Housekeeping

We're close to announcing this blog to our world, so now's a good time to say some things about what we still need to do with the blog, and tell you ways to talk to us.

We need to make it clearer who's 'speaking' by moving the name of the poster up in the entry. We need to make the Atom feed link appear. We need to darken the type face. We need to index the entries. We need to add a Technorati bubble (Tim Bray's blog shows this). And a bunch of other stuff. Bear with us as we eat our own cooking. In the environmental scan we clearly suggested it was time for libraries and contiguous organizations (OCLC, eg) to get outside of the building and connect with our communities--potential and current--with a more human voice.

So, we're diving into the blogosphere with the hope that the human voices at OCLC have a venue in which to talk and listen. There have always been wonderfully interesting people working at OCLC but we know too that OCLC is often thought of as the "9,000 pound gorilla"....a behemoth in the information jungle, cutting a wide swath as it lumbers on its way. Collectively, maybe that's the effect, but George and Alice and I are dedicated "librarianistas" (is George a "librarianisto"?)as keenly interested in a robust place for libraries in the "infosphere" as you are. And there's hundreds of OCLC employees who are too. We intend to have guest editors pop in to "It's all good" so you don't hear from us only.

You can post comments to this blog (although we'll remove really offensive ones...racial, sexual, etc etc comments won't be tolerated. And spam will go too).

You can email the editors directly. George's e-mail is needhamg@oclc.org and mine (Alane) is wilsona@oclc.org. I'd tell you Alice's too but haven't asked her yet if this is OK. She's somewhere here in Orlando for ALA too, but I haven't connected with her yet.

And in the car on the way to the airport (Port Columbus...go figure. Not a body of water for miles) I heard a cut from Patti Smith's new album, Trampin'. I haven't listened to her for years but it was really good! Literate and passionate and I think I have to get it. That, and Diana Krall's latest, The Girl in the Other Room.