Connecting Librarian

I have just shifted my RSS feeds to Feedburner. Google, which owns both Blogger and Feedburner, has now enabled feeds through Feedburner. The benefit for me is that I will get a better idea of how many people reading Connecting Librarian.

Another benefit is that Feedburner enables you to setup email subscriptions for those interested readers who don’t have or want an RSS reader (in one of the many forms they take). So instead of having to check in regularly, you can subscribe to the feed, using the subscription box in the righthand sidebar. When you submit your email address you will get a confirmation email, click on the link in it and you will get new posts via email.

So if you currently subscribe to Connecting Librarian through the old blogger feed, you may want to update to the new Feedburner one. The RSS icon in the righthand sidebar has the link.

Not that there’s been a lot of traffic here recently. I hope to be rectifying that very soon, now that things are settling on a number of fronts here. Thanks for staying tuned in the meantime.

Its been a few weeks now, and I am very sorry for the delay, but wow what a day it was. I’ll let my notes speak of the content, but all the feedback coming in has been positive and one of my managers who attended has encouraged our managers to check out the presentations, which are being posted to the State Library of Victoria (SLV) website.

I didn’t take many photos, too busy taking notes instead, so you’ll just have to imagine a lovely cosy 200 seat theatrette, packed with interested public librarians (and many more who couldn’t get in!). Here goes!

“Library 2.0: Transforming the library through the web” – Helene Blowers

NewsWeek (putting the WE in the WEb) – User generated sites are rocking the internet – April 06. Not just libraries trying to figure out Web 2.0 and how these technologies are affecting how we connect with our users.
Time – Person of the Year – YOU! You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world. No longer need to know HTML, free services are available for people to collaborate and share.

“Web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the WWW that lets people collaborate and share information online – Wikipedia.
flickr, youtube, digg, my space, delicious

The tools are not what is important, it’s the connections that they are making possible.

Michael Casey – Library 2.0 article (and book) its about user-centred change.

Web 2.0 isnt a thing… It’s a state of mind. (Helene’s own quote)

It’s about:
Cultivating communities: Darien Library – blogs
myhamilton.ca – webspace is a community portal
Pikes Peak Library District – Ning network – created a social community for the library
Mint Hill Public Library – Stitch In blog. (part of PLCMC). Stitching group meets in the library, blog allows them to add photos, follow up on their meeting. (meet twice monthly)

Encouraging Participation: Allen County Public Library – Photo Survey – loaded onto Flickr – A Day in Allen County Indiana 2007 (using same tag)
Princeton Public Library – Book Lovers Wiki
Hennepin County Public Library – Book Space – based on Amazon model

Human conversations: Ann Arbor District Library – website built on open source CMS using blogs, so can have conversations with their community.
Parma Teens blog – speaking in first person to teens.

Collaboration: Loudoun County Public Library – Loudounpedia – add, share, contribute info about Loudoun County. Asking for suggestions and content.
Danbury Public Library – they are including user generated tags with their catalogue records (searchable)
Hennepin County Library – comments on the library catalogue
Thomas Ford Memorial Library – local history project – each photo and description was a blog post which people can comment on

Being in their space: The Loft @ ImaginOn (PLCMC) – teens created a MySpace account for them – teen webpage is not heavily used, but this space is – 1080 friends – who all get notified about their events etc. Great PR.
Crossett Library – Facebook profile.
Second Life – new space to look at what we may be able to do with public spaces
InfoIsland.org – blog for Info Island

Small pieces loosely joined: Lander University – meebo chat widget
Hennepin County Public Library – widget for MySpace and website, to search their catalogue
Harris County Public Library – created a toolbar which users can install on their browser at home/work etc.

Shifting the focus: New Jersey Libraries – 3 reasons why you love your library (on YouTube)
PLCMC – Asked users to generate their own motivational posters using their own photos and a website which does this
Denver Library – YouTube contest for their teens – “How I have fun in my library”.

Letting go!: we are more valuable and powerful when we empower users, than when we try to control.

You: What can libraries do to continually keep up with the changes?
1. Player – become an information player – one actively involved especially in a competitive field or process
Take 15 minutes a day to play! Read blogs, literature, explore, scan the magazine racks, subscribe to just 5 blogs (LiB, TechCrunch, What i learned today, Wired, Learning 2.1). Tag “play items” in Del.icio.us. (use 15 minutes to explore these). Create a learning blog. Give yourself and others permission to PLAY! Its the Learning 2.0 way.

“Learning for the future: using the Learning 2.0 program at YPRL” – Lynette Lewis
Internet is a moving target – constantly changing environment, new tech is readily availalble, staff need to keep up, familiarise themselves and be comfortable using it.

Learning 2.0 program – started with a roadshow taken around the region, blogs, mp3 files Google tools, wikis, podcasting, federated searching (LibLink).

Online learning program, designed to help staff explore Web 2.0, self paced, hands on discovery exercises, based on concept of lifelong learning, encourages exploration through play.

Developed by Helene Blowers at PLCMC, over 300 participants, now being used worldwide, licenced under Creative Commons.

Program – YPRL experience – 12 weeks, staff were encouraged to partake in 23 things (9 week program with 3 week catchup).
Allow for late bloomers (start at week 9!) Exercises set out on a blog, which guide staff. Most exercises include a podcasts, you have to set up a blog and use it as an online workbook to comment on each of the 23 exercises. (Lynette demoed how it worked).

YPRL added some extra content relevant to Australian libraries.

Learn about blogs, flickr, RSS, mashups, rollyo, wikis, podcasts, technorati, del.icio.us, image generators

Advantages – self paced, do as much or as little as you want, added links allowed the participants to explore further if they wish, it’s not restricted by a timetable or venue.

It can be accessed anytime, anywhere, via an internet connection.

Evalution sent to each participant. Questions included; initial reaction, most challenging part, most fun part, possible improvements, ways these tools could be used in the library.

How they could be used: Reference service (IM), wikis as staff manuals, RSS feeds and mashups to clients, podcasts of activities, podcast library tours, blogs as promotional tools, blogs as publishing tools, public classes on Web 2.0 technologies. Showed visual presentation – reflection of their achievements.

Running classes on Library Thing, blogging and Second Life.

ME NEXT! – Kathryn blogged me.

Then:

“SLV: Thinking it through” – Kelly Gardiner
Thinking about how to apply Web 2.0 principles to SLV. Its not just a blog. Dynamic dlievery of content and services. Fluid data that mix and flows where its needed. Networks of service and light-weight applications that grab content and data and deliver it to users fast. Adapts to users’s workflows, rather than forcing them to work around system constraints. It Really Is A Web!

Our systems are making our users jump from one system to another (ie. website to catalogue etc). Web 2.0 tools allow them to do it where they are.

Why does it matter? Its not just fun, its important! Find a problem to solve for your users and then finding a solution online. Its becoming large in terms of the industry and unavoidable in terms of our industry. Its changing our users expectations of the internet, of computers and of libraries. Need to live up to the expectations of Google. (see slide – its awesome). Example: dynamic search. Assumption – users want to constantly refine searches. Our task – help them to do that. What about expanding, exploring, discovery. Use our data to offer broader possibilities: facets and clustered results, suggested searches, other users’ recommendations, serve results in unexpected or useful places (widgets), offer results in unified discovery. eg. World Cat refine your search column. LibraryLabs from NLA – find in your library, related searches, topics by year, ISBN related book covers. Childrenslibrary.org book cover colour, characters, age search options.

Web 2.0 is about our users, not us. Understand our users’ tasks – find, analyse, annotate, publish, comment, cite, learn, organise, visit, collect/copy, collaborate, teach, share, explore, register, read, describe/review, organise, compare, enjoy.

SLV online – last redeveloped 2004 and expanded largely since. Catalogues, databases and applications are separate. Vicnet portal redevelopment underway. Legacy sites include “A place called Victoria” and “Victorians at War”. User focussed sites “Inside a dog” “Your treasures”. New sites – “Mirror of the world” “Learning zone”. Around 3 million users per year and rising rapidly. Well organised but bursting and expectations have changed.

SLV principles – consistently describe info and objects, view and present our many info repositories as a single source, provide users with many windows into relevant info and opportunities to contribute and interact, deliver online services and content dynamically.

Deliverables: network of content gateways,serivce oriented architecture backend, redesigned presentation layer, user testing, consistent user experience, user generated content, federated search, consistent taxonomy, accessible and reusable content with associated metadata, expanding suite fo easily deployed tools and applications.

Summary: how to keep current content, match our users tasks, make data accessible to be reused by others.

SLV slideshow widget – serves rotating images on Google homepage, depending on users specs.
Flickr account – not sure of implications (john328) – most images are nothing to do with State Library, user tagged
Your Treasure – tags and comments enabled
Wynlearn – RSS feed and Google Maps
Inside a dog – almost entirely user generated content, has downloads – interviews, screensavers, pdfs etc.
Tour of new acquisitions, presents cover images, click on them to go to catalogue covers

Structure: SLV Gateway, books and ideas,our community, learning zone, place called victoria, family history, research and resources (not finalised)

Share your thoughts, ideas, concerns etc. Launching things bit by bit.

“Virtual Libraries, real librarians” – Kathryn Greenhill
Cybrary City 2 – Murdoch University Library – Discovering your Second Life space. Resource which has an implication for Information services.

What is Second Life – webpage for Second Life, run in San Francisco (Linden Labs). “3D online digital world, imagined, created and owned by its residents.”
MUVE – Multi User Virtual Environment. Each island is a server, uses avatars, has buildings, can interact with objects.

Access – free! Freebie stores give away hairdos, clothes etc. There are system specifications – video card is of particular importance. Family name, first name. Choose family name from drop-down list, choose your own first name. Download client software to your PC, not accessed on the internet. Open software which connects to the Second Life servers.

Isn’t it just a game? Yes, graphic user controlled interface, avatars, inventory, interact with environment and others
No, no rules, no points, no strategy, no win/lose, no start and end.

Who is in Second Life? 8 million registered. 33k online at once. Individuals, organisation, companies, educators, Australian (RMIT, Film, Radio and Television school, Big Pond, ABC)

What can you do in Second Life? Avatars: talk (chat and IM), modify, move (walk, fly, swim, animate)
Objects: build, upload, buy-sell-trade, animate, script (can open external websites)
Environment: streamed media, join groups and networks, attend events

What do librarians do there?
InfoIsland has 6000 visitors a day. Information – Has reference desk with Questionpoint software. Open 56 hours per week. Outreach programs – writer’s talk, visits from historical figures, book discussions. Collections – external links, web tools accessed within SL, items especially made for SL (aetheric novels and collections) – can also link to the electronic book (Ebsco is doing database trials in SL) Classes and Seminar – for librarians, for everyone, using SL tools, getting your avatar together.

April 2006 started as shopfront. July 2007 over photo islands. One island per server. 16 acres in size. Non-profit $837 and then maintenance fee. Sirsi-Dynix sponsors the Alliance Library System and teen Eye4You. Talis as well as other private sponsors. Alliance Library System – 260 libraries in Illinois. They coordinate the library presence in SL. Eye4You is administered by PLCMC. Library Services – some paid librarians and a lot of voluteers. Problem with burnout.

8 story reference library with dance club on roof for librarians. Hanuted house for Gothic literature. Genealogy room, Script library. World Bridges – educational podcasts are streamed there. Science Fiction portal. Imagination Island – including Rachelville “a magical place with displays and environments relating to children’s literature”.

Ten ways you can join in. Play! Attend a class. (virtual world librarianship course). Run a class. murdochsecondlife.pbwiki.com YouTube video. Join the Google Group and read the blog. Take a tour. Volunteer on the reference desk. Use the Australian Libraries building. Dance with librarians. Every second Saturday 12 noon AEST. Bell Library, Information Island. Run a group. Create your own branch. Kathryn then took us on a tour!

“Libraries Building Communities Demonstration Project recipients” – John Cain
Library Board published the LBC report in 2005 – how public libraries make vital contributions to their communities. Also identified gaps and challenges in meeting their vital roles in their communities. Funding allocated to support these initiatives over the next three years. Demo projects – InfoSkills (murray), Wyndham Portal, Hume Global Learning Village Learning Advocates, Goulburn Valley – Koori project. Many applications this year, ranging from $31, 000 to $120,000. Ranging from LOTE, local history, pre-schoolers, teens programs. Winners 2007 – Libraries Demonstration Projects: East Gippsland – Building on the Bookie. $81,900 to utilise a ute to provide new services to remote users – meeting needs of non-traditional users – kicking off in September this year. Test new ways of serving their users. Moreland City, YPRL and Darebin – Wikinorthia – $50,000 to use a wiki to gather the stories and images of the residents in these areas. WMRLC – Cruise and access to skills for young people – $60,000 to develop a program for teens – cruising VCE, cruising life and cruising virtual life, in collaboration with youth agencies in these areas.

“Virtual Gateway, real challenge” – Kerri Sidorow and Tom Edwards
Wynlearn – brings together info about local learning opportunities. Increase awareness of and participation in life-long learning. Planning for combined libraries/communities centres in the next 10 years in Wyndham Vale, Tarneit and Pt Cook. Objectives for the portal: single focal point for libraries and learning, increase awareness of and accessibility to learning opportunities, increase participation in these, facilitate connectedness amongst partners, invite community dialogue about learning in Wyndham.
Partners: Library Board, Wyndham Education Committee, Vicnet, Community Centres, Volunteers Network, Wyndham Connected, Council and Library Service.

Portal was built from the ground up. Working with education providers to build the database on which the portal would be based. Included maps, accessibility issues, thesaurus for course descriptions. (inspiration: Short Courses Victoria, EDNA, Hotcourses (UK)).

Course providers input their course info and teachers set up forums for their students. VICNET did the training. Portal created so that bookings can be taken online and so that data can be exported for reporting requirements. http://www.wynlearn.net.au/ Look and feel to promote community goals. Use mouseovers to give a more detailed description of links. Find learning can do keyword search, provider, time of day search. Result tells you course details and includes a Google Map of the location. For those who have transport difficulties, they can access courses by geography.

Engage in learning provides a forum to feedback. Not much takeup at present. RSS feeds for news and announcements on the site. You can register your interest in an event, or if there is nothing, you can set up a profile and when a course that matches your profile, you are notified.

Portal uses personalisation – saved searches and tailored RSS news content (using Yahoo Pipes), forum (social software) and content syndication (alerts).
Portal launched in May. 81 registered users who register interest in events. 75 hits per day. Traffic coming from Wyndham Council, Libraries, Vicnet and Victoria’s Virtual Libraries website.

Challenges- to be able to develop it in a way which is developable and sustaininable – expand to schools and universities
to develop documentation on what the purpose of the site is (not for events like community markets)
to keep it current
to keep it progressing to meet user needs and new functionality

“Darebin Historical Encyclopedia: an online local history resource” – Katrina Knox and Jackie Goddard
dhe.darebinlibraries.vic.gov.au
More than a simple catalogue/database
Over 8000 entries – info from original source amteirals, photos, newspapers, articles and other documents
24/7 access

Darebin Libraries has a strong commitment to local/family history study
Provide public access to a wide range of materials in one place
Access with preservation
Capacity for ongoing development
Allow for community interaction and participation

Developing: review of comparable projects, development of project plan – scope and content, funding, potential users, design format and functionality, contracted out the development of the public interface and site administration.

Content developed by library staff – researched topics, scanned images (shelvers did), brought the research and images together in individual entries. Scoped project in 2004,launched in April 2006. Jackie did a live demo of the site. People have seen articles on the website and offered their own images for inclusion. It covers people, places and events and links to websites and pdfs of records eg. Northcote Cemetery list. Images are shown in small size, but can be clicked to open larger in a new window. Includes digitised newspapers and Northcote First World War database – taken from the original enrolment cards, oral history transcripts (interviews taken in 1970s – not the actual audio yet).

Challenges and lessons: larger than envisaged – revisit the scope, redesigned the structure, extend the delivery timeframe; information technology issues – IT plan was required within the project plan; allocation of time and resources – being done whilst doing other work, so took longer. What to include: driven by patron queries and staff interest and availability of maerials. Visual look, design and ease of navigation are critical – extensive usability done especially with older people who are key users.

Achievements: accessibility with preservation, reference tool for students, public and researchers, staff; increased awareness of local history; positive reaction from both the local community and beyond. Received questions and contributions from locals and beyond. Further developed Darebin’s community connections. Well received at Council. Commendation in Victorian Community History Awards 2007.

Ongoing development: new topics and updating existing entries (now up to 800), customer feedback and involvement. Refinement of site structure and design. Second stage planned for 2008 – increased interactivity and community through wikis, blogs, podcasts and e-postcards.

“ImaginOn” – Helene Blowers
Partnership with Children’s Theatre of Charlotte – first collaborated a quarter century ago. Each organisation has their own staff, but also shared staff working for total organisation. Both organisations work under the same mission, vision and core values. Staff has to be creative – Library Manager hires creativity. The library is about delivering experiences, not services. Some of the labs in the loft are used for dance classes as well as computer related activities. Upcoming generation is creating content, mashups etc. Studio i – students create stop animation, which then are displayed through screens throughout the library. Also have low tech stuff – dolls houses, building blocks, nooks and crannies to explore. Helene’s daughters love to go to ImaginOn for the experience – one of their favourite places – don’t really use it to borrow books. Check out their Flickr account. Use it as a focal point for community festivals in an arts area. Word Play Saturday – street festival at end of October. Exhibits.

Blogging has been light lately, but I couldn’t resist sharing this.

“After all, if a library’s reach cannot exceed its grasp, then what’s a website for?”
editec
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/

Its a nice little reminder of what the virtual side of libraries is all about and the importance of all the work I do that’s not always so visible.

I knew it was here somewhere and this morning I found it. Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of Connecting Librarian. To celebrate, this is my 127th post. Never thought of getting that far when I started with my first post “In the beginning….”

Those 127 posts have had 144 comments, which is much better than I expected, even accounting for the fact that nearly half of those comments are from me, responding back to comments made.

How do I feel about blogging 2 years on? I’m in awe. I never dreamed of the power this medium could have. Its enabled me to vent in a healthy way, to work through my thoughts on issues that are important to me and most importantly, linked me to a fantastic community of people passionate about libraries, world-wide. It has been a great personal and professional satisfaction to know that my musings are of interest to others and I appreciate all your support as I have stumbled, ranted, mused and journey through these last two years.

So where to from here. I have some dearly respected friends suggest I get my own domain for this blog and other professional stuff and it makes sense. I now have some presentations and a report to share and my own domain would be the place to make those available to anyone interested. I also plan on writing the odd journal article or two, so that would be their home also. So watch this space as I plan on moving it before year end.

So flowers to you and many thanks, for helping to make these last two years of blogging interesting, provoking, inspiring and fun! Although things have been a little dry of late, here’s to the next two years and more of passionate sharing and support of our wonderful profession, both by me and you!

So why would my mail be of interest to the library profession, which is, after all what this blog is about? And why now, when I haven’t even done a blog post on the wonderful Libraries, Web 2.0 and other Internet stuff session at the State Library of Victoria last Monday?

Well, its because things have been very chaotic lately, with doing the report on my study tour, putting in proposals for papers at conferences (I’m 2 for 2 knockbacks – oh well) and presenting at the State Library last Monday. I will be blogging that event hopefully this weekend, but until then, back to my mail.

I got one!

That little treasure above is a Web Junction Pez dispenser, a highly prized item from ALA 2007. As I was obviously not able to attend ALA (only not long back from the US) I entered the online prize draw. Not only did I win one, but they sent it to me in Australia, gratis. (not used to that). So there’s my prize, in its only public appearance. It is now back safely in its plastic bag, where it will remain safe for the imaginable future.

Stay tuned, I will get back to serious library blogging soon.

Late edition: I also got a card with it which read

“Dear Michelle

At long last – your very own WebJunction PEZ!

Thanks for entering the drawing and for being a WebJunction member. We had a lot of fun with this giveaway at ALA and we’re exciting (yes it does say that) to be able to pass a few on to our members who weren’t able to attend this year.

Hope to see you in Anaheim next year! (I wish!)

Thanks,
The WebJunction Team

I am a qualified librarian and I can put a whole long list of letters behind my name. Between my Bachelors degree, my Masters degree and my Associate membership of ALIA, the letters are as long as my actual name.

So when should I use them? This all came from my dad – who is a fitter and turner by trade. I showed him a copy of my beautifully presented report from my study tour and he asked where all the letters were from behind my name. My dad is very proud of what I have achieved, even if he doesn’t understand the fuss and what its all about, but that question caught me by surprise.

So why didn’t I use the letters – its a formal report, going to be read by many people in library circles (and maybe some who are not). Would it have been legitimate to list degrees etc on the cover, to further indicate my qualification to conduct this tour, or would it have seemed like bragging to those who already know me and who will also read the report?

What about the presentations I will be doing that will also come out of this study tour? Should I put my qualifications on that, or just leave it as my name and position/library? I have been pondering this at work today, with some of the other librarians and none of us was able to come up with a definitive answer. We thought it would be appropriate to mention qualifications in a speaker’s introduction or on the blurb of a journal article, but anywhere else? We couldn’t decide.

So I thought I would ponder it here and see if any of you had any thoughts on this. We have worked hard for our qualifications, shouldn’t we be more forthright in displaying them and more often? Or is that bragging and inappropriately so in some circumstances. I would love to get your feedback, so please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

By the way, all those letters for me are:
Michelle McLean
BA(Lib) MBIT AALIA
Bachelor of Arts in Librarianship, Master of Business in Information Technology and Associate member of the Australian Library and Information Association. At least I can use the letters and not have to spell it out in full!

I have been so busy with getting my report finalised (yay, its done), getting two presentations and other things started, as well as my daughter’s birthday, that I haven’t had much time to ponder all things library. However, to start our school holiday break here, I thought I would point to something that is both thought provoking and entertaining.

Unshelved is a daily comic following Dewey and the library staff at Mallville Public Library. I have subscribed to the RSS feed so that I can get my daily fix. Working in a public library myself, it comes very close to home at times and is even more amusing as a result.

Anyway, this week’s comic strips were based on the Hi I’m a PC and I’m a Mac ads, with the substitution of Hi I’m the Internet and I’m the Library and as I said, they have all been very amusing – so check them out!

Monday – Beyond Google
Tuesday – Copyright
Wednesday – Information authority
Thursday – Novels
Friday – Censorship

Enjoy!

PS. And now Saturday’s comic which sums it all up!

This is the latest meme doing the rounds. Kathryn from Librarians Matter tagged me a little while ago and I have been consumed with getting my study tour report finished, I thought it would be easier to do this instead of having to think of a real blog post, lol.

1. We are getting our first family dog in a few weeks. Hubby and I have had cats since we have been married and I grew up with dogs, but this is our first one. We will be picking up our 8 week (by then) Labrador puppy who we have named Toby, in mid July.

2. I love action movies. Don’t give me a chick flick, I’ll get bored. Give me a good action – Die Hard type movie every time. Can’t wait for Live Free or Die Hard!

3. I am a hoon driver. I am 42 and still drive like a teen. Its only the last year that I have started to slow down just a little. Fortunately I am not really a dangerous driver, so not too many accidents in my driving career, but I like to push the car.

4. I hate housework. I put it off as long as I can because I dislike it that much. I end up doing some housework, some computer stuff and so on, just so I can get through it all.

5. I was a Brownie (Girl Guide) as a kid, then I did Little Athletics, then Calisthenics and Tennis. Haven’t done any formal exercise for years though.

6. I put on a bit of weight in the last 10 or so years, but last year I started a diet and in 18 weeks I lost 21 kilos. Much healthier weight and looking not too bad either.

7. I wanted to be a librarian since Grade 6 when I had an awesome school librarian. That goal never changed and I have never regretted my choice – I love what I do.

8. I was born in England and became a naturalised Australian at age 8 (came here when I was 2). I have the certificate with my very cute 8 year old signature on it.

As a few other bloggers have noted, this meme has gone around a bit, so I won’t tag anyone specific, but feel free to pick up the theme if you so choose and I’ll see you in my RSS feeds.

As for returning you back to your normal programming, I should get back to normal blogging in the next week or so. So see you then!

I haven’t blogged much since I’ve been back, mainly due to the overload I did whilst I was away. Since then I have been extremely busy at work too. We have had a lot of change going on and a lot more to come, so there has been extra meetings and training etc. As a result of all this, I have been percolating over this post for a bit. This is pretty unusual for me, as I tend to be a “get it all down in one session” blogger. This one has taken several days and several iterations to get it here. So here goes.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately from librarians who are trying to deal with the same sorts of things I have. I first noticed it at Librarian in Black when Sarah started talking about trying to keep up with all her online profiles in “Sarah’s social network presences“. Meredith at Information Wants to be Free picked up on what Sarah had said in “Couldn’t have said it better“. I know the feeling! I don’t have that many profiles online, hadn’t gotten around to it yet, but I have had to start a spreadsheet just to keep track of all my login details for all the web apps I am using or intend to use in future. Thank goodness that there has been some streamlining of these with Google and Yahoo buying up things like Blogger and Flickr.

Then there are the feeds. I know this has been an issue for most blog readers and for many years too. For me, its only become a recent issue. When I first started reading blogs about 4 years ago, I started small and never thought I would go much higher than the 20 I ended up with then . Small and manageable and still giving me what I thought I needed from them. I added some out of my field, just to get a bit of the wider picture, then found more Australian blogs so feeling patriotic and interested, I added them to my feeds. My current list sits at 110, which includes the feeds for the blogs I contribute to (3 besides my own). I do that so I see how other people are seeing them. That list has been weeded down some recently and I plan to weed it down more. I survived whilst on my study tour with my only 24 feeds in my reader and although there were some that I missed, generally I survived. As many bloggers have pointed out, if there is something special out there, another blogger will draw your attention to it.

Another post which added fuel to the fire on this whole package for me came from Emily at Library Revolution. “Librarians keeping up and making time” talked about how a fellow librarian didn’t understand how she kept up. Ultimately, its a personal responsibility, one that doesn’t finish when the work day does.

Which brings me to the bleeding edge part. One of my managers said to me again recently that I was on the bleeding edge of what is happening in libraries and that makes me a valuable asset to the library. When she first said it, I took some pride in it, but now I am not so sure.

I love being a part of the blogosphere and discovering all the new things that libraries are doing, but in the past year I have been feeling more of a responsibility to do so, for my library and not just for my own interest. Having that expansion means that my frustration with being one of the only ones out there on the edge at my workplace is magnified. Now that’s my issue, as I took on more than I should, both in keeping track of whats happening and feeling more responsible for it than I should. As Emily at Library Revolution has pointed out, its each librarian’s responsibility to stay informed – whatever that level is. So for me, it’s time to take stock.

I love my work and I am passionate about Library 2.0, but I don’t have enough time to be on the bleeding edge of everything that it encompasses. We have so much change going on at work and that can be a very painful process for some to go through and painful for people like me to wait for them to catch up. I understand that, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to handle. Others are experiencing the same I know. CW and Kathryn had a F2F meeting of interested librarians in Western Australia, where they discussed the same issues.

So I will do what I can. First I will set myself some realistic goals – both at work and at home. (besides my family coming first regardless – which unfortunately hasn’t always been the case recently) That will probably mean cutting back on more feeds, really thinking about new technologies and what they will mean for me and my workplace before getting involved and more. I hope to write an article of how to keep current, maybe to get published in a local journal, but also to distribute to interested librarians at work.

I am determined to manage this and regain my optimism, which has been slightly lacking of late, by taking some positive steps forward and thereby hopefully regaining all of the passion I have for my work and my professional interests. Wish me luck!

Welcome to the Carnival! This week we have a plethora of great rides for you to check out and enjoy. We will begin with our Carnival submissions. Many thanks to those who sent in some great links!

The Carnival starts with Jodie Schneider, who points to a post from Cataloguing Futures. “Why Web 2.0 is leading back to full cataloging” highlights snippets from a Library Juice post, which posits that the best outcome is cataloguing and tagging together. Chris Zammarelli highlights a post at DIY Librarian entitled “The Plane Speech” – which gives advice on what to say to the person with whom you get chatting and asks aren’t libraries obsolete? He also points to Notes about Libraries where Claire summarises the key talks from the London Librarian and Archivists Group in “All Change LMLAG Conference”.

therapydoc highlights one of her own posts at Everyone needs therapy, entitled “Commencement”, which explores how when after attending many graduations, she finally sits through a whole ceremony and realises how boring they can. But can anything be done to change that?

If that isn’t enough to give you your fill of fun, then here are my picks for the Carnival.

Great post from John Blyberg at Blyberg.net entitled Buzzkill 2.0 – I’ll let you read it to find out more. I loved Karen Schneider’s post at Free Range Librarian, “That’s OK lady, nobody thinks you’re interesting, either” where she lambasted a journalist for their review of Twitter, because of their sloppy research and overuse of assumptions – very entertaining!

Sarah Houghton Jan from Librarian in Black posted “Sarah’s social network presences, and the dilution thereof” which talked about whether its worth all the effort to maintain a wide range of presences online. This has also been on the mind of Meredith at Information Wants to be Free (amongst others – myself included!) She also ponders the issue of archiving her blog in Blog Backup (a concern of mine too – too much to think about!)

Great excitement in library land with Danbury Library being the first to use Library Thing for Libraries – go check it out! (try searching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and look at the tags at the end of the record). And to finish, a video. Andrew Finegan, the Librarian Idol, produced his “Libraries in 2010″ video for a Libraries Interact competition for Australian Library Week. It won! You can check out the other entries at Libraries Interact.

Hope you enjoyed the Carnival and don’t forget to get your submissions in for the Carnival of the InfoSciences #73, which will be hosted at Libraryola. Thanks for dropping in!