Why to be a Librarian

One of our local school's 8th grade came to the library this morning to do research on careers. While looking up info for a student on becoming a public librarian in our Internet Careers Database (love it btw) I came across this list of "pluses":

Pluses:

• Constantly learning
• Access to the latest technology
• Freedom
• You're paid to read
• Bright, attractive places to work
• Satisfaction of helping people
• Important public service

Hard to pick which is my fav - probably #4, though they're almost all fantastic LIES! lol. I just have to ask...where do they get their info from?? Don't get me wrong, I love libraries and working in them, but really people? Really?

ARGs

So, I don't have time for a full blog post today, maybe tomorrow, but I'm totally excited about ARGs (Alternate Reality Games). I've been reading and following links all day and I'm pretty pumped. No idea what an ARG is? Here are two articles I found helpful and exciting:

Wikipedia Entry: Alternate Reality Game
ALA TechSource Article: Alternate Reality Games

More to come...

just imagine

As one of my final assignments for my class we did a thought exercise on what the library of 2040 would look like according to us:

Oh man, I can get pretty excited imagining the library of the future…well at least my version of it. Of course I don’t know what will be new and hot in 2040 … but the #1 thing about this library is that it quickly adapts to meet the needs and trends of its community. It is NOT always 15 years behind the rest of society. It’s bold, it’s gutsy, and it’s not afraid to try. Here’s a bit about it:

It still has:

• lots of popular materials (whatever people want to get their hands on)
• knowledgeable staff (who are fun, happy and love to help people)
• great services that meet patrons needs
• great programs that meet patrons needs

New awesomeness:

• this library places priority on creating and maintaining a “third space” where the negativity of many libraries/librarians has been stripped out. Everything is patron focused instead of staff/budget/tradition focused.
• the services it offers are delivered in variety of convenient methods
• it has a thriving web presence that is a “first stop” for the community. Aside from the resources that library offers, it has conveniently collected and organized community information
• there are catalog kiosks in the stacks
• there are laptops that patrons can check out and use anywhere in the library
• there are designated quiet spaces - the rest of the library is NOT quiet
• is has an OPAC (or something else entirely) that doesn’t suck
• it’s either right next to a park or has a large lawn used for programs
• this library is a full partner with the rest of the community

thinking third space

For my class this quarter, The Usable Library, taught by Aaron Schmidt , we were recently asked to consider libraries as Third Spaces and watch a short lecture by James Howard Kunstler (it was very interesting! go watch it). Below are my thoughts:

“When you degrade the public realm you will automatically degrade the quality of your civic life.” (Kunstlser)

This line really stuck out to me. I just returned from the YALSA Lit Symposium in Nashville and while I was there I kept exclaiming to my fellow colleague/traveling buddy how beautiful it was. It’s a city I want to go back to. The buildings (even the old rundown ones) were amazing, the downtown was fun, lively and well planned, it felt good to be there.

Where do we go to relax and enjoy? Why do we go to those places? Sure there’s usually some extrinsic reason like coffee or books or shopping, but that’s not usually why we pick that place over all the others that offer a similar thing, that’s not why we enjoy those places so much. They have some intrinsic, often intangible, value. A lot of it has to do the the environment and energy of the place. Unfortunately for libraries, most of them have a type of environment that does not encourage third space use. We don’t have a lot of sitting and gathering areas, we have rules that limit activities and noise, we feel cramped and dingy. We don’t make people feel comfortable.

Lisa Ebert a library student from Dominican wrote an interesting final paper on how libraries can take third space tips from Starbucks. Her paper is entitled: Transforming Public Libraries into “Third Places”: Lessons to Be Learned from Starbucks. If we wish to become those valued third spaces (something I’m absolutely all for) we need to actively work on making the library an experience to be enjoyed and a planned destination-not just a quick stop along the way.

This will require a mind-shift though for many people - especially those who have been in the profession for many years. Like most things it's a trade off. If we allow food and drink we risk damages to books, computers and carpet...but maybe the risk is minimal compared to the benefit of people lounging around the library eating a snack and savoring a book. If we allow people to talk on their cell phones and have conversations with each other that are louder than a whisper we risk annoying staff and other patrons who have come to the library expecting a quiet place to study or apply for job...but maybe it's worth the risk so we don't anger or frustrate patrons by shushing them, so that we can allow patrons to experience the library as a social place that becomes a destination. The concerns are valid and some need a solution, but we're hitting a point in time where we need to realize that the costs do not out weigh the benefits

leavin on a jet plane

I’m pretty excited to be going to YALSA’s first Literature Symposium this weekend in Nashville. I’ve been to lots of instate/regional conferences but never to anything out of state/national. Apparently over 600 people are signed up. I know I need to keep a reign on my expectations (it is still a conference after all), but I do have high hopes. I tend to think the teen quarter of libraryland is one of the more happenin places to be and hope to meet a number of like minded individuals - we’ll see though. Of course I’m also hoping to come back with lots of good information and new ideas to try out. Gotta keep things new and fresh!

so many books, so little shelf space

Once again I find myself in the place many many libraries/librarians find themselves - without space. Things were totally fine this summer when about half the Teen fiction collection was checked out, but now that school has started again and people have returned all their books my shelves are overflowing. I'm basically at capacity. I've got to weed hard and heavy if I want the new books I'm constantly ordering to fit. So I am. I'm weeding books that haven't checked out in a year OR that have an avg circ of less than 3-4 checkouts a year during their "lifetime". Sadly this still isn't going to free up as much space as I need. This seems like heavy weeding to me - but is it really? What are other libraries with limited space doing?

Here's why this is a depressing problem that is never going to go away (unless something miraculous happens). Our budget is split up largely by circ stats. I have a pretty decent budget and I get to buy lots of awesome things for the teen collection. These awesome things circ well. I get rid of what I can through weeding, to make room for more awesome things, but it still doesn't leave me with enough room. I have no where to grow. I have very little space to display. I've already staked out as much of the library as I can for the foreseeable future. Where do I put the books?!?

Google Chrome

Have you heard the buzz? Well, until yesterday I hadn't either. Yesterday afternoon Google released its new web browser Chrome. I was a bit hesitant to download it, but after reading about it and hearing positive reviews from Dylan and my dad I decided to give it a try today - and I'm liking it! The pluses: it's clean looking, fast, open source (kind of) and so far it's been playing nice with the computers and the websites I've been using. The negatives: it isn't (yet) customizable in the way FireFox is which takes away some functionality for me. It is still in baby beta though, so I'm sure more good things are on the way. For now, I'm running Chrome and FireFox side by side - long term, I don't know.

I found the following two website the most helpful in learning about it:

* Google's Learn About Chrome page
* PC Magazine article "Hands on with Google's Chrome Browser

Have you tried it? Will you? What do you think?

trying something new

I finally signed up for a Twitter account today. And I even read through some of my reader - how on top of it am I today? I'm hoping that Twitter will be a little bit like my reader, only a little easier to stay on top of since it has a nifty Firefox add-on called TwitterFox that gives me a little pop up when I get a new tweet - much like my adored meebo add-on.

Balancing Perspectives

Had a SPLAT meeting last Friday. I was feeling a bit guilty going into it because I've been so focused on my day to day work that I haven't kept up on my "duties" like I should. I hadn't looked at my reader more than a couple of times in the last several months and I'd blogged about once. I have been involved with "It's Good for You" and I have done things like replying to listserv requests on gaming...but not much else. The meeting went really well though. Helped me get excited again about work we can be doing on a state-wide level and regain some perspective. And it reminded me that I need to find a way to balance my work and my planning.

Somehow - I haven't figured out my foolproof method for this yet - I need to be able to get the way-too-many-day-to-day tasks done (i.e. programming, collection development, reader's advisory, reference etc.) and still keep the big picture in focus. I need to be able to keep further reaching goals and initiatives (valley-wide, state-wide, and regional) in my mind and in the works. What I'd love to do is somehow be able plan a year ahead with the Teen Services side of things (still managing to be flexible and spontaneous when the need arises) so that my deadlines won't be quite so pressing and I won't feel so behind all the time. Hopefully that would also free my mind up enough to be able to focus more on the big picture. The trick will be to somehow make this happen... Just in formalizing my thoughts though I feel like I've made a step in the right direction

meaningful moments

Below is a snipit from an IM convo I had with one of my teens (a boy about 15) tonight. THIS is why I do what I do. THIS is why I love it.

Anna says:
you might be surprised how much time i spend thinkin and wondering about "my" teens
(teen) says:
...that's a first time anyone's ever done that to me.
Anna says:
wait...done what to you?
(teen) says:
Cared.
(teen) says:
Well...the first time someone's cared and I actually felt secure enough to talk to them.
Anna says:
...well...
Anna says:
i do care. alot
(teen) says:
Thanks.

Something I'm learning...

and will probably have to keep learning again and again because I'm cool like that: there really isn't enough time to do it all. You've gotta set priorities and schedules and just do it. Whatever "it" is. My current case in point: going through my reader. Here I am, a member of SPLAT, promoting education and awareness through reading blogs, and until this week, I hadn't even logged into my reader for months. Months! It's so incredibly easy to be completely engulfed in the day to day. But other things are important too and I've gotta practice what I preach. Well, I'm off to play reading catch up...

Rev Your Engines

Less than a week and I'll be starting my program at UW. D, M, and I will be flying up on Monday and staying through Friday. The week will apparently be full of orientations, classes, and homework. I have great hopes though that we'll be able to squeeze in some awesome food and fun shopping - even if it's only the window kind. I also really want to see the Seattle Public Library - from what I've heard and the pics I've seen it's like a librarian's fantasyland.

I'm not sure, but I imagine that I'll be writing here a bit more often as a means of processing what I'm learning.

Oh and a quick note, cause I'm so darn pleased - I now have the word librarian in my title!!! That's right I was promoted to Associate Librarian. HooraY!

Virtual Hallways, Simulated Classrooms, Titles, and other Made Up Things

Well, I got great news this week: I've been accepted to my grad school of choice - UW. This fall I will start working on my Masters in Library and Information Science. w00t! I'm psyched and nervous to be re-entering academia. I hope that I quickly find the right balance between work, school, and life. One of the things I'm most excited about is that even though I'll be getting my degree through a distance program, I won't be alone. I'll be joined by a few great local librarians, including D! I loved getting my English Lit degree, but I've waited years to be studying this. I'm interested to see if the theory we learn will actually be relevant and useful.

I've often wondered (quietly of course, to avoid being shunned) how much an MLIS really affects your abilities as a "librarian". Will I really learn more in school than I do on the job? Will it really allow me to tap into SuperLibrarian abilities I've had to do without up till now? One of the things I already know I don't like about our profession is the rampant elitism. People are always asking, "Where did you get your degree?" So many people are so careful to distinguish between "librarians" and "library support staff" or what ever phrase is in. I find the whole thing really confusing as I never know what to call myself. If I say I'm the Teen Center Assistant it sounds like there's someone else higher up that I'm assisting, even though I am Teen Services. If I say I'm the Teen Center Librarian...well I don't, because I've been made thoroughly aware by other librarians that I would be over stepping my bounds - but that's what the public thinks of me as. I guess one definitely good thing that will come along with my degree is a little less ambiguity.

Upcoming LibraryLand Adventure

Darnit! If I had only posted this a few days ago I could have tried to cling to the shreds of my blogging dignity by claiming that I at least posted every month...oh well...

Well I'm excited and a little nervous about my upcoming adventure (the positive spin is purely for my own benefit.) I'm leaving tomorrow with two other SPLAT members for a library conference in Twin Falls. I will be co-presenting on "Emerging Technologies" and will mostly be covering online social networks with a little bit of IM thrown in. The one thing I found most frustrating in prepping and putting together my PowerPoint was trying to find useful current statistics regarding social networking in general and MySpace in particular. I lucked out on Facebook as they recently put out a blog post that had lost of good info in it and I wasn't really looking for anything particular on Ning since it's so new, but as for MySpace - good grief! I eventually found some of what I was looking for, but I really expected to find better stats more easily. It's interesting the information you don't find in that supposedly endless sea known as the internet.

When I find a bit more time, I'll have to blog about something I'm really excited about. But until then...

a tiny encapsulation of L2.0

I was catching up on my reader when I came upon this YouTube video. It blew my hair back (as the saying goes). You've just gotta watch it.



Well? What did you think?

It's a New Year!

Well, it's a new year and one of my resolutions is to actually post to this blog with some regularity. Since I last posted I graduated with my B.A. in English Lit from BSU and started working full time at my library. YaY! I'm excited about what I'll be able to do at work now that I'm full time. Now I won't be quite so overextended with only a few hours a week to do it in. I've already managed to start one project I've had on the back burner for a long time. I've created a MySpace page for SPLAT. You can check it out HERE. It's not much yet, but I'm hoping that with the help of D we can create a really neat, really functional page. I have a personal MySpace, so it's not all foreign to me, but what I want to do with the SPLAT page goes beyond what I've done before.

I'm also working on getting a MySpace page for my library. It's a process though. I get the feeling that our Board is pretty hesitant about it due to the scare that was going on last year with DOPA. While I can kind of understand it, I can't quite accept this fear as a reason to not create our page - because I don't think we'd be able to comply with DOPA even if it were passed. There's just too much that it restricts. Even commonplace sites like Ebay and Amazon, that are used by most everyone, would get blocked. I honestly don't think we'd be able to lower the quality of service to our patrons that much. We'd have to forgo the E-Rate funding. Hopefully it all resolves itself soon (in the way I want it to) and I'll be able to create a kickin' page for my library.

...back again

Well, D and I made it safely back to Boise so that was nice. We had a really good time at the ILA conference - it was the majority of our conversation for 6 hours!

I really enjoyed being at ILA not just as an attendee but as a member of SPLAT (Special Projects Library Action Team). It was great to talk to other librarians about IM, RSS, Blogs Readers/Aggregators, MySpace, and Facebook. I'd say I pushed Blogs and Readers (Google Reader is my fav btw) the hardest. As much as I'd love for Idaho librarians to explore the potential that IM holds, I'd rather they waited a bit to do that and started reading blogs right away. Blogs are one of the key ways to learn about, and stay on top of, what's going on in the profession right now, which is why they are such an integral part of the ongoing conversation we're having about how to keep libraries relevant. I want other librarians to read blogs, learn about the concepts and technologies discussed therein, get excited, and put those things into practice. You don't have to wait for the next conference, or to listen to a really great speaker, to get all that shocking, important, useful information. You can find it in the blogs. Don't just listen to Stephen Abram, read him. Don't just wait for Michael Sauers to come do a training session, read him. Don't just wait for the information come to you, be proactive - go to it.

ILA here I come

Well, in a scant 30 minutes I'll be tackling the scary, windy, puke-inducing experience that is HWY 55. D and I are headed up to Moscow for SPLAT and ILA. I'm really looking forward to getting to meet with the SPLAT folks and the discussions we're bound to have. ILA should be great. I'm not sure how many actual sessions I'll be able to attend though.

If you're up that way come check out the SPLAT area and let us hook you up with a Meebo accountm, a Google Reader, and maybe stay to play a video game with us. We'd also love to hear your take on the strides the library community is making and your experience with it.

And we're off!

My OPAC Really Does Suck!

Sorry it's been so long since the last post, but I haven't really had anything I had to say...until now.

So, the library I work at and the consortuim it is a part of is getting a new automation system. The dreaded time of migration will be here in a c0uple of short weeks. Now as you may know, migrations are a big deal. You're saying adios to a system that, regardless of the many flaws it probably has, everyone knows how to use and is used to in order to bring in something that no one knows how to use and everyone is a little afraid of - even us tech savvy digital natives. Obviously there's going to be anxiety, a lot of frustration, a lot of unhappy patrons who don't understand how it could possibly be taking you this long to find out if Harry Potter and the____ is in, a huge learning curve among staff, and general chaos for quite awhile. Now, one hopes that you're going through this super happy fun time because, in the end, your old OPAC sucked and you're going to get something shiny and new (and not text based) with lots of bells and whistles that will make searching easier, check out faster, and have some nifty reports you can run. This is a normal hope right? After all, "they" wouldn't make you go through this hell without a reason, and a darn good reason at that, right?
WRONG!!!
I have a news flash for all of you out there: windows-based is not necessarily better than text-based. It's true. Really. I wouldn't have believed it before I encountered SirsiDynix's Horizon. I started out in a tiny library in tiny rural town but we had an amazing windows-based automation system called Athena put out by Sagebrush. I love Athena. It's got great features, it's pretty to look at, and it's incredibly intuitive - it only took me a few days to feel comfortable using it. So I was a bit shocked when I started at my current library to find that even though we're a huge library (by comparison) that's part of a huge consortium the automation system is text-based and looks like DOS. It took me a little while to learn the commands and was frustrating because it wasn't intuitive but I've come to like it and appreciate how quickly you can move through it. When I heard that we were changing systems I was hopeful that it would be something like my old one. But that hope has died. Along with any hope of the new system being an improvement in any way, shape, or form. It's slooowww, ugly, not intuitive, appears to have less searching features than our current one does, and is just all around awful. Everyone I've talked to at work is filled with the same sense of impending doom. I wish there was a way we could bail and just stick with what we've got, but that's one of the downfalls of being in a consortium like we are - autonomy is basically an illusion and you just have to grin and bear it.
This is my question: why?!?!?! Why did the consortial PTB pick this automation system. It's like moving from DOS to Windows 3.1, when the rest of the world is using XP. Let this stand as evidence that change is not always a good thing.

*collapse*

OMG I am exhausted. This week (and it's not over yet) has been so great and encouraging and exciting, but it's sure taken a lot out of me. My mind is going non stop, but my steam is running out.

The SPLAT meeting was great and I'll start blogging on there in the next day or so as well. We'll meet again tomorrow to talk more and hammer some things out. Thank goodness we're starting with coffee, though I'm thankful that at 9am it will be the latest start time we've had so far. The ICFL is really a terrific organization. I love how much time, effort, and money they're putting into the Idaho library community and the future. I've always seen my self as working at a public library, but I'm starting to wonder if I wouldn't love working at a place like the ICFL. I mean, I care so much about what's going on in the profession...how great would it be to have a job where you not only got paid to care and work towards the future, but you actually get to implement change?

Anyway, more later. Vegging now.