a random other person who happens to be online. You get points for all your tags. I don't know what you do with your points...maybe redeem in the Google merchandise store?

This Image Labeler game, plus the article in the NYTimes about the Automated Image search, makes me think that Google has the hots for images right now.

Of course, the two efforts are probably not related at all, except by proximity in my own mind...the automated image search is geared for products. The labeler might be for something else entirely. And they're going about it completely different ways.

Distributed cataloging, anyone? Maybe we should add some gaming aspects to Connexion for all the Gen Y'ers coming up through the ranks.

working knowledge

I am an online community builder for librarians. In short, my job, my actual job, is to help librarians find and connect with each other online. I've said many times that I think I have the best job in library land. Sometimes, honestly, like today, it's not all that. It's not that I get discouraged, though sometimes that happens too, as I'm sure happens in the course of many of our day-to-days, but rather that I find my job very, very difficult. Head. Banging. Against a Wall. Difficult.

The parts that are most challenging for me have to do with resources. In our environment, as in most, resources are limited, and even though my particular project is considered well-funded, and indeed we are, it is a constant struggle to align those resources towards absolute efficiency and effectiveness. Of course, resources aren't just the dollars. There's also our time and our staff. I work really hard, and I know the team that I work with works really hard, to try and make the best decisions that we can about how to line things up effectively. Still, things are changing around us so rapidly. The plans we make are almost never exactly manifested. We always dream much bigger than we're able to implement. We always want to do more than we're able to in a day. By the time we're implementing there are three, five, or ten more things we wish we would have known. How can we be more clever? do this smarter? start that sooner? (And I'm not even really talking about the technology here. I'm talking more generally, about every aspect of the work.)

The other thing is that everybody cares so much about this work. In some ways I think it's a burden to feel so passionately about libraries and community. I often wonder if caring about the work as much makes me less effective. Am I missing something by taking things as seriously? How can I infuse humor, light, and even some degree of dispassion into my work so that I can be as personally nimble as the technologies I use and advocate for?

One of the best books I've read on libraries and change is "The Thriving Library" by Marylaine Block. I love this book. She outlines the things that "thriving" libraries are doing - not as a recipe, but as an example of some things that we can draw into our own libraries and communities. Come to think of it, Robert Putnam does the same thing in his work "Better Together" where he looks at successful community building projects and says 'here are a few things that work. it's not a recipe. just something to think about. something to try.'

So fine, there's no recipe. There's no perfect process, no perfect "plan for results". I think I can deal with that. And maybe things get easier as you gain experience and move through your career, (and perhaps that's another story). In all, I'd still say I have the best job EVER. I even know somewhere that the fact that it's difficult for me, that I'm constantly feeling like I'm new at this and that there's a lot to learn, is part of the reason it's such a great job for me.

But maybe tomorrow could be easier. Maybe tomorrow my cleverness could just swoop in and *poof!* solve the tough questions currently in front of me. Shoot, it wouldn't even have to be my cleverness. It could be yours. Please?

Alarm when your library is too loud?

Boisterous talk over at the Chronicle Wired Campus this morning about the potential of an alarm/flashing lights in academic libraries when the decibel level gets too loud.

To me, this seems like overkill. But then again I wouldn't want to go around shushing any more than anyone else. So maybe you can establish the top floor/West wing, etc. as the group study/open talk area...and the rest of the building can be a quieter zone?

An alarm would seem more obtrusive, to me. But I do remember well from my student days, the intercom to tell us that the library was closing in 15 minutes. Could you simply use it?

Today's most e-mailed article from the Chronicle of Higher Education

"Snacks in the Stacks: Libraries Welcome Food Amid the Books." (It's
No lie, that was the number one e-mailed article.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad about this fact.