LibraryTechtonics

Things have been a bit crazy busy, what with all the stuff going on at RPL (gearing up for Netguides, the launch of NetLibrary eAudiobooks and MP3 players for borrowing, our LSTA grant for promoting databases, and the regular everyday stuff of my job, all of which warrant their own posts), taking on the PLA Blog in-full, and dab of public speaking, not to mention just general life stuff. So crazy busy, it’s been hard to find the time or the energy to *write* about it all, even though I very much want to.

The NAHSL presentations I did back in October (posting forthcoming) led to a gig doing continuing education classes for the Southern Connecticut State University Information and Library Science program this coming Friday, December 1. I’ll be teaching two 3.5-hour classes, one on Social Bookmarking for Librarians and another on The Art of the Wiki. I’ll be posting both presentations after Friday sometime for your general perusal. If you’re in the New Haven area, and you’d like to attend either class, you can contact the SCSU ILS folks and find out how (the information isn’t on their site for some reason).

I’m finding it interesting trying to create classes for librarians who don’t live online when I have no real sense of what they know and what they don’t know. With patrons it’s different, because I can somehow gauge the average skill on my interactions with everyday patrons as well as the regulars in my classes, and put together something that’s balanced enough to fly with everyone, but flexible enough to change on the fly to better meet the class needs.

With librarians, since we have no real, solid, standardized, across-the-board technology competencies for our profession, it’s a bit hit or miss. It could be that I’m preaching to the choir for three hours, or it could be that I need to do way more backpedaling than I originally anticipated, never getting to the hands-on component of the class.

The up side is that I made presenting the class in a technology lab a requirement. I can’t express enough the need for anyone learning technology to have hands-on time with the technology, where the student is the driver of the mouse, must take the time and brainpower to logic it out, and has the opportunity to commit some of the information to even the vaguest of muscle memory, even if they don’t remember everything exactly later.

Don’t get me wrong, I do offer classes at my library that are presentation-only (my Getting Started with eBay and Getting Started with Craig’s List classes are my first foray into the presentation-only realm) for broad overviews to get patrons started and encourage them to explore on their own, which they often do as a result of the class. But when it comes to the HOWTO stuff, as most people know, reading the instructions is one thing, understanding them well enough to do it is another. If you have someone in the room to help you logic it out and correct your mistakes, with a trusty handout by your side and other people to commiserate with ;D, you’re more likely to really *learn* something. My Geek Out classes are a prime example of this.

In any case, I should be getting ready for work. Stealing snippets of time to post has been difficult lately, but I wanted to make an effort to populate my sorry-looking empty home page with something interesting and substantial to renew the faith of my readers, and for a greater part *myself*, in my blog, even as my blog has been rebelling against me (problems with the software, no stats, upgrading to MT 3.33 because I haven’t had time to finish the WordPress shift, bleh). More positive things are head, I’m sure!

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately, one of the many reasons I haven’t been online much. I’ve even been double-fisting my reading, consuming an audiobook and a hard-copy book at the same time. I’ve decided to use my MySpace blog to track my media consumption (books, movies, music, events, etc.), which will be a neat experiment of blogging on MySpace.

This is all part of a campaign on my part to improve my readers’ advisory, “what do I read next?” skills. We offer a variety of readers’ advisory resources at Reading to help patrons (and staff) find the next read, including Patron Books in Print/Fiction Connection services (we switched from Novelist), our various book groups including our monthly WOM (word of mouth) book group, and the free Online Book Clubs service offered through the librarian section of DearReader.com.

Through the Online Book Clubs service, patrons receive a 5 minute read (or a 5 minute listen through a .ram stream in the case of the audiobooks) of a book in each of the genres you select for 5 days via email for free. If you use a generated email address through something like Bloglines, then you can receive it in your news aggregator with your other feeds. At the end of the week, the email gives you the page number where the final snippet ends, so that you can pick up in the right place in the book when you buy or borrow it. During the week, you can click on the link at the bottom of each email to talk about this week’s book with other readers on the message boards.

One of this week’s Online Book Club selections is Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson (I’m subscribed to about 5 of the 10 clubs). While some of the books sound interesting and some don’t each week, I have the option to just delete the emails if I don’t feel like reading them, and I almost did with this book, but instead decided to give it a shot. The worst that can happen, in most cases, is that I give it 5 minutes, and end up deleting the rest of the week’s emails.

I’m certainly glad I kept reading, because I now have my favorite snippet of the week so far. The brief backstory just before the favorite bit:

“Well, Clarice wants to know if you can drive over to the home and pick up your great-great-aunt Mag on Friday next. Mag needs someone to carry her over to the Quincy’s for your uncle Bruster’s party.”

I said, “Are you seriously telling me that Clarice wants to know if I’ll drive fourteen hours down from Chicago, and then go another hour to Vinegar Park, where by the way Clarice lives, and pick up Aunt Mag, who will no doubt piss in my rental car, and then backtrack forty-five minutes to Quincy’s?”

“Yes, but please don’t say ‘piss,’ it isn’t nice,” my mother said, deadly earnest. “Also, Clarice and Bud moved on in to Fruiton. So it’s a good forty minutes for her to go get Mag now.”

Which leads to my favorite snippet:

“Oh, well then. Why don’t you tell Aunt Florence–I mean Clarice–that I will be sure to go pick up Mag. Right after Aunt Flo drops by hell and picks up the devil.” [emphasis mine]

With the holidays coming up, I figure there are many readers who can relate to this kind of situation, and situations of similar flavor. Now, you have a new and interesting response to use (and for those who are offended, I apologize), care of an author from the Deep South.

I think I might actually finish this book sometime.

I’m sad to say that I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo 2006. My life has exploded in several different directions, so it’s just not feasible.

Last year, I had a good time running a low-key NaNoWriMo program at the library, including write-in times and space, a book display, and weekly emails to program participants. As with the national Wrimo program, our participants decreased pretty much exponentially over the weeks, but there are at least 3 books that were completed from the original group of 25 Wrimoers. Not too shabby.

It’s not too late for libraries to get involved. Your library could order a copy of the book for the collection, and put it out on display. You can contact the regional coordinators for your area (check the regional bulletin boards to post a message) to arrange for write-ins at your library, or to let them know that your library has resources (books, reference staff, wifi, contacts to writing group folks and tutors) that would be useful to them. You can even print out the
flyers and post them around your library, or near a display of writers’ books, including resources on publishing.

NaNoWriMo doesn’t necessarily end November 30 (except for the insane 50,000 words part). Many writers go on to have their works published, usually in some edited form, either by publishers, or using self-publishing resources. Some nifty self-publishing resources to keep in your back pocket (just in case you get the question) include:

• Lulu: A print-as-ordered service, where you set the price. Beyond the printing, they offer free services such as marketing advice and help with writing a press release, fee services such as creating “about the author” kits, and links to third-party services.
• SelfPublishing.com: They’ve actually expanded their site and services from last year, which is very cool. Along with their publishing services, they offer a free email newsletter. If you buy a copy editing package from them, they’ll throw in some content editorial work for free.
• Amazon.com On-Demand Publishing: Amazon’s BookSurge enables individual authors to publish and sell their books through Amazon.

There are tons of other resources online, especially if you do a search on “self publishing,” but I’ve heard the best and most about the three above.

I had grandiose plans to recruit other libraries to get involved in NaNoWriMo this year, which I need shelve until next year. But if you are interested in some NaNoWriMo action at your library for 2007, send me email and let me know.

I just listened to the tail end of a reporter on NPR take a tour through Second Life. Apparently, there will be videos posted to the site of Second Life, as well as the story itself, later this morning. For now, I’m posting a link to the Morning Edition page, but I’m hoping to post specific links later this morning.

This story, in partner with the a story on Talk of the Nation a few weeks back titled A Second Life to Live and a Weekend Edition Saturday story titled Role-Playing Games, Offering a New Reality, and many others like it, show a real interest on the part of NPR to explore digital culture as a part of the arts and culture that they cover. It also shows that the digital life is becoming a regular part of modern American culture, and should be noted to the world.

NPR provides all sorts of information, news, and interesting stories, and it goes to show that you can even learn about new technology and technology culture just listening to NPR. A few years ago, I had always thought of NPR as the cultured listening of learned, older listeners, and not likely to feature such stories, and I’m glad I was proven wrong when I started listening to NPR about 2 years ago.

So, as a method of keeping up with technology, and technology explained in plain English from a very curious, exploratory, “how does this work?” approach, listen to and read NPR. It’s good for you.

I just received the ALA Holiday 2006 catalog, and there are two new sets of materials that really caught my eye (all the way at the end of the catalog, unfortunately, but anyway).

The Listen @ Your Library ® is targeted towards audio book listeners, with particular attention to the digital aspects of audio books, and the recognition that MP3 players are so popular, with a Listen logo that resembles equalizer bars. Nice.

The new Teen Tech Week ™ campaign focuses on attracting teens to the library to use the technology resources. Thankfully, there are no terribly cheesy posters, but more hip-looking, colorful posters that focus on creating, playing, and surfing at the library, along with branded CD case and Cordman, and your standard other fair (pens, pamphlets, etc.). Currently, the Teen Tech Week poster is number 2 in the top 5 online bestsellers for the ALA online store. Kudos to YALSA on such an excellent job with the new program.

I’m impressed. The recognition of the importance of technology is really important, and a welcome attitude from ALA.