LibraryTechtonics

I’ll be at Midwinter in Seattle, blogging for myself and blogging/podcasting for PLA, from Jan 19 - Jan 23. If you’re in town and want to hang, you can try sending me email. If you happen to have my mobile number and want to text me, please include your name and number in the text message, because my phone is totally mental when it comes to sender information.

Here’s the somewhat flexible plan for the weekend:

Friday, Jan 19
6:00a ET: Depart Boston Logan airport
11:27a PT: Arrive at Seattle airport
1:30 - 3:30p PT: Forum on Library Education, Rooms 602-604, WCC
4:00 - 5:30p PT: Salaries and Status Brainstorming Session, Room 607, WCC

Saturday, Jan 20
10:30a - 12:00p PT: Not Your Dad’s Interface: The Next Evolution in OPAC’s and Search, Metropole Room, Fairmont Olympic Hotel
12:00 - 1:00p PT: LUNCH (open)
2:00p PT: Interview w/ David Pogue (author, The Windows Vista Missing Manual), recording for podcast, location TBD
8:00p PT: OCLC Blogger Salon, Room 3028 (OCLC Blue Suite), Sheraton Seattle. You should come, too!

Sunday, Jan 21
8:00 - 10:00a PT: Public Library Technology Interest Group (really, really tentative), Room 309, WCC
12:00 - 1:00p PT: EBSCO Publishing’s Public Library Database Luncheon, Westin Seattle
1:30 - 3:30p PT: PLA Service Responses Discussion, Room 608-609, WCC
3:30 - 5:30p PT: President’s Program, Grand Ballroom C and D, WCC

Monday, Jan 22
8:00 - 10:00a PT: GIS Discussion Group and GeoTech Committee, Room 206, WCC
10:30a - 12:00p PT: Emerging Technology Interest Group (will try to go, but would love some backup coverage), Room 2B, WCC
12:00 - 1:00p PT: LUNCH (open)
1:30p PT: Interview w/ Tony Small (senior director of books division, Amazon.com), still acquiring permission to podcast, meeting at Amazon.com booth
6:00 - 8:00p PT: Berkshire Publishing Group & BookExpo America reception “Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love”, Seattle Public Library

Tuesday, Jan 23
1:17p PT: Fly out of Seattle airport
12:02a ET: Arrive at Boston Logan airport

I’m also going to try to squeeze in an interview with Leslie Berger about her new agenda plan and how it dovetails with the new PLA Service Responses, and perhaps have one of our bloggers who is working the Washington Library Association booth record some stuff for a show floor podcast. And, somewhere in there, I hope to get at least a little sightseeing done (more likely I’ll be casing the joint for a trip with my husband sometime ;D).

I’ve never been to Seattle before, so I’m all sorts of excited. I even picked up some travel books (as I’m wont to do when I go to conferences) from my library to help me out:

• Fodor’s Seattle
• The Stranger Guide to Seattle: The City’s Smartest, Pickiest, Most Obsessive Urban Manual by Paula Gilovich, Traci Vogel, and the Stranger staff
• The Food Lover’s Guide to Seattle by Katy Calcott

I must say, while the wiki is nice for it’s collaboration and everything, a travel guide is just more portable, even given my web-enhanced phone. Yet another simple reason books won’t be going out of style *just* yet.

Also, if you have any good recommendations for tea places, I’m all ears. And, if you want to have tea with me while I’m in Seattle, drop me a line and let me know.

The Amazon.com folks contacted me about interviewing Tony Small, senior manager of the books division, about the new library “Wish for Lit” program. With any luck, I’ll get an appointment (they’re working it out now), and I might even be able to podcast it on the PLA Blog.

From the press release, received via email today:

On the eve of the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, Amazon Services, an Amazon.com company (Nasdaq:AMZN - News), today announced a program aimed at giving more than $20,000 in Amazon.com products to three deserving libraries in the United States. The “Wish for Lit” program is designed to give libraries an opportunity to create “Wish Lists” on Amazon.com to receive the books and supplies that they need the most. Amazon.com’s Library Wish Lists is an online tool that easily connects donors to a library’s catalog of most-needed products.

Beginning today, libraries interested in participating must submit an online entry form at www.amazon.com/wishforlit and create their Library Wish List. Applications will be accepted until February 16, 2007, and will be evaluated based on the following equally weighted criteria:

* Quality of the application
* Urgency of the need
* Value the award would give to the library/community

One library in each of three categories (K-12, Academic and Public), will be selected from Amazon’s registry of Library Wish Lists by a panel of five judges selected by the American Library Association Chapter Relations Committee. Each winning library will receive a $5,000 gift certificate for Amazon.com products, as well as up to $2,000 of Amazon.com products that are on the library’s Amazon.com Wish List. All of the items will be shipped directly to the libraries to be put to immediate use.

“Libraries transform communities, and this is a great program to help some deserving libraries get more of the books and other supplies they need to serve their patrons,” said Greg Greeley, vice president of books at Amazon.com. “The enjoyment and pleasure of reading and lifelong learning should be shared by all, and our libraries deserve our support for their mission.”

Amazon.com’s Library Wish Lists tool connects libraries with donors who wish to purchase the most-needed items from a library’s Wish List and have the products shipped directly to the library in an easy and seamless manner. Library Wish Lists allow each library to have more than one Wish List, and each list can be managed by multiple library personnel. Donors can make online contributions to the library of their choice by visiting www.amazon.com/wishlist and searching by library name.

The winners of the “Wish for Lit” program will be announced by Amazon and the American Library Association in the first week of April on the Amazon Librarians’ Store Web site at www.amazon.com/libraries.

Normally, I work a Saturday rotation, where I work a Saturday every 3 weeks. However, I’m working 3 Saturday shifts this month (the only Saturday I’m not working I’ll be in Seattle), so I’m here at the desk for the day.

A typical Saturday usually starts with at least four patrons waiting at the door for us to open (if it’s a day with a story hour or sing along, we usually see an army waiting for us), and the usual number of patrons trickle in over the course of the morning, hitting a high point just after the customary brunch hour. Then, ’round about 3:30p or so, we see another burst of people, with a regular rush of calls, questions, and how-do-I-finds about 4:30p, finishing off with a relatively long closing time line at the Circ desk at 5p.

It’s a progressively busy day.

Saturdays, the desk is always staffed with two librarians. If it’s quiet enough, we can each sneak in a little off-desk time in the Workroom, in the wonderful and productive solitude. I was privy to an hour this morning, which was super, and came back down to the desk so that Kathy could go up for an hour herself, then head over to the Children’s Room to cover a 1/2 lunch, while I woman the Information Desk downstairs before it gets super duper busy.

I’ve had three interactions, one after the other, that made me smile. Working Saturdays isn’t normally a problem, but it does shorten my weekend, so I’ve been feeling a bit frazzled and short of my own time all month, which makes working the desk more taxing and less fun.

One gentleman was not only impressed that we have climate information for Reading (there’s a a climatologist who tracks this stuff, but I don’t think he’s a town employee, he just does it), and that he could use any of our computers without having to sign in or comply with a time limit (we do have a 15 minute limit if it’s busy, but we seem to have enough computers that it’s seldom a problem).

Another gentleman was putting a few things on hold, so I asked for his card. He was quite pleased to say he had it on him, and he keeps it in his truck all the time, which is only a problem if he rides his bike to the library. Upon mentioned that we now offer key fob library cards that patrons can switch to from regular cards, we got into a brief chat on privacy prompted by the notion of trying to merge all of those crazy fobs on everyone’s keychains into one, and how that might be just a *little* too Big Brother. He was glad that the library does such a great job protecting everyone’s privacy, and it was worth the little inconveniences (no record of borrowing history, for example).

The third involved a woman with a small boy in tow, looking for a newsletter with a copy of our monthly calendar. While our newsletter is being published weekly via a blog online only, we do have a paper copy at the Circ desk with all of the library events on it. She was talking to her son as she walked away, listing off everything she though was cool on the calendar (DDR for Kids, book groups, etc.) and said out loud, “It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.”

Yet another reason, and a pleasant reminder of why I don’t mind working Saturdays so much.

Many libraries, including mine, are currently in the mad dash to put together a budget for the new budget year. Published in the in December 2006 issue, the The PC Magazine 2007 Upgrade Guide is a must-read if you plan on doing any upgrades to the computers in your library.

If you are not terribly technology literate, some of the article is going to sound like gibberish to you. Keep reading. If librarians are going to become well versed in the ways of computer buying, maintenance, and upgrade, librarians must learn to read the trade articles. Furthermore, librarians need to learn to ask the technology folks questions (if the libraries are lucky enough to have tech people at their disposal), or at least be somewhat familiar enough with what’s in the pipe right now when someone comes to ask you about your technology needs. Heck, send me email and ask me questions, I’m here to help, too.

I know, I know, you think I’m being a firm task mistress, in what seems to be a “You Must” rant about technology. However, it’s really more about my concern for the future of the library, which is neither just books nor just technology, and helping librarians be a key part in the future of the library, which doesn’t mean a choice between Google and librarians.

See, I still get questions from librarians on why technology matters so much, why libraries should spend money on current technology if it will be outdated so soon, and why we should keep looking at the newer technologies if all people are doing are surfing the web and writing papers or cover letters. I believe that, if libraries position themselves just right, libraries can be more than just a place to check email or update a MySpace profile. And with communications going the way of the Web 2.0 social networking archetype, we’ll need more than Windows 2000 machines that run Public Web Browser to meet the growing needs of our patrons. Being educated is the first step, and confusion about what you don’t know is a pretty normal and crucial part of that first step. So keep reading, and keep trying. I have perfect faith in you.
Besides, you don’t need to do everything in this, or any, tech article. Use it as information to create technology knowledge for yourself. Get oriented so that you can navigate (with even the fuzziest of vision) in a technology context. It’ll make those meetings with the tech folks a lot easier, and you’ll get more of what will help your patrons best, or know better what your patrons *don’t* necessarily need.

The article is also a good resource for patrons looking to buy a new computer, or upgrade their current machine. I find that many patrons are doing a good bit of research before they buy a computer, and upgrade guides give you a sense of what’s new in computer components, and how to plan down the line for the life of your computer.

Benzaiten, my laptop computer, is not quite to full working order. Norton AntiVirus is doing it’s thing, the 50-odd Windows Updates seem to be completed, and I’m using Firefox as per the usual. Quicktime Alternative and Real Alternative are installed (these are also programs I use on the library’s public computers), and my version of Flash is up to date. While Outlook is installed, and my .pst file has been imported, I still haven’t set up my email accounts, and am still checking email via the web (Squirrel Mail is awesome). I’m still sort of putzing around things like power and mouse/touchpad settings (I had forgotten how I had custom configured so many little things).

In a way, it’s nice to start fresh. I know a lot more now than I did 2.5 years ago when I got this computer about applications I like, configuring things to work well, how some applications interact with others, and playing with program defaults and whatnot. On the downside, it’s like moving into a new house in the middle of a snowstorm: everything’s whirring about, your boxes are everywhere and you can’t find anything, and it’s hard to remember how anything worked before.

However, somehow I’m still getting work done (if not a bit slower), probably because most of what I need is web-based. I’m finding that I wish that I had more of my files and data locked up somewhere online, or had been better about using my jump drive as My Portable My Documents. I s’pose that’s the story of Web 2.0 in a nutshell, the web and the browser working together as The One True Application, a node on a network that connects me with the world, literally. That’s how people are learning to communicate now. It’s a good way to approach the discussion the next time a librarian asks why computers at The Internets are so important to libraries, a question that continues to surprise and confuse me on a certain level, although I can see where it comes from.

Anyway, trying to balance work at the library, work at home for PLA, crazy life in general, crochet as meditation, and the little cold brewing in my nose, has been impeding my ability to really get on getting things ready for the PLA Blog for Midwinter. If you’ve volunteered, and you’re reading this, I’m sending out emails tonight, I promise. If you haven’t volunteered, but are interested in blogging for PLA at Midwinter, drop us a note and let me know, and I’ll get you set up. I’ll be arriving in Seattle Jan 19 in the afternoon, and departing Jan 23 just after lunch, so if you wanna meet up or anything, let me know.