Library Apples

Library Analysis #3: Public Library

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 20:07:00 +0000

1. Name of Library:

John F. Germany Public Library of the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative (HCPLC)

900 N. Ashley Dr.

Tampa, FL 33602

813.273.3652

http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/locations/jfg/

2. Name of Librarian: Joe Stines, Director

3. Background of Librarian:

Mr. Stines has cared about public libraries since he was a kid, and can recall a special library field trip when he was a child in school himself. He volunteered in libraries when he was in high school, and worked in them thirty hours a week throughout the last two years of his undergraduate studies, gaining a children’s library background. He was going to become a history teacher, and in his undergraduate studies at East Carolina University, he double-majored in history and library science. Then he received a scholarship from the North Carolina Library Association toward a Master’s degree, so he pursued it at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He has always worked in public libraries, except for a five-year stint in a special library at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s Energy and Environment Research Center. Mr. Stine came to Florida in 1985 and saw a job advertisement, and the rest is history. He is a member of the American Library Association (ALA) and the Public Library Association (PLA). He is a past member of the National Association of Storytelling, has served on the board of the Florida Library Association (FLA), has been president of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC), and has chaired numerous committees. He attempts to balance local action with national. However, one of his pet peeves is directors who are never in their library. He is a proud graduate of the Eckerd College Leadership Development Program (in which he was one of only five not-for-profit students), which he attended thanks to a scholarship from the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay. He has been on the board of the Tampa Educational Cable (TEC), working closely with the children’s board on projects. Mr. Stine encourages librarians to be on the board(s) of areas they’re working in. He does ongoing continuing education in leadership and management.

4. Library: The John F. Germany Public Library is a well-lit, comfortably air-conditioned, and spacious library of 140,000 square feet with a central downtown Tampa location, near popular attractions such as the Straz Center for Performing Arts, and the new Glazer Children’s Museum. It is the headquarters of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System (THPL). The multi-floor, multi-wing library houses an Internet Center with public access computers, a Teen Computer Lab, and a Kids Computer Lab. The library contains nearly a half-million volumes, and includes the Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection of almost 15,000 images, the Foundation Center Collection with information on corporate and government funding, the Genealogy Collection—one of the largest in the Southeastern United States, a Local History Collection with photographs and subjects specific to Tampa and the Florida region, and a Small Business Center with invaluable information for small businesses. Other features of the John F. Germany library include: free WiFi, public meeting rooms, public fax, photocopiers, a teen area, and assistive technology such as Jaws, Open Book, DragonSpeak, and Keys-U-See. The library also holds to a basic Code of Conduct for patrons, creating and maintaining a safe and secure environment for all. Events offered by the John F. Germany Public Library appeal to a variety of interests, and include computer and software classes such as Microsoft Word, Publisher, Powerpoint 2010, and formatting techniques; children’s activities; language instruction and practice such as Spanish and French; movie marathons; book sales; using eBooks and audiobooks with Overdrive; Japanese drumming; children’s yoga; and interactive Kung Fu movies. On the day of this visit, I observed abundant tables, chairs, and seating; a well-structured, safe environment with a Code of Conduct that included an “items must fit” box at the entryway; staff were visible, approachable, and centrally stationed; and the atmosphere was quiet, studious, and work-focused.

a. What type of library is it? It is a public library.

b. What type of community does it serve? What special information needs do they have? It serves the very diverse, evolving city of Tampa and its surrounding communities. It is an empowered, online, urban population. The community has pockets of special needs. For example, there are language needs such as in Egypt Lake (Central North Tampa), where much of the population is from South America. The library has had an important impact on developing language skills, such as when it created the Hillsborough County Literacy Council twenty-seven years ago with grants, which teaches English as a second language. The library has also created the “Cybermobile” whose big purpose is to go into Spanish speaking neighborhoods and provide orientation to computers and computer skills.

c. Is the library open to the public? If so, on what basis? Yes. See below (g) for library hours. Additionally, the genealogy collection is open to the general public - no library card required - during regular library hours, but materials are restricted to in-library use only. There are also computer labs, providing internet access to the public; a Friends of the Library Bookstore; fun and educational programs for children and adults throughout the year; and bestsellers, music, videos, books-on-tape, and much more for patrons of all ages. There is a librarian on staff at all times when open, providing support and assistance.

d. How many patrons are eligible for service? How many patrons are served? The percent of library cards to the population is 45%. This dropped from 50% a few years ago, mainly because the library closed its doors to reciprocal borrowing with surrounding counties because of monetary issues, as the library system was flooded with ILL requests when this program was operational. There is now a $100 fee to use this library system for patrons from another county.

e. To which governing body or to which official does the head of the library report? Mr. Stines reports to the deputy county administrator via regular e-mail communications, quarterly reports, and a blog which he created to keep her informed, as she covers many public interests, including fire departments for example. There is also a library board, created by state law and consisting of twelve appointed citizens, who oversee the budget and policies, and play a very powerful role in considering censorship cases.

f. What special services are offered to the patrons? The library offers a talking-book library for blind and handicapped patrons. This is state-mandated, funded through the Florida Department of Education, and housed out of the Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Library. The library also offers self-checkout for its patrons, and is getting ready to replace its computer system in eight to ten months. One of the most popular services of the library is electronic holds and ILLs. They’re looking to outsource the ILLs, as they are very costly and labor-intensive, and have increased every month over the last eight years. The library is also looking into “floating collections,” in which books are purchased and cataloged for the system, not a particular branch location. This system would have several benefits, including: reducing the labor involved in holds by half, refreshing the collection, giving a particular branch a book they don’t have, moving books to locations that use them rather than weed them, buying fewer copies, and being all around more efficient.

g. What hours is the library open? Library hours are Monday through Wednesday 10 am-9 pm, Thursday 10 am-8 pm, Friday 10 am-6 pm, Saturday 10 am-6 pm, and Sunday 12:30 pm-5 pm, with 24/7 book drop access. A library card also provides the holder with access to the Bookmobile and Cybermobile, and remote 24/7 access to the premium subscription databases at www.hcplc.org for free.

h. Describe the size and scope of the collection, including circulation statistics. County-wide, the library system contains a little over two million volumes. In 2010, they circulated ten million items, about 16% of which was electronic downloads. The most popular items were music, dowloadables, and e-books. Mr. Stines predicts that paperback books are in more danger than hardback books. He also notes that downloadable music is excellent in the sense that it can’t get stolen from the library, and can’t get broken or damaged, thus requiring expensive repairs or replacements. He sees the need to build the collections in both hard copy and electronic formats.

i. What is the size of the staff: Number of professional and support staff? What staff did you observe? What impression did you get of the staff? Were they businesslike, courteous, and friendly? The staff consists of 366 clerical personnel, paraprofessionals, and professionals. Of this number, approximately 110 are professional staff. On my visit, I observed a couple of staff manning the reference/information desk. They were very helpful, providing me with literature such as pamphlets and brochures of information about the library, and escorting me to the director’s office. I also observed clerical staff in the offices of the director, and likewise, they were courteous and friendly.

j. What technology is used? Lots of technology is used in the Germany library. For example, their internal house newsletter became a blog. Mr. Stines loves wikis, finding them useful for problem solving and getting new ideas on the table from the people who are actually doing it. Since 2008, the library has instituted an anonymous, electronic suggestion box, which has resulted in amazing feedback from the frontlines. The library utilizes MERLIN for its intranet. Work orders are executed electronically. Even the library’s policies and procedures are available on the intranet. The library is looking into having downloadable books for every hand-held device on the market. More and more classes are being offered at the Germany library in areas such as developing photography books, footnoting electronic sources, and e-government, a very popular service for patrons. E-government includes areas such as workman’s compensation, unemployment benefits, et cetera.

k. What type and level of visibility in social media (Facebook, Flickr, etc.) does the library have? HCPLC and the John F. Germany Public Library participate in all types of social media, including a social media presence on Facebook, and also offer a reference blog at http://hcplcreference.blogspot.com/.

l. Do you think you would like to work here? Itemize the plusses and minuses. I think I would like to work here. As a research hub and the headquarters of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System, I think the Germany library would be a dynamic work environment, and would provide me with challenges as well as abundant opportunities for professional growth. The ever-growing calendar of happenings and events at the library would provide endless opportunities for community outreach. It would be a place for implementation and action, characteristics that definitely ward off stagnation. I like that I would have to be flexible, and continually grow as a life-long learner and information professional.

5. What did you leave with? I was impressed with the Germany library’s genealogy collection, one of the largest in the Southeastern United States. I was intrigued by the concept of a “floating collection” and now have more questions about the logistics of such a practice, and although it sounds like a wonderful solution to many problems, I wonder about the counter arguments, if any, against it? Additionally, it was interesting to learn of the Cybermobile and its functions.

6. Reflections: I really enjoyed this experience, and was able to learn a great deal about the daily functions of a public library. The dynamics of working in this central, urban public library were enlightening. I appreciate the anecdotes Mr. Stines provided for illustrative purposes; they really provided clarity for me. The public library, as Director Stines states, reflects the entire culture of the community. When asked his favorite part of his job, Mr. Stines replied that people would tell you, “Joe loves books, but he loves people more.” If he can turn an angry patron into a laughing one, he’s happy. The heart of the library is bringing together people with the information they need and the means to get their information needs met consistently. The tasks are problem-solving, and the librarian/director is a people and information manager. My lasting impression is that it is a rewarding and important responsibility.

Blogging About Blogs-A Project

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 22:08:00 +0000

I have been following these two blogs: Free Range Librarian (http://freerangelibrarian.com/) and Librarians Matter (http://librariansmatter.com/blog/). The Free Range Librarian is librarian and writer K.G. Schneider. She is the director of the Cushing Library at Holy Names University in Oakland, California and she has published over 100 articles and 2 books. Her books are ‘A Practical Guide to Internet Filters,’ Neal Schuman, 1997 and ‘The Internet Access Cookbook,’ Neal Schuman, 1996. The Free Range Librarian blog “comprises the public, oft-daily mumblings and grumblings” of K.G. Schneider. She has twenty years experience in every type of library except school, and prior to librarianship she had eight years experience in aircraft maintenance in the United States Air Force. In addition to being a writer, she is also a speaker, presenter, and educator, and in 2000 was named by the PUBLIB as one of the top ten speakers in librarianship. Her educational background includes degrees from Barnard College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, and University of San Francisco.

The Librarians Matter blog is written by Kathryn Greenhill, an Australian author, presenter, and facilitator with twenty years of experience. She is an Associate Lecturer in Information and Library Studies at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia and has published numerous peer-reviewed conference papers, journal articles, influential blog posts that have become required readings in Learning 2.0 programs around the world, and a book chapter in Library 2.0 initiatives in academic libraries,(Association of College and Research Libraries, 2007). She has experience in several types of libraries and areas of librarianship, including emerging technology, systems, legal, cataloging, and management. Her Librarians Matter blog consists of “musing, enthusing, libraries, emerging technologies, balancing, being mum.” Her educational background includes degrees from University of Western Australia, Curtin University of Technology, and Curtin University. In 2009, she received the Jean Arnot Memorial Fellowship by the State Library of New South Wales, and she was also the recipient of the 2009 VALA: Libraries Technology and the Future Inc Travelling Scholarship, which allowed her to travel to research libraries that developed Open Source Software in the U.S.

I chose these blogs I felt they would help me to gain perspective on varying library and information science issues. I found that both blogs seemed to have new content added regularly and in the case of Mrs. Greenhill’s blog, Librarians Matter, I liked the idea of starting to remove the restrictions of country-specific content, and gain more of an international perspective. The following are summations and notes on what I’ve gleaned by following these blogs over the course of several weeks. Note: in the case of the Free Range Librarian blog, I had to go into earlier posts to have six for this project.

Week 1:

Free Range Librarian (3/2/11) “The Harper Collins Boycott And What 26 Checkouts Look Like”: This blog post took me to the blog of another librarian—Kate, at “Loose Cannon Librarian” (http://loosecannonlibrarian.net). Apparently, there is a controversy over eBooks (I know, what a surprise). These pose problems for librarians, obviously, because they are so different from traditional books. For example, patrons check them out for a set period of time and then they expire—there are no overdue charges. Although it’s obvious that this is a benefit to patrons, this deprives libraries that depend on fines for income. Ebooks also can’t be sold as “gently used” in book sales, people can’t donate “old copies” to libraries, and they have compatibility issues with ILL and book groups. This particular controversy, however, stems from HarperCollins imposing an annual fee on their ebook titles (i.e., 26 circulations at approximately two weeks each=about a year of use). Note: Kate at the “Loose Cannon Librarian” would prefer Harper Collins (HC) try tiered pricing instead. So, there is now a boycott of HC because of this annual fee on eBooks (the boycott appears to include HC’s print books). The purpose of the boycott is to open up conversations to find a new solution that would be better for all involved—HC, libraries, patrons, publishers, authors, other booksellers, librarians, et cetera. As Kate states: the boycott is an attempt to protect readers’ rights, not infringe upon them. We are at the beginning of the ebook revolution, and it is important for all parties involved, that we tackle issues now. After reading Kate’s blog, I was taken to YouTube where I viewed an equally informative video from the Pioneer Library System called “What 26 Checkouts Look Like,” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je90XRRrruM). Through this demonstration, I realized how expensive a “26 times” limit would be on the libraries, as popular titles may have to be re-purchased multiple times. For example, the book (hard copy) of Janet Evanovich’s “Metro Girl” has been checked out 65 times from this library, so if it were an ebook, the library would already be on its third purchase of the text. Schneider also mentions in this post other issues with HarperCollins, including HC’s resistance to consortial agreements and their “desire to begin meddling in library card policy.” However, all seem very happy that this HC policy, and the resulting boycott, are opening up conversations and, hopefully, cooperative spirits.

Librarians Matter (Week of May 30, 2011) “Blog everyday of June 2011. Let’s Go.”: I learned that Kathryn Greenhill had joined an ambitious initiative from Libraries Interact (blog central for Australian libraries) to make one post each day on her blog during the month of June. On June 3rd Greenhill blogged about YouTube’s creative commons licensing, which now gives users the ability to indicate during upload that they have licensed their movies under an Attribution 3.0 United States (CC BY 3.0) license. Before this user-friendly addition, the only way to indicate such a license was to add a note to the credits. On June 4th she posted about a very interesting competition at Libraryhack. Libraryhack hosted a mashup and apps competition using data from Australian and New Zealand libraries. I took a look at her favorite submissions to the competition: the glorious image viewer, and Convictbook. The former is a 3D interactive projection image viewer which pulls its pictures from the State Library of Queensland database and “aims to revitalise pictures from the library archive by morphing them with the physical environment in the library, hence making the archive more ambient and accessible to visitors.” I highly recommend checking it out at http://libraryhack.org/2011/06/01/glorious-image-viewer/. The latter, Convictbook, is a Facebook-like interface of information and photos of more than 100,000 convicts from the State Library of Queensland’s Convict Transfer Register. I also highly recommend looking into it at http://libraryhack.org/2011/05/31/convictbook/. Greenhill’s other posts for this week included ones on her migraines and auras, her cat’s inexplicable illness, how to pass units that she teaches at university, and general thoughts on the balancing act of being a professional and raising a family.

Week 2:

Free Range Librarian (4/10) “Thoroughly Modern Karen: A Response to Jeff Trzeciak”: This blog post is K.G. Schneider’s response to controversial topics raised by University library director Jeff Trzeciak in his recent speech at Penn State University. Trzeciak is the University Librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Using the link on Schneider’s blog, I went to Penn State University Libraries’ podcast of Trzeciak’s speech and I viewed it in its entirety so that I would have an understanding of the context from which this controversial content stems. One of the most alarming pieces of information in Trzeciak’s speech for Schneider, as well as many other librarians (whose blogs also attest to this), was his assertion that there’s really not a place for librarians in the library anymore. He states that at McMaster’s, he has significantly reduced the number of professional librarians, and that new hires are unlikely to be librarians or traditional paraprofessionals. He says that new hires are likely to come out of IT, including audio/video production, or are likely to be PhD’s, and he has made a move toward shared positions with other campus units, such as utilizing postdoctoral research fellows. A result of this move is, of course, a move away from the information literacy role of librarians. Trzeciak stated that he has also eliminated reference desks at McMasters and there are, therefore, no librarians on reference. He stated that he has eliminated cataloging via outsourcing, and reassigned the former technical services personnel. In her blog post response to Trzeciak, Schneider states several improvements she brought about when she came to her current director position (director of the Cushing Library at Holy Names University in Oakland, California). The improvements were simple, and included things like renewed information literacy instruction and establishing walk up as well as chat/email reference services. However, she writes: “By the standards of the Gospel According to Jeff Trzeciak, I must seem like some misguided brontosaurus snuffling in the antediluvian biblioforest. I should be eliminating walk-up service and replacing practitioners with PhDs who will focus on highfalutin digital projects. I’m… boring. And small. Hardly the stuff of Taiga Forum.”

Being that this was the first time I’d seen the name Taiga Forum, I followed the link provided, and found that it consists of Associate/Assistant University Librarians and Directors (AULs and ADs) who are “challenging the traditional boundaries in libraries.” They meet annually, and most recently have debated the “provocative statements” at the ALAs annual conference in New Orleans this year. These provocative statements are regarding future challenges to academic libraries, and include such alarming statements as #4: books as décor: “Within five years, graduate students and faculty will fill all their information needs online, never coming into the library, yet they will continue to idealize the library as a sacred place to commune with books. Libraries will respond by flipping their stacks into designer reading rooms that use books as decor.” However, it is statement #10 which most relates to Trzeciak’s controversial statements, and it reads: “Within five years, library programs will have overproduced MLSs at a rate greater even than humanities PhDs and glutted a permanently diminished market.”

Schneider makes strong, and I believe valid, points in support of keeping the librarian in the library, and thus keeping information literacy instruction a focal point. For example, she says that many of her University’s students arrive with poor research skills, and as she points out, have often graduated that way when there has been no direct instruction and assessment of information literacy. She also says that instructors “absorb skills themselves through our library-faculty instructional partnership,” thus perpetuating the instruction and acquisition of information literacy. I completely agree with Schneider that the library could (and should!) play a pivotal role in helping students become lifelong information consumers and in reinforcing the joys of reading and cultural literacy. I do not agree with Trzeciak that this is not a priority, and that PhDs and IT personnel could fill the shoes of a librarian. Instead, I see the need for highly qualified professional instructor-librarians who possess technology skills and subject expertise for the future (and present) of academic libraries.

Librarians Matter (Week of June 6, 2011) “Posting Request—Please Blow Your Trumpet! Bah-Bow”: This post arises from the question “What are you doing well professionally or in your library?” Greenhill cites notable contributions by fellow professionals in the field, and makes the statement “I will bet that something that you do well professionally that you think is rather ordinary actually would be mind-blowing to other library folk.” She specifically mentions the very simple example of a couple of librarians at Batchelor College in Darwin, who managed the “transformation of a totally cramped and crowded tiny space into a flexible learning space that allowed culturally sensitive learning for some of their students who had never been exposed to books before, let alone a library.” Then Greenhill gave an example from her own experience. Her previous library utilized self-checkout PCs which gave a high pitched alert sound when the user did something wrong, such as try to check out an item already on loan to someone else. The problem was that everyone, including staff, ignored that sound. After a brainstorming session in a staff meeting, they replaced the sound with the “wrong answer” noise from Family Feud (available for free from the Internet Archive), and suddenly users paid attention. In her post dated June 11th, Greenhill highly recommends readers check out the work of Dave Gray, who has a talent for visual thinking—to creatively approach familiar problems and concepts in new ways. She recommends his latest book, Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers, co-written with Sunni Brown and James Macanufo. And she recommends his blog post “Q-Tools” at http://www.davegrayinfo.com/2008/06/04/q-tools/.

Week 3:

Free Range Librarian (5/22) “Slowly, slowly run o horses of the night”: In this blog post, Schneider touches upon a few topics. I love how she describes the activities of the academic library, and in reading her description, realized she could be describing an elementary school media center, or nearly any library for that matter: “Whether it’s a book talk, a gaming night, a traditional “info lit” class, a Smartboard seminar for faculty, buying multiple copies of a “hot” title, training student workers, or making the facility more comfortable and attractive, our service suite fits together as a whole, all of it equally important: providing research help, training faculty on emerging technologies for instruction, making the library a welcoming second home to students, offering formal instruction in information literacy, and offering informal instruction through art and literary events that teach students that libraries are a life habit worth acquiring.” She then went on to describe how she turned the book budget over to the faculty this year, and the results of this experiment. It seems there was uneven participation in this change, but that the faculty most motivated to act, did. Interestingly, the majority of their selections were in DVD format for use in their classrooms. For the upcoming year, she intends to set aside more of the budget for multi-format popular-reading materials.

Librarians Matter (Week of June 13, 2011) “Tools for Teaching Coding to Kids”: Greenhill makes substantive posts this week on teaching coding, must-reads for librarians, and what good online LIS education would look like. To start, she addresses the topic of teaching kids to code—that is, to write and modify computer programs. This is a topic she picked up after seeing an article entitled “Are children becoming digitally illiterate?” from BBC. She offers some important aspects to consider in teaching coding, and gives some links, such as the language of coding and http://www.mathplayground.com/mathprogramming.html, and the combination/manipulation of variables and http://scratch.mit.edu/. In Greenhill’s post on June 15th, she begins compiling a list of “100 articles every librarian should read.” Her list ends up having about 40 titles so far, and leans toward: equity of access to information and library resources, the impact on libraries of shared data on the internet, how library users find research information, format changes – the rise of online video, ebooks, transliteracy and DRM, and how librarians and libraries are preparing for the future. I know her list has a distinctive Australia slant, in addition to being a work in progress, but I was surprised to see only one American Library Association article (it was on serving non-English speakers), and I was happy to discover two articles from author K.G. Schneider (the author of the other blog I’ve been following). Greenhill also places a triple asterisk next to the articles she believes you should read right now (five of the articles receive this distinction, and so I intend to retrieve them today). Finally, this week she posts about what good online LIS education should look like. Her thoughts on this topic include the following: teachers using online video, easy to use self-managed online content management systems for those who know how, more remote involvement by people with international and professional expertise, more self-marking exercises, better peer-marking systems, easier ways for students to share their discoveries with each other, and automatic assessment metrics (like Google analytics for course material usage). In viewing her video on this, one comment she made really resounded with me. She said that back when she went to university, she had a course in which it was said that “if the person who is finding out the bulk of the material and giving the bulk of critique about that material for the unit is the teacher, then the person who is learning the most in that unit is the teacher.” I have always believed this to be true. As a teacher myself, I have often felt that there needs to be better ways of learning, that it shouldn’t be as passive as it unfortunately is, and that the only real way to know a subject/topic is to teach it.

Week 4:

Free Range Librarian (6/19) “ALA: It’s Not Just an Adventure, It’s a Job”: In this post, Schneider offers veteran suggestions for attending, and surviving, the ALA Annual Conference. First, she says, don’t waste your time getting there. Avoid the slow shuttle. Rather, opt for splitting cab fare—it’s fastest and most economical in the long run. Secondly, plan well and plan in advance. The logistics of the conference are quite complicated, with concurrent events spread across dozens of venues. Be careful that you can actually get to your second destination in time to see its start. Again, she recommends setting aside cad fare. Third, utilize resources such as the ALA planner to line up what Schneider calls your “A plan” as well as a backup plan for activities/sessions. However, she states that she doesn’t rely solely on the ALA planner, but supplements it with information from other sources as well, such as related professional organizations and the ALA conference page itself. Four: follow the Annual Conference hashtag as early as possible and don’t be shy about tweeting for assistance if you get lost. Five: Carry a printed map, even if you have digital ones. Schneider recommends the maps in the printed schedule. Six: attend one of the orientation sessions for newcomers. Seven: Rotate your shoes—don’t wear the same ones two days in a row, and certainly don’t break in new ones at the conference. Eight: pack some first aid—even when you prepare ahead, you can’t foresee everything. Nine: attend sessions of particular import to your current position or areas in which you need to grow. Lastly: write a trip report on your return trip, and consider making it a visual report by using photographs to narrate. For this last suggestion, Schneider provides a link to an example of a visual trip report of her own, which she co-compiled on Flickr after a site visit to the library at CSU Channel Islands on 3/8/11.

Librarians Matter (Week of June 20, 2011) “New Gadget, Sad Gadget”: This week Greenhill posts about purchasing a mobile wifi hotspot, only to find that her iPad glass inexplicably shattered and she’ll have to have it replaced. In her next post, dated June 21st, she makes a YouTube post of a video of her pronouncing the names of common library tech tools, and points out that this could not be done with regular blogging (i.e., the required audio). Her post dated June 22nd is very interesting, as she utilizes Camtasia to create a screencast to show a tool (Tineye) that locates images on the web. She also mentions Shazam, a music app, and Snaptell for iPhone and Android, which is an image recognition and barcode scanning application.

Week 5:

Free Range Librarian (6/24) “My ALA 2011 Annual Schedule”: This post, obviously, is Schneider’s schedule for the ALA annual conference, held this year in New Orleans. On the first night, she attended (and marked high priority) a LITA (Library and Information Technology Association) happy hour event to catch up with LITA colleagues. The next morning (also marked high priority) was a GLBT RT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Round Table) steering committee for the transition plan for the changes to GLBTRT bylaws. Following the steering committee, she lists “OCLC Increase Your Digital Collection Visibility with WorldCat: A Roundtable for OAI-PMH Repository, Digital Collection and WorldCat Administrators” (low priority). Also at the same time as this roundtable, she lists “OCLC Join the Revolution: Library Management at Web Scale” (high priority), which she describes in this way: “Find out how moving traditional ILS functions to the Web has positively impacted library services, improved the bottom line, and increased global library visibility and collaboration.” A third simultaneous event, also listed as high priority, is “President’s Program: From Idea to Innovation to Implementation: How Teams Make it Happen (ACRL).” That’s just the morning of the first day! The rest of her prioritized schedule for the conference, includes such high priority events as: OCLC Perceptions of Libraries,

Blog and Wiki Interest Group, Top Technology Trends, Building the Future: Addressing Library Broadband Connectivity Issues in the 21^st Century, and Next Generation Catalog Interest Group. She ends her conference schedule with a tour of the St. Charles Parish Library. Another very interesting event of her conference schedule was “Battledecks 2011.” It is listed as a presentation/session and a social event, and described in the following way: “Battledecks is not for the faint of heart. It is a nerve-wracking event where those competing must create a coherent presentation from a deck of slides that they have never seen before. This is truly the perfect way to end your conference experience as these courageous individuals compete for the glory of being crowned the next champ.” I could only image the creative, and probably at-times-hilarious, presentations that might result from such improvisation. I can image that such a “deck of slides” would likely have some special pictures, graphics, quotes, et cetera among its content, and I think I’d really like being a spectator at such an event. Battledecks seems as though it could be modified and used as an icebreaker, or culminating activity, for similar conferences or professional meetings at any level.

Librarians Matter (Week of June 27, 2011): As Greenhill’s last blog post is dated June 23rd, and therefore leaves me no Week 5 or Week 6 blog summary, I decided I would like to take the opportunity to read her older blog posts that have been deemed influential. One that particularly peaked my interest, was “20 reasons why learning about emerging technologies is part of every librarian’s job,” dated July 2007. On her bio, this blog post is said to be regularly set as required reading for the first week of library Learning 2.0 programs around the world. In this post, she addresses why it is so important to learn emerging technologies when there’s so many other demands on our time, when we don’t even have the technologies at our institution yet, and when 80% are not yet using them. Her 20 points include our core business of linking information and people; productivity, i.e., making our tasks easier via emerging technologies; understanding all formats on our users’ behalf; watching trends to discover potent information sources; experimenting gains skills; being prepared, i.e., being proactive with emerging technologies, and not reactive; providing better service to our users by utilizing their preferred tools; gaining an international perspective by not limiting our network of interests to our own country; utilizing emergent technologies to find out what other libraries are doing; gaining flexibility with the changing standards; experimenting to be prepared for the future; and fostering better collaboration. I highly recommend this post: http://librariansmatter.com/blog/2007/07/06/20-reasons-learning-emerging-techologies-is-part-of-every-librarians-job/.

Week 6:

Free Range Librarian (7/10) “ALA Annual 2011: The Trip Report”: In this blog post, Schneider follows up her ALA schedule in her previous post with synopses of the events she attended at the ALA annual conference in New Orleans. James Young, a workplace systems consultant and author, gave a presentation about peoples’ motivations and team building. Battledecks, a previously mentioned improv presentation from a deck of PowerPoint slides, was hilarious, as expected. It showcased some of the best and worst presenters in the profession. LLAMA (Library Leadership and Management Association) sponsored a “Designing a Specialty Commons” workshop which Schneider attended. She notes a few key things from this workshop: 1. begin the process by identifying specific, local requirements for a library, key stakeholders, and the major question they’re trying to address, 2. Adding technology increases the need for back-end support, 3. Technology is rapidly changing, and many libraries are waiting until renovations of their spaces are complete in order to purchase technology. In response to Schneider’s goal of building her library’s popular-reading collection this summer, she intentionally attended a Southern Writers presentation, and the Stonewall Book Awards. At the Southern Writers event, she got to meet author Tayari Jones, who writes about the Southern-urban experience. The Stonewall Book Awards was an event of the GLBT RT and there were dynamic speakers handling such topics as the differential treatment of lesbian authors by publishers and reviewers in the U.S. and UK. Schneider was disappointed that LITA had sponsored Orson Scott Card to present because his statements about homosexuality are “out of sync with the positions on diversity shared by most libraries.” Schneider moves on to other events, including the LITA “Awards Ceremony” for trendsters (her quotation marks). She makes a point that she observes a growing tendency for technology trendsters to “present trends and technologies they would like to see happening (Drupal, developers in every library, etc.) versus actual trends. Schneider goes on with “That said, Clifford Lynch was as always quite sage, talking both about the social-reading trends in the research community, computational photography, and the stratospheric rise in mobile tech. He also noted the huge rise in hardware-specific software and noted this was a return to a previous era that could “leave content more vulnerable to the ebb and flow of hardware.” For recommended reading (an audience question), Lynch pointed us to Kurzweil’s newsletter.” She expressed her disappointment in the non-festive ceremony hosted by LITA, something she notes writing the award sponsor and committee chair regarding, and noted that their fiscal problems may have had something to do with that. Schneider attended both the Navigator and Camino user groups and enjoyed seeing the software roadmap for Navigator, and was excited to see that more libraries plan to join Camino, which is “dedicated to offering access to the widest possible range of resources” via WorldCat. Schneider notes that GLBT RT unanimously adopted the proposed changes to the bylaws, and she has volunteered to chair a procedural review committee to create job descriptions for the officers under the new structure.

Schneider concluded her New Orleans visit with a tour of two lovely brand-new libraries in the local community: the East Regional and the Paradis branch of the St. Charles Parish Public Library. They were both designed to support personal technology, with both wifi and electrical support. Then Schneider spoke of the social gatherings she attended at such New Orleans hotspots as the Swizzle Stick bar, the Ruby Slipper, Muriel’s, and the Carousel. She spent most of the time she was in the convention center looking at furniture and interactive whiteboards. Finally, she highly recommends the hotel she stayed at, Chateau Le Moyne, and says that iPads were endemic, stating “It was almost as if they had been issued at the airport on arrival to MSY.”

Librarians Matter : For this final summary, I watched Greenhill’s two-minute YouTube video about getting deeply local and using human skills to get to know our communities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoPZwcXvAwE. She says that libraries have a distinct advantage over Google, Amazon, or other one-size-fits-all databases, in that we can find out what type of information the user wants, how they prefer to get it, and ask them questions. Libraries have a chance to occupy a central place in our communities by going deeply local and using human skills to get to know our communities. This consists of five traits: community, content, local linking (via local content, or content that meets their information needs), linking to the world (free and open access is essential), and knowing possibilities (knowing what’s available and bringing it back to our communities).

23 Things: Thing #6 - Look at LibraryElf and see the potential for personal library tools.

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:03:00 +0000

So I checked out LibraryElf. It is a tool for tracking your library loans and holds, to help you avoid overdues and keep track of materials out on multiple library cards. It’s like a personal assistant for the avid library user! It seems that this would be very helpful for families with multiple members, and thus multiple library cards, or if you request a lot of holds, or have cards with multiple library systems. LibraryElf sends you e-mails or RSS alerts before items are due, as well as alerts on overdue materials and holds. It also consolidates a list of your family’s loans and holds, and (with the premium service) sends text message alerts for holds. One very nice enhancement is the ability to see the items you have out in your iCal calendar, such as Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, and Apple iCal. With this feature, you can see at a glance a summary of the items you have out, including the library, user, and item titles. LibraryElf offers a free trial period, which includes all of the premium services, but expires after six notices (or three weeks, whichever is longer). Thereafter, the free service would continue at the Basic service level, with the option of the Premium level. The following comparison of these levels, which I took directly from LibraryElf (at http://www.libraryelf.com/Subscription.aspx), is helpful:

Basic and Premium Comparison

	Basic	Premium
Library cards allowed	One	One or more
Customizable settings	Partial	All
Type of alerts	Pre-due and overdue	Pre-due, overdue, not due, holds ready and holds requested
Email format	HTML	HTML
RSS	No	Yes
Text message alerts ¹	No	Yes²
Items summarized in Elf calendar	No	Yes
iCal calendar	No	Yes
Private daily snapshot web page	No	Yes
Real-time checking by browser	No	Yes
Ads	Yes	Optional
Support	FAQ	24-48 hour email response
Cost (single card)	Free	$12.00 USD/year
Cost (multiple cards)	Not available	$20.00 USD/year

Sign into your Elf account and subscribe today! 1 US and Canada only 2 Alerts for holds ready and items due the next day

So, the prices are obviously: free for basic, $12/yr. for a single card at the premium level, or $20/yr. for multiple cards at the premium level.

The Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative (HCPLC) is a subscribing member of LibraryElf, which means that patrons of HCPLC get the multiple card premium level service for free. I think this is wonderful! I’ve actually been a beneficiary of this service for several months, without even knowing it! I have a library card with HCPLC (my main branch library is the Brandon Public Library, but I also frequent the Seffner-Mango, Bloomingdale, New Tampa, and John F. Germany Libraries as well) and I’ve frequently received phone messages informing me that materials I have on loan are overdue, or that materials are available for me to pick up that I have placed on hold or have requested via Inter-Library Loan (ILL). Until today, I didn’t know that this service was through HCPLC’s subscription to LibraryElf. I even received seven (yes, seven!) phone calls from HCPLC on my wedding day to inform me of overdue materials! Yikes! In my own defense, I was a little busy, and not thinking about due dates at the time. How does that old saying go…doctors make the worst patients…and librarians make the worst patrons?! Well, in the end, this is a very helpful service for library patrons to keep track of their materials—both on loan and on hold—and to avoid overdues.

For Library Subscriptions, visit: http://www.libraryelf.org/ (Library subscribers can brand the LibraryElf website with their own logo, and there are no advertisements.)

For Individual Subscriptions visit: http://www.libraryelf.com/

23 Things: Thing #10 - Play around with an online image generator

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:50:00 +0000

So I played around with an online image generator at http://bighugelabs.com and created some really funny stuff. I had some laughs, and really enjoyed it. I could see using an image generator like this one for many applications within the library, including social networking, websites, promoting events at the library, and much, much more. I could have used the badge generator to make an FBI badge back during spirit week at school for “dress like your favorite profession” day.

The Badge Maker:

The Billboard:

The Framer:

The Magazine Cover:

The Motivator:

The Movie Poster:

The Captioner:

The Hockneyizer:

I also created a sort of cartoon of myself at http://www.toondoo.com/

23 Things: Thing #21 - Podcasts, Smodcasts!

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:40:00 +0000

This exercise encouraged me to take a look at popular podcast directory tools, and do some exploring to locate podcasts of interest to me. A podcast is simply an audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet, usually through a direct RSS feed. The “pod” part of “podcast” seems to mislead some people, but you can actually listen to/watch podcasts on your computer, your iPod, your cell phone…any of a number of devices. First, I found my way to forevergeek.com, where I entered the search term “podcasts” and was returned many results, including applegazette.com. At this site, I learned of audible.com, which offers a free 14-day trial of the AudibleListener Gold membership plan, including one credit for a free audiobook. After the free trial, the membership is 14.95 a month. Audible advertises itself as having the widest selection of digital audiobooks available for download. Additionally, it has magazines, radio shows, podcasts, stand-up comedy, and speeches from cultural icons, and political and business figures. Audible points out the importance of “a pause, a breath, a smile you can feel through your headphones” in adding to your experience with literature, and states that they have “the best narrators interpreting books by top authors.” Interestingly, Audible also declares that “The average reader gets through 5 books a year, but the average AudibleListener member completes 17 books a year.” This made me feel really good because come the end of July, I will have finished more than 75 books this year, but then again, I had the added encouragement to accomplish such a feat from taking a children’s literature class last semester, and a young adult literature class this semester.

Next, I found myself at podiobooks.com, where I perused the audiobooks available for free. I came across one called Eleven Classic Short Stories, narrated by Mike Bennett. The chapters include Gabriel-Ernest by Saki, Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft, The Penance by Saki, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, Sredni Vashtar by Saki, The Music of Erich Zann by H.P. Lovecraft, The Storyteller by Saki, The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Tobermory by Saki, The Cannibalism in the Cars by Mark Twain, and The Open Window by Saki. I truly enjoyed, and thus highly recommend, Twain’s “The Cannibalism in the Cars,” which you can also listen to at:

http://www.podiobooks.com/title/eleven-classic-short-stories

At podiobooks.com I also discovered that some of the podcasts were marked as Parsec Award winners. By going to parsecawards.com, I learned that this is an award celebrating “speculative fiction podcasting” and it has been around since 2006. It is given in several categories, ranging from content to audio quality. Podcasts are nominated by fans, chosen by a yearly steering committee, and then voted on by an independent panel of judges. The next awards ceremony will be in September.

Then I found myself checking out podcastalley.com. Here, I could search podcasts by genre, so I chose Education. I found that people can learn a new language via podcasts, or even how to play instruments! Try “Let’s Speak Italian!” or “The VerbCast” for French, or learn to play jazz and blues piano. I believe I could have benefitted from “Coffee Break Spanish” as a little extra tutoring help in high school and college with my Espanol. Teacher Mark and student Kara’s lessons teach you much about the language. The opening tune is catchy with “A bit of Spanish you can try, it’s not hard, now don’t you cry…Coffee Break Espanol, you’re in control!”:

http://www.podcastalley.com/player/player.php?pod_id=40291

Finally, I discovered an excellent article entitled “Beginner’s guide to podcasts and podcasting (plus: how to create a basic Podcast of your own) by J. Angelo Racoma (http://www.forevergeek.com/2006/04/beginners_guide_to_podcasts_and_podcasting_plus_how_to_create_a_basic_podcast_of_your_own/). And I got excited. Because I decided I not only could, but would, create my own podcast. I decided right away that it would be a booktalk. I just performed this booktalk in my Young Adult Literature class, so I thought why not make it my very first podcast? Why not, indeed. So, to round off my blog post regarding podcasts, here for your very own listening pleasure, is my very own first try, hope you enjoy it!

http://www.box.net/shared/2x04kxh21zlblp569mgk
(You can also access this link by clicking on the title of this blog post.)

Obviously, I see podcasts as having a number of uses in an educational setting such as a library or school media center. First, I refer to my own homemade podcast of a booktalk. However, a librarian could also make a video or audio podcast of storytelling performances, readings from books and stories (see the above link for Eleven Classic Short Stories; also, this use of podcasts is wonderful for giving additional voice support to eyes-on-text for readers working at all stages of literacy, from phonics to comprehension), workshops held at the library, an orientation to the library for newcomers or as a refresher for others, meetings or minutes of meetings, instructions for class examinations or projects, how-to guidance for tasks, tutorials on specific subjects (see the above “Coffee Break Espanol” link), reference instruction, Battle of the Books practice, community events, author visits, publicizing library events, outreach to parents of school children or outreach to the homebound of a community, and so much more! The possibilities are truly limitless! And the format is very appealing—I mean, who would prefer wading through French verb conjugation in a comparatively dry textbook format over listening to the beauty of the language as it is spoken? Podcasts shift the paradigm of education. It is a more “real” experience and therefore, hopefully, more lasting.

23 Things: Thing #9 - Locate a few useful library related blogs and/or news feeds

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0000

I looked into Google Reader. It helps you find and keep track of things you’re interested in on the web. By using it, you no longer have to visit individual sites to find out if something new has been posted, because when new content is posted, it comes straight to your Google Reader. It also keeps track of which items you’ve viewed/read, so when you come back you don’t have to sift through those items again; instead you just see unread items. Reader lets you subscribe to your favorite websites and keep track of what’s popular. It is described as “a magazine you design.” The Reader gives you recommended sources and items. You can comment on items shared by friends. You can also star items and take notes on them. There’s a very interesting “Trends” tab which tracks how many subscriptions you have, how many you’ve read in the last thirty days, and how many you’ve clicked on, starred, shared, and emailed. It will also break it down to time of day and day of week for your viewing and activities. It also includes a mobile option, so you can see what items you’ve read on your mobile device—just visit Google Reader on your phone to try it. Reader shows frequently updated, inactive, and obscure subscription trends, as well as the most active and most popular “friend trends.” Tags allow you organize your items and subscriptions, enabling your items that are more heavily tagged to stand out more prominently.

Google Reader seems to be an excellent tool for managing news, subscriptions, blogs, etc. It is a handy one-stop information source that I can see as helpful in keeping track of my professional news and interests. In one visit, I can read up on the newest events, updates, and professional opinions and advice in my field. For example, my subscriptions include:

1. ALA Annual. This gives me updates on ALA’s Annual Conference & Exhibit.

2. ALA-APA. This gives me news on the APA’s advocacy for the professional interests of librarians.

3. ALAN Online. This delivers updates on the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents.

4. BleedingCool.com. A blogsite about the comic book/graphic novel industry.

5. BoingBoing.net. A webzine/blog with tons of neat information on tech gadgets, entertainment, art/design, culture, news, and more.

6. Copyright Advisory Network. The Network is sponsored by the ALA, and exists to encourage librarians to discuss copyright concerns with copyright specialists.

7. Heyjude blog. This is a blog at wordpress written by an educational consultant , specifically interested in library and web 2.0 and library and information services.

8. Flickr.com/photos/ala_members/. This is the American Library Association’s flickr photostream.

9. Ilovelibraries.org. This is the ALA’s website for the public, “designed to keep America informed about what's happening in today's libraries.”

10. Schoollibrarylearning2.csla.net/. I subscribed to this because of my pursuit of the “23 Things” activity for my own coursework. It is produced by the California School Library Association (CSLA) 2.0 Team and helps you learn the tools of the new Internet including social networking, wikis, video, podcasting, and gaming sites.

11. VOYA.com. This is the magazine of the Voice of Youth Advocates, serving those who serve young adults.

12. NCTE.org. This is the National Council of Teachers of English. I’m subscribed to the Middle Level Section of NCTE, which has tons of resources for educators at the middle school level.

13. Youngadultbookreviews.com. Self explanatory.

14. YALR Blog. This is the Young Adult Literature Review blog at blogspot. Also pretty self explanatory.

15. The ALA’s channel on YouTube. This has news and information from the ALA, and is especially helpful in following the ALA’s annual conference.

As one can imagine, visiting all of these sites daily, or regularly, and scouring the entire website to note new additions/news would be massively time consuming. That’s precisely where Google Reader comes in and is so useful. Google streams the new stuff strait to your Reader, making it a user-friendly time saver. It is true that with the Reader, you don’t get all of the “bells and whistles” of the individual sites, but you can always visit the sites directly at any time by clicking on their title on the Reader, and what’s really nice is that they open in a new window, so you do not lose your place and have to navigate back to the Reader. I think this will be an indispensable tool for keeping me up-to-date in my professional interests. It also keeps me focused, because when I’m reading the newest updates in Reader, I’m not distracted by those “bells and whistles” and tempted to get off-topic.

23 Things: Thing #11-Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:56:00 +0000

LibraryThing is a cataloging and social networking site that allows book lovers to create a library-quality catalog of books in any kind of category they wish. For example, the user can create a catalog of books they own, books they wish they owned, books they’re reading, books they’ve lent out, and well, you get the idea. Since it’s a whole network of catalogers, anyone can contribute tags, reviews, evaluations, ratings, and so on. There are also members’ forums and an Early Reviewers program. It is free, and all you have to do to sign up is visit http://www.librarything.com/ and create either a personal or organizational account with a user name and password. Sharing your e-mail is optional, but recommended, should you forget your password. When creating your catalog using LibraryThing, you can add books by using title, keyword, author, or ISBN, and if your particular book is not on the results list, you can manually add it. LibraryThing states that it “gets its book data from Amazon.com and over 700 libraries around the world, including the Library of Congress.” You have the ability to choose which source to pick from too. Once you have your catalog up and running, there’s so much you can do, including: review books, tag, converse with other book lovers about books, customize your catalog view, get recommendations, see what other members think about the same books, connect with other people who share your book interests, find interesting data about your books, and share about your favorite authors, bookstores, and libraries. LibraryThing even keeps statistics on nearly everything imaginable. On their “Zeitgeist” page, one learns that there are over 1 million members, over 63 million books cataloged, over 76 million tags, over 1 million reviews, and over 10 million ratings. Authors also use LibraryThing, and it is a resource for following their scheduled events such as book signings and visits, reading their biographies, learning of their works (including upcoming ones), linking to their homepages, seeing their member ratings, and even chatting with them in scheduled discussions. LibraryThing even shows related book awards, related people/characters, and related places for authors. The Zeitgeist also lists the twenty-five most reviewed books (#1 is currently Twilight), the most prolific reviewers (#1 is currently user “bluetyson” with 35,613!), 50-top rated authors , 50-lowest rated authors, and the 25 top languages (for translations from—and #1 is currently French). As for the top-rated and lowest-rated authors, one must carefully take note of how the ratings are come by. For example, the top-rated author is currently listed as Jeannie Fulbright, but this is based upon her five-star rating from eight (yes, 8) raters. Likewise, the lowest-rated author is currently Robyn Donald, who comes in with a 1.2 rating based on 4 raters.

There’s a fun and interesting “Common Knowledge” tab which gives the user many of the “Tops.” For example, Top 200 Places Mentioned in Works, Top 200 People/Character Names, Top 200 Events Mentioned in Works, Top 200 Places of Residence for Authors, Top 100 Places Where Authors are Buried, and so forth. It is interesting that LibraryThing includes a “Top 200 Occupations for Authors,” because we might just say “um…author?” to that one, but it really shows what a diverse field authors come from, and how they really wear many hats—from author to teacher, lawyer, soldier, painter, actor, political activist, and so on. I think it is analogous to how books sometimes fit into several categories at once, and people can too. I got a laugh from the first year listed under the Top 300 Birth Dates for Authors: “19??.” This was the same for the Top 300 Death Dates for Authors. There are numerous groups a person could join and be active in, including (just to name a few):

· Librarians Who LibraryThing

· Science Fiction Fans

· What Are You Reading Now?

· 1001 Books to Read Before You Die

· Crime, Thriller, & Mystery

· Tea!

· Hogwarts Express

· BBC Radio 3 Listeners

· LibraryThing Series

The “Local” tab is really helpful because you can find local members and local events. You can type in your location, or a location where you’ll be traveling, and choose a search radius (10 miles, 20 miles, etc.). It includes bookstores, fairs/festivals, libraries, societies, et cetera.

LibraryThing connects you to people like you who read what you read. Or, you can use it to branch out and find new interests. …Or further pursue your current ones. It has a lot to offer, but keep in mind that it has millions of contributors making tens of thousands of contributions daily. You could become one of them too, like I did. Among the cool features that come with your own LibraryThing are tailored recommendations, the usernames of members with your books, and your own Zeitgeist for your collection, allowing you to know at a glance how many books are in your collection, how many tags, and even how many characters! Check out my LibraryThing via this blog. Enjoy!

23 Things: Thing #13-Social Bookmarking with Delicious

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:09:00 +0000

Delicious is a social bookmarking site which allows you to bookmark and share your favorite websites and access those bookmarks from any computer, at any time, from anywhere. This means you can access all of your bookmarks at work, home, or on a computer that may not be your own. Through notes and tags, you can also keep track of why you bookmark certain pages, and attach key terms to categorize them for yourself and others. You can also share your bookmarks with other Delicious users, through Twitter, or via e-mail. You can even keep up with interesting tags through subscriptions and Network features. Delicious appears to be an excellent tool for helping you find and share a site that you may not be able to remember while you’re away from you primary computer, as your bookmarks would now be accessible anywhere you go. Also, the feature of having a network of other users, such as your coworkers or other colleagues, interesting people in your field, and even bloggers that you may follow, would be helpful to stay up-to-date on pertinent information.

It is essentially an address book, which is very helpful to correlate with colleagues on projects, keep up-to-date in your field, and share the newest information or points of interest with like-minded individuals who may also find it useful. To better organize your network, you can utilize network bundles, such as bundling all your coworkers’ bookmarks separately from all your friends’ or family’s. Likewise, you can also bundle your subscriptions, such as professional in one place, hobbies in another. You can decide whether to make bookmarks private (only you can see them) or public (everyone can see them), although it does not yet offer the option of allowing only your network to see them. When searching bookmarks, you can view based on a timeline, such as within the last day, month, six months, or year. As a LIS professional, I could see using Delicious for all of the aforementioned reasons. I also could see using it on my library’s Facebook page to add professional bookmarks and tags. Likewise, our library website and blog could add a “Bookmark on Delicious” button to make sharing easier and thus attract more viewership/followers. Also, the more people in your field who save a bookmark may prove its usefulness to you too. I mean, if a thousand people in your field found it important enough to bookmark to revisit, it might be important to you as well. Another helpful feature of Delicious is that you can search bookmarks of certain file types to help you quickly and easily find what you’re looking for. For example, you can separately search tags for audio, video, image, or documents. The tags, which are like keywords, are one word labels to help you remember and organize your bookmarks. They also help you build a “collaborative repository of related information, driven by personal interests and creative organization.”

I found it simple and easy to create a Delicious account. It only required a little information, a username and password, and a little reading to acquaint myself with setup. You can quickly install Delicious on your web browser, such as Firefox. Doing this put user-friendly buttons on my browser’s toolbar so that I can visit Delicious, see my bookmarks, or tag with just one easy click of the mouse. When using the tag button, it automatically offers popular tags for each website, based on content. You can peruse my bookmarks at:

http://www.delicious.com/ChristyH3

Library Analysis #2: Academic Library

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 01:25:00 +0000

1. Name of Library:

Easter Library

Clearwater Christian College

3400 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd.

Clearwater, FL 33759

http://www.clearwater.edu/library/

2. Name of Librarian: Elizabeth Werner

3. Background of Librarian: Mrs. Werner attended Mills College in Oakland, CA. She holds a Master’s degree in Spanish from Indiana University and a Masters in Library Science from the University of Maryland at College Park. She taught Spanish for four years at Western Maryland College. She also taught French and Spanish for Clearwater Christian College for nine years, but when the college became accredited, she did not have the number of graduate level coursework necessary to teach French. She felt becoming the library director was a good way to be an educator, and would be a better match of her abilities and time. She chose this type of library after the experience of setting up a library at her church. She has been here since 1975, and says that there were 142 students when she arrived, and now there are approximately 600 total (540 full-time). She is a member of the Florida Library Association, an active member of the Association of Christian Librarians, and has previously been a member of the American Library Association, but found it more geared toward public librarians. Her community service includes her church choir and being an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, helping with projects and fundraising for the chapter. Her continuing education has included quite a few online courses through the Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC), refresher webinars, conferences and workshops of the Association of Christian Librarians, workshops at the University of South Florida (USF), and reading professional journals and articles.

4. Library: The Easter Library, on the campus of Clearwater Christian College, is appealingly set back from the Courtney Campbell Causeway in Clearwater, Florida. It is a quiet campus, especially between semesters as it was on the day of this visit (May 25, 2011). The campus has five main buildings: Easter Library, Dambach Hall, Steele Hall, a music building, and a gym. The library has an inviting veranda with tables and chairs, as well as outdoor ceiling fans. Upon entering, the front of the facility is arranged with comfortable tables and chairs, a grandfather clock, and magazine racks. There is a study room with study carols for students and a reading machine for visually impaired patrons. Additionally, there is a conference room for class meetings and so forth. The archives room contains old books and college history. Vertical files hold maps, bibliographies, and teachers’ resources. A bookshelf is devoted to graduate school information for the career/guidance counselor and interested parties. Built in 1970, it was expanded in ’89 with gracious gifts from Dr. and Mrs. Lowell Easter and others. The college archives were provided in part by a gift from Mr. & Mrs. Raymond Murray. It is recognized for its outstanding holdings in creationism, Biblical studies, Native Americans, official American Civil War records, and American presidents and wives. It is open to the public as well as the campus population, with its holdings accessible onsite as well as online. The Easter library is a member of three professional networks: the Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC), the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), and the Association of Christian Libraries (ACL), which expands the available resources to over 194 million records from libraries in 112 countries and territories.

a. What type of library is it? Academic

b. What type of community does it serve? What special information needs do they have? It serves a Liberal Arts College consisting mainly of undergraduate degree seeking students. It mainly serves these students’ course needs, but also some public members, mainly those pursuing a seminary degree or doing online seminary coursework. It also serves some women’s Bible studies groups, and some professors working on their doctorate dissertations and research.

c. Is the library open to the public? If so, on what basis? Yes, it is open to the public the same operating hours as it is available to the campus population. A library card for community patrons is $35.

d. How many patrons are eligible for service? How many patrons are served? It serves approximately 700 patrons, consisting of students, alumni, faculty, and the public.

e. To which governing body or to which official does the head of the library report? Mrs. Werner reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Mary Draper, with whom she meets with approximately once a week during the academic year. There is also a library committee, which performs an advisory role.

f. What special services are offered to the patrons? Help with assignments, administration of test make-ups for missed classes, laminating services, bibliographies (example: books on Native Americans), die cuts, photocopy services, Interlibrary Loan (ILL), computers for student use, curriculum books, electronic resources on the internet (the two major ones are EBSCO Host and ProQuest), and library instruction, including tours, presentations in classrooms, and orientations. In addition, the Easter library has over 2,000 LPs, and turntables for utilizing them. Other services include AV equipment booking for classrooms, conference room reservations, and an electric typewriter.

g. What hours is the library open? Summer hours are Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. During the school year, the hours are Monday through Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed on Sunday.

h. Describe the size and scope of the collection, including circulation statistics. It contains over 112,000 volumes, over 16,000 regularly received paper and electronic periodical titles, thousands of music scores and multimedia materials, collections of children’s literature, curriculum materials, and pamphlets. There is a media center within the library, holding Elementary and Secondary textbooks for grades k-12. The largest circulation is in Bible related materials in the BR-BX field with 3,610 items borrowed to date in the 2010-2011college fiscal year (College Fiscal Year=July 1-June 30). These statistics were pulled on May 25, 2011 and included statistics through April 2011. The following is a breakdown of remaining collection statistics:

Collection Statistics, 2010-2011

Class	Total	Class	Total

A-BQ	583	L-N	408
BR-BX	3610	P-PZ	763
C-D	468	Q-Z	600
E-G	565	Audiocassettes	12
H-K	735	CD’s	93



Curriculum k-12	337	CD-ROM	4
DVD	132	Games	0
Indexes	0	Children’s/YA	948
Kits	1	LPs	1
Reference	18	Hourly Reserve	370
Overnight Reserves	257	Scores	554
Make-Up Tests	2075	Video	104
Unknown	18	ILL	470
AV Equip.	119	RARF	2

Total: 13,247

i. What is the size of the staff? Number of professional and support staff? What staff did you observe? What impression did you get of the staff? Were they businesslike, courteous, and friendly? There are four staff members. Mrs. Martin is the Library Technical Assistant, Mrs. Lyons is the Associate Librarian, Mrs. Olson is the Library Technician, and Mrs. Werner is the director. I observed Mrs. Olson and Mrs. Werner on my visit, and both were very courteous and businesslike, offering me assistance. Mrs. Werner gave me approximately 90 minutes of her time, and hand wrote out the category titles on the statistics printout for me, as I was unfamiliar with the abbreviations (for example, “FYBAC”=Audiocassettes and “FYBT”=Make-up Tests, et cetera). They both appeared happy to help me with my inquiries.

j. What technology is used? The library has a black & white printer, color printer, color copier, black & white copier, scanner, laminator, and classroom equipment including Elmos and Smartboards.

k. What type and level of visibility in social media (Facebook, Flickr, etc.) does the library have? Mrs. Werner would like to get the library on Facebook, but has not yet found time to do so. A lot of departments on campus, she pointed out, are on Facebook, as is she personally. The library is most visible via its website.

l. Do you think you would like to work here? Itemize the plusses and minuses. I believe I would like to work here. Mrs. Werner stated that her favorite part of her job was “working with college students” and she enjoys the variety of her role, as she does everything from acquisitions to cataloging. Her least favorite part was when she has to get students to pay their bills. Also, as a director, she said you have to make unpopular decisions, such as with the budget—what gets cut? Additionally, she cited the “grunt” work, saying “We do everything—the shelving, the books, et cetera.” Mrs. Werner mentioned that there are also unlimited calls from vendors trying to sell products that the budget simply cannot afford. I believe the plusses outweigh the minuses, as these drawbacks appear to be prevalent in all types of libraries.

5. What did you leave with? I liked this library. I was impressed that it is recognized for outstanding holdings in several areas, especially creationism and Biblical studies. I was intrigued by it’s over 2,000 LPs, and found myself wanting to browse them and perhaps give a few a spin on the turntable. I would love to lounge with a book outside on its veranda, under a fan.

6. Reflections: I now see Academic libraries as a possible avenue for me, whereas I had been totally opposed to the idea before this visit. I believe part of my opposition had been that I perceived them as too anonymous, too impersonal, in the sense that I didn’t that librarians would come to know the students on a personal basis, as they would in a school library. I seek a professional home where I can relate to and know my clientele, and I now see an academic library at a small college as a definite possibility for me.

Library Analysis #1: Special Library

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 23:06:00 +0000

1. Name of Library:

Witt Research Center

801 Old Water Street

Tampa, FL 33602

http://tampabayhistorycenter.org

2. Name of Librarian: Jennifer Dietz

3. Background of Librarian:

Ms. Dietz holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Utah, and an MLIS from the University of South Florida (2006). She intended to attend law school. However, her mom was a school librarian and she had previously worked for the Sundance Film Festival Archive so, while in school, she took a library assistant job in Hillsborough County for experience. Thus, she eventually became a children’s librarian. After two-and-a-half years, a promotion came up and she went for it. The county doesn’t tell candidates where the promotion to director is, but Ms. Dietz ended up at the Witt Research Center and, as they say, the rest is history. She now has a total of six years in the county.

Ms. Dietz is a member of the Society of Florida Archivists (SFA) and the Society of American Archivists (SAA), attending meetings and conferences. She also attends SFA classes at USF and Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC) workshops.

Ms. Dietz’s favorite part of her job is that it is never boring; there are always projects to do, including cataloging, programming, and research. It’s always new each day. When asked her least favorite part, she replies, “Libraries are always under fire with budget cuts. You always have to prove the worth of the library; you have to continually justify its worthiness.”

4. Library: It is a well lit, well air-conditioned, small library housed on the third floor of the Tampa Bay History Center, right next door to the St. Pete Times Forum. It has a large wall of windows and a glass door to minimize the impediment of the beautiful downtown view of water, boats, and condominiums. The stacks room is small, but utilizes the space well, allowing for room to grow by employing rolling shelving. Patrons are not allowed to browse the stacks, but instead tell Mrs. Dietz what they need and she retrieves it for them. Patrons can utilize the resources on site. As I roam the facility, I notice a guestbook, signed by many patrons. I notice extra-large books on special narrow shelving titled Pioneer Florida, a table of literature including “Facts & Figures for Hillsborough County,” “Hillsborough Reads” pamphlets, and advertisements for public library programs such as homework assistance for kids. On the walls, I find historic newspapers and advertisements, a Lord’s Indexed Street Map of Greater Tampa, a “Florida Works Progress Administration, Creation of Counties in Florida 1820 to 1936,” a “Plan of Tampa 1886,” and a painting of a Florida road by Nettie Gates, circa 1930s. On the magazine rack I find American Libraries, AASLH History News, History Magazine, and Cigar City Magazine, among others. Among the pamphlets are TRAILS Tampa History & Obit. Index, What the Census Tells, City Directories of the US, and FL Vital Records Combined Index. Informational flyers include “Getting Started…Genealogy Basics” and “How to Find Military Records.”

a. What type of library is it? It is a research library of closed stacks, i.e., nothing circulates, and no one goes into the stacks.

b. What type of community does it serve? What special information needs do they have? Mainly researchers writing articles and books, and individuals searching genealogy. They come for specific reasons, and stay a long time. There is a book club every month, and almost all authors have been in for research. On an aside, author Nick Wynne, co-writer of Florida in the Spanish American War, credited Ms. Dietz in his acknowledgements. The two biggest things patrons are looking for are Tampa local history and genealogy.

c. Is the library open to the public? If so, on what basis? Yes. It is open to the public, free of charge, in a partnership with Hillsborough County.

d. How many patrons are eligible for service? How many patrons are served? Patrons number approximately 111 per month. The databases require a card, which is provided for free. It is a branch location of the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative, with branch code TBH.

e. To which governing body or to which official does the head of the library report? Ms. Dietz, as head librarian, personally reports to Hillsborough County Library Services.

f. What special services are offered to the patrons? Patrons have access to special databases and help with research. The librarian really partners with patrons to assist them along their way. Additionally, a microfilm reader, copier, and scanner are provided for their needs.

g. What hours is the library open? It is open 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and again 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on Saturdays by appointment with one week notice (same weekday hours apply on Saturdays).

h. Describe the size and scope of the collection, including circulation statistics. The collection is 3,000 books and 2,000 family files. It has a budget of about $12,000 beyond donations. Each book has a session number, consisting of the year it came in, the donor number, and the item number. It has Sanborn maps from the 1930s to 1950s, yearbooks of local high schools and colleges, rare first editions and signed copies, subject files, maps and atlases of Hillsborough County, the Tampa Tribune from 1900, and aerial maps from the 1930s. They are in the process of cataloging everything for the public library catalog. It is a non-circulating research library.

i. What is the size of the staff? Number of professional and support staff? What staff did you observe? What impression did you get of the staff? Were they businesslike, courteous, and friendly? The staff consists of head librarian Jennifer Dietz, and currently one graduate assistant completing her fieldwork for the USF MLIS program. The graduate assistant assists Ms. Dietz one day a week for six hours, splitting time between the Witt Research Center and the John F. Germany Public Library. There are also six library volunteers helping Ms. Dietz; they work approximately four hours per week. In total, including the volunteers and the graduate assistant, there are approximately thirty total hours of assistance per week. There are also eight staff members at the John F. Germany Public Library who are trained to substitute for Ms. Dietz on an occasion when she may be out. On my visit, I met the graduate assistant, who was currently working on the process of cataloging everything for the public library catalog. Both the GA and head librarian were very friendly, courteous, and businesslike, inquiring about my pursuit of my own MLIS degree, and offering any assistance I may need with my tour and interview. It was a relaxed but very professional environment.

j. What technology is used? There is a copier, scanner, and microfilm reader. The staff and patrons utilize Excel, Word, Office products, and PastPerfect Software for patron sign on. The computer databases are very independent, showing what the history center has on a given subject, allowing patrons to browse the museum collection. It includes the Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection of 15,000 images. Patrons can order prints, such as an historic picture of their house—a very popular service!

k. What type and level of visibility in social media (Facebook, Flickr, etc.) does the library have? The library itself does not yet have a blog, but hopes to soon. The public library (Hillsborough County) has all forms of social media. Ms. Dietz contributes regularly to the Library History Roadshow Blog, for which she wrote a contribution the morning of this interview.

l. Do you think you would like to work here? Itemize the plusses and minuses. I think I would like to work here. I would get to meet an array of people, from the curious genealogy investigator to the intent researcher, published and unpublished writers, and history lovers. As Ms. Dietz said, it would never lack new projects and new patrons. For example, one current patron is researching Florida breweries. “A lot is like a treasure hunt,” said Ms. Dietz. I think it would be fun to say that about your career. Granted, constantly justifying your existence in already too-tight budgets is never fun, but sadly it is a trait of many important professions now, and I believe it is valuable to remind everyone, especially oneself, of how important you really are.

5. What did you leave with? Ms. Dietz’s advice was to be flexible—a key, she said, for librarians to get to where they want to be. Additionally, I found it interesting that the collection of this library is often used by educational curators for planning their programs. Lastly, the Witt Research Center has first editions, autographed copies, and rare books. It has hand-written ledgers, journals, and old receipt books. It also has Grismer’s Tampa, which the public library just digitized because of demand.

6. Reflections: I don’t think that I would have even known a library might be housed in a history museum, had it not been for this project. I am realizing that people, like me, come to this profession via a multitude of backgrounds, and with a variety of experiences. I’m beginning to see that my chosen path of librarianship can take many, many avenues. And I like that.

Test Blog: 7 1/2 Habits Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Christy) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:50:00 +0000

I highly recommend checking out the "7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners" tutorial at:
http://www.cmlibrary.org/public/learning/player.html. The seven habits are as follows:

Habit 1: Begin with the end in mind. This means knowing what it will take to reach your goals, so you can outline a path to attain them.
Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning. This includes asking someone who can help you if you have a question. (Sometimes this is hard for me.)
Habit 3: View problems as challenges. When a problem comes up, do you typically think of it as another crisis that must be dealt with or a challenge that you can learn from?
Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. This, I believe, goes hand-in-hand with habits two and three. After all, you have to have confidence to accept responsibility and deal with challenges.
Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox. This includes the things you need to accomplish your goals. I would also add that this includes what you already possess, such as communication skills, technology fluency, and so on.
Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage. (I'm still working on seeing technology as my friend.)

Habit 7: Teach/mentor others. This is the best way to learn something--by teaching it!
Habit 7 1/2: Play! Play, be curious, and read! (I also have trouble with this play part. Although I'm curious and I read all the time, days go by and I realize that I haven't played. I must make it a priority.)

So, obviously, I have some difficulty with a few of these habits. Overall, I would have to say that the easiest for me is habit #1. I seem to set goals easily, and I have a generally healthy grasp on knowing what goes into achieving my goals. The absolute hardest for me?: #3. And #4 goes right along with it. I must learn to view problems as challenges, and learn to go to my toolbox and colleagues as resources for help in overcoming the challenges.