Connecting Librarian

Its been a while since I did a meme and I don’t have anything else ready to post yet, so why not.  This one has been doing the rounds a bit and has been interesting to read, with Kathryn Greenhill being the one who tipped me over to do this, with her Meme: What’s a librarian’s day like? So its all your fault Kathryn!

Background to my Thursdays – I work on virtual services in an office in the workroom of our largest branch, which is at Narre Warren.   I do a desk shift for an hour over lunch, between 1 and 2pm and again over dinner break between 5 and 6pm.  So here’s my Thursday, not totally typical, but not far off it either.

Arrive at 9.30am for a 10am start – as usual.  Clock in, start my computer, check with staff getting branch ready for opening at 10am, return my due books etc, etc.

Login to my email and to the information email for any email enquiries.  Spend the next half hour answering these queries and sorting out my own email.

Before morning tea do some quick website updates and check if staff still doing Learning 2.0 have posted anything on their blogs since Monday – nada.

Fred Camino

After morning tea, help out on desk so that other staff can have theirs.  Didn’t plan this, just went out to the shelves to check on a book I found on a catalogue search and stepped in to help.

Back to my desk where I listened to last weeks Uncontrolled Vocabulary podcast whilst I create an online book list of the 50 titles in the Books Alive 2008 campaign, with live links to our catalogue.  Update our social software logins list and post an entry from our CEO on developments in the new building for one of our branches on the library blog.  Test the links and upload the booklist.  Make a note of 2 blog posts to do in the next week.

Go on desk to cover the lunch shift.  Usual catching up with returns, clearing the courier delivery from some of our other branches and serving the people in front of us.

Lunch – shopping and eating.

After lunch, I help one of the librarians to post an entry on our teen blog.  Write a quick note on behalf of a colleague , all the while checking on and responding to email on 2 accounts.

Use an old version of Cam Studio to record, edit and create three screencasts on our library catalogue, on the topics of changing your PIN, changing your address and submitting a suggestion for purchase – the last on our series of what you can do online through the catalogue.   The last ones to do, all finished now.  Phew! Stop for a late afternoon tea.

After tea, upload the screencasts and add them to our catalogue help page.  Write a memo for staff, letting them know about these new resources and make a note to do a new blog post on them next week. (I don’t work Fridays).

Tidy up some loose ends, write some notes for this blog post and for other things I will chase up at home (because I always take work home – after all I love what I do!).  Head back to do the 5-6pm desk shift where I help more people, do more tidying, enter memberships and more.

6.05pm – clock out and head home.

So that’s a nearly typical Thursday for me.  Not always screencasts in the afternoon, but usually some type of project.  Its been screencasts for a month or so.  Thursdays are very different to my Mondays and alternate Tuesdays.  One day I might post about them too.

Its my 3rd blogaversary and I’ve been trying to think about what to post about to celebrate and decided its a good time to review the past 12 months of professional activity.  So here’s what I consider are my major achievements professionally, both inside and outside of work.  This is more for me I guess, to remind myself what I have been doing that has kept me so busy and to encourage me in the year ahead.  I don’t know if you will get anything out of it, but I hope you do.  I won’t presume however, to say what it will be.

This is my 176th post, so things were a bit quieter in the past year, mainly because other things were happening to occupy my time and engage my attention.  Comments are up to 270 for the three years and I thank all my commenters for leaving them. They are encouraging and sometimes thought-provoking and knowing how busy we all are, I appreciate the time you took.

So in the last year, I have given 6 presentations, ranging from 10 minutes to 6 hours in length (the 6 hours was a day long masterclass), of which 2 presentations were at conferences (only 1 of which I attended the whole time), I have written a chapter for a book which has now been published, have had a journal article and 2 other conference papers accepted, which will be published and presented in the forthcoming year.

I attended the VALA conference and Michael Stephen’s Hyperlinked Library seminars, listened to countless podcasts, read countless journal articles and even more blog posts.  Its amazing my head hasn’t exploded from all the information I have taken in and yet it is still only a drop in the ocean of what’s out there, even in my own profession.

In the past year I have written 52 blog posts for this blog, as well as blogging at Invisible Ink (nowhere near as prolifically) and at 2 of my library’s 3 blogs, one of them at least weekly.  So I get plenty of time to write and my confidence in presenting has improved dramatically.

At work I have helped 60 staff to being the Learning 2.0 program, I have created Google Maps for all our branches and mobile library stops, I have helped other library staff create and launch 2 new blogs, built up the team on our existing blog and written our library policy to support these endeavours.  I have done screencasts on using our catalogues, introduced a web poll, embedded a search box and direct account login to all our library webpages, all whilst doing minor tweaks and regular updates on our badly needing an update website (which will now happen in this coming year).

So its been an awesome and life changing year.  If you had told me, even a year ago that I would feel comfortable presenting, I would have laughed at you.  What a difference a year makes.  (not that presenting will ever be easy, lol)  I feel like I have developed as more of a professional librarian, rather than just a librarian doing a particular job.  I am proud of that distinction, just as I am proud to be a librarian and proud of the job I have done for my library.

The coming year brings two conference presentations, the publication of my journal article and I am part of the organising committee for the VALA 2010 conference.  And that just the things I know of.  Its a good time to be a librarian and I’m going to make the most of every opportunity that comes my way – I’m having too much fun to be doing anything else!

Its been so long between posts, because its been busy. Between work, a conference paper, a journal article, school holidays and trying to organise our holiday to Central Australia, I haven’t had time to think.  But its all done or booked now.  So I’ll begin my catch up blogging by talking about what I’ve been reading of late.

Felipe Morin

I’ve been doing something that I have never really done before – reading a lot of non-fiction. I have always been a strictly fiction gal, with only the odd non-fiction title thrown in for good measure. They are very different styles to read.  For me, non-fiction takes a lot more work and is a lot drier reading, whereas I can get lost in a good fiction book.  On the otherhand, I will persist with a non-fiction book, but won’t with a fiction book if its not engaging me.

Anyway, after reading recommendations on blogs, websites, article and more, I decided to throw myself in to the world of popular culture and more, usually relating to the internet. Being a good librarian, I got them from my public library of course!  Either from their collection or from the collection of one of the 13 other public library services in our ILMS consortia.  So here’s what I’ve been reading, with a bit of a review and my thoughts on each title.

Purple cow: transform your business by being remarkable by Seth Godin

I have been following Seth Godin’s blog and although I don’t always find it interesting and relevant, there is the odd post which really catches my attention.  Its also a good way to keep in touch with what’s happening in popular culture.  So Purple cow talks about the things that businesses can go to make a real impact on customers – and its not about the right television ad or the best logo – its the things that you do that are really attention grabbing.

It was interesting to read it as a librarian, because we do remarkable things everyday – lend latest bestselling everything – FOR FREE!  So how do we add to that remarkableness and how do we get people’s attention in the first place.  Its short, full of great practical examples and it makes you think about marketing practices, so it was well worth the time invested in reading it.

Long tail: how endless choice is creating unlimited demand by Chris Anderson

The Long tail has been talked about around the blogosphere since it was published in 2006 and although I understood the concept of it, I wanted to know more of the details.  Although libraries aren’t true representatives of the long tail, as a library user reminded me the other day, we do lend items that they can’t get through the shops anymore, so we have more of the tail than retail does.  So it was interesting to read how the long tail works and to recognise libraries’ place on the graph.

Dancing barefoot : five short but true stories about life in the so-called space age and

Just a geek : unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise by Wil Wheaton

Wil Wheaton, of Stand by Me and Welsey Crusher on the Enterprise (Star Trek) fame, has become a noted blogger and popular culture commentator, as well as actor and now author.  These books were stories from his life and were a hoot.  He is an excellent writer, engaging, amusing and captivating.  Both books were easy and enjoyable to read.  As a result, I now follow his blog and am looking forward to seeing him in guest spots on TV shows.

The cult of the amateur : how today’s internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy by Andrew Keen.

There was a bit of controversy over this one, mainly that author Keen was sensationalising everything.  He does.  He takes every story of how the internet is being used by the average person and takes it to the extreme.  The only chapter I actually agreed with and got anything out of  was the last chapter, which looked forward with a measure of caution.  If you like getting frustrated, or need the background to be able to play devil’s advocate, then check it out.

Here comes everybody : the power of organisation without organisations by Clay Shirky

I’ve just finished with this one and its almost the opposite of Keen’s book.  Shirky looks at how the internet is being used, with a lot more objective eye than Keen does, although he focuses more on the positive outcomes from the net.  I got onto this one after seeing a short presentation of his on YouTube.  A good look at how the internet is changing the world.

So that’s whats been keeping me busy when I haven’t been so busy.  I still have a list of books I have on hold, so there will be more at another time.  Hopefully I have motivated you to do some reading along these lines.  Knowing what I’ve been reading, if there is any other titles you think should be on my must read list, please let me know. 

Gotta love this. Thanks to Michael at Travelin’ Librarian for the heads up!