Connecting Librarian

Its my fourth anniversary of blogging, my blogiversary.  On the 29th July 2005, I posted my first entry to Connecting Librarian, at that time at blogger.com.  Four years later and wow, what a ride!

I’ve been thinking about blogging for a while now.  Even considered stopping altogether, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Although I’m not blogging as regularly, I still feel I have something to say and that this is one of the places I can say it.

Some of the reasons I have been blogging less, are that I am twittering more (most days and for most of the day usually) and I have been more writing away from the online, in the form of conference papers and articles, as well as continuing to do book reviews for ALJ.  I have 1 article and 2 conference papers on the go at present too.

I’m feeling less pressure to blog too, probably because of my increased presence on Twitter and Facebook – now I try to blog at least once a month, if not once a fortnight, but only when I have something to say, not just for the sake of it. Maybe I’m finally maturing as a blogger.

And just when I think about blogging less, I find the content to do 3 blog posts in 4 days.  Figures!

I’m far from being the only one thinking about how blogging is changing.  Iris Jastram (Pegasus Librarian) in her post The ebb and flow of my online communities talks about how, between chat rooms, Twitter and her blog, she is having trouble finding her centre.  I can relate to that.

Connecting Librarian was intended to be the centre of my online presence, but its now one of three main locations you will find me.  Its now becoming where I do my deeper thinking, whilst Twitter is where I have more of my interactions and conversations and Facebook is mostly just about connections.  Are others experiencing the same?

Meredith Farkas (Information Wants to be Free) in her post Whither blogging and the library blogosphere? laments what has happened to blogging in the face of micro-blogging.  I too miss the depth of content that comes with blogging and I have noticed a marked decrease in the frequency of blog posts arriving in my RSS reader.  On the other hand however, I love the immediacy and the contact that micro-blogging brings.

I twitter and then feed my twitters through to my Facebook status.  When I write a blog post, I twitter that.  So a blog post can be seen by people who read my blog, who follow me on Twitter or who have friended me on Facebook.  It becomes even more interesting when you start getting comments back on a blog post at each of these places as well.  So where is my centre?

I think that for now, my centre is Twitter – that’s where I spend most of my time in terms of an online presence, but I am not giving up my blog.  I still have many things to share and this is the ideal forum for that. Facebook is just another means of spreading the news from the first two and connecting with people that I can’t connect to otherwise.

So Happy Blogiversary to me and thanks to all my blog subscribers and readers. I am still amazed that you are following me and am grateful that you do.  Be reassured that there will still be blog posts, in the next year, although maybe not as often as I have in the past. I still want to blog though because I am still learning and discovering and find I still want to share all that I do, whilst “connecting new ideas and technologies with library service”.

A library made of books

A librarian blogging about reading – how unusual!  Only joking of course.  Amazingly, I have had the subject of reading pottering around my head for just about forever, but it has come to the fore a bit more recently due to several insightful items I have read and also more forcefully due to a personal revelation.

First the reading. This blog post began with a blog post by Kathryn Greenhill at Librarians Matter.  In Our brand is books. Then what? she wrote about how users see libraries as being about books, but then moved on to the more interesting notion of book lovers and book readers, where they sit in the hierarchy of libraries and the new models that are coming out in publishing.  Well worth a read.  What I got out of it, was the revolution that is beginning to really happen with reading, but not of the printed book type (although there is still plenty of that happening, I am pleased to say).  More on that shortly.

My introspection was further fuelled by Walt Crawford in Cites and Insights December 2008.  The perspective in that issue, Writing about Reading, he also wrote about the To Read or not to Read report which came out in 2007. To summarise, the report claims that Americans are reading less.  Walt takes to it with enthusiasm, pointing out several inconsistencies in it, which are well worth reading.  However, the thing I picked up on was that the proposed definition of reading, according to the report, was books, although it could be taken to be narrowly defined to reading literary books.

Cat reading online news

Then in parallel, but not unrelated, came an article on The Inside Story – “The bad news” which outlined that the traditional Australian news consumers are changing, away from newspapers and even television to a certain extent.  A greater proportion of Australian news consumers are now getting what they need from the internet.  Some of this is general news sites, some of this is the actual reading of newspapers online.

So it seems that reading is changing.  I have no problem with that.  My public library has increasing statistics and not just for the always popular CD and DVD collections.  Magazines and graphic novels are high turnover items and fiction and non-fiction items continue to be well used.  Our library now has 4 blogs and we are building a good following on each of those as well.

But do we still define reading as reading of print exclusively?  I am a long-time librarian and have only just realised that to a certain extent I still did.  I have been reading blogs for quite some time, but usually printed out the articles I wanted and read them away from the computer, which only reinforced that assumption, incorrect as it is.

Even with the introduction of e-books in various forms, with a wide range of content and available through a growing number of digital devices, I did not really think about reading any great amount of content online as either possible, or even reading.

Until now.  Towards the end of last year, I discovered fan fiction.  I know its been around for decades, almost as long as the internet, but it was only then that I found something of interest to me.  Amazingly, I have also discovered, to my amazement and delight, that not only can there be good fan fiction to read (and thanks to all those amazing people out there writing it), but that I can spend hours and hours (if I let myself and can get away with it), sitting at my computer and reading and enjoying the stories on my LCD screen. (PS. Fan-fiction is “stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator”. Wikipedia)

I have been amazed all the more, because I automatically thought that my eyes would tire, I would get eyestrain etc, but in fact have not experienced any of the symptoms I expected to experience from even longer sessions on the computer. And its not only me.  I have been hearing and reading stories from people who are quite happy and comfortable reading quite lengthy tomes on their iPhones, Blackberrys, mobile phones, computers and more.

Readers

So my perspective on reading has changed from just reading printed text on paper (in some form).  Reading for me, now that I have finally realised it, is carrier neutral and I will read what I choose to, because I choose to, regardless of the format.

OK, so poke me and say Duh for me finally coming to that grand realisation.  But its been more than that to me, its also started a whole train of thought with reading and libraries as well.

Libraries in the last decade, but definitely in recent years, have been placing more of an emphasis on reader development – being the work of librarians and other professionals “designed to encourage reading and deepen the enjoyment of individual readers”. Wikipedia.  This has taken many forms, from websites to booklists, to displays, subject oriented newsletters and so much more.  Two of our library blogs have this aim in mind and are focussed on news, reviews and more, much related to reading books.  So I am all for it.

However, the question that arises for me now, is how can libraries be involved in reader development, for things that aren’t in their collections and particularly for those things that people don’t need libraries to access?  We can provide e-books for their digitial devices, although that is still in its infancy, however at this time reader development is about encouraging reading of the items in our library’s collections.  What about all the online content that will never be a part of a library collection?

Should reader development only be about encouraging readership using the items we already have?  Or can libraries expand reader development to things like fan fiction, which is only generally available online? Should the focus be on the content, or more on the reader, more of whom are becoming more comfortable reading online and are finding what they want to read there? And if it is the latter, how do we help our readers to find what they will enjoy reading online?  That is my big question and the breadth of it and all its implications is only just starting to hit me.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this and whether digital reading is the same for you now as it is for me and many others.

Happy New Year in reading, whatever its format!

PS. And that’s even going anywhere near the whole issue of audio books, lol!

by Homdaum (Flickr - CC Licence some rights reserved)

I have been doing reviews for everything ranging from our library’s main blog to our family Christmas letter which went out with the cards, but realised I haven’t done one for Connecting Librarian.  So here’s my year in review as a librarian and a preview of what is already planned to occur in the New Year.

2008:

• Continued working as Information Librarian at my library, but with an even greater focus on our website and virtual services.  Pretty much all of my off desk time is now web related, not much in the way of traditional reference service for me anymore- apart from direct customer service when rostered on desk.  And very happy with the lot of it, having lots of fun and learning so much.
• Had a chapter on public libraries and information literacy, based on what I learned from my study tour, published in the book “Information Literacy meets Library 2.0″.
• Had an article on my study tour, a then and now review of how public libraries are using Web 2.0, published in the November issue of the Australian Library Journal.
• Spoke at several seminars and conferences, including a co-presented paper at the ALIA Dreaming conference and one of my own at the New Librarian’s Symposium.  As a result, I met a lot of great people from right around the country, from leaders in our profession to enthusiastic new librarians. It was an honour to meet each one.
• NLS4 gave me an opportunity to present on something other than my study tour or Web/Library 2.0.  I spoke there on keeping up-to-date with the profession.  It was a challenge to cover new material and I appreciated both the challenge and the opportunity to do so.

2009:

• My library is building a new website and we will be doing it in house using Drupal. I am very excited about this project, as I will be one of the key people involved in it.  It will be a huge learning curve, but one I am very much looking forward to being on.
• I have been selected to attend the Aurora Symposium in February.  I have the great honour of being able to attend, alongside some workmates and library friends and look forward to learning alongside them, as well as learning from key thinkers in our profession.
• We will be reworking our joint paper from ALIA Dreaming to be published as an article in another library journal.
• I will continue to be involved in the conference planning committee for VALA2010 – working with an amazing team of dedicated librarians.
• I will also continue both this blog, blogging at Libraries Interact, on 2 of our libraries four blogs and on the Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 blog when I can.

So its been a busy year professionally and looks to be the same next year.  I have really enjoyed my professional development and engagement this year and look forward to continuing and developing it into 2009.  Aurora will play a key part in what direction I will take in future, so stay tuned as I let you know as soon as I do.

In the meantime, I hope you have had a great 2008, both professionally and personally.  My New Year’s wish for you is that 2009 is much bigger and better.  Happy New Year!

I have been doing some work on a few different things – a paper for an upcoming conference, an application for a course and I have learnt something new about myself again in the process.

I often find it difficult to get started on a writing project, regardless of whether it is a journal article, paper for a conference, etc.  Once I get started, I’m usually OK, its the starting that’s the issue.

So anyway, I have just had annual leave, with one week at home mostly by myself and two weeks with the kids during school holidays.  So I had all this extra time at home in which to get started on these latest two writing projects and I didn’t get much done.

Why not?  Here’s my revelation.  I get distracted, by the possibility of being distracted.

My kids are both in primary school and are well able to keep themselves amused, even for an hour or more at a time (especially with the promise of a treat or outing to motivate them).  Yet despite that, I couldn’t get any work done, because it was in my mind that they would keep coming in and disrupting my flow.  So because of that, the flow never started.

I have managed to get this blog post done in minimal time, even though I am expecting a visitor any moment, so I know its possible.  The writing tasks I have on my plate at the moment have deadlines which are fast approaching, but I know they will get done too.  But generally being an organised person, I really, really, really hate leaving things to the last minute.  So I really am contradicting myself with my own actions – hate to procrastinate, yet here I am doing it.

I never realised my mind could be so quirky, but I’m sure I’m not the only one with little idiosyncracies like this.  Please reassure me that I’m not the only one, by telling me about your quirks and help me out by telling me how you work around them.

So what is Connecting Librarian all about?  My byline says it is about “Connecting new ideas and technologies with library service”.  Which it is, but it’s interesting to see whether three years of posts actually reflect this aim.

Enter Wordle.   “Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide.”  When it launched, it could only be used with text you input, but now it does blogs!  So below is the image generated by my blog.

Wordle.net

Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, Conference is very big.  Its not that I go to a lot of conferences, its just that when I do, I blog intensively.  Books is also large, which is very interesting considering that this blog tends to focus on technology.

Anyway, feel free to have a play with Wordle.  You can change colours, shape and more.

Speaking of conferences, I have finally posted my ALIA Dreaming 08 conference photos (maily from the dinner) to my Flickr account.  Feel free to check them out.

No, this is not another post about the conference, but it has been inspired by it, particularly inspired by the wonderful Stephen Abrams, who always manages to inspire.

JPhilipson

Basically, he told us that we need to be dreaming, about our current positions and about the future – our future careers and the future of libraries.  He told some amazing stories about how librarians have had a major impact in law, medicine, engineering, health and much more.  For example, hospitals with libraries have a 20% lower mortality rate!

It was a bit daunting to think of my being a librarian making such a momentous difference, but he had a point about having something to aim for, both now and into the future.

So its being mulling around in the back of my mind whilst we had a family holiday around the Alice Springs and surrounds after the conference.  It still is, because I don’t have a definite dream, just vague ideas of what I want to be doing in my profession, both now and into the future.  And I’m going to share some of those now!

So for now – I want to really push for my library to start doing podcasting.  That means that I will need to push for equipment and then do some training with staff. I’m happy to edit and upload the files, but I can’t be at every event that we wish to podcast.  It may not happen overnight, but I plan to make it happen.

Our website redevelopment has been postponed for a while, so now I’ll get back to working with our team on what we really want our website to include in terms of functionality as well as content, so will start pushing that process too.

Thats not to say that my workplace is not supportive of these things, they are – but like elsewhere, we all got sidetracked or distracted by other things.

For my own professional development, I want to keep presenting, writing papers and doing some more journal articles.  I like being able to contribute to my profession beyond this blog. And I seem to be much better at doing so these days.  This blog is still my focus, although there was a time in recent months when I wondered if I would continue with it, but I got over it and I’m here to stay.

As for the future, as with some things in the present, I’m still mulling over that.  Eventually, I’ll get back into full time work and some sort of more senior management position, although whether I will be looking at more technical services, or more customer services, I don’t yet know.  My passion is virtual services and it neatly straddles both those areas.  Maybe the job I want doesn’t exist yet.  I am pretty sure I want to stay in public libraries, although if the right job came along, I would definitely consider the change.

So that’s where my dreams are hopefully taking me at present.  Rejuvenating my focus in my current job and giving me some sort of direction for the future.  I think its important that we continue to dream and give ourselves a focus, both for the benefit of our libraries and users and for our own professional development.  To quote Kathryn Greenhill – Librarians Matter – as does the work we do and the people we serve.

I am a borderline Gen Xer.  Depending on which study you look at, I am sometimes listed as a Baby Boomer.  Labels don’t matter all that much, but I have always felt more affinity to Gen Xers and it always made me feel a little bit younger to label myself as such too.

But recently I have been feeling like I’m not much of a Gen X-er either, especially in relation to what others of my generation seemed to be focussed on.  Quite often I feel more of a digital native like my kids, I am soooo comfortable with most technology.   I game like they do, although my regular gaming is more online board games (which is definitely in line with my demographic), although I do get with the kids and play X-Box or Nintendo DS on the odd occasion.

I guess I am a bit like the person who migrates to a new country and just goes overboard in embracing their new home.  They learn the national anthem, try to live like a person in that country does, picks up the lingo etc – they basically begin a love affair with their new home and I guess that is what I have been like with Web 2.0.  And that has helped me to feel more like a digital native than an immigrant.

So what’s the problem?  I think its that the shine is going off the relationship a bit.  Probably for a few different reasons.

Firstly, the development of Web 2.0 tools seems to have slowed down.  Twitter, which I love is probably the last big thing I jumped on board with.  I signed up to Friend Feed, but for an organised person such as myself, I just find it to chaotic to work through.  Everything else considered Web 2.0 has been around for a while, some like blogs have been around for over 10 years!  Where’s the next big thing to catch my interest again?

Secondly, even though I am well entrenched in Web 2.0, most of my workmates, friends and family aren’t and I get so frustrated with this.  They don’t see these tools and their potential the way that I do and I can’t find the way to help them to do so.  I spoke to a new staff member whose former workplace didn’t even have a website!  Everyone still seems a long way behind and I feel like I’ve been in those space for a long time too.  When is it all going to catch up?

Maybe I’m just tired, maybe I need a holiday (coming up in 4 weeks, yay!) or maybe its all just in my head.  Would love to hear what you guys have to say on the topic, are you experiencing the same types of things?

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!

I have learnt a lot about writing in the nearly 3 years that I have been blogging, much of which I haven’t realised until I started writing for other avenues.

I am in the process of finishing up one conference paper, reviewing a journal article on the basis of peer review and researching for another conference paper. Both conference papers have to be submitted for publication in the proceedings, so a full paper is required.

Lesson number 1 – writing is not as easy as it may seem. Or rather, good writing isn’t. I have come to the conclusion that I need to be inspired, or at least greatly motivated to be able to write half-way decently. Which probably explains why my blogging tends to be sporadic, rather than regular posts, as I am not always motivated to write.

Lesson number 2 – I can write when the pressure is on, but generally its not very good. Point in case, the paper I am polishing now I had trouble starting, but I got it down. When I went back to review it, I was amazed to see how bad it was – of course, I went back to in a time of motivation, so I was seeing it through more creative and critical eyes.

Lesson number 3 – good writing will take you over. When I feel like writing, I will write everywhere. So not only am I working on those three things, but I’m blogging here and I will be going off to post on some other blogs as well, with items that have been sitting in my to-do pile for a while.

© 2008 Digital Inspiration

Lesson number 4 – I can be as temperamental as any artist. Writer’s block seems to happen for me on a regular basis and in those times (with arm across forehead and dramatic flair) I just can’t work!

Lesson number 5 – Distractions are a problem only if my writing motivation is lacking. If I’m having trouble writing, then anything will distract me, but television and a book – any book, are key distractors. When I’m motivated, nothing will distract me, in fact it will be hard to keep me away from the computer.

Lesson number 6 – I create best on computer. I learnt to touch type in high school, one of the best skills I ever learned. Now, all those decades later and still with a healthy typing speed, I find I write better with the keyboard than with pen and paper. My fingers type well with the thoughts flowing through my head and they don’t get as tired as they do if I am writing the same amount with pen and paper.

Lesson number 7 – I review better on paper. Again back to the paper I am polishing. It was created on computer, but when I went back to re-read it, I was better able to do so on paper. Then out came the red pen and I went to town on it. Don’t know why that is, but that’s the way it is.

Lesson number 8 – I have to believe that what I am writing will be good. I can put out some good content, not from the very word go obviously, but I can get down what I want to say in a way that people call relate to. Not that I am anywhere in the same league as great authors, in either the wider publishing world or even the library publishing sphere, but unless I believe that I can communicate in a way that people will be engaged by, then its not going to happen at all.

Lesson 9 – I am enjoying writing more than I thought I would. Despite the anxiety caused by writer’s block and fast approaching deadlines, when the mood takes me I really enjoy putting my hands to the keyboard and creating content. Not that I think I would ever make a career out of it, but rather it gives me the ability to express my passion for what I am doing and to share that with an audience who hopefully relates to it.

Lesson number 10 – there will be many more lessons as I continue to learn about writing. I am very fortunate to have a range of opportunities to hone my craft. As I continue to look for and take up these opportunities and learn from my experiences and those of others, my writing will continue.

So these are my learnt on the fly lessons. Would love to hear of your writing experiences and other lessons you have learnt. By doing so, you help me with lesson 10! Thanks!