Technology Essentials

When economic times are tough staff or professional development can be one of the first things to go. It's a bummer because just when many library staff most need new skills or support from their colleagues, resources just aren't as readily available to ensure that they have what they need to meet new challenges in their work. It's so important to find cost-effective ways to connect - to share what we're facing, what we're learning, and how we're coping.

WebJunction's first online conference is happening next week on February 9 & 10. The conference theme is "Technology Essentials" and there are five sessions with fabulous speakers lined up for each day. Recently, ALA TechSource interviewed our conference organizers, the incredible Sharon Streams and Jennifer Peterson. I tell you these people that I work with are crazy awesome, btw. In their interview, I was struck by their perfect description of the goals and purpose of the conference:

The goal is to provide an affordable and accessible venue for library staff to share practical and timely solutions for their needs! Now more than ever, we need to band together to solve problems, and that we recognize that attending an in-person conference is completely impractical for many library staff. Looking at how online programming has changed over the past five years, I think we’re in for an exciting time of online conferences!

The full interview is great - exploring trends and topics in online conference planning and attendance, but also the reasons why we might be seeing more of these down the line. I don't ever think that online connections will take the place of the benefits of in-person meetings or face-to-face interactions. But when we just can't get to see each other (for whatever reason, but cost is obviously a big one) this is one way we can try and connect anyway.

Please pass the word on to anyone you think might enjoy or benefit from these free online sessions. We look forward to sharing how our first online conference goes.

Fewer libraries, more locations?

Eric Hellman has an interesting post on his blog "go to hellman" (great name, incidentally).

He postulates that by 2020 "the number of public libraries in 2020 would be half of what it is today. (And) the number of public library locations would increase by 50%." He goes on to describe a world with smaller, cheaper to run library outlets in different locations, and shuttering of some of the larger edifices. He thinks that the e-content revolution and the need to consolidate public services in times of restricted funding will help bring this about.

Hellman makes a pretty good case. We have already seen a lot of constriction in library budgets during the past few years, and given the state of the economy and the big black holes in government budgets, things aren't going to be rosy for a while.

So is the big box library a tool or a principle? If the building is a way to create a hub in your community, any space where people are willing to gather and share could work as a tool. If the building is a secular monument, a tourist attraction, or a way to keep a small town from sliding into oblivion, then the principle is a lot different.

New Jersey Rules!

Did you see this today? The US Secretary of Education and the Governor of New Jersey did a story time at a public library, and they recognized the importance of children's programs in public libraries to success in education.

I've been waiting my entire professional career to see this kind of recognition! Now it's time to leverage, people, leverage. Follow up with emails and calls to Secretary Duncan's office, thanking him for this exposure and asking him to include public and school libraries in the distribution of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds.

State and local funding for libraries is being pummelled across the US. Now is the time for us to grab for the brass ring.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Cheerleaders and Librarians

I attended the California Library Association conference in San Jose this past weekend. Sharing the convention center was a competition of cheer squads. These are cheerleaders who don't cheer for a specific team, school, or sport, but rather compete on the basis of their own athleticism, coordination, and style.

It occurred to me that libraries should both have cheerleaders (because of the importance and the necessity of the work done) and be cheerleaders (to show the rest of the world how excited we are about what we do).

One of the findings of the recent OCLC report From Awareness to Funding was the importance of passionate librarians in making the case for libraries. What could be more passionate than a champion cheerleader?

Is Borders Becoming a For-Profit Public Library?

Check out this article in today's USA Today and consider. They are mixing books, digital downloads and their inevitable coffee shops in a single concept store. A quote from the article:

...follow the table of books snaking off to the right, and you'll come face-to-face with Borders' newest retail strategy: a digital center where you can download music or books, burn CDs, research family histories, print pictures and order leather-bound books crammed with family photos — with help from clerks who know how to do those sorts of things and won't embarrass you if you don't.

That description sounds chillingly familiar, doesn't it?

Pecha Kucha Night at your Library?

My always-on source of interesting, relevant material just sent me another tidbit of fascinating culture:
Pecha Kucha Night
Basically, it's a way for up-and-coming architects and visual designers to show their hot new ideas off, but not get bogged down in the nitty-gritty. Each person gets 20 slides and 20 seconds for each slide.

This could be a great way to draw creatives and artistically-inclined cultural mavens into your library on a biweekly (fortnightly) or monthly basis.

I say fortnightly because I've been at Members Council the past 2 days and am feeling quite global. Or wishing I could express myself less U.S.-centrically...

Things that don't suck

According to Wired magazine...Public libraries! (Right between "heated seats" and "remote control.")

I would have put ice cream higher up on the list. But maybe placement on the list does not indicate its rank of nonsuckiness.

Also check out the list of things that do suck. (According to Wired.) What's cool is, they've gathered scientific reasons for the suckiness.

(Spotted by Andy!)

What I've Been Doing

So what, you might ask, have I been doing?

I will spare you the litany of boring diapers, wipes, goo-goo, ga-ga mumbo-jumbo.

But I have seen how the other half lives. The other half being the men and women in our (this is geared for public libraries) communities who descend upon our stacks, our computers, our DVD piles...during normal business hours.

I have always wondered what the rest of the world does, while we all go to work and stare at screens, sit in meetings and talk on phones. Now I know! They go on walks(!), they volunteer for political campaigns (!), they take naps (!), they do laundry mid-week (!), and they scoff at the idea of needing Microsoft Outlook to help them organize their day(!!!)

Okay, maybe some of them use Outlook. But I seriously unplugged and mysteriously feel no worse the wear for it. I happily admit to having a very large GAP in my blog, news and magazine reading. But I have a very large STASH of photos with family members on beaches, at sunsets, around dining room tables and yes, even in Jackson Square, New Orleans.

Now obviously I am not recommending a wholesale mass exodus of the workforce OR of technology. Otherwise who would be around to read my pontifications? But as a temporary realignment, a small re-engagement with some of the people we serve...it's a great mini-sabbatical I can encourage, to help one remember that the world does not end with deadlines, agendas and achievements.

Sunshine can bring happiness. As can warm cookies from the oven, or to notice the tomato plant that has valiantly hung on past a frost. These fleeting pleasures, born of leisure, were mine for a time.

So indulge those seeming vagabonds among you. They may be building memories.

Libraries are Getting Cool Points

It's not just my rose-colored glasses. Libraries and librarians have been getting GREAT press lately, in terms of shifting the general public's perceptions of us being irrelevant, old, dusty, bun-wearing, shushing places or people. Name your stereotype and the mainstream press is starting to help shift things. See my latest case in point (thanks , Eric) from the San Francisco Chronicle, "San Francisco libraries have become neighborhood best-sellers."

And you know the funny thing about it. Whether or not it is *actually* true in your particular library, you can start living it like it's true (not that you haven't been already, for years) and it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Hope you are having your own "running of the bulls" each morning as you open the doors of your public library. You academic librarians, enjoy the back-to-school bustle that's starting up!

13 Ways of looking at a public library

With indebtedness to the research team and only marginal similarity to Wallace Stevens's work. The list below is a tour de force of what a public library is, was, and is in the process of becoming--for communities across the United States:

1. Technology center: Provides access to all forms of technology and software that people may not otherwise have access to, making the library relevant in the 21^st Century.

2. A resource for small businesses: Provides all the resources a small business would need – including free private office space, computers with internet access, phone, copier, scanner, and fax machine. It would also provide access to online databases like ABI Inform as well as other business related resources like books about finances, marketing, etc.

3. Workforce training center: Provides instructor-led classes on entrepreneurship, presentation skills, computer skills, sales generation, financial planning, marketing and other business related topics in order to improve the workplace skills and marketability of community members.

4. Source of all government forms/applications: Acts as a one-stop-shop for all government forms as well as provides resources and advice about filling out the forms and submitting them.

5. Resource for job seeking: Provides resources and consultation for resume writing and interview skills to aid community members in their job hunt. In addition, it provides free Internet access for searching online job seeking services like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com.

6. Resource for tax preparation: Provides tax forms, access to tax preparation resources and step by step guidance during tax season.

7. Health Resource center: Acts as a health information resource by providing the most up-to-date health and medical information, flu shots and other vaccinations, health insurance and Medicare information and advice.

8. Teen center: Provides a safe place for teens to gather outside of school, get help with school work, and have access to the Internet and computer games.

9. A community center: Serves as a community center that provides free meeting space to hold group meetings, attend/host special events or spend time socializing with friends.

10. Immigration center: Provides a place where immigrants have access to government forms, books and other information resources in languages other than English. It also provides literacy classes and other English as a second language (ESL) courses to help immigrants adapt to the community.

11. Music and art center: Acts as a cultural center where community members can come to learn about different types of music and art through books and other resources, but can also create and display their own art and perform their own music.

12. Research Center: Provides access to information on a wider variety of topics than you can find anywhere else through its online databases, reference materials, and the expertise of librarians.

13. Social center: Offers a café and lounge-like atmosphere for people to gather and socialize.

Of course, I'm not saying that every public library should be all of these things--but it's a nice consolidated list of many, many of the aspirations we've heard/felt/thought/seen, for public libraries in this country. Looking through this list, it feels like a little bit of paradise. (If only there was a beach or swimming pool--but I am sure that will come in PL 2.0.)