ALA video

David Lee King created a video from ALA in Anaheim. Of course I can't resist posting it, because he was one of our speakers this year at the OCLC Symposium (video now available). For some reason the video requires IE, note to self. If you didn't make it to ALA this year, you can still go to the blog salon by proxy, sort of, by watching the video...

Flickr has video!

Oh, I am so excited about Videos on Flickr. Not that YouTube doesn't cut the mustard, but I've had trouble uploading a few things to YouTube.

Plus I do prefer Flickr's more visually pleasing, clean interface. (90 seconds or less...this is microcontent at it's finest!)

Libraries in the Mainstream Media

Eric has been good enough to send me two media video clips in as many days, and I'd like to share them with you.

The first is a touching, heartwarming story that just about brought me to tears. It's a woman from Jackson County, Oregon who describes what an emotional, transformative experience the library and library staff have been for her, in her life.

Her article led me to the Jackson County blog--which I had read before but it's worth reading again now, as closure time nears.

Concerned citizens have started the Save Our Library Political Action Committee. This is way cool but too bad it had to come to this...

A TV clip from the CBS Early Show that looks at positive (Princeton, NJ) and negative (Jackson Co.) library funding areas. Nice plug from Leslie Burger in there. Their overall report saying library funding is up...which I am not sure jives with the recent LJ article. But mainstream media...that there was coverage at all is something.

And speaking of, Katie Couric did a page in her online notebook about libraries recently. Her message reinforced that libraries=books, but she did have good mentions of the additional materials you'll find there like DVDs, internet access and more.

Funny how no one mentions the marvelous electronic databases you can gain access to? Or more importantly, the wonderful, kind and caring librarians who can help kids discover magical new lands and help adults continue to grow and expand their world-views? It seems like mainstream media is focused on the stuff--but Meghan O'Flaherty's connection is clearly with the people first and the stuff second....

It makes me think that the people in the library--librarians, paraprofessionals, volunteer help--are even more important than your collection, in terms of helping people connect with (and support) your library.

Social Networking & Privacy Video Clips

As part of the work we've done on our next report, we had three discussion groups convened to ask young people questions about their use of social networking sites (like Facebook) and issues relating to privacy.

The first session was done at my hair salon, Rafiel's Signature Studio (hmmm, thought there was a web site, but I can't find it). The second and third were at Mcmaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The sessions were filmed and our in-house media wiz, Rich Skopin, took the raw film and turned it into five segments we used at the Symposium last month. We've put the segments up on the web, and you can watch them--they're all short. Scroll half way down this page for the links. (Below them you'll see the links for the podcasts from the Symposium)

Why my hair salon you might be wondering? During one appointment, I was chatting with Emily about what I was doing at work, and I asked her, so, do you use MySpace? Oh yes, she said, and so does everyone else here. Ah-ha! Instant focus group! Actually not all the staff is on MySpace--Raphael, the owner is not.

The McMaster groups were undergraduates in one and graduates in the other...and if you listen, you'll hear many references to MSN which seems to be more popular in Canada than in the US.

One of the evaluations that we got from the Symposium suggested we should "provide examples from a greater cross-section of society. Soundbites are all from very well-spoken young people." I think you'll agree that the young people are all very well-spoken, thoughtful and not unaware of the risks and issues related to using social media--but, I wonder if this commenter didn't realize that the staff of Rafiel's has high school educations and trade diplomas as compared to, say, the grad students working on their second or third degrees. Proof that being well-spoken is not a de facto by-product of advanced education.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the clips--and keep checking back to the report web site because we'll be adding more stuff as it's ready.

Valentine's tips

Sent it to IAG twice yesterday, but it never made it. Here's the boring old link to the PLA Blog's coverage of the March of the Librarians You Tube video. Yes, he does say "mate" in the same sentence at ALA.

Also, from Business Week, some tips from the girls at 3iYing for a more modern Valentine's Day.