Two lines from a dream

Somebody else: Congratulations on winning the election!
Me: Thank you ... it literally feels like a dream right now.

can't type, laughing

Oh, so funny! Well done, Tecumseh staff!

It ain't over til it's over ... and maybe not even then.

I've talked to a couple of people recently who have said something like "I'm going to be done with my work blog after Learning 2.0 is over."

Now, these are not one-post-and-done, fulfill-the-assignment "bloggers."*** Both are people who have posted semi-regularly, and not "here's my blog entry, dum-de-dum, etc." either - there are some important questions about library policy and practice, observations about what we do, and actual discussion being generated because of what they're posting. So my question is:

Why would you quit?

Except for the fact that participation in Learning 2.0 by senior management has been minimal - very few were in evidence at the Michael Stephens presentations, and it's doubtful many of them have actually read more than two blog posts ... yes, I can see that that could be construed as discouraging.

But you have to allow time for the medium to catch on, and time to build an audience, and time for the interesting conversations to get back to senior management with the phrase "and I saw this discussion on so-and-so's blog!"

Influential library bloggers like Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens had to get their start somewhere. Though for many people, blogging about library stuff is not their thing. But I put it to those for whom it obviously IS their thing: Keep writing. I'll read your blog! And so will my librarian friends. (If it's not clear that I'm reading it, email me to make sure I'm living up to my promise.)

***Which is NOT to say that there's anything wrong with posting once to fulfill the assignment!!! That's what we wanted you to do. If you did that, way to go! I'm just saying that some people took to it more than others.

Stephen Abram presentation from September

I meant to link to this earlier, but better late than never - Stephen Abram did a presentation in September to kick off our Learning 2.0 training, and now that we're hearing another presentation, it might be a good time to check out that one if you missed it.

Michael Stephens

I first met Michael Stephens when a bunch of us from ACPL went to St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, which is where he was working at the time. (It resulted, among other things, in this infamous picture).

He's very charismatic and very convincing. If you have the chance to see him at 10:30 today (Dec. 14), you should go. Here are a few points from his 8 am presentation:

A book he recommends is The Cluetrain Manifesto.

He points out Ann Arbor District Library, which has a totally blog-based web site.

One of the best things libraries can do on their blogs is tell stories.

Libraries should be as transparent as they possibly can - letting the community know what you're doing and asking their opinion and help.

On social networking: people want to talk to each other. What about letting them comment on materials right in the catalog?

Go where the users are - the Digital Collaborative is always interested in figuring out how to put our institution in front of users where they are already - like MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Got any ideas?

How do you use social networking to promote the library, and why aren't we doing it already?.

Michael points out a lot of things that other libraries do that we're either doing already, or that we have plans to do. Go us!

"Are we failing to innovate because of fear?" "Throw out the culture of perfect" - meaning it doesn't have to be perfect before you launch it! It's okay to make mistakes and okay to talk about them. It's a gamer mentality - you make a mistake, you back up a little bit and go a different way.

Web/Lib 2.0 is open and participatory. It needs an atmosphere of trust. It's a cultural shift, not a new toy.

We should relate all the stuff that we're doing that utilizes 2.0 tools to our mission statement.

5 things you can do: be a trendspotter, try learning 2.0, create a what's new blog, explore presence, and okay, I missed one, he was going pretty fast.

Thing 9: All Consuming

Well, not that interested in keeping track of what I consume. Except books ... might be worthwhile. I commented somewhere that if it had been this easy to keep track of all the books I've read since high school (okay, sure, writing them down would have been easy, I guess, but I didn't do that), I might have done it. And that would have been cool. Now, though, I'd only be able to keep track of what I've read since I was 45 (plus the retrospective stuff I can remember ... but hey, I'm 45!). And there's some value in that, but it's not quite as cool. Though it may be a good idea, considering that I'm forty-however-many.

Up Quabblecrack!

The heretofore unknown-to-anyone ... fifth house.

Young Adults becoming more 2.0-ish

We're thinking about putting some stuff about who we are and what we do on the web for YA staff system wide. Putting a human face on the faceless institution. I'll update here when we get it going.

Jen has an interesting post today.

nanowrimo

Anybody writing a novel? How's that working out for you?

I've always thought that I could write a novel, if I'd just buckle down and write. Any year now ... ;-)

Weird thing with Twitter

Jen has signed up for Twitter but it won't show updates from most of her contacts. I don't think there's a setting for that. She gets the occasional update from me, but very little else. It occurred to me that it might be a cache problem ... maybe I'll log her in at work and see if it's any different. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know!

Thing 7 (er, Flickr, if I've lost count)

Flickr. It's good, I guess. Pictures are good. Tagging is good. Sharing is good. But I've never really gotten into it ... I'm not sure why. I've had an account for a long time, but haven't really put a lot of stuff there. It just hasn't clicked with me.

I think Flickr has the potential to be one of the most used services here at the library, so it's good that we're including it.

9 years too late

While I was in Bloomington recently for the funeral of a friend's mom, I was driving down Kirkwood and mentally noted the place where "Oz Bach's Boogie Woogie Burger Bus" had had its short life. It was kind of a greasy grill, but it had character ... and I thought to myself "I should look that guy up."

I did that this evening, and I immediately found the Oz Bach was the bass player for Spanky and Our Gang. You know, Sunday Will Never Be the Same, Lazy Day, and other pop goodness. I had a feeling that with a name like Oz Bach, it could only be the same guy, and when I went to the Spanky and Our Gang page devoted to him, there he was looking out at me - the same Oz Bach that I had bought hamburgers from in his old bus sitting on Kirkwood Avenue in 1979.

He was about 40 then, and he died in 1998, just shy of 60. I wish I'd figured it out sooner.

characteristics of information

A video by the same person as the one Nancy put on her recent post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM

(About ways we think about information, and the way those ideas are changing.)

But it's SHALLOW and POINTLESS!

This is a response to several blog posts that talk about the inanity of this 2.0 application or the pointlessness of that 2.0 application.

A lot of the "social networking" applications might seem shallow and pointless as stated. One of the interesting things about Learning 2.0 - to me - is that there are a lot of ways to think about the various applications, and it's interesting to me to figure out what would be a good way to think about some of the shallow and pointless ones.

Both your creative side and your analytical side can play a part in figuring out how to make a 2.0 application work for you. Of course, there's no obligation to do anything more than try them out.

Everyone has one (at least!) that they can't get past ... *cough*MYSPACE*cough* ... but I see both Twitter and Facebook as windows into people's lives that ordinarily I wouldn't have. For instance, I'm friends with Jessie Voors on Facebook. I know her slightly, from Teen Summer Reading, and from being connected through the library family ... but when she went off to college, I could have lost track of her altogether, except perhaps for twice yearly updates from Mary. But with our connection through Facebook, I not only get absolutely delightful (and sometimes outrageous) updates about what she's doing and thinking about, I also exchange emails with her once or twice a month, with an observation about something similar that happened to me in my college theatre career, or just to congratulate her on getting a part in a play.

The fact that I knew a cool kid like Jessie while she was growing up has great value to me. The idea that I can continue to know a cool person like Jessie because she allows me this little window into her life has immense value to me.

Telephone v. online communication

Just read Pamela's post about everyone at her daughter's party being on their cell phones to people who weren't at the party. I was just in Bloomington for a funeral, and saw lots of people walking around campus talking into their cell phones. I'm just not that way - I don't really want to spend any significant percentage of my life on the phone.

Oddly, I don't mind being connected online as much. Maybe because telephone conversations are more immediate/demand more of your attention. We introverts just want to be alone with our thoughts much of the time, and with instant messaging, it's much more common to stop typing for a long span for whatever reason, and it's not considered terribly rude to simply get up and go do something else. Somewhat rude, I guess, but not terribly. Nowhere near as rude as hanging up on someone with no warning.

I'm sure that there are still teenagers who don't even have cell phones, or who have them but talk on them about as often as I do. But I wonder if the average teen spends more time on a cell phone today than the average teen spent on the old-fashioned phone 30 years ago?

Thing 6

I've had Gmail - and used it extensively - since 2004. I think the conversation threading is a great improvement over regular email; the ability to label (or tag) emails with multiple labels is really useful; and using Google search to find your email just makes sense. And then there's the integration of chat with Google Talk - also very useful.

More recently I've started using Google Calendar, but I've yet to really make that work well for my purposes. I'm thinking about moving more of my stuff (personal and work stuff) to Google Documents. What I have there so far is working well for me.

Discussion from Letter Z blog

Some interesting discussion on strategy and having a philosophy behind it:

http://letterz.wordpress.com/2007/05/28/strategy-without-philosophy/

and a couple of days later,

http://letterz.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/more-on-those-angry-librarians-in-sacramento/

Thing 5

Here's what I did with the Learning 2.0 blogs in my Bloglines:


I'm still adding. Just wanted to get this post up before slogging through adding the many more that we have so far. Which are at http://acpldc.pbwiki.com/ACPL_blogs.

New Haven Branch ROCKS!

Every single one of NWH's staff has signed up for Learning 2.0!

Okay, seriously, it's not a contest, it's not about peer pressure, it's not required. It's simply a good idea.

Maybe you're not in a place where you can acknowledge that right now. Maybe you're where I was a few months ago with specific regard to MySpace. All (well, most) of the other things we had on the list for Learning 2.0, I was down with. But MySpace? I despised MySpace. As I've said elsewhere, I think MySpace did a lot of research into how to make a really intuitive social networking site, and then, where possible, did the exact opposite.

But it's not about what you think of the Things on the list. It's about the fact that our customers are using those Things, and we should try them out so that we'll be able to help them - or at least know what they're talking about. So if you've formed a negative opinion about some Thing or other, and know you'd never use it yourself in a million years, fine. You're entitled to your opinion. Now: set that aside for a moment while you explore the Thing and get familiar enough with it to have some idea what it's about. Done? Great. Pick up your opinion again on the way out the door. I know, you're still annoyed with it. I still despise MySpace. But I know what people are talking about when they have a question about it.

Pre-Thing 5

I think I'm going to set up another RSS aggregator to manage the Learning 2.0 blogs. No, wait, I don't need to do that - Bloglines lets you keep different kinds of blogs in different folders. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Because I want to keep track of everybody's blog, but at this point there's no central list. But there should be a list, even if it's only kept by the DC ... but it would be good if everyone could subscribe to everyone else's blog, if they wanted to, so maybe there should be a web page. Hmmm.

Thing 4

Posted a comment on the IT blog, kind of dissing our main blog (http://acplinfo.blogspot.com/). I think it was a good idea, but maybe we jumped in before we were quite ready, and then we didn't support it the way it needs to be supported. I'm trying to change that, though. Maybe I'll give myself a schedule for posting, so then I'll have deadlines, and a motivation structure.

I also think that one of the reasons I don't post more is that I don't like working in a vaccuum - I want to talk about stuff I'm working on with other people. So if you think the ACPL blog is a good idea but haven't posted yet because of not being sure what to post, we should talk! The more we think together about what kinds of things to post about, the more posts we'll generate, and the better the blog will become.

Plus: kudos to Nancy for keeping the ACPL blog going practically single-handedly until now.

Thing 3

Okay, I worked ahead on this one. I set up this blog when we (the DC) were close to finished with the curriculum, and were getting our contact info together, and there was a slot for our L2.0 blogs. I understand a lot about how blogs work (though not everything), so if you're stuck or looking for help or whatever, let me know. You can email me, phone me, or use the Meebo thingy to the right, there (I'll try to remember to be logged into Meebo when I'm at work).

Other parts of this exercise ... here's a picture (I call it "Tough girls"):

Blogroll ... check.

Theme ... check.

Video ... see post 'No Derivative Works.'

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Be careful - once you let these things out of the box, it's hard to get them back in again. (Reread Cat in the Hat if this doesn't ring a bell.)

Just read the introduction. On the concept of fun: My dad has a rule. Well, it's more of a guideline, actually. If you're not having at least 50% fun in your job, it might be time to look for another job. Last time I checked, he was at about 65% fun. My job's fun factor is higher than that, but I won't quote an exact number because I don't want to make you jealous.

Then I did the 7.5 habits of lifelong learners. I've always identified myself as a lifelong learner. I know that I can adapt to different learning styles pretty easily. And I know that I must be allowed to work at my own pace. Therefore, the aural style of learning is on the bottom of the heap. Visual and kinesthetic are about evenly matched ... on a scale of 1-10 for each, maybe V9 A5 K9. Or so. Yeah, I had to turn off the sound in that presentation because it was going too slow.

Genius

Was just looking at the ACPLib2.0 site and Fiona said "hey, there are the library genius circles!"

Media Literacy and advertising to young people

In Stephen Abram's presentation this morning, he mentioned that Google is trying to figure out how to advertise to children. And then he said "and maybe you think that's a good thing, and maybe you don't."

Examine your own answer to that question. If you come down on the side of no, advertising to children is unethical, because they don't have the media literacy skills to differentiate between advertising and content, or because they shouldn't be turned into little consumer automatons that can't evaluate what they're being told to want, then maybe you should reconsider how you feel about having a corporate sponsor for the Summer Reading Program.

Because, in a sense, that's what we run here at ACPL: The Pizza Hut Summer Reading Program. Pizza Hut provides coupons for free food for every (or nearly every) participant in both the Children's and the Teen Summer Reading Programs. To me, that means that along with recommending books and movies and fun events to participate in at the library, we are endorsing Pizza Hut. I used to think that it would be better if we had a sponsor that had a healthier food offering, but I don't think that would satisfy me now.

I think ACPL needs to stop leaning on the crutch of corporate advertising in order to be able to tell ourselves that we're giving the kids what they want. We're not giving them what they want with Pizza Hut coupons. We're telling them what to want.

One argument against dropping Pizza Hut might be "but our stats will go down!" I say that if you're doing the right thing, you might - MIGHT - have to realign your expectations (and the expectations of the administration). But you might not. I think we could offer NO prizes AT ALL and still see 2/3 of the participation we see with prizes.

If we dropped the Pizza Hut prize, we'd definitely hear about it from parents. But it would still be the right thing. I think we should do the right thing.

Steven Abram's 8 am presentation

Top 10 Strategies for Library Success

The presentation sped up as we got closer to 9 am, and eventually got faster than I could blog. But I'll get the URL for the power point presentation and post it here as soon as I can.

Rate of change from now compared to 1920s-1950s - hey, we don't have it so bad! But change is coming.

Librarians need to have an informed opinion, rather than an abstract opinion. (Example: MySpace - "I've heard that MySpace is dangerous" is abstract - we need to be in it, try it out, in order to really know something about it.)

Social aspect of the web is adding all kinds of services and experiences that add to the relationships between people.

Every presidential candidate has a 2nd Life presence, a Myspace account, YouTube videos ... and librarians working for their campaign.

First three pages of Google's search results are manipulated by companies/other concerns.

Ten issues:
1. users are changing: millennials, genx, boomers, seniors
2. preserving our culture - repositories, standards, access
3. Me! - personalization, personal devices, "I matter more than you!"
tracking personal data - Google/Yahoo desktop changes the way those sites' search algorithms work
4. Boundarylessness - Cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research
5. Being Local - GPS, GIS - Google working on ways to target ads more specifically through Maps, telephone networks, identifying where you are/who you are
6. Beyond Lists - make me a picture, show me a visual, forget advanced search!
7. Selling Libraries as Essential and Valuable - tying library presence to higher standardized test scores, e.g.
8. Reorganize - Consort, Teams, cross-functional, relationship management
9. Portlets - XML, portability, unicode, J2EE, mash-ups, etc.
10. Teaching Success and KM - the real role of information literacy

Stephen has a really complete understanding of how to highlight the local content of a library.

Trends

• US national debt increases (affecting every economy)
• $4 / gallon gas in US messes biggest consumer economy (can people afford to drive to your library? does everyone on staff write a book review for the blog, not a report but a 3-4 line recommendation?)
  
• Global Change (China, India)
• Google (Search, Ads, and Apps) Dominance?
• Generations turtle driving user behavior changes -
  
• Mergers (Reuters, Dow Jonew, Gale, MS Yahoo?!, etc.) Increase in information sector
• Multi-type consortia
• New standards drive portalization and personalization

Pew 2020 Predictions

• very low cost, ubiquitous and fast global network
• humans remain in charge of technology but automated "smart agents" will proliferate
• Virtual reality will be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity
  
• Tech addiction
• tech "refuseniks" emerge as a cultural group
• Privacy will emerge as a more balanced issue

Information becomes knowledge through learning - learning styles

Zotero and Ning - from Stephen's top 13 apps for librarians that we don't have on 21 things

Share the good stories, not the bad ones

Instant messaging is an important way to communicate with patrons - esp. for reference

how do we get the word out about what we're good at? we don't want to let people know for some reason; Stephen doesn't understand why. Learning 2.0 web applications are one very effective way to do this. What else do we do besides books?

No derivative works

Well, okay, sometimes there are.

Back to the cold war?

Russia develops really big bomb. Definitely anti-Learning2.0.

It's a Good Life

Maybe you saw the original Twilight Zone episode, or maybe you saw the cheesy remake in the Twilight Zone movie . Or maybe you've even read the original short story by Jerome Bixby, but chances are you haven't. But you should - it's head, shoulders and knees above the screen adaptations. It was written in 1953, so when I say it's horrifying, you know it's in the psychological sense. Go ahead, read it and then come back. Though if you're not hooked in the first page or so, it's probably not going to work for you. (I didn't know until just now that Bixby also wrote one of the best Star Trek episodes ever, Mirror, Mirror.)

It's a Good Life is about community, and how a particular community reacts to a set of circumstances that surpasses human endurance.

Maybe by pointing out this story, I'm saying that even with the changes that are inferred by Learning 2.0, we don't have it too bad. Learning 2.0 is about community, too, and how technology can help develop community. Of course, if your cup is half empty, perhaps it's annoying to you, or worse. But at least you still have TV.

It's a good life.