Connecting Librarian

David polled the attendees on their experience of change. We are all inspired to go back and make change, but will run into “brick walls” once we get back to work.

Essence of the quotes he used was that the only certain thing about the future is change! Best staff are self-motivated, the key is not to demotivate them.

Historically technology and libraries have not changed very fast. Going fast in the 90’s with gopher and telnet. 2004 – Web 2.0 coined. Library techie changed goes extraordinarily fast. Most popular websites are MySpace – 2003 and YouTube 2005.

Job titles: Digital Branch and Services Manager, Virtual Services Librarian and more coming with this change.

Change the old way:

- leaders simply ordered changes

- goal was to get it accomplished

- when it failed, leaders reviewed to see where it went wrong

However, change is external, transition is internal, so they need to manage the change inside first, before external changes can happen. Most leaders focused on the change not the transition.

3 steps to Transition

- Saying goodbye – letting go of the past

- Shifting into neutral – focus on the details – but some people get stuck here

- Moving Forward – begin behaving in the new way – resistance will happen, doing new things can feel weird sometimes

Resistance is not the problem – management’s reaction to it creates problems, the resistors see it as survival.

Three levels of resistance:

Information based – not enough info, disagreement with the idea, not familiar with it, confusion

Physiological/emotional – job is threatened, future with the organization, respect of peers

Bigger stuff – personal history, identity, significant disagreement over values, transference (representing someone else)

How to navigate change:

Just for leaders and techies – already come to terms with the change, understand why people may not want to change, understand that its transitions, not the change that’s causing problems

Steps to take – describe it succinctly, plan carefully, help people respectfully let go, constant communication, create temporary solutions when needed, model new behaviour

Don’t do these things – don’t confuse novelty with innovation, don’t confuse motion with action, don’t keep something going if it “still has a few good years of life”

For techies – you might be able to change quickly, there are areas where you don’t, always share too much, technojust(ication) = no technolust or technomust

If you refuse to change – there are missed career opportunities, miss out on expanding your network and ability to develop new relationships, miss out on shaping your new destiny and reality

Parting thoughts on change – if you are not being told about it, ask! – work on stress management strategies, break old habits, whine with purpose – constructive criticism is good.

RSS is still a very hot topic as most things we see on the Net has an RSS component. (presentation at stevenmcohen.pbwiki.com/CIL2007/)

Steven M. Cohen loves Google Reader as his feed reader. Took us on a touring demo, very intuitive and easy to use. Windows Vista comes with a feed icon on the desktop. It calls it News, not RSS. Its not the name that matters, but what it can do. IE7.0 (a copy of Firefox), has a feedreader on their browser. Don’t go to browse web sites anymore, the websites come to him.

Whats cool - Libworm! Searches the biblioblogosphere - library blogs and library feeds. Much better than Google Blog search and Technorati for library related content. You can then get an RSS feed for the search results and get it updated to your feed reader.

Page to RSS, you put in a URL and it scans and creates a HTML page of the content from which you can get an RSS feed. It then updates everytime the page changes - unfortunately that includes the change of the date.

News feeds - Techmeme lists the hot topics in the tech community. Open Congress takes all the data related to congress, ie. bills, senators, news, issues etc and gave them all RSS feeds.

Justia - can follow all legal proceedings once a docket number is assigned.

RSS feeds in the library catalogue - using Library of Congress Subject headings, each of which as its own RSS link. Can also use it for new databases. And use it when databases are updated, down or have improved content.

Library Thing has RSS feeds throughout. Very cool.

Twitter is a buzz throughout the conference. Twitter is a cross between blogging, instant messaging and social networking on crack. Each page comes with an RSS feed. Steven thinks stuff will appear in Twitter via RSS. New site – RSS 2 twitter will allow you to sign up to a feed through the site and when it gets updated, it goes to your twitter page and creates a title and a link. Also check out Tumblr (tumblr.com) Can share a photo, a link, a post etc but right clicking on Share to Tumblr. There is an RSS feed to this, and then redirect the RSS feed to Twitter.

News readers will change soon. Steven predicts that Twitter will be the new feedreader.

Steven’s top 12 tools:
Internet Archive – http://www.archive.org - see what websites used to look like and say
Snapper - http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2703/ - use it to take a selection of your screen as a screen shot
Browster - http://www.browster.com/ - open a link in a new mini browser
BugMeNot - http://www.bugmenot.com/ - get passwords for
TinyURL - http://www.tinyurl.com/
GoogleGroups - http://groups.google.com/
CiteBite - http://www.citebite.com/
Picnik – http://www.picnik.com – link directly to quotes in Web pages using a quote and URL by creating a unique URL
Missing-Auctions – http://www.missing-auctions.com – search for misspelled auctions and eBay typos
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com
Meebo – http://www.meebo.com
PBwiki – http://www.pbwiki.com

Came in late, so I missed the start while I set up. Library Thing has a page for every work. Shows how many people share the book in their collections, how many reviews have been written, the top 32 tags that have been attached and more.

Has a recommendation feature. Those who have this also have that, similar tags, ratings, all the different versions of the covers that people have uploaded.

Library Things treat authors as an entity as important as a book, so the same features. Related tags, pictures uploaded by members, links, similarly tagged, also known as (ie. In different countries)

Tags – have own pages, what has been tagged, who has tagged with it, related tags – could be used as a reading list for a particular category. Eg paranormal romance has 1800 tags, yet it falls through traditional indexing systems.

Recommendations feature, includes a Unsuggester feature – if you like this, you will not like…… Using the data in the system in a multitude of ways.

What does it mean for social networking – not a niche site, as books are the centre of life for many, a Second Life for readers is books! Amazon is not the best book site forever, nor is Google Books. Books are not just items of commerce. Library Thing is what people kept, what books remain with people even after they no longer have it physically. Library Thing is about our identity which has been influenced by the books we have read. Books are objects of obsession.

Tags - every item is tagged. The bolder and larger it is, the more times it has been assigned that tag. Click on that tag and you will link to all titles that have that tag assigned. Tim did a comparison between the Library of Congress subject headings and Library Thing tags - very amusing and very demonstrative of the power of tags - not that he advocates that we no longer use subject headings, instead use both!

There is now Library Thing for libraries. Top is normal ILS data, but then all social networking tools are from Library Thing, included recommended titles, but only to titles that you hold. Integrates seamlessly to the back end of your ILS. This is not the solution - Tim says that in about 10 years we will be able to get all that we want from our vendors - getting it as XML if we want, and probably coming from Library Thing. Library Thing will offer these enhancements in the meantime.

Libraries need an OCLC type group for user generated data, which can be collected by libraries and then shared between libraries.

Chad’s voice is Library Voice, check it out.

What this presentation is about is wikis, blogs, podcasts, screencasts, surveys, polls, and other tools.

Learning occurs everywhere, not just in the classroom. Librarians teach one shot instruction sessions, often attempting to squeeze too many learning objectives into the one session.

Pre-class preparation - alternatives to handouts which are often left behind - blogs and wikis. Chad uses these tools and sometimes teaches straight off the blog or wiki, especially for students at libraries that don’t have the same resources as the main library. ie. Biz Wiki. Can walk into any class and be ready to teach those students, because the resources are all there to access. The students just need the address, there is no handout to lose.

He got the professors to put the assignments onto the wiki and then Chad would link to the relevant resources under each question, rather than having all 80 students coming to see him the day before its due. Pre-class Prep tools, include Media or pbwiki and internally or externally hosted Word Press.

In Class Feedback tools can be proprietary and expensive, so better to use Polls and IM. In your locally hosted version of Word Press, there is a plug in - WP Polls that you can use to create internal polls. Can use the results, which are visible to the survey participants, to drive the discussion. Still have the problem of having the right questions. He did a live demo of how this worked on his blog - created a quick poll and blog entry. Can lock it down so each student can only respond once. Chad uses the meebo widget to allow them to ask questions in class, without having to put their hands up publicly. It can alleviate student boredom, allows students to have partial ownership of the class and helps develop instructor skills.

Post class tools. Survey linked from a blog post. phpESP, data lives on your server, more functions for the price, including great statistics. Alternatives include Survey Monkey, but free version is limited and the data doesn’t rest on your site.

Additional instruction maybe supplementary or complementary to the class. They are using podcasts in multiple languages for a library tour. From Sep 06 - Jan 07 it was downloaded 700 times - hence saving staff time. They used Audacity to create it - showed us how to do it, very simple. Once its posted to the blog or iTunes it automatically has an RSS feed.

Screencasting using Wink (http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ - not open source but its free. Allows you to do screen captures and record voice over it. You can scroll down the pages whilst your talking, click on links and so much more. Automatically saves it as a htm file, can upload it and more. Chad demoed it here and is is sooooo easy too! We could use it straight away and move to the paid software later.

Videos - record video with a camcorder, capture screen video with CamStudio - records AVI format (open source) - again he demoed it - again very easy to do. Can also convert it flash, but its still a linear recording process. camstudio.org

Audio and video can have a bit of a learning curve, initial experiences can be very time consuming, but he end product is well worth the investment, it adds a human element to what your are doing.

Typical follow up support includes IM, email and blog and wiki. Can also use del.icio.us with tags as to how the resources may be used. Also Facebook or MySpace, linked from the blog, wiki etc, where students can read the RSS feed from your blog, you can answer questions through your inbox etc.

Online FAQs and online scheduler. Knowledge Publisher is an open source FAQ generator, which includes comments and rating facilities. They can also ask a question through it and the answers can then be posted to the FAQ. PHP Scheduler where students can book time, at Ohio they are using it to book study rooms. Can also use it to book time to meet with librarians etc.

Closing thoughts:
- don’t be afraid to get under the hood
- learn from failures and successes
- try new things and get momentum to get buy in
- try looking at other tools with an eye for potential library uses

Am going to be visiting Charlotte in the last 2 days of this week, so introduced myself to Helen before the session - also managed to grab a quick chat with Meredith Farkas, Nicole Engard and Aaron Schmid - very exciting!

All feeling the technology surge, which is getting better. Like a wave, trying to stay on the rest of the wave, not fall in front or fall behind. Greater demand for services, high user expectations and more. New model for libraries is technology as a foundation on top of funding, providing highly skilled and trained staff, real and virtual connections, real and virtual services.

PLCMC Information Technology Core Competencies are at 4 levels. Not providing service when it is someone elses job to support technology. Lori Reed is their core competencies trainer. Core I - every staff person should be able to do it, eg. access the intranet, enter timesheets, print, save files. (will have a link to all the core competency lists via Helene’s blog) . Pre-assessment showed that biggest need was in core troubleshooting. Core II includes patron support competencies such as searching the catalogue and using ILS (Horizon). Core III - envisionware & LPT for PC management and printing, One competencies. Core IV - more librarians and public trainers needed basic AV knowledge (ie. connecting laptop and projector), imaging and Public Technology training. The Core Competencies are aimed at supporting public service, so not management or administration. http://tinyurl.com/yo2zmh

Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries by Sarah Houghton-Jan recommended, as well as Web Junction - two tiered.

Core competencies support the changes that have already happened and are integrated into our everyday work. Different approach required for new changes, hence the Learning 2.0 program. How do we prepare and stay current in the information arena. Its all over the media.

Learning 2.0 started as Tech Bytes where they introduced RSS and blogging to staff. They came for 1 1/2 hr workshop, but after 3 months, they had reached 65 out of 540 staff. The info has to get out quick as it is all changing so quick. Had to do something different. Inspired by Stephen Abrams 43 things. Trimmed it back to 23 Things - Learning 2.0 was born. Learning program to encourage staff and expose them to Web 2.0 tools that are out there.

9 weeks of program, plus 1 month of extra exploration time. Mostly free, apart from time and the cost of a microphone (apart from the cost of the staff rewards for completing it). All done using freely available web 2.0 tools.

It was all about exposing staff to new tools, encouraging play, empowering individuals, expanding the knowledge toolbox and eliminating fear. Encouraging staff to learn and have fun.

Its also about staff controlling their life-long learning, not about having it all delivered to them. Learning 2.0 is a weapon of mass instruction.

Learning 2.0 best practices:

- don’t confuse learning with training

- building the program for late bloomers

- allow participants to blog anonymously

- communicate weekly using 1.0 methods

- focus on discovery and encourage challenges

- encourage staff to use each other and work together

- Remember that its not about acceptance or doing it right – its about exposure

- Practice transparency and radical trust

- And continually encourage staff to play!!!

Been duplicated by many different libraries. Its out there for free.

Andy is Senior Product Manager for Online Communities at National Public Radio and was a last minute replacement for the scheduled speaker who was unable to attend. His powerpoint slides are available at http://www.andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt.

If you wanted to produce content for a mass audience you needed to be a publisher, broadcaster, billboard owner, sky writer or guy holding a sign up at a televised event. Enter Web 1.0 (40 years ago!), but producers still needed HTML, programming and graphic design skills, hosting ability and promotion mechanisms.

Today= Web2.0. New online software in late 1990s allowing people to focus on the content, rather than the technical know-how. A mass democratization of content with a common thread of online communities where people are actively encouraged to use and share each other’s original content.

Content Production: all the cool kids are doing it. Young people are more likely to post content, although race, income and education are less of a factor. Shared stats from Pew which were blogged yesterday! Web 2.0 Universe is changing so quickly, so the slide of things happening is already out of date as new tools are developing almost daily.

Most famous example are blogs - began as geek personal homepages. Blogging software has made it easier for anyone to do it - like me! Fill out a form publishing, with the result of 60-100 million blogs online, Andy thinks thats conservative. Guestimate that there are more bloggers in China than there are English bloggers worldwide.

Media hates bloggers! Cant trust citizen journalists to get the story right, they have biases, a mob mentality and more. Bloggers don’t trust big media, claim they’re unbiased - right!, dominated by soundbites, don’t respect the public’s intelligence and pandering to lowest common denominator. Happy Internet - concerted efforts at finding understanding between the media and the blogosphere. Media/blog collaboration now more common, with a greater emphasis on networked journalism, finding ways for the media to work with “The people formerly known as the audience”. (Jay Rosen)

Why do Media outlets embrace 2.0 - improving journalistic transparency, creating a public dialogue, tapping into public knowledge and creativity, new collaborative opportunities with affiliates and maybe its profitable too?

At NPR have been involved in Open Piloting. They invite the public to help create new broadcast programming, sharing rough drafts of shows before they’re ready for prime time. A focus group concept, but everyone’s welcome. Examples - Rough Cuts - Tell me more, Bryant Park. Aim to make better programming that better meets their listeners needs. Would put podcasts of pilots up for people to listen, sometimes several options and invite them to discuss the good, the bad, the better options, which they have been contributing to.

Radio Open Source - www.radioopensource.org. Blog with a radio show. Not about open source software. Website with blog supporting the development and continued improvement of shows broadcast. Opens editorial process to the public, users recommend guests and questions and participate on-air. Hosts online debriefs after shows.

BBC Have your say. Centralized forum for discussing news, only select stories covered, highlights user comments at the top of the page. CNN iReport citizen journalism project, with users asked to submit photos, video for specific stories, very best clips are included online other are archived in a gallery. Published early video from VT shooting. USA Today embedding social networking across site, not just in one section, users can comment on any story, comments featured throughout the website and are now syndicating blogs from around the world. Irony that users were using the new social networking features to complain about the change to the new social networking features.

Ohmynews - Korean online news service, publishes in Korean, English and Japanese, dedicates 20% of its space to citizen journalists and invites content submission as volunteers, those that submit consistently get paid. Global Voices Online (Harvard), international news media service using bridge bloggers - Reuters are working with them to get content from places that they don’t have news outlets. Many more examples including New Assignment.Net, VoteGuide and Minnesota E-Debate, H2OTown.