http://www.flickr.com/photos/margolove/1810357551/

It is a very interesting time. As I gear up for another ALA conference, in the very rare spare moments I encounter I’ve been reflecting a bit on my life, my career, and inevitably… this blog.

I’ve seen the signs– blogging is dead. Well, no it’s not. But I’m certainly not the only one I know who’s taken a hiatus. I know the arguments– Friendfeed and/or Twitter have killed blogs. However, in my case that’s really not it. I remain semi-active on Twitter, but I’ve rarely spent any time at all on Friendfeed.

I have a lot going on right now. The transition from Library School student to full-fledged MLS’d librarian happened in mid-April, when I gave my final capstone presentation. I thought, “Ah-ha! Now I will blog again.”

But I did not. I spent evenings with my daughter. We went for bike rides, we read aloud together, we went to the park, and we spent many, many hours on the swing in the front yard.

And I don’t regret a minute of it.

However, by late May I began to feel antsy again and I started putting together presentations, trainings, reading a few blogs here and there, etc. But I just haven’t had the extra time to blog. As you can see from my last “post”, I had intended on live-blogging the Rocky Mountain Innovative Users Group summer workshop—but I ended up needing to come back up to Boulder after our patron network crashed for most of the day.

Which leads me to why I’m really not blogging. It turns out that moving from a position where you have little power (and therefore little responsibility) to one of great responsibility is a huge shift in many different ways.

Before, I could spend the evening on a whim staying up late coding a cool website or mashup just because I thought it would be fun. I could head off to pretty much any meeting, conference, or committee that I could drive to and afford. I could spend my time exploring and playing with ideas and writing rants about what needs to change.

But now I actually have to *do it*.

There’s no one to blame anymore if things don’t turn out well. There’s no “administration” that won’t let me implement something cool for our department. There’s no lack of ability to control the purse-strings or to delegate the tasks. Now I have to figure out how to be the one to get buy-in. I have to figure out how to take ideas from conception to reality not just in my own little office sphere—but across an entire organization.

I have to manage people. Granted—I managed work-study students at the University Libraries, and I managed all kinds of folks in the past in restaurants, sales jobs, etc. But it’s very different managing people who are mostly older than you, who are highly skilled, and who just plain have a whole lot more experience than you. Let me say this—I am ever more grateful *every day* that I had a management class in library school and that the Colorado Association of Libraries Leadership Institute has been so fantastic. It has really taught me a lot and helped me through some pretty intense challenges.

I also have spent a lot of time adjusting to my new role as professional. It’s no longer my job to do all of the nuts and bolts of coding up some new web tool or bringing online a new gadget. That’s something I have to remember. Now it’s time to trust and, when necessary, coach my staff and let them go do it. I need to keep my head in the clouds for strategic visioning and future casting. I need to participate, contribute to, and help shape policy development. I need to empower others.

I have to remind myself of this every once in a while. I almost spent this last weekend at DrupalCamp Colorado because it was “cool”. But I would have come home and played with Drupal all night, and not paid attention to caring for myself, my house, my pets, or getting ready for ALA—not to mention handling my management responsibilities for the week. I had to step back and remember, “things are different now”.

And that’s just fine. It’s tough to be stretched in many directions. However, I prefer to think that’s just a process of expanding myself. Expanding who I am and what I’m capable of. I only hope I remain malleable like silly putty—and don’t crack like old rubber band.

See you in Chicago!

Jennifer Knievel and Jina Wakimota – University of Colorado at Boulder Chinook OPAC redesign

data to examine impact of redesign – took pulse before and after

old interface cluttered and forced user to choose index first

new interface clean, “Google experience” with access to more advanced features for researcher needs

Not just presentation — back end work, re-presentation of metadata

research q: would keyword default increase keyword searching?

are users using catalog less and migrating to Google more?

abandoned using 225 or 229 fields for periodical search– changed to Scope instead so that periodical-specific search could be enabled

reindexed database (had not been done in 10 years) — had been changes in Marc, Millenium features, etc.

Methods

Transactional Log analysis – unbiased, unobstrusive, lends itself to longitudinal analysis

Text Searches- Author, Title, Keyword, Subject

slight increase in keyword searches (about 4%)

slight decrease in Author searches (about 4%)

everything else stayed about the same with a spike in Title searches just before redesign (coincided with intro of periodical scope- search for journal titles)

Did a T-test for statistical significance

beginning and end of semester more known search, mid-semester more discovery (more keyword)

subject lowest used – no surprise

author low use

title and keyword rising slowly over time

downside of transactional analysis– can’t assess user success

Number Searches – Call #, ISSN/ISBN only

dramatic increase in LC call number searches– highest in the beginning of the semester (locating the items given to find perhaps?)

increase in ISSN searching before WebBridge implementation – correlated with making it easier

Total Searches

Catalog use steady – did not see decrease in usage, saw a spike in usage when new OPAC first implemented but then it went back to previous numbers

pop. as a whole doesn’t have as many smartphones yet… still provide good lib services

new 12m pixel phones with face and smile recognition (won’t take pic until person is smiling

palm pre:
has a “synergy” feature to pull together contacts and calenders for multiple sources
multitasking finally
wireless charger

multimodel interaction, typing is not so easy
visual access- pic of book, QR codes, pic of bar code
(extelligence, versus intelligence)

QRcodes all over the world much higher adoption rates

increasing audio interactions

“Tell Me” -  gives audio info

gesture interactions

3 camps of content users could be getting on the phone:

full, transcoded, or true mobile page (created for and optimized)

w3c mobileok checker

study by abphone.com, “snacking the web”

mobile users need fast easy answers with minimal amount of typing

much of reference desk info is now on their mobiles at point of need

Library Journal has a mobile version

Skokie Public Library

University of Houston checking out Itouch’s with mobile lib apps to give patrons an idea of what they could do

III Airpac has been revamped for iPhone use (m.ocls.info)

Suzanne Chapman’s Flickr for mobile library screenshots

Library app, helps you find local libraries

Traveling Classics reads books to you

Istory app – like Choose your own adventure

Paper – for scholarly paper

Sit or squat — clean public restroom finder

Text more popular than calls, especially among 13-17 year old

Boston: trash cans when almost full, send text that they need open to central office — why not our book drops

Libraries: request hold, send call numbers, ref questions

mLibraries section of Library Success Wiki

vLingo works better than Google voice?
can use to run commands on your device… “Send text message to Bob”

Leapfrog is about to come out with “text and learn” blackberry for 3 year olds

SMS/Text Search (check Megan’s slides)

University of Arizona, color, flexible touch screen will be on market in 18 months

projector in phone

Asus selling keyboard for with keyboard and touchscreen built in

Samsung, solar-powered, touchscreen phone made of recycled plastic

Megan’s slides (and excellent site) are here

The way libraries prepare for the future is not sustainable, cultural reaction pushed back against expectations of the users

took everything apart and reexamined their services, both from patron and staff side

meet together and allow innovation to drive change

could be any area– not just technical

best thing about culture of innovation– it’s okay to fail

futurecasting and planning for it, makes leaps– it’s okay, say “we were wrong, we’ll fix it”

ADAPT

adaptation synonymous with being an agile organization

small library so can change quickly

staff has bought into– user expect it, don’t see it as drastic but responding to their needs

experiment, trying new things and share their failures help create excellence

cycle of innovation-fail-adapt effect sustainable change over long term, build in culture of change (all staff, users, new hires expect it)

UX focuses on the user (staff, user to the door, and users of web site)

analyzes interface points and suggests changes, with eye toward aesthetics, community, usability

helps make ure this is pushed out to other departments

Gretchen:
too often children’s dept is treated like an island, not at table for innovation

children’s doesn’t serve kids– it serves kids and their parents….

they see the library as the third place – stay for hours, storytime in morning, stay till lunch

but children’s section not arranged for browsing (arranged picture books in sections rather than alphabetically)

who is it for? what is it about?

had to handle every book and make a decision about it, color coding works…

serves both BROWSERS and SEARCHERS

calling the collection “FIRST FIVE YEARS” coded the spine label as FF instead of call number

circulation is way up!

in order for children to grow, they need to feel validated and “published”

creation station so that kids can create and share something (camera, recorder, flipcam, laptop) NOT CATALOGED, NOT BARCODED we trust them because it’s theirs

Sarah:
1. Teen hang out room — no homework, no service desk, it’s their space and we don’t want to invade it (relax and have fun)
2. then “power library” has 25 computers and service desk
3. then classroom for tech training
4. then several study rooms
5. then a small office home office (all the stuff you’d find at Kinkos)

2 positions that are supposed to investigate tech, post about tech, etc.

Teens are the beta users, they are fearless and will tell us what they think….

iMacs with really big screens so four kids and fit around and then they can easily collaborate

all furniture is designed to be easily movable and make the space their own

all walls are glass and they are allowed to right the on the walls (wrote all over how much they loved the libraries)

they ended up using markers on the walls for their homework

HAVE to have gaming in your library if you’re serving teens, don’t program around gaming– just plop it down for them after school and allow them to play as much as they want… WE TRUST THEM

Have Teen Advisory Board manage the Facebook page and they post the events

On Facebook, make a professional profile and friend ONLY the teens, not your colleagues

Kate:
No reference desk, all roaming– meet people at point of need (without being invasive)

not get rid of Dewey, keep some though

start up intensive one-on-one deep reference, also be the point person to work with local knowledge experts

Created subject browsing, gathered different ranges of Dewey into “glades”

Tools to make it work: tiny laptops, EEE PCs, wireless phones, and a slimmed down Reference point (a little curvy table)

Takes Reference out of tech support, guest pass giving out, and allow us to focus on Reference…..

Most important tool: Nametags

Doing IM reference through Meebo, Meebo is tough on tiny screens (moving to Libraryh3lp)

reorganizing collection was a great bonding experience

having a reorganizing collection gives opportunity to constantly review– why is this hear? a new intimacy with the collection…. do we really need this? now we are thinking about, touching the collection all the time instead of it just sitting there

staff at Darien willing to change– they say, “we try a lot of things and sometimes they don’t work… that’s okay”

Libraries are like open source, the more we give away, the better we get

we’re giving more than just information, we’re giving of ourselves more

no more sitting at the reference desk, sitting “apart”

what is most fundamental is to maintain a genuineness and our chief export is kindness

How to prepare for a migration

Why? Access to the data MY way

web design was stunted

Web accessibility poor

Thick client outdated and tedious to upgrade

Saves TCO

Excited about OPAC interface improvements

Total ILS savings 25%

Setup Koha server and started nightly dump from Sirsi, began z39.50 search into Koha from Drupal website

It was appealing how easy it was to customize for each person

Weekly meetings for changes and bug reports – will go live sooner than expected

Break project into manageable chunks

Improvements are seen quickly

Leave staff time for development

IT not afraid of data migration

Focus on database structure not on what reports you can get, because you can do anything with a good data structure

Koha and web Drupal site each on virtual machine – Linux 2gb and runs fine – MySQL and perl

Nice slides showing app layers (wish they’d post their slides)

Data layer
app layer
XML layer

TechEssence.info for API library info

check worldcat.org/devnet

can pull worldcat searches as XML and remix

xISBN for FRBRizing

MAshed Libraries UK – hackfest

Worldcat hackathon NYPL

OCLC bootcamp for Code4Lib

Visualizing Worldcat Holding
thesecretmirror.com/code/api-fun-visualizing-holdings-locations

Compare Everywhere app for android phone includes library for books through Wordlcat API
(usage spiked after introduction – importance of mobile and of freeing data for machine use)

Andrew:

Why can’t we move the lib workflow to the network?

Chris Anderson- web is all about scale

started with resource sharing… the licensed journal lit….. cataloging…. consortial…. (open source ILS? universal circ policies? Pines?)

sharing cloud storage of google scanned documents

webscale computing helps invert the 70/30 ratio 70% building infrastructure, 30% propelling biz forward

Libs have concentrated on diffusion and syndication

now we’re seeing concentration…. shared discovery layer…. ERM/knowledge base…. repository…..

Eventually ALL library management workflow

do things at scale, in the cloud

Ebay did well:

1. Simplify features of commercial transaction

2. provided platform to allow buyers/sellers to industrialize workflow

3. reap benefits by scaling this up

Library Scale 166 billion transactions per year, 5000 transactions per second

OCLCs goal: build a service capable of that….

when using social networks, need scale…. social networking content would not work so well with just a few library users….
but we still want to handle our metadata locally

practical web scale for libs – looking for efficiency

despite our huge investments, we appear small and fragmented in comparison to search engines

a webscale strategy would provide libs with the ability to just focus on propelling biz dforward

lib management workflow isn’t unique– can stop treating it as such

extend what we’ve done for library users, we can do for staff as well

concentration creates network effects, opens up new world of processes of resource sharing

a single networked source for vendors/providers, e-resources identities, bib item-level details

reports w/real details (financial, collection, circulation)

fund codes, bulk purchases, collection shifting, consolidation patron notifications, identity management

More notes:
http://cil2009reporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/day-one-track-d-moving-libraries-to.html

Redesign or Redevelop?

Redesign if just asked, old, boring

Redevelop if code is poor, usability poor, hard to update

Redesign is cheap (director won’t know difference)

Redevelop is $$$ more like triplebypass

Get off the major redesign cycle. Disruptive to users

Users dislike redesigns

Redesign w/ evidence based

Usability tests, usage logs, feedback show a need

Pitfall 1: not accounting time for assessment

Redesign where the biggest ROI in terms of content, services

Look where people are going

Google Analytics
Clicky
Usability studies
Find and document page rank

Plan for time to get consensus:
Need for change
Desired outcomes

Data is good here

Pitfall: death by committee
Make committee SMALL

Data+evidence based practice

Pitfall: being experts
Don’t design to make librarians happy, design for your users

Pitfall: thinking outside box
Cms
Blog
Wiki
Rather traditional page based

Pitfall spending too much time designing
Why be original when so many choices already?

spend time on content, services rather than arguing design minutia

Pitfall only looking other Library websites

User expectations formed on other sites, not libs

Pitfall use SMART goals

Increase page rank, improve content update times, improve usability x percent, increase in resource usage

Pitfall: not communicating enough
Consider blog or wiki, tool manage user expectations

Execution

Pitfall communicating too much
Redesign by committee
Look to evidence to avoid tedious discussions

Pitfall not providing clear path for users
Define primary functions and these paths are clear

Connecting people / materials get prime real estate

Pitfall reinventing the wheel
Use free stuff

Spent time money on remarkable content, engagement

Librarians are smart provide good content

Remarkable content is rewritten content for the web don’t cut and paste
Improvements in usability in hundreds of percent

Redesign for SEO
Structure HTML well consistently
Simple URL
Alt tags
Descriptive titles

Submit sitemap
Ask Google to remove old from cache

Design with social media optimization

Don’t throw old content

Update robots.txt

Pitfall not planning for maintenance in future

Do it right once

Others who took better notes include:

Bobbi Newman

and

Julie Strange

I’ll be doing a bit of live-blogging (or at least hotel room blogging) throughout the conference, so I’ll go ahead and post my intended schedule here now for those who might find it interesting.

On Sunday evening I’ll be headed to the “Gaming & Gadgets Petting Zoo“.

Monday

OPENING KEYNOTE: Friending Libraries: The Nodes in People’s Social Networks
8:45 AM – 9:45 AM
Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project

Website Redesign Pitfalls
10:30 AM – 11:15 AM
Jeff Wisniewski, Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh

Help Your Library Be Omnipresent Without Spending a Dime
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Nina McHale, Assistant Professor, Web Librarian, Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver
Curt W. Tagtmeier, Adult Services Librarian and Technology Coordinator, Fremont Public Library

*or*

Building Community Partnerships: 25 Ideas in 40 Minutes
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Kathy Dempsey, Editor, Marketing Library Services newsletter Owner, Libraries Are Essential consultancy

D103 – Moving Libraries to the Cloud
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer, OCLC
Andrew Pace, Executive Director, Networked Library Services, OCLC

Developing a Sustainable Library IT Environment
3:15 PM – 4:00 PM
Oleg Kreymer, Systems Librarian, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Jennie Pu, Senior Library Associate, Asian Art Library / Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

*or*

Flickr Commons for Libraries & Museums
3:15 PM – 4:00 PM
Michelle Springer, Project Manager, Digital Initiatives, Library Of Congress
Dr. Joshua M. Greenberg, Director, Digital Strategy & Scholarship, The New York Public Library
Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology, Brooklyn Museum
Martin R. Kalfatovic, Assistant Director, Digital Services Division, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Continued Online Community Engagement
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
Rebecca Ranallo, Internet & Media Services Manager, Cuyahoga County Public Library
Clyde Miles, Chief Strategist, Optiem
Susan Conlon, Teen Services Librarian, Princeton Public Library
Jennifer Peterson, Community Manager, WebJunction

*or*

Achieving the Dream to Go Green
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
John Law, Director, Strategic Alliances & Platform Management, ProQuest
Maria Gebhardt, Libraries Manager, Broward County Library

Tuesday

KEYNOTE: Library Without Walls: Meeting Place of and for People!
9:00 AM – 9:45 AM
Paul Holdengraber, Director, Public Programs, New York Public Library
Erik Boekesteijn, Concept Developer and Projectmanager, Science and Innovationdepartment, Delft Public Library ShanachieTour

Next Gen Digital Reference Tools
10:30 AM – 11:15 AM
Joe Murphy, Science Librarian, Coordinator of Instruction & Technology, Yale University
Madeline Kriescher, Acting Circuit Librarian, U.S. Courts Library, 10th Circuit
Jan Johansson, Data Librarian, Congressional Research Service (CRS)

Library Automation Highlights
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Stephen Abram, VP, Innovation, SirsiDynix & President, SLA
Phillip L. Green, Chief Technology Officer, Inmagic, Inc.
Neil Block, VP of Worldwide Sales, Innovative Interfaces

Learning From Research in Library Website Design
1:00 PM – 1:15 PM
Frank Cervone , Ph.D., Vice Chancellor for Information Services, Purdue University Calumet

Embedding Services: Go Where the Client Is
1:30 PM – 2:15 PM
Natalie Collins, Systems Librarian, National Research Council–Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI)
Holly Hibner, Reference Librarian, Salem-South Lyon District Library

*or*

Library Website & Library Catalog: One Stop!
1:30 PM – 2:15 PM
Amy Begg De Groff, Director of Information Technology, Howard County Library
Danny Bouman, Web Programmer, Howard County Library
Joshua Ferraro, CEO, Liblime Former Release Manager, Koha Project

Open Source Library Implementations
2:30 PM – 3:15 PM
Karen Kohn, Collection Development Manager, Arcadia University
Eric McCloy, Executive Director, Library and Information Technology, Arcadia University

Innovative Services & Practices
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
John Blyberg, Head of Technology and Digital Initiatives, Darien Library
Gretchen Hams, Head, Children’s Services, Darien Library
Sarah Ludwig, Head, Teen Services, Darien Library
Kate Sheehan, Head of Knowledge and Learning Services, Darien Library

*or*

Cooperative Systems Trump Integrated Systems
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Paul Wallace, Library Systems Manager, Fifth Circuit Library System, U.S. Court of Appeals
Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research, Vanderbilt University
Daniel Forsman, Systems Librarian, Jönköping University Library

Dead & Innovative Technology: Moving & Shaking in the Information World
7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Moderator: Stephen Abram, VP, Innovation, SirsiDynix & President, SLA
Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research, Vanderbilt University
Aaron Schmidt, Digital Initiatives Librarian, District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) & Publisher, walkingpaper.org
Darlene Fichter, Data Library Coordinator, University of Saskatchewan

Wednesday

KEYNOTE: Digital Strategies & Knowledge Commons
9:00 AM – 9:45 AM
Michael Edson, Director of Web & New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian Institution

Mobile Practices & Search: What’s Hot!
10:30 AM – 11:15 AM
Megan Fox, Associate Director, Library, Simmons College

*or*

Learning Solutions Through Technology
10:30 AM – 11:15 AM
Sarah Houghton-Jan, Senior Librarian for Digital Futures, San Jose Public Library author of LibrarianInBlack.net
Lori Reed, Training Specialist, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC)

Mobile Usability: Tips, Research, & Practices
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Jim Hahn, Orientation Services Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Michael P Sauers, Technology Innovation Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission
Christa Burns, OCLC Member Services Coordinator, Nebraska Library Commission

*or*

What’s the Return on Investment for Your Library?
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Neal K. Kaske, Director, NOAA Central & Regional Libraries, National Oceanographic Data Center/ National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Central Library
Mary Lou Cumberpatch, Librarian, Public Services & Regional Libraries Branch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Guy Dobson, Internet Services Librarian, Bergen County Cooperative Library System

Future Space: The Changing Shape of Libraries
1:45 PM – 2:30 PM
Richard Huffine, National Library Coordinator, U.S. Geological Survey
Dwayne Henderson, Library Technology Designer, Fanning Howey Associates, Inc.
James Mumby, Library Architect/Principal, Fanning Howey Associates, Inc.

Mobile Search
1:45 PM – 2:30 PM
Megan Fox, Associate Director, Library, Simmons College

Real Librarians in Virtual Worlds
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Lori Bell, Director of Innovation, Alliance Library System
Rhonda Trueman, Reference Librarian, Johnson & Wales University & Author, Virtual Worlds, Real Libraries

New Tools for Metrics & Measures
3:45 PM – 4:30 PM
Debbie Herman, Digital Resources Librarian, Elihu Burritt Library, Central Connecticut State University
Edward Iglesias, Systems Librarian, ERIS, Central Connecticut State University
Ms. Alka Bhatnagar, Analysis &Trends Specialist, New Jersey State Library

*or*

Gaming & Learning
3:45 PM – 4:30 PM
Sonja Plummer-Morgan, Library Director, Mark and Emily Turner Library VP/Pres Elect Maine Library Association, ALA’s AAUP, Association for Rural & Small Libraries Board Member, Second Life Librarian

Internet Librarian was like coming home. Everyone was as techie (or more) than me. We all had our gadgets, our online presence, our favorite things to share and play with. It was great!

In contrast, all too often in libraries I’ve found there is little emphasis on, or appreciation of, technology– and while I am the first to admit that technology must have a purpose, it must make life easier, to be hostile to technology in a library today means that you are distancing yourself from our users in a way that could quite possibly threaten the existence of libraries in the future.

But I am more optimistic than that. I believe that libraries will adapt, grow, change, and empower our users to learn about and make use of information technologies in all their forms. That will (hopefully) always include books, but it will also include art, games, story-time, community gatherings, video workshops, podcasting, and….. well, we’ll see about that. =)

After Internet Librarian, it was quite a shock  two weeks later to attend the Colorado Association of Libraries conference. While IL had blogger’s table at the front and back of every room, and it seemed like everyone was carrying a mobile device of some kind (see the photo below), I saw none of this at CAL.

Thanks to Laura Crossett for the photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/newrambler/)

I find this odd. Colorado is one of the leaders in technology adoption. In a recent opinion poll done by The USA Today/Claritas it was found that 4 out of the 25 top counties for “early adopters” are found in the front-range of Colorado. The Boulder County area is known as the “Silicon Flatirons” because of the number of tech companies located here. I don’t have to tell any library folks the importance of understanding, and reflecting, one’s community. All of us– public, academic, special, understand this as crucial to our mission.

So I have to ask…. what happened? Colorado was once a leader in library technology.

Well, it’s not all that bad…. There is a lot of support in the area for change and development in our libraries. One of our outstanding library technology leaders is Sue Staples of the High Plains Library District who has done a fantastic job of transforming her library’s online presence and encouraging technological exploration and innovation with the Colorado library community.

Steve Lawson of Colorado College and Joe Kraus of DU have gotten together a Web 2.0 & Libraries Round Table under the auspices of the Alliance.

The Colorado State Library has done a little work at exploring whether the development of an Open Source ILS project similiar the Georgia’s Pines program is viable. This was one of the projects I highlighted as part of my poster presentation at CAL 2007 on “Open Source and Libraries”.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the efforts of one of my fellow CAL Leadership Institute members, Victoria Petersen, who is doing some really cool stuff not only in leading CAL’s Second Life Interest Group but just generally being fabulous down in Mancos.

And of course, he hardly needs mentioning, but who can possibly not be impressed with a library director like Jamie LaRue who not only is willing run Linux on his own machine, but was willing to try adopting open source software on his library system’s public workstations as well. Jamie is definitely an example of someone who is pitching in and lighting fires in Colorado’s library community.

These are only a few examples of the great work being done in Colorado currently (and many apologies to the MANY I left out), but I hope we see more.

So, Colorado peeps…… who else is doing the cool stuff? And where do we go from here?

THAT will be the subject of a post soon. HINT: If we have all this tech knowledge and enthusiasm around– why don’t we use it?

Boulder Public Library was the very first place I visited when I first saw this town now over 10 years ago. It sits on the bank of Boulder Creek and spans either side, with a glass walkway connecting the main part of the library itself with the community theater and art gallery. I remember pulling into Boulder, parking in the library’s parking lot, and sitting in the sun next to the creek. Like countless Boulderites, I did some yoga, admired the flatirons and felt myself at home. So, Boulder Public Library has been the place of many “firsts” for me– major shifts in my life.

Today I gave my first presentation that was not part of a class. It was on Mobile Computing and it was part of BPL’s “Learn and Play Day” for staff. Tony Tallent is doing a great job of setting the stage as the new director of BPL and since this is my hometown (and favorite) public library, I couldn’t be more pleased. I have to say I’m in the clouds right now.

One thing that struck me about the staff at BPL was how much they genuinely seemed to enjoy each other and the environment that they work in. And they should– Main library is a gorgeous building, and a center for the arts in Boulder. The other branches also have their charms– over the 10 years I’ve lived in Boulder, I’ve used all of them numerous times for nearly every reason you can think of– storytime for my daughter, books to read to her or together, research for classes or projects, reading for pleasure, book groups, film series, theater productions, I’ve downloaded audio books and checked out dozens of audio books on CD for travel and documentaries for when I feel like zoning out of the TV. I *love* this library (can you tell?). It was a honor and a pleasure to come and speak there today and I can’t think of anywhere where I’d rather have had my first official presentation memory.

Helene Blowers came to town for the keynote and as always, her talk was fantastic. She used the metaphor of “Bubbles” to inspire the staff to not only focus on those services that allow us to “break” the bubbles (our “stuff” for people to check out) but also empower our communities to come in a blow their own bubbles. She stressed the importance of providing space for self-expression and that this will engender good will in our communities. I love this…. what better place for people to get together, make art, make a podcast or a Youtube video, to meet each other, and to just…. play!

The other speaker besides myself was my colleague James Ascher, who is a rare book specialist and a scholar and gentlemen of the highest caliber. I had to leave before he came on– but judging from our many conversations, I’m sure his presentation was phenomenal.

So, the title of my presentation was “It’s not a Bandwagon, It’s a Tsunami: How Mobile Computing Changes Everything”. I’ll try to get it up on slideshare within another day or two. Since Internet Librarian, I’ve been really into Mobile Computing. I plan to go further with the research and I’m working on a proposal for the upcoming mLibraries conference next year.

Just a little of what I’ve found so far:

1. Libraries are adapting slowly to mobile computing, more slowly than the shift to Web 2.0. This is a bit strange for two reasons– one is that PDAs and Blackberrys have been fairly common for as long (or longer) than most “Web 2.0″ technologies have been prolific. The other reason is that it is the fastest growing aspect of computing. More importantly, the adoption rates of cell phones are much greater than the adoption rates of social networking tools.

2. While there are well-meaning efforts, some are successful– podcasts for the storytime or library tours. But some have long way to go. Most of the “mobile optimized” web sites I saw were fairly usable. But, almost all the OPACs I’ve explored are completely useless on my iPhone and my Palm Pilot. The text is far too small and the pages littered with far too much information to be useful.

3. There are a lot of possibilities, though. Everything from including “Find in a Library” in the product search apps to use QR codes to link directly to subject guides or recommendation pages for the section of the library you’re in. There are things we haven’t thought of yet. One staff member asked about technology that would detect your presence when you walked into the library and offer to beam information to your phone– I didn’t know about it, but Helene did. Now how cool is that?

Overall, now I’m sitting at home just finished snuggling with my daughter and tucking her into bed and I can’t help but feel hopeful for the future. I am now confident that I can hack this conference thing (yay!) but even more importantly, I love that the idea of play is moving forward in our field.

I think for too long we’ve been a society concerned with how to work with information– but what we’ve found is that once people have been given the tools (and Web 2.0 is just a part of this) that they have preferred to play. I think it’s an exciting time to see how develops– and especially how our society may develop once the effects of play transform our information behavior.

I’m disappointed that I won’t get a chance to hang out with Max Macias a bit more– but he’s busy with a much more important project right now. (I’m leaving my skateboard at home now, buddy). But I’m excited to spend some more time with my online friends in person and connect with more LSW members I haven’t yet met.

One of the things I’m doing for myself is a long, leisurely two-day trip down to Monterey from San Jose. I am planning on going through Big Basin Redwood State Park and hiking and just sleeping amongst the trees. I haven’t done anything like that in a very long time and I could use a little time breathing in some pure air.

Posted by http://flickr.com/people/meghannfinn/ (Thanks!)

I may go down and check out Santa Cruz, which is a town I’ve never visited, but everyone tells me I’d love. I might visit my yoga lineage’s ashram, Mount Madonna. I really don’t have a plan– just get off the plane at 11am on Saturday in San Jose and arrive sometime late afternoon Sunday in Monterey to check into my hotel.

I *love* not having a plan. Open to anything.

It is that spirit that I plan to take to Internet Librarian. I’m about to graduate in May and I get to move forward in my career as an information professional. I know I love libraries, I like Web 2.0 (but not just for its own sake), but what will come next? What will be the right fit?

I plan to spend plenty of time talking to people at IL about what their job entails, what their projects are, and try and discover what I can add to all this. At my current position, I’m mostly playing catch-up, “hey other libraries are doing this– let’s finally do this, too”.

But I don’t want to follow forever, I want to have something to contribute. I want to give and not just take.

I think a period of soul searching, a strenuous hike or walk on the beach. A step back from working all day and reading LIS all night might help clear my head enough to be back to “Zen Mind”.

Then it’s back to video games and gadgets!

However, it’s definitely not all about socialization and fun. I feel like I’ll learn more in this weekend than in most semesters of library school. (Although as an alumni, I plan to help change that).

My schedule, as always, is quite likely to change, but here is my tentative plan:

Sunday evening: I have to be online for a class but I plan to do my posting early and then head off to the “Gaming & Gadgets Petting Zoo”.

Monday, I’ll attend Howard Rheingold’s keynote. Then I plan to go to:

“Giving Your Marketing and Advocacy a Second Life” with Nancy Dow

“Digital Marketing: Successful Plans/Organizations” with Sarah Houghton-Jan and Aaron Schmidt

“Web Site Assessment With Google Analytics” with Marshall Breeding

“Cool Tools for Library Webmasters” with Frank Cervone and Darlene Fichter

“Mashing Up and Remixing the Library Website” with Karen Coombs

“Facebook & Libraries: Ethnographic Evaluation” with David Bietila, Elizabeth Edwards, and Christopher Bloechl

(Then I plan to head out for Karaoke with the LSW folks!)

Tuesday, I plan to attend:

I may or may not go to the keynote with Danny Sullivan

“Innovation” with Helene Blowers

“2.0 Learning & 1.8 Users: Bridging the Gap” with Rudy Leon and Colleen Harris

“Microformats: Big Ideas in Small Packages” with Jeff Wisniewski

“Solving the OPAC Problem” with John Blyberg and Christopher Barr

“Using RSS, Podcasts, & XML to Deliver Rich-Media Content” with Jason Clark

“Solving the Interest Problem” with Kelly Czarnecki and Cliff Landis

“Solving the Buy-In Problem” OR “Ubiquitous Computing & Libraries” with Michael Porter and Chris Peters

That night I’ll also go to the “Good Internet Librarian Practices Worldwide” thing with the Shanachie Tour guys. WooHoo!

Wednesday:

I will DEFINITELY be going to the keynote, “Social Media & Networked Technologies: Research & Insights” with the freaking awesome danah boyd.

“Strategic Framework for Library Automation” with Marshall Breeding

“Twitter & How the “Twittest” Use It for Keeping Up” with Michael Sauers, Christa Burns, Cindi Trainor, and Jezmynne Westcott

“Creating Games & Services With Digital Natives” or the “Pecha Kucha – Conversation Face-Off!”

“Information Visualization Tools” with Darlene Fichter and Jeff Wisniewski

Then I plan to attend the final keynote, “Learning & Play in a Social & Mobile World” with Elizabeth Lane Lawley

After that I must RUN back to the San Jose airport to fly home. I get into Denver at 11:30pm, so I will be dead tired on Thursday (and my introvert will be screaming inside).

However, I think it’s all worth it. This should be a fantastic experience!

1. The fact that there was so much young, fresh energy. Our ideas and enthusiasms were able to be shared in a place where it’s not just one or two of us chatting in a hallway… but many, many of us from all types of different institutions, sharing our hopes and dreams and best practices.

2. The fact that even though many of the old guard were more than a little cautious about what the heck an “unconference” was– and that they were suddenly somewhere in the minority– many of Colorado’s long-time library leaders showed up as well. I give them kudos for putting up with our immaturity at times, but most importantly, for coming and listening and truly being open to giving a chance to the future of the profession. Any young cynics who think that all the old guard aren’t willing to learn from the up and comers would have been proven very much wrong.

I’ve been at the Emporia Diversity Initiative Leadership Institute all day, so after LCOW yesterday and EDI today, I’m a little too burnt to say much more at this point. I’ll try to write about the EDI sessions tomorrow.

It’s a bit sad, because at MPOW, no one is going. Well, not entirely true– but no one beyond a couple of fellow library school students and one employee who is about to start library school in another semester.

So, while many of the “bigwigs” of Colorado are coming to this dynamic event, my colleagues don’t take something seriously that is called an “unconference”.

Most of it is because of the pressures of tenure. Our tenure-seeking young librarians are so tightly wound and under such pressure (we have one of the most difficult tenure systems) that they rarely look beyond anything directly related to the quest for tenure. But also, they are frequently counseled to not even consider anything less than national-level participation. The result is that there is little imagination, little innovation, and little of the enthusiasm I see all over the biblioblogosphere or at conference. These poor folks have the fun sucked right out of them. I’ve talked with many of them– we enjoy a beer now and then, and many of them have great enthusiasm for the profession, but they must keep the blinders on.

I just think there’s got to be a better way. For a long time, I thought tenure was a bad idea for librarians across the board. Now, I’m a bit more open-minded on the subject, but I still think there’s got to be a system of tenure that is tailored to our profession, rather than trying to compete or considering ourselves the same as the other faculty. As Steven Bell has written, they don’t consider librarians their peers– and honestly, I think that’s fair. We don’t have PhDs and much of our research is not particularly original. Why continue a system that pressures librarians away from the passions that make the most of what we are as a profession to compete on a playing field that we will never be equally respected on?

Anyway, just some random thoughts I had….

Today I was made chair of the Communications and Outreach committee. We have some fun stuff in the works– I’d rather wait to share it right now, but for now I’m going to enjoy the company of my peers and philosophize and where libraries can and should go. Hopefully, I bring some of that back for my less fortunate colleagues.

Next weekend I leave for Internet Librarian! WooHoo!

I’ve been planning for my own fall semester, mostly. Scheduling the kid activities, and deciding what I’m going to do.

For one, I am going to Internet Librarian. WooHoo!  I am super-excited about that.

I’m also attending Defrag. I managed to score a volunteer staff spot for that one.

Then I’ll be going to the Colorado Association of Libraries conference again. I’ll probably help out with the Intellectual Freedom Committee’s session there.

This fall I’m taking: LI820: International Information Policy, LI846: Networking for Libraries & Information Agencies, and LI863: Project Management. I’m really excited about my classes this semester, because they finally mesh with my career and personal interests. The SLIM theory core was useful (somewhat), but it was also extremely redundant. Way too much time spent on old, old, OLD ideas– despite the initial introductory class stressing how we need to be ready for change in the library world.

My boss wants to collaborate on an article discussion change in the profession. It should be fun to look into. It lines up with my earlier “Change as Opportunity” post. We’re slowly getting some discussion going at my library. Instead of just building an Information Commons because others are doing it, I’ve managed to ask enough questions that occassionally people are starting to ponder, “What cultural changes should accompany the physical changes we are adopting?”

*fingers crossed*